2015-12-26

Where do I stand with my "grand project" ?

2015/12/15


I terminated the first 4 columns with each 5 paintings (if one can say that a painting is ever terminated). Here is the full view. The paintings are stitched together in the Gimp (open source version of photoshop) and not taken in one shot because my present painting place is not big enough to position all the panels together while leaving me the distance to shoot the whole damn thing. This explains the 'dark-light' differences between panels. The whole thing has a better flow that on this picture but that was the price to pay to share this work with my readers. What I hope to share is the dynamic that runs between thinking, painting and writing (please click on images to get their large version).

2015-12-25

From Modernity to After Modernity (08)

Part 2. Theoretical considerations
Chapter 2. About the formation of consciousness



2.  About the formation of consciousness

Species are an assemblage of a mass of individual particles that live in groups which are also called societies. The particles have a very short lifespan while their societies last the life of many generations of individual particles. Societies themselves are also mortal and collapse from time to time to be annexed by, or annexing, other societies and forming a larger unit or splitting in smaller units. Societies, or groupings, are the natural form of organization of all species for the good reason that an individual on his own soon dies without reproducing. Preservation of the individual integrity and his reproduction are thus the reasons why individuals are assembling in groups. From the dawn of the principle of life, when life emerged, immediately appeared the necessity to reproduce individual life over the generations in order to ensure the continuity of the species. This principle is the essence of human groupings or societies and societies are natural instruments that ensure the reproduction of species.

2015-12-23

From Modernity to After Modernity (07)

Part 2. Theoretical considerations
Chapter 1. About the formation of human knowledge 



1.5. Conclusions (2)


1.5.5. Science and animism have different finalities

Humanity has witnessed three forms of knowledge formations along the path of its long history: animism, religion-philosophy and modern rationality.

2015-12-22

From Modernity to After Modernity. (06)

Part 2. Theoretical considerations
Chapter 1. About the formation of human knowledge 



1.6. Conclusions (1)

Let me start by sketching the most salient traits of the history of knowledge formation as I reported on it in my last 4 posts.

2015-12-19

From Modernity to After Modernity. (05)

Part 2. Theoretical considerations
Chapter 1. About the formation of human knowledge 




1.4.4. The civilization of China  = animism+

I have laid out in some detail, in my posts “The axioms of civilizations” 01, 02, 03 and 06, 07, 08 (2) the passage from animism to power societies and how China and the West were made to take radically different civilizational paths. I then went on to describe how their conceptual foundations ended up being pole apart. What follows is a further development of the content of those posts and more particularly the formation of knowledge under the Chinese empire. So it could be useful, but not absolutely necessary, to start reading those posts before engaging any further in the present one.