Modern Age - Winter 2016 - 144

MODERN AGE

WINTER 2016

In a world stripped of the transcendent, there is only a world of
bare facts that don't explain themselves. The medieval notion of
knowledge as given, as gift, donum, is replaced by data, the material world of mere facts. In terms of intellectual history, Pontynen
associates qualitative knowledge with Plato, St. Augustine, and
St. Anselm, while the quantitative paradigm is associated with
Peter Abelard, Kant, Heidegger, Derrida, and numerous others in
modernity.
Cultural Renewal is particularly insightful in articulating the
consequences of our entirely quantitative approach to knowledge and culture. An obvious consequence of the dominance
of the quantitative is that the liberal and fine arts have become
largely unnecessary, irrelevant. If knowledge isn't about wisdom
but facts, then the liberal arts are disciplines without objects, as
Pontynen observes. What fills the educational vacuum left by the
liberal arts? The social sciences, the empirical and factual study
of humanity and society. Higher education has moved toward "a
relentless and trivial sociologizing of all fields knowledge."
We no longer turn to humanists steeped in perennial wisdom
for guidance; the new authorities are the social and biological
scientists who quantifiably determine what we do, and shepherd
us along with the authoritative weight of their data. As Pontynen
observes, "Culture is not the record of what we ought to do; it is
[now] the record of what we commonly do, as revealed by factual
evidence." The inevitable consequence of the ascendancy of the
quantitative is a society dominated by data-driven specialists.
Today the most powerful are those adept at "the skillful manipulation of data, people, and things." The power in education, business, government, and policy is wielded by those manipulating
the broadest range of facts.
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Modern Age - Winter 2016

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

Contents
Modern Age - Winter 2016 - Cover1
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