After Kant’s influence, some thinkers continued down the path of attempting to only use reason to understand the world. They concluded that there were no ultimate answers, because reason alone couldn’t give us ultimate answers, but reason could at least help us do science. They focused their philosophy predominantly on the physical realm, the phenomena of nature. If you reject the transcendent realm and limit yourself to only nature, you are likely to conclude that there is no ultimate truth. Because of this, the mechanical view of the world began to gain influence – viewing the world as nothing more than a machine controlled by the laws of nature. The theory of evolution was a pivotal development in this area, because it alleged that humans were just physical machines themselves, just a part of the larger machine of nature. These reductionistic views caused people to view things like morality, love, art, beauty, meaning, purpose, and humanity itself as not really valuable in and of themselves but merely as expressions of how nature and evolution had programmed us.
© Adam Lloyd Johnson and Convincing Proof.