Talk:A Guide for the Perplexed

Parked for possible later use
The book was well recieved when first released:

Newsday wrote that the "late E.F. Schumacher understates his case in titling this book A Guide for the Perplexed; what he undertakes is to provide nothing less than a Manual for Survival, concerned not merely with individual physical or even societal endurance (though that, too), but more importantly with the full realization of human potential. Does that sound impossibly ambitious? It's only the beginning. In the process of articulating his view of life, Schumacher proceeds to knock the foundation from under much of what science has been about these past few centuries, and then to bring into synthesis the definitive tenets of the world's major religions. All this -- and more -- in only 140 pages. But hold the snickers; the man pulls it off. Compelling reasoned and persuasively presented, this Guide diagrams a view of humans and the world in which they live that will challenge and stimulate every thoughtful reader."

Theordore Roszak writing for the Los Angeles Times said that "A Guide for the Perplexed offers us a harvest of utterly sane, consoling, and life-affirming insight from one of the wisest minds of our time. It is and unapologetic defense of traditional Christian humanism which I am certain will light many a darkened path."

The Chicago Tribune wrote that "A Guide for the Perplexed is really a statement of the philosophical underpinnings that inform Small is Beautiful. Those who have read neither book should be wise to read the latest book first. Those who have read Small is Beautiful will benefit from careful reading of this new book. It's impact may be less immediate, but perhaps more substantial and lasting." — Preceding unsigned comment added by ChrisG (talk • contribs) 20:52, 6 April 2005 (UTC)

A Critique of the self-awareness Critique in "reflections"
In the "Reflections" section, an author says:

"One necessary update to its argument is that Schumacher seems to have been unaware in 1977 that dolphins, chimpanzees and orangutans have repeatedly passed the mirror test for self awareness; and so Schumacher's argument that humans are unique in self consciousness seems questionable if you accept the legitimacy of the test."

I feel that the person who wrote that did not fully understand what Schumacher meant by using the term "self-aware" (NOT self consciousness, as the author mis-writes.)

On page 17 of Guide for the Perplexed, Schumacher anticipates mis-understanding of his chosen term and tells us:

"As it is necessary to have word labels, I shall call it self-awareness. We must, however, take great care to always remember that such a word label is merely (to use a Buddhist phrase) 'a finger pointing to the moon.' The 'moon' itself remains highly mysterious and needs to be studied with the greatest patience and perseverance if we want to understand anything about man's position in the Universe."

Lest there still be left any doubt that Schumacher was referring to a faculty other than simply recognizing one's own image in a mirror, on page 132 we see:

"The human being, even in full maturity, is obviously not a finished product, although some are undoubtedly more 'finished' than others. With most people, the specifically human faculty of self-awareness remains, until the end of their lives, only the germ of a faculty, so underdeveloped that it rarely becomes active, and then only for brief moments. This is precisely the 'talent' which according to traditional teachings we can and should develop threefold, even tenfold, and which we should on no account bury in the ground for safekeeping."

Since every normally developed adult human can recognize himself or herself in a mirror, this faculty is most obviously not what Schumacher was referring to with his term "self-awareness."

67.129.136.161 20:56, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

section on Reflections
Removed altogether as an unsourced essay. Revert and discuss if you think it can be supported. DGG (talk) 17:38, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Book Reportish
The article is a bit book reportish, and could use some additional explaination of its importance in both the other work of the author, and its impact on others in general. Also, there are only two refs. A biography of the author and the book itself....needs more reliable sources to verify notability. --Rocksanddirt 18:26, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I have given it the first step of a needed trimming. DGG (talk) 21:52, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

All description and some prescription of the world
It is now well known that the mind is not just a passive mirror but also an active constructor of reality. Put otherwise! each subject is subject to the cognitive bias and to the mix of objectivity & subjectivity, or of description & prescription in our context. The following is simply to make the above (implicit) explicit.

Purely, however, everything native may be (worth) described. And, part of it may be moreover prescribed, declared, or made "instructional," if you like. So prescribed is not only science! but also religion, ethics, law, literary criticism, and any other cultural projects or designs!!

The native world is allegedly the "intelligent design" by God, part of which, whether designed or created by God or evolved by nature, is either ill or well prescribed as (if) the wanted description of the world. Please, try to THINK here, carefully!

This united or common kind of all description & some prescription, all fact & some value, was described & prescribed perhaps as "consilience" by Edward O. Wilson(1998), and as "collapse of fact/value dichotomy" by Hilary Putnam(2002).

You may also note that the unity of description & prescription, fact & value (esp. in pragmatism) are parallel to that of objectivity & subjectivity, both fusing into intersubjectivity, which continues to feed back.

This binary opposition & interaction, in essence, may have been best described & prescribed as yin and yang in the Eastern mysticism, roughly analogous to chaos & cosmos in the Western cosmology, and dark & light in the Bible. Note that light is not entirely freed of, but just fused in, dark.

Likewise, consciouness lives in, or emerges from, subconscious or unconsciousness, that is, the unfathomable abyss or messy ensemble of the mind. The momentary consciousness may be something in flux pumped out of the messy subconscious abyss. This flux may flow into an appropriated symbolic vessel or metaphor for the description & prescription theeof.

Morphologically, "descriptive" and "instructional" sciences in dichotomy look mutually more exclusive than descriptive and prescriptive. The former is suited to show up the difference, whereas the latter the similarity. Highly regrettably, the Western rhetoric in general seems to be greatly biased toward the former at the cost of the latter.

This may have been reinforced perhaps by the abuse of Aristotle's binary logic and the religious fundamentalism in order of millennium. Ever-lasting antagonisms between empiricism and rationalism, inductive and deductive reasonings, progressives and conservatives, scientific revolutionary and religious reactionary was just a few such victims.

But, a pair of differences between entities A and B is interesting mostly when both share the similarity A &cap; B in common. Ignoring the commonality is ignoring the central, essential context, relation, or Fregean Bedeutung, which is stupid at best and evil at its worst, as S. I. Hayakawa scathed six decades ago. Hesperus and Phosphorus are just two modes or senses of Venus, the Bedeutung or essence rather than reference. Surely both are the same thing in context of little difference but large similarity.

Try to apply this outlook to the evil antagonism between Christians and Islams, Islams and Jews, Jews and Christians (esp. from Ferdinand II of Aragon to Hitler), Catholics and Protestants, etc., prior to religion and science.

That is to say, in a way, religion should overcome antagonism within itself before it would come to oppose to science that tries to be as reasonable as possible, regardless of religion, whether successfully or not. Religion should not try to take advantage of scientific failure, simply because science is autonomous, free from religion.

Religion is not forbidden to prove itself to be superior to science. Please, go ahead and prove yourself as far as possible, regardless of anything else, say, science. But no thanks for an alternative to science failed, which was in fact an alternative to religion failed, as such looks like an endless, hopeless circulation.

Roughy, trying to remain in context

--KYPark (talk) 08:30, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Dead link
During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!


 * http://www.godspy.com/issues/The-Education-and-Catholic-Conversion-of-E-F-Schumacher-by-Joseph-Pearce.cfm
 * In E. F. Schumacher on 2011-03-17 18:50:22, 404 Not Found
 * In A Guide for the Perplexed on 2011-06-20 01:28:55, 404 Not Found

--JeffGBot (talk) 01:29, 20 June 2011 (UTC)