Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J.F.

Buch: Understanding and Being

Titel: Understanding and Being

Stichwort: Malinowski, Trobriand Islanders, Hitler, Vakuum, Hauptproblem

Kurzinhalt: Bronislaw Malinowski's Magic, Science, and Religion; Lonergans Vergleich zwischen uns u. den Eingeborenen;

Textausschnitt: Now in our civilization, there has been a very marked tendency - it is not a universal rule or a necessary law - for scientific thinking to be positivist, pragmatist, antimetaphysical. One can discern a dichotomy (in a much more cultivated form, of course) existing in this mentality which is similar to the dichotomy in the mentality of the Trobriand Islanders.
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But while the person who is a scientist or a mathematician does not suffer too much from that blank, the general population does suffer. For example ... But then the country was taken over , Hitler. If a vacuum exists in the popular mind, a terrific irrational national convulsion can result. This is one of the main problems of our time.