The Super Summary of World History (97 page)

What About the West is Unique?

When we study the history of Western civilization we need to stop and ask ourselves what is unique about Western history and its inheritors: America, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. In this we are mainly comparing the West (Western Europe, America, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand) to China, Siberia, Japan, Korea, Mongolia, Indochina, the Near East, Egypt, Turkey, the Middle East, India, Africa, Latin America, and Eastern Europe. Here is a list:

•    
The
individual
is
greater
than
the
state
is the most important political idea in history, and the West acquired it from ancient Greece. The rest of the world rejects this notion.

•    
The
fall
of
the
Western
Roman
Empire
, the subsequent colonization of Rome by barbarian tribes, and the loss of the Roman civilization is an event that is unique to Western Europe. The shattering of Rome was so complete it allowed a new civilization to grow up in its place; however, Roman law and literature survived to influence the new Western World that arose from Rome’s ashes.

•    The
Roman
Catholic
Church
and
Protestant
Christianity
grew first from the ashes of the Roman Empire and much later the Protestant Reformation. These religions once dominated Europe because of the Renaissance, the Age of Discovery, and Imperialism. These ideals survive into the modern world as both a unifying and divisive force.

•    
The
Renaissance
was unique to Europe, and without this flowering of knowledge everything would be different. The Renaissance brought the scientific method, empiricism, modern philosophy, the concept of progress, and many other concepts to the West and the world. This event alone makes the Western World very different from the remaining world’s cultures.

•    The
scientific
method
grew from the Renaissance and allowed Europe to advance far beyond the rest of the world in empirical knowledge, technology, medicine, and exploration.

•    
The
idea
of
progress
grew from the Renaissance, spreading to all of Europe and its offshoots in America and elsewhere.

•    
World
Wars
I
and
II
, the most destructive in history, threw the Western World into chaos and made the dream of progress questionable.

•
    
WWI
&
WWII
smashed
Western
Europe
and
Russia
, and this changed the outlook of Western Europe. America, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and others maintained a more positive outlook; however, as time progressed, the gloom of the two World Wars, plus unsolvable new problems, overwhelmed even these areas. Victory in the Cold War did not eliminate the depressive effects of the 20
th
Century.

•    
Capitalism
,
and
economic
freedom,
including
private
property
rights
are hallmarks of the Western world. They are major reasons behind the prosperity of the West because they open the door for vast rewards to the person who can innovate. Capitalism requires individual freedom and the protection of private property. Without political freedom capitalism cannot work. Whatever the problems, the economic and political freedoms granted by capitalism far outweigh any downside. Beyond the West, such economic and political freedoms are only dreams.

All these events make the Western world and anyone growing up in it unique. From this alone, we can see how history may determine mind-sets and thus decisions made by differing cultures. The West is unique, as each individual is unique, and the decisions by Western governments and individuals raised in the West show this difference.

Modern Philosophy—of the west

Please
understand
that
all
the
philosophies
examined
here
are
grossly
oversimplified
and
do
not
in
any
way
explain
the
true
complexity
of
the
ideas
involved.—AD2

As stated in our chapters on ancient history, Greek philosophy covered all the basic ideas found in Western philosophy. As time marched on, Western philosophy began to get bogged down in definitional problems and finally came to rest on the jagged rocks of
epistemology
.
[387]
David
Hume
effectively argued that what we call knowledge is only a set of experiences which cannot be depended upon to be true. For example, just because one has been adequately sustained by eating bread does not mean that one will always be so sustained. He even went so far as to prove that just because we have watched the sun come up every morning for fifty years does not mean it will come up tomorrow; thus, there is no knowledge of any kind. Finally, Hume proposed that he did not exist and went on to prove it to his own satisfaction. Most philosophers wished Hume had not existed. His form of philosophy is termed
skepticism
, and in Hume’s case
extreme
skepticism.

British
empiricism
argued all knowledge came from
experience
alone. Empiricism was opposed to the philosophical position of
rationalism
, which stressed
innate
ideas
—ideas that come from the brain alone without sensory input—were all that was true. Since Hume destroyed the idea of knowledge coming from experience he put a hammerlock on
innate
ideas as well as
sensory
ideas. Oh well . . . since Hume proved he did not exist we can safely move on. By the way, empiricism and rationalism both survived Hume.

Compare empiricism to
Descartes
(I
think
therefore
I
am)
who thought he was, and therefore he really was, and this means the brain can think without sensory input. Descartes’ reasoning might be hard to follow, but at least he thought he existed, or because he thought he thought, thus he existed . . . or some such thing. Descartes declared, “I think, therefore I am.” This was the classic statement allowing Descartes to prove his existence, and from that he built up his understanding of the world and all he experienced in it. The German
idealist
agreed with Descartes that the mind, its thoughts and ideas, was most important rather than the unreliable world of sensory perception. As the reader can ascertain, these arguments hearken back to the Greek philosophers Plato (forms or universals—the mind was most important) and Aristotle (the concrete world of sensory perception is most important).

