"Impulse and pleasure, Bell says, are alone real and lifeaffirming in postmodernism. Reason is the enemy, and the desires of the body constitute truth. Postmodernism eliminates the boundaries of art and insists that acting out, rather than making distinctions, is the path to knowledge."
"Yet she was a perfectly practical person who did something, while they are wild speculators who do nothing." "...defend the pragmatist method as a preliminary guide to truth..."
I disagree strongly with the author. Reason is the *problem,* not the solution. Reason is intrinsically both convergent and divergent. The notion that reasoning can converge to an ideal good neglects this.
"Many humanists, of course, will not necessarily want to access what I will call the "spiritual response." Even if I persuade them that theres nothing conceptually incoherent about a naturalistic spirituality, they might be constitutionally disinclined to indulge in emotions or practices that even temporarily disengage the rational mind set. I wont argue against such reluctance, since each of us has his or her own tastes in aesthetic experience, and varying "comfort levels" in letting go. But the spiritual response is there for those who wish to experience it. Its intrinsically rewarding in its own right, and a valuable resource in getting us through tough times."
"Addition and subtraction are therefore spiritual transactions; reasoning is a spiritual process; ideas are spiritual conceptions; questions are spiritual searchlights and logic, argument and philosophy is spiritual machinery."
Here's the thing: This article is itself guilty of EXACTLY what it's talking about. I personally agree with: "I know that I know nothing." Then you're free to try and live as rationally as you like, recognizing that it's impossible (too costly) to truly live rationally.