Chapter 10: Some Thoughts on Thought:
A thought left unrestrained and unexamined is like a bull left in a china shop: there is some chance that the situation won’t turn bad, but why risk it?
~Francois Gravois-Smith[1]
The early Nineteenth Century is to a philosopher what a cup of swamp water is to a biologist: an source of nearly endless variations of things to observe. The French Revolution, in particular, is akin to the sugar cube added to that same cup of water: something that makes the already-striving life practically explode. For no-one was without an opinion on the French Revolution, and therefore no philosophy could ignore it. A hundred different movements rose up, some in support of the ideas of the Revolution, and others as a reaction.
Robert Roque Raltique, the Revolution’s famous leader himself, was always eager to add to the annals of philosophy. He is known for a near-endless optimism about human nature, combined with a strict pursuit of logic, particularly as it applies to human endeavors. It is thought that his theories were the eventual cause of the Second Thought movement in the American Confederation, and thus the beginnings of the modern psychology and sociology.
Just as important were his work on the doctrine of transnaturalism (the idea that a human being could overcome any aspect of his nature through an effort of will; often confused with the related but distinct concept of Natural Dominion, stating that it was human destiny to take charge of natural environments and bend them to human needs.) and his workings into Republican theory of government, seen as refinements on the works of Locke and the Fathers of America.
While many of Roque Raltique’s supporters joined him in singing the praises of Republicanism, not everyone agreed. Lukas Faerber combined the international trauma of the Revolution with his childhood experiences on the playground to create Collectivism. In Faerber’s view, the Divine Right of Kings had turned out to be useless against the will of the people. Therefore, the self-prescribed Natural Rights Republicans floated about couldn’t be much more. As far as Farber was concerned, there were no rights – only agreements granted by the people to each other. Rights arose from people’s will and therefore could be removed by it. If the majority of the people desired to plant a tree, the tree was to be planted. If the majority of people desired to build a railroad, the railroad was to be built. If the majority of the people desired to take one of their number, strip him of money and clothes, beat him senseless, then burn him on a pole, then that was what ought to happen. Faerber foresaw a direct democracy, with no limits.
In economic thought, the old European theory of Monetarism was slowly being replaced with the budding Marketism. The difference was that in Marketism what mattered was not the labor placed into the production of a good, but what someone was willing to part with to acquire it. A flower that grew on its own and was casually plucked could be valuable, but even if a thousand man-hours were dedicated to constructing an object so ugly no-one would pay a broken pence for it, then that object was worthless. The debate continued in full force between England, Avalonia, France, and AC. Easing it was the work of Clement de Laage. Prosecuted for the crime of translating works of philosophy and economics before the Revolution, with its advent he was not only free to do this work, but encouraged. Clement de Laage proceeded to found the world’s premier translation company, named the Silhouette in honor of his uncle, who de Laage claimed taught him everything he knew.
In epistemology, Rationalism and Empiricism continued their titanic clash. Like a great empire calling up its allies and satellites, they each brought a myriad associated schools with them. Among pure philosophers, Rationalism tended to dominate. However, for friends of other sciences, particularly those related to physics, the clear, bright lines of Empiricism were quite attractive, with their ability to discern correctness once and for all (or at least until more observational evidence arrived).
Empiricism in particular was becoming popular in medicine, where doctors found that checking if something works or not tended to have positive correlation with patients surviving. The doctrine of preventative care and vaccination espoused by Doctors Jenner and Guillotin slowly began taking root, under protest from the barber-surgeons.
In biology, the Theory of Selective Destruction tentatively arose, championed by Franz Achard, the father of the American sugar beet industry and his partner Nicholas Andrews. At the time this theory had none of the religious implications that the latter refinements would bring, and thus avoided the theological wrath of the holy men of the world. It simply refined the concepts of selective breeding and on how it could happen by accident. The most controversial aspect was Andrews’s claim that any trait could be selected for – even ones traditionally seen as negative.
That’s not to say the theologists weren’t busy. The changes happening in religion were enormous, as the old structures slowly lost their grip on power, and were replaced by the more open and human-controlled institutions of modernity. Many of them chose to join the Pope in his denouncement of the French Revolution. And many of them paid the price as more and more people in France and the American Confederation grew skeptical of the Pope’s ability to hand down political proclamations. Slowly, the power of the Papacy was fading, though the Iberian nations and Poland remained in Pope’s good graces.
The American Confederation was at that time a breeding ground for new religious ideas, born of the mixtures and clashes between the many religions of North America. Nowhere else did there exist such large quantities of Protestants and Catholics and Jews and Deists all intermixed. Protestants and Catholics in particular, actually, as many immigrants both from New France and France proper settled in the industrial cities of New England and Maine, while members of the originally British territories migrated north – either to Quebec City or else to many of the smaller places, closer to the fur animals, game fish, and timber that still made up New France’s primary exports.
Due to this admixture, many of them were forced to live right next to each other, particularly in factory neighborhoods. Often they even worshipped together, as over time factory owners found that whatever the priests thought, the average American really couldn’t care less about whether or not double predestination or transubstantiation were present, and they could save money by creating a sort of common chapel where a priest of one denomination or another would hand down a generic prayer.
This was only the beginning, of course. Soon the emerging concepts from European thought would have to deal with the resurgence of Greco-Roman ideas and the influx of Easter philosophy coming through the libraries of Russia and Britain. This would lead them to further changes and improvement, and in time transform the world into what we know it to be today. But even then, at the beginning, it was already an age of glory.
