Questions About The Abolition of Man

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Answered Questions (3)

Is beauty in the eye of the beholder or does beauty or goodness exist on its own? A simpler way to think about this might be to state the question in an opposite fashion like this: Is a thing evil because I don’t like it or can a thing be evil in and of itself? Does the first chapter raise such questions as these?

Benjamin Beserra Lewis is saying that to every thing there's a proper reaction. If our "taste" and/or perception of something is not "calibrated" as to cause us a prop…moreLewis is saying that to every thing there's a proper reaction. If our "taste" and/or perception of something is not "calibrated" as to cause us a proper reaction, our character is flawed. In your example, we should find something is evil if the thing indeed "deserves" this judgement.

I'll just point out one little detail in that: Lewis probably wouldn't say evil is a thing itself, as far as I know. As a Cristian, he likely thought of evil as the privation of a good. You'd still be able to react to something as finding it evil, though it's understood you found it to have no goodness.(less)

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Nathalia Watkins Yes! This is a must-read in my opinion.

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Can that which is self-evident be something that you can argue for or against? Is what Lewis is bringing up in chapter 1 something that is self-evident and is that why some have difficulty accepting what he says? I think, therefore I am; I think.

Benjamin Beserra Lewis does go deeper into the subject of self-evident truths later in the book, not so much in chapter 1. The first chapter is pretty much summed up i…moreLewis does go deeper into the subject of self-evident truths later in the book, not so much in chapter 1. The first chapter is pretty much summed up in this paragraph:

"Hence the educational problem is wholly different according as you stand within or without the Tao. For those within, the task is to train in the pupil those responses which are in themselves appropriate, whether anyone is making them or not, and in making which the very nature of man consists. Those without, if they are logical, must regard all sentiments as equally non-rational, as mere mists between us and the real objects. As a result, they must either decide to remove all sentiments, as far as possible, from the pupil's mind; or else to encourage some sentiments for reasons that have nothing to do with their intrinsic 'justness' or 'ordinancy'. The latter course involves them in the questionable process of creating in others by 'suggestion' or incantation a mirage which the only reason has successfully dissipated."

In a way, you can say that his point about self-evident truths is that one can only generate a moral system from those transcendental truths. Whichever innovator attempts to do otherwise will end up with something that doesn't stand on its own as no reason, instinct or etc. will be cohesive with the innovator's own supposed values. (less)

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Unanswered Questions (1)

So what are yin and yang in this philosophy?

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