2008/10/03

Entelechy

As stated at Merriam Webster dictionary ( http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/entelechy ), Entelechy is a philosophical concept (concerning actualization ...) not still proof by science. Between Philosophy and Science there is a gap filled with Metaphysics. Entelechy should dwell in this area.

There is a kind of scientists called positivists that rejects every concept not verifiable directly through experiments. Positivism do not believe in Metaphysics nor Philosophy nor Entelechy. But not all scientists are positivists.

Diversity is vital to tackle unresolved problems. If we censor a point of view for a still unresolved problem we may be censoring the truth, and that is a jackass risk. In the USA culture we find two points of view when approaching the life evolution problem: Creationism and Darwinism. The existence of this diversity warrants an opportunity for the truth someday to be discovered.

In another democratic countries, like mine, things are different. Science diversity, Philosophical diversity and Religious diversity are not preserved. Here, the truth has less opportunities to survive.

Shame on my country. I look for the Entelechy definition in my official language dictionary. I find two definitions. First one is like Merrian Webster's. Second one is literally this quotation: "Not real". You heard it right, you read it right: "Not real". In my country an entelechy is an unreal thing. Shame on my country.

But that is not all. Watching TV in my country, we find public debates. In them, when someone wants to discredit another people argument, he utters: "that you said is an entelechy". So, current use of the word "entelechy" is an equivalent to the word "nonsense" or "idiocy".

Bottom line: my country's dictionary and public opinion are stating that:

1.- Metaphysics is a nonsense.
2.- Philosophy is a nonsense.
3.- Aristotle (Aristotle is who invented the concept entelechy) was stupid.
4.- Everybody in this country must be positivist.

Well, this is a scenario with no diversity, where truth has important difficulties to be taken into account.

In my country, creationism is such a nonsense as an entelechy. And that is funny, because it is precisely what Aristotle wanted to mean when he defined entelechy in its book "On the Soul" ("De Anima"). Aristotle metaphysics states that "the soul is the entelechy of the body". And that is what creationism claim: an aim, a goal, an intention, a purpose, an also called teleology, in the origin of life due to something called "soul".

Teaching Creationism in schools is a debate in USA, meanwhile it is an scandal in my country TV news: "Look at that Americans! Creationism in their schools! Are they out of their minds?". Shame on my totalitarian analphabetic country...

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