Jagger, one of the front-runners of contradicting typical western philosophy, beautifully incorporated the much needed element of emotion into the quest for knowledge. Rather than creating yet another fission within humankind's unity, Jagger acknowledged the fact that both men and women crave the unknown, and even though our approaches have been different throughout time, the finish line bore the same checkers. Wise man, after wise man, theorized and conjured ideas that claimed superiority over another (quintessential maleness), uniting and dividing at the same time. Mainly separating emotion and reason as two polar ideologies that can never live in harmony. To add insult to injury these ideologies were assigned genders and labeled as constants. Amidst the feminist movement, along comes Ms. Alison Jagger who refused to accept that the horse was dead. She continually struck the animal until it sprung to life, and told her that the charioteer's skills are worthless without the comatose animal. "Without horses, after all, the skill of the charioteer would be worthless" Love and Knowledge: Emotion in Feminist Epistomology. The charioteer being controlled reason (old white guy), and the horse being the irrational pre-menstrual emotion (silly woman). But this woman was anything but silly, rather she gave the rusting philosophical community a good scratch on the ol' noggin."White men's control of their emotional expression may go to the extremes of repressing their emotions, failing to develop emotionally or even losing the capacity to expereience many emotions" Love and Knowledge: Emotion in Feminist Epistomology. Jagger, simply put, said that most of the knowledge we acquire on the path to wisdom, is filtered through our emotion at the time, and even thinking that we can eliminate or separate out that element is prepostrous. "The derogatory Western attitude toward emotion, like the earlier Western contempt for sensory observation, fails to recognize that emotion, like sensory perception, is necessary to human survival" Love and Knowledge: Emotion in Feminist Epistomology. What good is reason, if we have no emotions to tame?, and what good is emotion if we have no reason to tame them with? This conclusion drew together a whole new picture, and in my belief allowed mankind to finally peek it's head out into the light. Why on G-d's earth would (he/she?!) have really put two creatures on the planet with a slight jigsaw like difference? The answer is to unite, learn from one another, and cooperate as a unit, rather than two warring factions. It's almost like Jagger was the ceasefire for both sides. Truly, I believe unity and balance is the key to all of life, and if thinking like that of Jaggers continues to resonate, than I believe progression is eminent. In my opinion, I believe Jagger and Descartes would have found a more common ground to speak on, due to their joint acknowledgement of a need to unite two conflicting ideals. Descartes had his Dualism, Jagger had her Horse and Charioteer. Both may have been Apples and Oranges, but as stated in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding", they are both fruit. Specifically Jagger would have complemented Descartes ability to neutralize rather than polarize, and would have agreed that a balance is in order. At the same time, Jagger would have found the fact that Descartes distrusts his senses both disturbing and intriguing (balance once again). Jagger, who heavily relies on; instinct, emotion and train of thought, would have been thrown off by the idea that an intruding signal would interrupt such a process. At the same time, being a wise woman, Jagger would have quickly regained composure appreciating the skepticism and dual-barreled approach to this type of scenario. Bottom line, if you strip their social status, put them in a constant, fair from the get-go environment, Jagger and Descartes would have found a common language and would have enjoyed a great dialogue. Descartes' theory of Dualism, brought forth the very essence of life, balance, into a written doctrine. Descartes believed in incorporating the physical into the non-physical and vice versa. Descartes coined these ideas in two forms: Substance dualism, and Property dualism. He explained that Substance Dualism is the claim that nonphysical substances exist, and Property Dualism is the claim that there are mental properties that are different from physical properties. "This gave Descartes his first inkling that the mind and body were different things. The mind, according to Descartes, was a "thinking thing", and an immaterial substance" (Mediations on First Philosophy). Although substance is a difficult concept to grasp, especially when one is describing the properties of a non-physical entity. Now before I attempt to regurgitate all this hogwash into something tangible, I want to say that the concept of dual-anything, needs to be looked at through a broader scope. I always thought of Descartes as something much more than his actual writing, but as a stepping stone onto a much higher plane of thinking dwelling somewhere within every human subconscious. Descartes take on the interaction of mind and body, can be keenly observed as the very essence of life, a linking or joint channeling of two crucial elements. Descartes' Property Dualism states that when Physical entities fuse together in an appropriate way, mental properties of that substance will emerge, something along the lines of thinking beings like humans, in which physical tissue has formed appropriatly in order to allow mental processes to occur. But the idea itself that a human can question his own being, is somewhat of a catch-22, and begins the vicious cycle of question again. As Descartes states, one's senses have deceived one in the past, depending to what magnititude one is willing to take that ideology, one can simply say that the sences are not a 100% reliable system. "Of course, whatever I have so far accepted as supremely true I have learned either from the senses or through the senses. But I have occasionally caught the senses deceiving me, and it's prudent never completely to trust those who have cheated us even once" (Meditation I). After battling with the thought of self-deception, Descartes later acknowledges that the sences an undoubtable necessity, and much of the information processed can be evaluated with certainty. "But, while my senses may deceive me about what is small or far away, there may still be other things which I take in by the sense but which cannot possibly doubt..." (Meditation I). For quite some time now, I have been defending Descartes' teeter-teetor ideology, in which nothing is really certain. The main reason in which this appeals to me, is because certainty itself is a concept in far reach of my primitive paws, and the idea of acquiring nothing is the cornerstone of philosophy (according to Don Corleone Socrates himself). By acquiring negative or backwards knowledge one can truly learn to appreciate the universal wisdom that lies hidden within every individual, waiting to be unleashed.
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