Kaimel Cistile

From Almeopedia

Kaimel Cistile [qa ˈi mɛl ki ˈsti lɛ] is perhaps the most influential of the modern Verdurian philosophers.

1 Biography
- 1.1 Teachings
2 Works
3 Quotations

Biography

Cistile is a descendant of Verdurian nobility. During the realm of Mëranac 1e Abolineron he dedicated himself to what he called ripriroda abcuraynë, "rationalistic philosophy". His goal was to solve the controversies of Caďinorian philosophy.

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Teachings

Cistile declared that the time was right to found a new science (kestora) of the soul, based on araste beďo (painstaking observation, that is, empirical investigation), and fully rejecting superstition and aprioristic philosophical notions. He started from the one physical observation that seemed to support the Caďinorian doctrines of the quadripartite soul, namely that the more clever the animal, the larger (in proportion) the brain, and concluded that itian (soul) was seated solely in the brain, all other organs having only physical functions.

For the problem of spirit and matter, Cistile relied on the distinction between matter (deyon) and energy (čikara) already made by Verdurian physicists. Cistile taught that a living man was physically identical to a corpse, but had the additional property of itian. And it was Cistile's belief that itian acted directly only on čikara, which in turn acted on deyon; this was why living men but not corpses were warm.

Cistile interested himself deeply in medicine and he was the first philosopher to make a connection between brain disease and mental illness; an insane person thus had a healthy itian but a malfunctioning apparatus for expressing it.

From a terrestrial perspective, Cistile may not seem as free of aprioristic prejudice as he hoped to be; but for the Verdurians his analysis was masterful and almost unanswerable. The natural philosophers themselves were glad to have a framework into which to place their own work, and which seemed to answer so many questions, from why men were different from animals to why the brain was so copiously supplied with blood. If there was opposition to Cistile, it was not from materialists (rare in Verduria) but from the other side: more traditional philosophers who preferred the traditional four-part soul, or who resented the rationalistic approach to the sacred mysteries of human reason.

Cistile finished his naturalistic works before he was forty; he devoted the remainder of his long career to the nature of God. His writings on theology, notably Hecu Aďei "The nature of God", are notable for their penetration, their careful reasoning, and their scientific erudition, but are not considered to have broken much new ground; his God was something like the Freudian superego, nagging the itian on to greater rationality and righteousness. Perhaps his most striking suggestion was that the "popular" religious movements, from the 'old worship' to Eleďát, were all inspired by the "true, unknown God".

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