philosophy mini-essay
Mar. 4th, 2003 02:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mattlistenerConsider the following sentences from the March text in my "Don't Mess With Nature" calendar (with my emphasis added):
"The volcano was once thought to he the chimney of the forge of Vulcan, the Roman blacksmith of the gods. We now know that a volcano is actually a cone-shaped mountain or hill with a central vent that expels molten rock from below the surface of the earth."
I'm not myself a believer in personalized divinities, but there's no grounds above for holding the scientific account in contradiction with the ancient beliefs.
I doubt that a Vulcan-believing Roman would have had any difficulty were they to be informed that a volcano was cone-shaped, or that stuff came out the top from deeper down, or that the stuff turned to rock when it cooled. Modern scientific thought disagrees with ancient Roman thought in the explanation of *why* all this happens.
Phrase of the day, "scientific pluralism": the careful, systematic use of different thinking in different contexts to answer different questions.
"The volcano was once thought to he the chimney of the forge of Vulcan, the Roman blacksmith of the gods. We now know that a volcano is actually a cone-shaped mountain or hill with a central vent that expels molten rock from below the surface of the earth."
I'm not myself a believer in personalized divinities, but there's no grounds above for holding the scientific account in contradiction with the ancient beliefs.
I doubt that a Vulcan-believing Roman would have had any difficulty were they to be informed that a volcano was cone-shaped, or that stuff came out the top from deeper down, or that the stuff turned to rock when it cooled. Modern scientific thought disagrees with ancient Roman thought in the explanation of *why* all this happens.
Phrase of the day, "scientific pluralism": the careful, systematic use of different thinking in different contexts to answer different questions.
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Date: 2003-03-04 05:35 pm (UTC)Many people see mythology as a pre-scientific way of explaining the universe. They try to contrast stories of demons and gods with philosophy and science and logical thinking. I read too many articles that mentioned "primitives" and primitive explanations for scientific occurances. However, mythology is just a different mode of thinking that easily can coexist with logical thought. It's primary purpose isn't necessarily to explain "why" in the same way that a scientific explanation might. These explanations of "why" try to get at interpreting what the volcano might mean to the rest of the universe, how it fits into the cosmos and human life. In this case, perhaps the main point of connection of a volcano to Vulcan has less to do with "what is a volcano?" and more to do with "what is the essence of the volcano that Vulcan also shares?" I would argue that there is something very explosive and destructive about the implements that come from a forge -- especially implements of war. But I'm just guessing here as to the connection.
Even with this symbolic mapping of the universe, the ancients still easily worked with other modes of thinking. The ancient Babylonians were very good at astronomy. That did not mean that every time they looked at the morning star, they exclaimed to themselves, "That is Ishtar!" Or they had to create intricate stories as to why various gods moved around the sky in predictable patterns.
I totally agree with you. Your calendar misses the point. I wish more people could see this!