If we examine our world we will find that not only do ideas have consequences, but they have power too. Ideas have started revolutions, oppressed many and killed more. That is why it is important to read the thoughts of Weaver and understand the power of ideas.
Weaver helps us understand the story as he writes:
"This story is eloquently reflected in changes that have come over education. The shift from the truth of the intellect to the facts of experience followed hard upon the meeting with the witches. A little sign appears, "a cloud no bigger than a man’s hand," in a change that came over the study of logic in the fourteenth century-the century of Occam. Logic became grammaticized, passing from a science which taught men vere loqui to one which taught recte loqui or from an ontological division by categories to a study of signification, with the inevitable focus upon historical meanings. Here begins the assault upon definition: if words no longer correspond to objective realities, it seems no great wrong to take liberties with words. From this point on, faith in language as a means of arriving at truth weakens, until our own age, filled with an acute sense of doubt, looks for a remedy in the new science of semantics."
But, semantics would not be the end but the beginning. He writes:
"So with the subject matter of education. The Renaissance increasingly adapted its course of study to produce a successful man of the world, though it did not leave him without philosophy and the graces, for it was still, by heritage, at least, an ideational world and was therefore near enough transcendental conceptions to perceive the dehumanizing effects of specialization. In the seventeenth century physical discovery paved the way for the incorporation of the sciences, although it was not until the nineteenth that these began to challenge the very continuance of the ancient intellectual disciplines. And in this period the change gained momentum, aided by two developments of overwhelming influence. The first was a patent increase in man’s dominion over nature which dazzled all but the most thoughtful; and the second was the growing mandate for popular education. The latter might have proved a good in itself, but it was wrecked on equalitarian democracy’s unsolvable problem of authority: none was in a position to say what the hungering multitudes were to be fed. Finally, in an abject surrender to the situation, in an abdication of the authority of knowledge, came the elective system. This was followed by a carnival of specialism, professionalism, and vocationalism, often fostered and protected by strange bureaucratic devices, so that on the honored name of university there traded a weird con genes of interests, not a few of which were anti-intellectual even in their pretensions."
And, there it is; the story of mankind's passage from religious beings to philosophical beings. Many will acknowledge this passage as positive and good, but a closer look will reveal another passage. This one is the passage from morality to decadence. And, like it or not, that is where we find ourselves today. Weaver paints an accurate picture of this story. One every Christian should read in order to understand current culture. Blessings!
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