The naturalisation of history as a response to the problem of evil

Abstract

The Enlightenment is generally thought to be a significant break from the tradition that preceded it. Enlightenment thinkers proudly declared that the time of deference to the authority of tradition (most of all religious tradition) was over, as we shall determine our values not by following the word of authorities, but through our faculty of reason. It is the opinion of this essay that the Post-Enlightenment value determinations fail to live up to this claim because we still lean heavily on myth in our discourse of values. This reliance on myths results in a pervasive naturalisation in the discourse of values. Consequentially, our socio-political history is distorted such that it takes on the appearance of nature; a product of the way the natural world simply is. The Problem of Evil is amongst Western Philosophy’s oldest problems and while it is typically engaged as a logical problem pertaining to the incommensurability of the existence of God and the existence of evil, this essay aims to address what this problem means in the context of myth and naturalisation pervading our discourse of values. By employing a number of concepts from the work of Quentin Meillassoux, this essay elucidates how myth still dominates our discourse of values, as a response to the anxieties posed by what we nominally refer to as ‘evil’, as well as providing a rationale explaining the dangers of this state of discourse.