Philosophy Shorts

Until roughly the 16th century, nearly everyone in Western Europe — from common farmers and laborers, to highly educated scholars and clerics — took for granted that they lived in a cosmos teeming with a wide range of spiritual beings. Then, the story goes, everything changed, as the Scientific Revolution cast out all these intermediary spirits, leaving a cosmos that resembles a collection of inanimate machines, rather than an ecology teeming with living agents: a process which the pioneering sociologist Max Weber famously termed “the disenchantment of the world.” In this evening’s program, we’ll consider this process of disenchantment within its historical context and its consequences. Learn more & RSVP here!

In 1748, the Scottish philosopher David Hume defined a miracle as “a violation of the laws of nature,” and quickly went on to suggest that, at least in modern times, such things could never happen. This contrasts with classical times, where miracles were seen as very much being within the realm of possibility. In this evening’s program, we’ll survey some of the major changes and developments that allowed Hume’s statement to seem so obvious. And we’ll reflect on some ways in which the older, half-forgotten ways of seeing might still contain helpful possibilities for us today. Learn more & RSVP here!