Modern Age - Winter 2016 - 143

REVIEWS

accessible reading, it allows for a more precise diagnosis of our
current dilemma. It begins with the self-evident observation that
culture today is in a dangerous state of decline, one he identifies
as "brutal," "trivialized," and "violent." This decline, in Pontynen's
view, hinges upon a central conceptual distinction: "qualitative"
versus "quantitative" approaches to knowledge and culture.
These are useful enough terms to describe a fundamental shift in
Western intellectual history.
From the time of Socrates well through the High Middle Ages,
the West had a fundamentally realist epistemological orientation
toward the world. Figures various as Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, and St. Thomas maintain that the human mind is open and
receptive to the truth about the natural world, humanity, and
God. This tradition, also known as the philosophia perennis, constitutes a "qualitative" understanding of human knowledge. Mankind's open and receptive posture toward reality can distinguish
between truth and falsity, insight and error, and always seeks
greater insight into ultimate truths and God himself. Thus some
ideas and systems are qualitatively superior to others because
they are closer to the truth. Modes of thought that are qualitatively inferior are both false intellectually and barbaric at the level
of culture.
Pontynen explores the consequences of the Copernican Revolution in knowledge and culture characterizing the modern world.
We've experienced a now complete paradigm shift in modernity:
knowledge is no longer viewed as qualitative but quantitative.
By "quantitative" Pontynen means the general epistemology of
modernity: in a materialist and empiricist context, knowledge is
not discovered; it's made. Meaning isn't in the world; it's fabricated
by meaning makers (scholars, politicians, policy makers, et  al.).
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Modern Age - Winter 2016

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Modern Age - Winter 2016

Contents
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