The Soul of the World Buchzusammenfassung - das Wichtigste aus The Soul of the World

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Zusammenfassung von The Soul of the World

Name: The Soul of the World
Rating: 3.7 (214 reviews)
Author: Roger Scruton

Roger Scruton

In Defense of a Sacred World

3.7 (214 Bewertungen)

25 Min.

Themen

Theology Culture Western Philosophy Social Philosophy The Human Condition

Inhaltsübersicht

The Soul of the World
in 8 Kernaussagen verstehen

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Kernaussage 1 von 8

What’s in it for me? A thought-provoking exploration of our desire for and experience of the sacred.

Consider a piece of music, say, Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Its opening theme consists of a simple series of notes.

From a scientific perspective, these notes are disconnected sounds. Each one has a pitch defined by its frequency. But that’s not at all we actually hear. To us, the notes have movement, progression, shape. We don’t hear mere sounds –⁠ we hear music.

The following blinks explore how the language of science is inadequate at describing the way we humans experience the world. Though we may deny it, each of us yearns for something deep, spiritual, and transcendental –⁠ something the author asserts that only the language of religion can explain and provide.

A quick warning before we begin: blink 1 contains sensitive sexual content.

In these blinks, you’ll ponder

what motive underlies the search for God;
how modern architecture objectifies us; and
why religion is important to our experience of the sacred.

The language of science can’t explain the content of human beliefs.

People often consider reason and faith as being diametrically opposed. These concepts are seen as two distinct –⁠ and incompatible –⁠ ways of explaining the world.

This is a miscategorization, however. Reason is an intellectual pursuit whose goal is to accurately describe reality. Religion, on the other hand, is an emotional pursuit. It seeks to teach us how we should live.

Of course, religions include metaphysical beliefs, like the idea that God created the world. But much more important are the emotional needs that religions fulfill –⁠ specifically, the desire for sacrifice and obedience. So, while it’s fashionable to “debunk” religious beliefs through the language of science, this ignores the essential aspects of religion.

Here’s the key message: The language of science can’t explain the content of human beliefs.

The current popular explanations for social and cultural phenomena tend to come from evolutionary psychology. According to that discipline, human nature evolved useful adaptations to help us survive the harsh environmental conditions many thousands of years ago.

Religion is cited as one of these adaptations, and it’s easy to see its usefulness. For one, religions tie people together as a group. Strong group ties lead to increased security, cooperation, and defense.

However, there’s a glaring error in this seemingly neat and tidy explanation. It shows why we have religious sentiment, but it ignores the content of our beliefs –⁠ what the author calls their aboutness. Why, for instance, do many religions tend toward the belief that there’s a single God? Why does the concept of sacrifice come up so frequently?

One visceral way to grasp aboutness is by looking at the taboo surrounding incest. Evolutionary psychologists theorize that we’re revolted by incest because the act results in bad evolutionary outcomes. But that doesn’t explain why the thought of it can affect us so deeply.

From an evolutionary perspective, it’d be enough for incest to cause disgust in the same way that, say, rotten milk or feces do. We don’t need myths or stories, like the famous tale of Oedipus, that tell us incest is a form of pollution, spoiling, or violation.

But for some, these moral reflections can actually subvert the reproductive admonition by tempting them instead –⁠ like the twins Siegmund and Sieglinde were tempted in Norse myth. The psychological explanation doesn’t explain this aspect of the taboo –⁠ that is, why some are tempted with a desire for the forbidden.

Clearly, evolution does shape our thoughts and feelings. But it doesn’t explain their aboutness.

Religion is a search for intersubjective encounters with the transcendental.

A particular religious problem has plagued the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim traditions for millennia. And that’s the problem of God’s “real presence.”

According to the Old Testament, God is present in the physical world and communicates directly with believers. Yet, paradoxically, he also transcends the physical world, existing outside of space and time – which means he can’t be part of this reality.

There is just one world, but it can be understood in two ways.