Modern philosophy has tried to remove itself from this logical conundrum foisted upon it by skepticism, empiricism, and rationalism by avoiding definitional arguments. Many philosophies, such as
Ayn
Rand’s
objectivism
, simply state as a given fact that the world does exist outside of our senses, and since we can measure this world we can depend upon its existence. Rand argued there was a “mind independent” reality, and individuals are in contact with that reality through their senses. By starting from this point, Rand avoided the problems of epistemology and its focus on how a person can know the world exists and whether their perceptions are accurately interpreting reality. Contrast objectivism with the ideas of
Descartes
who thought that sensory perceptions came to him involuntarily—that is without his having willed them to occur. From this, he concludes there is evidence of an external world which was something outside his mind; however, Descartes also thought that what existed in the mind was more important and more reliable than that which one “knew” through the senses. As one can see, both Descartes and Rand are arguing against skepticism because Hume had destroyed the ability of the human mind to prove anything existed. Rand puts the emphasis on the outside world of measurement, and Descartes puts the emphasis on the internal world of the mind (thought), but both agreed the world outside the mind did exist.

Kant,
the great German idealist, tried a new way to break the deadlock by reasoning that rationalism (innate ideas in the mind) and empiricism (all knowledge is gained through sensory experience) could be reconciled. Kant decided there were two kinds of judgments:
analytic
where the truth is determined within itself, and
synthetic
where truth has to be determined by an investigation such as looking at a person to observe if they are present at a certain location. There was also
transcendental
knowledge (
a
priori
or before observation or study—that which you know is true), and
empirical
knowledge (a posteriori or after) which one must study or experiment to find out if it is true. Kant thought a
synthetic
a
priori
concept could be a universal truth proven through experimentation. Thus, transcendental or prior knowledge which could be proven by experimentation could be the foundation for
discovering
universal
truths
that
all
could
agree
on,
thereby putting philosophy on a firm footing and avoiding endless arguments about whether truth could ever be discovered or known. Using these methods, Kant decided the universe was chaotic, and man’s mind imposed order onto what was actually chaos, and this perceived order becomes our reality. Nice try, but not everyone agreed. What else would one expect from men with sharp minds and strong opinions? Therefore, the arguments continue . . . Here are a few more variations on the theme:

Utilitarianism
is a moral doctrine that states an action must be measured by its contribution to the good or “the greatest good for the greatest number.” As we can see, this argument avoids the problem of epistemology by simply ignoring the discussion. It at least attempts to form a moral underpinning for a person’s actions
.
Rather than engage in circular arguments about thoughts or senses, utilitarianism wants to discuss how to make moral decisions. The problem arises when people disagree what course of action will result in the greatest good for the greatest number, but even without philosophical agreement individuals will at least have an agreed upon common goal of attempting to reach “the good” (“The good” is me being rich and healthy . . .).

Positivism
is another attempt to solve the problem of knowledge. This philosophy holds that the only authentic knowledge is scientific, that is, the only true “knowledge” is that obtained by using the scientific method. Of course, the skeptics simply said even this kind of knowledge comes from experience and is therefore no different from other knowledge gained from experience—unreliable. Positivism at least gives some basis for agreement on facts, in that the scientific method demanded repeatable experiments; thus, even though based on a belief in the reliability of sensory perceptions, at least it demands agreement on those perceptions. Simply saying one cannot depend on sensory perceptions is getting nowhere, so why not agree that if the same results can be obtained from experiments then the perception is valid enough to build on. Idealists and skeptics still want to argue the point, but the positivists ignore them (compare to objectivism). (Having performed numerous experiments, I am certain that happiness arrives when I have money, lots of money . . .).

Rationalism
emphasizes the role of human reason in discovering reality.
[388]
The philosopher
John
Locke
argued the mind is a blank slate and experience alone can leave a mark. This rejects the role of reason in discovering reality or truth.
Realism
is a philosophy that holds abstract objects corresponding to universal terms (chair for example) have a real existence (
Plato
argued this) much like rationalism.
Idealism
holds that nothing can be known outside of the human mind, and thus (in some idealist concepts) nothing exists apart from the mind (compare to Zen Buddhism).

Kant, who thought we could know more than just what is in our minds, developed
transcendental
idealism
. Kant argued we could directly know the possibility of “things in themselves.” This world of “things in themselves” might exist (a possibility), but actually knowing this world is impossible. Thus, when we experience something, a ball for example, we experience the object as it appears to us and not as the ball is “
in
and
of
itself
.” (This kind of stuff drives me nuts). As we have pointed out above, Kant’s efforts are exacting in that he was trying to establish a basis for agreements on universals, but this philosophy is hard to apply in the everyday world. For somewhat dull types such as me, Kant’s arguments are mostly linguistic intrigues in which I quickly lose my way.