[FONT="][1] An ATL character and a proto-psychologist.[/FONT]
A thought left unrestrained and unexamined is like a bull left in a china shop: there is some chance that the situation won’t turn bad, but why risk it?
~Francois Gravois-Smith[1]
The early Nineteenth Century is to a philosopher what a cup of swamp water is to a biologist: an source of nearly endless variations of things to observe. The French Revolution, in particular, is akin to the sugar cube added to that same cup of water: something that makes the already-striving life practically explode. For no-one was without an opinion on the French Revolution, and therefore no philosophy could ignore it. A hundred different movements rose up, some in support of the ideas of the Revolution, and others as a reaction.
Robert Roque Raltique, the Revolution’s famous leader himself, was always eager to add to the annals of philosophy. He is known for a near-endless optimism about human nature, combined with a strict pursuit of logic, particularly as it applies to human endeavors. It is thought that his theories were the eventual cause of the Second Thought movement in the American Confederation, and thus the beginnings of the modern psychology and sociology.
Just as important were his work on the doctrine of transnaturalism (the idea that a human being could overcome any aspect of his nature through an effort of will; often confused with the related but distinct concept of Natural Dominion, stating that it was human destiny to take charge of natural environments and bend them to human needs.) and his workings into Republican theory of government, seen as refinements on the works of Locke and the Fathers of America.
While many of Roque Raltique’s supporters joined him in singing the praises of Republicanism, not everyone agreed. Lukas Faerber combined the international trauma of the Revolution with his childhood experiences on the playground to create Collectivism. In Faerber’s view, the Divine Right of Kings had turned out to be useless against the will of the people. Therefore, the self-prescribed Natural Rights Republicans floated about couldn’t be much more. As far as Farber was concerned, there were no rights – only agreements granted by the people to each other. Rights arose from people’s will and therefore could be removed by it. If the majority of the people desired to plant a tree, the tree was to be planted. If the majority of people desired to build a railroad, the railroad was to be built. If the majority of the people desired to take one of their number, strip him of money and clothes, beat him senseless, then burn him on a pole, then that was what ought to happen. Faerber foresaw a direct democracy, with no limits.
In economic thought, the old European theory of Monetarism was slowly being replaced with the budding Marketism. The difference was that in Marketism what mattered was not the labor placed into the production of a good, but what someone was willing to part with to acquire it. A flower that grew on its own and was casually plucked could be valuable, but even if a thousand man-hours were dedicated to constructing an object so ugly no-one would pay a broken pence for it, then that object was worthless. The debate continued in full force between England, Avalonia, France, and AC. Easing it was the work of Clement de Laage. Prosecuted for the crime of translating works of philosophy and economics before the Revolution, with its advent he was not only free to do this work, but encouraged. Clement de Laage proceeded to found the world’s premier translation company, named the Silhouette in honor of his uncle, who de Laage claimed taught him everything he knew.
In epistemology, Rationalism and Empiricism continued their titanic clash. Like a great empire calling up its allies and satellites, they each brought a myriad associated schools with them. Among pure philosophers, Rationalism tended to dominate. However, for friends of other sciences, particularly those related to physics, the clear, bright lines of Empiricism were quite attractive, with their ability to discern correctness once and for all (or at least until more observational evidence arrived).
Empiricism in particular was becoming popular in medicine, where doctors found that checking if something works or not tended to have positive correlation with patients surviving. The doctrine of preventative care and vaccination espoused by Doctors Jenner and Guillotin slowly began taking root, under protest from the barber-surgeons.
In biology, the Theory of Selective Destruction tentatively arose, championed by Franz Achard, the father of the American sugar beet industry and his partner Nicholas Andrews. At the time this theory had none of the religious implications that the latter refinements would bring, and thus avoided the theological wrath of the holy men of the world. It simply refined the concepts of selective breeding and on how it could happen by accident. The most controversial aspect was Andrews’s claim that any trait could be selected for – even ones traditionally seen as negative.
That’s not to say the theologists weren’t busy. The changes happening in religion were enormous, as the old structures slowly lost their grip on power, and were replaced by the more open and human-controlled institutions of modernity. Many of them chose to join the Pope in his denouncement of the French Revolution. And many of them paid the price as more and more people in France and the American Confederation grew skeptical of the Pope’s ability to hand down political proclamations. Slowly, the power of the Papacy was fading, though the Iberian nations and Poland remained in Pope’s good graces.
The American Confederation was at that time a breeding ground for new religious ideas, born of the mixtures and clashes between the many religions of North America. Nowhere else did there exist such large quantities of Protestants and Catholics and Jews and Deists all intermixed. Protestants and Catholics in particular, actually, as many immigrants both from New France and France proper settled in the industrial cities of New England and Maine, while members of the originally British territories migrated north – either to Quebec City or else to many of the smaller places, closer to the fur animals, game fish, and timber that still made up New France’s primary exports.
Due to this admixture, many of them were forced to live right next to each other, particularly in factory neighborhoods. Often they even worshipped together, as over time factory owners found that whatever the priests thought, the average American really couldn’t care less about whether or not double predestination or transubstantiation were present, and they could save money by creating a sort of common chapel where a priest of one denomination or another would hand down a generic prayer.
This was only the beginning, of course. Soon the emerging concepts from European thought would have to deal with the resurgence of Greco-Roman ideas and the influx of Easter philosophy coming through the libraries of Russia and Britain. This would lead them to further changes and improvement, and in time transform the world into what we know it to be today. But even then, at the beginning, it was already an age of glory.
[FONT="][1] An ATL character and a proto-psychologist.[/FONT]