The Enchanted Imagination

Part 1, The Ontological to Epistemological Shift

Since the publication of Hunting Magic Eels I've continued to ponder the contrasts between enchantment and disenchantment. 

Specifically, how does enchantment perceive and approach the world differently from a disenchanted perspective? In Hunting Magic Eels I argue that much of the contrast is due to attention. If so, where is attention being directed in the enchanted versus disenchanted experience? In this series I'd like to set out some of those contrasts.

To start, let me describe today what I'll call the "ontological-to-epistemological shift." 

The common story you hear about the scientific revolution is that it ended the era of enchantment. And while that's true, at least for many modern people, it leaves a huge question unanswered. Specifically, why did science have this effect?

Many things can be talked about here. Perhaps the most discussed issue is how science disputed literal readings of the Bible, calling its sacred infallibility into question. Once a hole was poked in the Bible a Pandora's box of unbelief and skepticism was opened. All the effort put into "Creation science" by fundamentalist Christians is an attempt to close that Pandora's box.

A related issue, which I'll talk more about in this series, is the one I highlight in Hunting Magic Eels, how science, especially Newtonian mechanics, changed the way we perceived the cosmos. Discovering the inviolate and universal "laws of nature" caused us to imagine the cosmos as a deterministic machine, ticking along like a mechanical watch. The "laws of nature" made the universe seem sufficient unto itself, putting the intimate providence of God at a remove. Theism gave way to Deism, which opened the path to atheism.

All this is true and has been widely discussed. But today I'd like to highlight a different sort of attentional shift caused by science that facilitated disenchantment.

Prior to the scientific revolution, ontology was a source of philosophical and theological contemplation. Being itself was a question to ponder. Existence itself was a source of wonderment and awe. The fundamental question of ontology--Why is there something rather than nothing?--kept philosophers and theologians busy.

But with the onset of the scientific revolution, philosophy turned away from ontology to epistemology, turned away from being to knowledge. The mystery of existence was set aside to consider issues of justification and proof. Plato declared that philosophy begins with wonder. And much of that wonder was the shock of existence itself. No longer! Modern philosophy doesn't concern itself with ontological wonder. The question "Why is there something rather than nothing?" is marginalized, too child-like, a non-starter, beyond the bounds of serious modern scholarship. Modern philosophy is concerned with epistemology: What can we prove, know, justify and verify?

Science turned our attention away from the mystery of being--and Being itself--to the issues of justification, knowledge and proof. Science caused philosophy to become empirical, concerned with justifying claims about beings (material objects within the universe) than about the Source of Being Itself. And in doing so, philosophy turned away from ontological wonder. 

Disenchantment flows out of an attentional focus upon the justification of empirical claims about objects within the universe. That is to say, disenchantment brackets questions of ontology to focus upon epistemology, mostly the claims of science. 

Enchantment, by contrast, is ontological wonder, experiencing the halo of awe and the corona of mystery that crackles around the dark shadow of science. Enchantment is ontological attention to the Source of Being.