The new metaphysics

A friend noted my recent conversion to accupuncturism and offers the following intersting comment by email:

Actually you didn't have too far to go, once you recognized that the womb was an organic aspect of the whole body, not a disposable pouch. The trouble with modern Western medicine is that it is based on a materialistic metaphysics, which is powerful as long as you are dealing with material causes (and it seems to be the case that many diseases exhibit an imbalance in the lower orders of causality) but that is only the tip of the iceberg, as it were. Of course it is very tricky to determine what is the real wisdom in the more ancient approaches to medicine, even more difficult to know whether it still works in present circumstances or to know what to do to make it work. The "New Age" does this all very stupidly. But of course none of the ancient traditions was simply foolish.

I realise how difficult it is to sell the general public on the importance of philosophy. The last 250 years have made academic philosophy a running gag. So much so that I was at some small pains to convince my editors that a recent decree from the Vatican reforming the study of philosophy in seminaries, would be of general interest.

But as my friend Dr. Camp said, understanding where we have gone wrong with our basic understanding of the nature of reality and human nature is the first step to steering us back.

Only The Real counts.



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