Richard Sheriff Jones

Beliefs and Human Values: a Minimalist Philosophy of Values Richard Sheriff Jones

Young people enter adult life confronted with an endless confusion of ideas and beliefs, many of which have come down to us since primitive humans first walked on the earth. When some Greeks stopped believing in ideas from mythology and observed the world about them, they invented science and then philosophy. By the time of the Enlightenment, it was thought that further advances in science and philosophy would make it possible, if not at that time, then at some future date, to replace the beliefs of primitive humans and the very different beliefs of the scholastics in the Middle Ages with certain knowledge based on logic and mathematics. But the Romantic Age that followed destroyed that approach to understanding the universe. Societies in the West have since become semi-detached from their traditional beliefs and values as a consequence of the mingling of diverse cultures and their beliefs, together with advances in science. Science forges ahead but progress in philosophy since the Romantic Age has been slow and uncertain, and many today think that little further progress is possible. During the course of these discussions, it is shown that this conclusion is wrong and suggests why belief and reason, which are the only weapons of understanding available to us, have so easily led to error. The author examines the historical and religious background to these problems and suggests solutions based on current knowledge that are relevant to the welfare of individuals living in western societies today.