John and I finish up our series on the esoteric origins of the Enlightenment by diving into romanticism, mesmerism, the forgotten aspects of Jung, American New Age stuff, and way more!
I loved the point about how science and scientism come together as a package. This has major echoes of gilded age progressivism with eugenics being the scientism all while real actual scientific progress was occurring. Also to modern things like climate change and the whole new atheism movement that are somewhat science based but also trying to claim way too much.
Even though I'm an Enlightenment Booster (who's gone from being a Popperian to some kind of Haackian) I've enjoyed these series. There's a "wise alien anthropologist who's seen it all but still observing Earth" part of my brain that'll never switch off. But I'm looking forward to the rest.
I'm also enjoying the coincidence that many of the same topics have recently been covered in Peter Adamson's somewhat mad project "The History Of Philosophy Without Any Gaps"
I loved the point about how science and scientism come together as a package. This has major echoes of gilded age progressivism with eugenics being the scientism all while real actual scientific progress was occurring. Also to modern things like climate change and the whole new atheism movement that are somewhat science based but also trying to claim way too much.
Absolutely!!
Even though I'm an Enlightenment Booster (who's gone from being a Popperian to some kind of Haackian) I've enjoyed these series. There's a "wise alien anthropologist who's seen it all but still observing Earth" part of my brain that'll never switch off. But I'm looking forward to the rest.
I'm also enjoying the coincidence that many of the same topics have recently been covered in Peter Adamson's somewhat mad project "The History Of Philosophy Without Any Gaps"