Communicating paradigmatic intellectual orientations: the mediating role of persistent theme
Loading...
Date
2015
Authors
Strauss, D. F. M.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Department of Communication Science, University of the Free State
Abstract
All humans have the capacity to live in organised societies and to communicate the
basic patterns of such societies to forthcoming generations. If they are accompanied
by persistent themes operative within intellectual traditions and passed on to
subsequent intellectual trends, then the ongoing power of paradigmatic orientations
is demonstrated. This article focuses on the historically mediated communication
of two opposing but powerful paradigmatic views on the relation between human
beings and human society. Atomistic or individualistic approaches will be contrasted
with holistic or universalistic views. The historical connection will be traced as
persistent themes present in the paradigmatic stance of Greek thinkers (such as
Callicles, Protagoras, Plato and Aristotle), medieval intellectuals (Augustine and
Thomas Aquinas), transitional figures (William of Ockham, Jean of Jandun and
Marsilius of Padua), modern thinkers (Hobbes, Locke and Kant), the switch from
Enlightenment rationalism and individualism to the irrationalistic individualism
of early Romanticism, and the full-blown Romantic emphasis on an irrationalistic
universalism (the transpersonal national spirit of each people, Volk – Von Schlegel,
Herder, Hegel and Fichte). After considering the subsequent communication of
some relevant turns during the 19th and 20th century, it will be briefly pointed out that
human nature does not determine societal structures, just as little as one or another
societal entity (the Volk, state or church) embraces individuals or the other societal
collectivities and communities fully as integral parts. When persistent paradigmatic
themes are communicated to later scholars (Holton) amidst changing historical
contexts, the directing power of diverging basic motives and the inevitability of
communicative historical continuity is amply demonstrated.
Description
Keywords
Atomism/individualism, Holism/universalism, Nominalism, Form-matter motive, Nature-grace motive, Nature-freedom motive, Rationalism, Irrationalism
Citation
Strauss, D. F. M. (2015). Communicating paradigmatic intellectual orientations: the mediating role of persistent theme. Communitas, 20, 26-44.