I haven't read this writer but I'll respond to a couple notions you attribute to him anyway.
"Galileo who sought the ‘mathesis universalis’, and knowledge of the object, outside of our grasping of it through subjectivity" I'd just add that early western mechanists (those who believe the universe is mechanical) usually assert that subjective experience does exist, but the mechanical rules (mathmatics, geometry, algebra, etc.) which describe patterns in nature are "more real" than the narratives/notions humans invent (identity, mythology, etc.). This isn't so different from plato and his ideal forms. As far as "awarness" is concerned, they would say that it is contengent on and generated by mechanical rules.
"When did we start denying the knowledge of life? For Henry, this started with Galileo". This type of thinking started long before Galileo or the mechanist, Galileo's "mathesis universalis" is the way nature manipulates patterns like a tool and as humans have always done this. It is what can be called "left hemosphere thinking". Now as we fixate on this way of thinking, all of reality becomes tools to our awareness, dis-embodying us from reality. It's like we've lost feeling in our left hand, it's frieghtening and confusing to suddenly loose such a close understanding.
This confusion is why I dissagree the notion that "life" is turning in on it'self. Or that barbarism is trying to destroy life, I think we are destroying a way of thinking. Analytical thinking brings awareness to our dissembodiment from reality which leads to psychological confusion, psychological confusion that alone results in emmense distruction to psycho-technologies critical for generating the generalized (non-computaitonal) thinking our ancient ancestors took for granted (organized culture, religion, etc.)
Thank you for your thoughtful comment. Henry does indeed make the quite harsh claim that our form of barbarism finds its origin with Galileo. It seems quite hard to defend, but we must remember that Henry does stress continuously that what he calls barbarism didn't start at any specific time, it is merely, next to culture, one of the two primal possibilities of life. Either turning against itself (barbarism), or expressing itself (culture). Now, this is of all times, to have this 'choice' of how to position ourselves vis-à-vis life is what makes us living. But, Henry claims, it is with Galileo that 'our contemporary form of barbarism' finds its roots. I would maybe say it like this; at each point of history we are surrounded by different theoretical frameworks. But we —as living beings— are always marked by an affective modality (barbarism of culture) with which we look at these theoretical frameworks. And so, the desire for barbarism or for culture can latch onto these frameworks. What Henry says is that with Galileo a framework emerges which just happens to be the perfect fit for the instinct for barbarism. This has to do with the fact that subjectivity is theoretically denied in 'Galilean science', BUT perhaps more important, that now there are the tools to plan and order our own lives and the life of society on the basis of principles undone from any notion of life/subjectivity/value. On this latter part, I speak about this in 'Barbarism Today III' more. You relate the founding idea of modern science, that laws discovered through method are more real than subjectivity, to Plato and his ideal forms. This is an interesting similarity indeed, but I do want to take care in not seeing them as the same. We can hardly talk about Plato's ideal forms without talking about them as Ideals, as values, virtue, beauty, and, the Good. This cannot be compared with the life-less rules discovered by modern science, as the Ideal forms are essentially principles bursting with life, giving life.
Thank you for your comment, much to think about. I hope I have been able to give somewhat of a reply.
Good peice btw.
I haven't read this writer but I'll respond to a couple notions you attribute to him anyway.
"Galileo who sought the ‘mathesis universalis’, and knowledge of the object, outside of our grasping of it through subjectivity" I'd just add that early western mechanists (those who believe the universe is mechanical) usually assert that subjective experience does exist, but the mechanical rules (mathmatics, geometry, algebra, etc.) which describe patterns in nature are "more real" than the narratives/notions humans invent (identity, mythology, etc.). This isn't so different from plato and his ideal forms. As far as "awarness" is concerned, they would say that it is contengent on and generated by mechanical rules.
"When did we start denying the knowledge of life? For Henry, this started with Galileo". This type of thinking started long before Galileo or the mechanist, Galileo's "mathesis universalis" is the way nature manipulates patterns like a tool and as humans have always done this. It is what can be called "left hemosphere thinking". Now as we fixate on this way of thinking, all of reality becomes tools to our awareness, dis-embodying us from reality. It's like we've lost feeling in our left hand, it's frieghtening and confusing to suddenly loose such a close understanding.
This confusion is why I dissagree the notion that "life" is turning in on it'self. Or that barbarism is trying to destroy life, I think we are destroying a way of thinking. Analytical thinking brings awareness to our dissembodiment from reality which leads to psychological confusion, psychological confusion that alone results in emmense distruction to psycho-technologies critical for generating the generalized (non-computaitonal) thinking our ancient ancestors took for granted (organized culture, religion, etc.)
Thank you for your thoughtful comment. Henry does indeed make the quite harsh claim that our form of barbarism finds its origin with Galileo. It seems quite hard to defend, but we must remember that Henry does stress continuously that what he calls barbarism didn't start at any specific time, it is merely, next to culture, one of the two primal possibilities of life. Either turning against itself (barbarism), or expressing itself (culture). Now, this is of all times, to have this 'choice' of how to position ourselves vis-à-vis life is what makes us living. But, Henry claims, it is with Galileo that 'our contemporary form of barbarism' finds its roots. I would maybe say it like this; at each point of history we are surrounded by different theoretical frameworks. But we —as living beings— are always marked by an affective modality (barbarism of culture) with which we look at these theoretical frameworks. And so, the desire for barbarism or for culture can latch onto these frameworks. What Henry says is that with Galileo a framework emerges which just happens to be the perfect fit for the instinct for barbarism. This has to do with the fact that subjectivity is theoretically denied in 'Galilean science', BUT perhaps more important, that now there are the tools to plan and order our own lives and the life of society on the basis of principles undone from any notion of life/subjectivity/value. On this latter part, I speak about this in 'Barbarism Today III' more. You relate the founding idea of modern science, that laws discovered through method are more real than subjectivity, to Plato and his ideal forms. This is an interesting similarity indeed, but I do want to take care in not seeing them as the same. We can hardly talk about Plato's ideal forms without talking about them as Ideals, as values, virtue, beauty, and, the Good. This cannot be compared with the life-less rules discovered by modern science, as the Ideal forms are essentially principles bursting with life, giving life.
Thank you for your comment, much to think about. I hope I have been able to give somewhat of a reply.