Overview

In our contemporary world, the competing narratives of nation states bypass their common origins in antiquity - not only those fought over between Greece and Rome but the cohesion of evolution's first community recorded in the myth of Gilgamesh and its Biblical equivalent. As far as philosophy is concerned, David Kuhrt argues in this incisive collection of essays, doubt about the motivation of human conduct and truthfulness is prerequisite. Were ever a desired global consensus to triumph over trumpeted histories, today’s notion of certain knowledge in """"scientific"""" terms must be called in question. The idea of certain knowledge - the repository of all imperial conquest - originates with the positivism of Francis Bacon (Shakespeare’s contemporary) and still underpins the work of Karl Popper. Paradoxically, this instrument of imperialism is questioned by Shakespeare, principle contributor to English as the platform of global discourse. Although English is thus the principle vehicle, world-wide, of self-doubt, this precisely stimulates recognition of social cohesion as the product of verbal exchange which remedies that doubt. In English, however, the prevailing drift of uncertainty, depending on conflict between the nitty-gritty narratives of """"proven"""" scientific knowledge and intuition (including religious experience), has political implications; for whereas precisely this conflict is the source of English utility as a global language, the philosophy of the “Illuminationist” Iranian school, redeeming all conflict between nitty-gritty “facts” and intuition, is virtually unknown. No assembled evidence on which so-called """"scientific"""" experiment depends speaks for itself; to articulate conclusions, the scientist must interpret the evidence in theory. Conclusions drawn are therefore speculative, not proven as are the conclusions of mathematics. Attempts to stem the pressures of transnational corporate interests calling the political tune, conspicuously fail. In this context of political intrigue, thanks to America’s loss of the Pilgrim Father’s fix on the idea of a promised land, the juggernaut of scientific endeavor ensures that we have nothing to learn from ancient Persia whose present rulers govern Iran. The general drift of the essays in The Trojan War Has Not Been Won demonstrates that true knowledge, depending on a consensus established collectively through time, transcends the competing individualism of Western economic imperialism. This unitary account of actual experience is not a denial of Western scientific achievement but complements and enlightens its conflicting narrative of truth down here and a salvation up there postponed until hereafter.

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9781680534795

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David Kuhrt, author of Wittgenstein the Tartar

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