Imagine that two groups of people are fighting to the death. After a violent and bloody battle, one side is victorious. They lift the armor off the corpses of their enemies and bring it home, where they set it upon an altar and light lamps around it. Why might they do this?

There are two possible types of explanations. One is that they want to acquire territory and disarm any groups that threaten it. This is the biological view. The other is that the armor becomes a trophy. For those whose worldview focuses on interpersonal relationships rather than biological objects, wanting to acquire this trophy would be their "Why?"

Neuroscience can’t tell us where subjectivity resides, but we still act as if it’s real.

So far, we’ve been speaking about the subjectivity of persons and the cognitive dualism that allows us to see ourselves as both biological organisms and agents of free and responsible action. Of course, there’s still a question looming: Are the nonscientific ways in which we understand personhood –⁠ like freedom, responsibility, and accountability –⁠ just fictions we’ve invented?

There are, after all, some well-known experiments that show what happens in the brain when people choose between two distinct actions. Certain motor centers light up, and only afterward do people report their decisions. Often, people see these studies and conclude that our brains are really driving us and that we have no free will. But does that conclusion actually follow?

It’s important to preserve bonds that go beyond contracts or negotiations.

What separates humans from animals? One thing is our ability to use language to create obligations, promises, commitments, and responsibilities.

Through speech acts, we can bring situations into being. Say, for instance, that I promise I’ll visit you tomorrow. When I speak those words, I create an obligation to actually visit you.

Our built environments reflect our attitudes toward ourselves.

The Greek philosopher Aristotle argued that certain entities can only be understood by looking at their final form, or the way they develop to get there. Take an acorn, for example. In the essence of an acorn is an oak tree –⁠ unless something hinders it, the acorn will always develop into an oak rather than a maple or birch tree.

Humans are like this too. It’s in our essence to become persons. Put differently, personhood is our final form – just as an oak is the final form of the acorn. How do we actually grow into persons? By constructing, and metaphysically engaging with, the places in which we live.

We search for – and derive meaning from – subjects in classical music.

Unlike in science, there’s no method that tells us how we should understand art. When we read or watch a Shakespeare play, we don’t conduct experiments to understand it. When we contemplate Michelangelo’s David, we don’t comprehend it by examining the crystal structure of the marble.

Yet evolutionary psychologists now seek to apply their discipline where it doesn’t belong. They claim that art, music, and literature are just adaptations developed to help us pass on our genes –⁠ and that’s that.

Religion helps us confront the weight of life and death.

In physics, whatever we see as “objects” are arrangements of matter making their way from one singularity –⁠ the big bang or first cause –⁠ to another singularity, the end of the universe. The law states that matter is conserved; it’s neither created nor destroyed, but simply transformed.

Yet, in our own lives, we’re constantly confronted by situations that feel like creation or destruction. The most difficult one to conceive of and cope with is, of course, death. We can’t escape the knowledge of our own subjectivity, and yet we know that one day, that subjectivity will end.

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Worum geht es in The Soul of the World?

In an age where science and atheism seek to explain everything we are, The Soul of the World (2014) argues for the continued importance of religion. It doesn’t preach for a particular doctrine; rather, it claims that in art, music, architecture, and interpersonal relations, there is a striving toward the sacred that science alone can’t explain or fulfill. Finally, it argues that by devaluing or ignoring the transcendent, we are willfully giving up one of the very things that makes us human.

Wer The Soul of the World lesen sollte

Atheists, agnostics, and scientists seeking a challenge to their worldview
Conservatives, traditionalists, and religious people
Lovers of philosophy, music, or art

Über den Autor

Roger Scruton was a philosopher and writer acclaimed for his intellectual contributions to modern conservatism. In 1998, he was awarded the Czech Republic’s Medal of Merit for his efforts to fight academic oppression during the Soviet era, and in 2016, he was knighted for his contributions to philosophy and education. Before his death in 2020, he wrote over 50 books, including The Meaning of Conservatism, The Aesthetics of Music, and How to Be a Conservative.

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Philosophy Religion & Spirituality

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