I had to add my own best wishes, David. I find it hard to believe you're 90! When we met about 5 years ago you didn't look a day over 85!

Happy Birthday

Dear Banjo,

Representation in contemporary philosophy of science is more than taking a picture of reality, although “the ‘Bildtheorie’ - picture theory of science - formed the frame for much discussion and controversy among physicists in the decades around the year 1900” (Bas C. van Fraassen, Scientific Representation, Clarendon 2008,). This is different from a painting by an artist who adds his own vision into what he represents, vision that is beyond the purely scientific that aims - there are also limitations - to represent without involving the subject.

In case of insights into - or "representations" of - aspects of reality concerned with culture, this clear distinction between the subject and object is blurred, and Paul Tillich's approach often takes precedence: "The test of a phenomenological description is that the picture given by it is convincing, that it can be seen by anyone who is willing to look in the same direction, that the description illuminates other related ideas, and that it makes the reality which these ideas are supposed to reflect understandable. (Systematic Theology I, Univ. of Chicago Press, 1973, p. 106).

Unfortunately, when here the context is religion, many people feel compelled to mix in their personal belief or unbelief in God, although e.g. the quote from Toynbee can offer an insight into Abrahamic religions to those who believe as well as to those who do not believe in God. You can describe a finger pointing in a certain direction, whether you belive it points towards the moon or just towards a human made balloon.

So in this sense I agree that my brief correlation of representations of physical and cultural realities was … well, too brief.

.

Dear George,

.

Thank you for those interesting references to the works of Bas C. van Fraassen and Paul Tillich on the subject of scientific and cultural representation.

Another book I should be interested in reading is the Mimesis of Erich Auerbach on the representation of reality in Western literature.

However, what interests me here is not the scientific or cultural representation of reality but the “vision” (imagination, “painting” or projection) of that which is beyond reality, outside nature, the so-called “supernatural”.

You will recall that I observed in my previous post :

« … so far as any “vision” of God is concerned, it would appear that this should be limited to human beings only - given that our cousins in the animal kingdom, as well as plants, algae, mushrooms and other eukaryotes and prokaryotes, presumably have either a very limited imagination or no imagination at all, and are incapable of making any sort of intellectual projections »

It seems to me that this tends to illustrate that any “vision” of God and the supernatural must find its source in the human faculty of imagination.

.

Dear Banjo,

>>It seems to me that this tends to illustrate that any “vision” of God and the supernatural must find its source in the human faculty of imagination.<<

The same about “visions” of physical reality. The essential difference is that in this case imagination and reason are supported by the senses, hence the ability to make observations and experiments to support (or falsify) these “visions” (though "representations" or "theories" are the preferred terms). This support, of course, is lacking in the case of “visions” (philosophically sophisticated or simply mythological) of God or the Divine.

Irrespective of this, let me repeat that the Toynbee quote was not about a “vision of God” but about a vision, or rather insight into how the Abrahamic religions developed and influenced the culture of human behaviour. An insight that one can share irrespective of one’s own “vision” (or lack of it) of God.

However, I think we have deviated enough from the original purpose of this thread - to congratulate David on his 90th birthday.

.

Dear George,

.

You wrote :

« The same about “visions” of physical reality. The essential difference … [between “visions” of physical reality and “visions” of God and the supernatural] … is that in this case … [the former] … imagination and reason are supported by the senses, hence the ability to make observations and experiments to support (or falsify) these “visions” (though "representations" or "theories" are the preferred terms). This support, of course, is lacking in the case of “visions” (philosophically sophisticated or simply mythological) of God or the Divine. »
.

Quite so, George.

I agree that the process is the same in both cases, the former being falsifiable but not the latter.

However, what you describe as a “support” in the former case and a lack of “support” in the second, I consider to be a reversal of the process of “vision”: the “vision” of physical reality being the reception of an image and the “vision” of God and the supernatural the projection of an image.

Here is the Online Etymology definition of “vision” :

« late 13c., "something seen in the imagination or in the supernatural," from Anglo-French visioun, Old French vision (12c.), from Latin visionem (nominative visio) "act of seeing, sight, thing seen," from past participle stem of videre "to see," from PIE root *weid- "to know, to see" (cf. Sanskrit veda "I know;" Avestan vaeda "I know;" Greek oida, Doric woida "I know," idein "to see;" Old Irish fis "vision," find "white," i.e. "clearly seen," fiuss "knowledge;" Welsh gwyn, Gaulish vindos, Breton gwenn "white;" Gothic, Old Swedish, Old English witan "to know;" Gothic weitan "to see;" English wise, German wissen "to know;" Lithuanian vysti "to see;" Bulgarian vidya "I see;" Polish widzie&#263; "to see," wiedzie&#263; "to know;" Russian videt' "to see," vest' "news," Old Russian vedat' "to know"). The meaning "sense of sight" is first recorded late 15c. Meaning "statesman-like foresight, political sagacity" is attested from 1926. »

http://etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=vision&searchmode=none

.

Having said that, I heartily agree that we should not detract from the celebrations of David’s 90th birthday !

.

Dear Banjo,

>>the “vision” of physical reality being the reception of an image and the “vision” of God and the supernatural the projection of an image.<<

As admitted, it was my fault to have used “vision” to denote also the way scientists and especially physicists, come to know physical reality, although I noted that representation (or mode)l is a better, more standard, term.

Anyway, this representation is a two way process, involving both “reception” and “projection”. This is philosophy of science which distingushes e.g. between (scientific) realism and (constructive) empiricism. For practical purposes all physicists are realists, i.e. believe in the existence of a reality that their - sometimes seemingly far-fetched - (contemporary) theories try to represent, whereas not nearly everybody believes in the existence of reality beyond the physical, an "ultimate" reality religious beliefs try to "represent".

There are those who cannot see how there could be something beyond what science (natural or social) can investigate, and there are those who cannot see how “all that there is” could be reducible to only what science can investigate. I do not think either position is more justifiable on rational grounds than the other,. One should be able to talk about (and compare) the ways to represent the respective “realities” without mixing in one’s own religious (or world view) beliefs or unbeliefs.

So perhaps we could leave it at that.