Individualism, Autism, scientific minds and North European cultures

[JFWR]

I am more than familiar with Western Philosophy as I studied it at university. Bertrand Russell is actually one of my favourite philosophers. Empiricism is a theory of knowledge and not an alternative current to idealism or materialism. However, empiricism asserts that knowledge comes from sensory experience, and is much more compatible with materialism, and even goes again most forms of idealism.

Not at all. Matter is an un-empirical notion. What we have direct and certain knowledge of, according to empiricism, is purely sense data. This sense data need not inhere in any substance, such as matter, nor can we do such things as induce causality as there is no necessary connection between things. Therefore, from a purely empirical matter, we can only speak of our sense data and the non-causal semi-uniformity we witness in this data. For Hume, nature could simply be chaotic at its core, whereas for Kant our empiricism must transform into Transcendental Idealism where the uniformity is a condition of our thought.

These arguments owe their origin to Locke who first began to critique substance, were then vastly expanded upon by Bishop Berkeley, still expanded by Hume, given further thought by Kant, and have persisted till the present day through such figures as the aforementioned Russell.

Materialism is nothing but a sad mistake in empiricism. It cannot be justified under empirical knowledge alone, but must derive in some sense from inductions beyond what is given purely by sensory report.

There is, of course, another, more "spiritual" trend in Idealism following after Hegel. There is also religious Idealism which finds its greatest exemplar in Hindu and certain Buddhist doctrines.

Plato and Aristotle may have laid some of the grounds of Western Philosophy, but their philosophy is just as dated today as ancient technologies. Actually, quite a lot of "modern" philosophers can be discarded too (Descartes, Leibniz, Hegel...) in my eyes.

Hardly. This seems merely like your dismissal is a result of argumentum ad novitam (argument from novelty). What is new is not inherently superior to that which is old.

The figures you mention have remarkable stable ideas in philosophy and their works in other related disciplines are foundational. Clearly, not everything that they wrote on various other topics is still useful today, but their work was crucial in leading to future discoveries that refine it over the progress of science. That being said, mathematically they are incorporated into modern mathematics. Examples: Descartes was the man who united algebra and geometry and Leibniz created modern calculus (independently of Newton). For a figure you didn't mention, Kant was the first to hypothesize the existence of galaxies.

Oh, and if you want a really good foundation for civil society and the state, I would recommend Hegel's "Elements of the Philosophy of Right". Reading that work you will see a fine justification of the modern nation state and its legal roles, even moreso than the less extensive works of (the also brilliant) English philosophers.

I don't have the time or envy to discuss this at length now. Let's just say that I have learnt about all major philosophers, chosen my path, and have thrown away all philosophers whose views were not compatible with atheism, hence my reaction.

How unphilosophic AND unscientific. Closing your mind to any but which fit into a pre-established paradigm. That's not very proper of you, Maciamo. I would highly recommend you expand your horizons less you hamstring yourself.

[ElHorsto]

Northern European cultures (including other English-speaking cultures like the USA) are known for their individualism and masculine characteristics. It is not an accident of history that Scandinavian women were the first to become emancipated, and the first who wanted to get rid of gender roles to behave like men - including taking positions of power. Northern European, and especially Germanic cultures, have always been more masculine than say Mediterranean, African, South Asian or East Asian ones.

Coming back to the topic of northern europe, feminism, science and individualism, here is a famous video made by Harald Eia, which eventually lead to the ending of the norwegian gender "science" in 2011, which was funded before by 56 million EUR per year.

"The Gender Equality Paradox"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQ2xrnyH2wQ

Essence of the video is, that paradoxically the women in Norway are those who mostly choose typical female professions like nursing and kindergardening while avoiding typical male professions like engineers and constructors. In other countries with lesser gender equality, women are paradoxically more likely to choose typical male professions. I think this contradicts the association of northern feminism with individualism or masculinity. Feminism in northern europe was not a folk movement but rather an imposed social democrat agenda, which the majority was just following without thinking too much.

[ElHorsto]

It was not a generalised trend in society like later in northern Europe.

Scandinavia, which I consider northern european, was rather backwards until 20th century. The uptrend during 20th century was due to welfare among others. I highly doubt that the whole population genetics has suddenly changed that much since 100 years. Scandinavians became more progressive in the early middle ages, when they travelled far. They were great seafarers indeed. But the later middle ages were really dark in northern europe.

Obviously there is some political bias in Nobel prizes. But even if Nazi Germany or the former GDR were under-represented, that would only strengthen my argument about Germanic countries. We could look at only at recent Nobel prizes in science, but the trend is still an overwhelming dominance of Germanic countries.

No, GDR was actually the only germanic country whithin the eastern block.

That is why I explicitly wrote : "Germanic people (except the British) are also known for their outspokenness".

Ok.

Russia is a big country. If the type of people you refer to are more common in Northwest Russia, then that may be part of their Viking heritage.

No, they are from Siberia and Moscow. On the other hand, viking influence stretched far to south-eastern russia, before Russia started expanding into asia.