The choice of one's philosophy seems to be more a matter of taste than of truth.
Often the matter of truth does not seem to be quite clearly distinguishable from the matter of taste.
You often see it in acquaintances when they talk about their philosophers and philosophies. It all fits together. You know their preferences and character and the choice of their philosophy is not a big surprise.
If you are honest with yourself, you will see it in yourself. You can ask yourself, what does this philosopher have that the other philosopher doesn't have? Answer: He appeals to you more.
That is why the German philosopher Fichte rightly says:
“What sort of philosophy one chooses depends, therefore, on what sort of man one is; for a philosophical system is not a dead piece of furniture that we can accept or reject as we wish, it is rather a thing animated by the soul of the person who holds it.” (Johann Gottlieb Fichte)
There are simply people who are more inclined to pessimism, others to philosophical optimism. Some are more oriented towards the concrete, others more towards the very abstract. Then there are those who prefer to proceed analytically and others prefer to proceed continentally synthetically. There are many who prefer a poetic philosophy, many others like it very dry and prefer gray theory. Some love only the deconstruction of everything, the epistemic nihilism, others would rather dwell in their thoughts in a well-constructed theoretical edifice built on solid foundations.
Sometimes one chooses one's philosopher merely because they write in a clearly understandable way, others find it superficial and embrace the obscure. And so on and so forth.
Schopenhauer has also already seen that there is often a polarity of thinking distributed among people:
"A certain affinity, or at least a parallelism of opposites, becomes evident when one contrasts Plato with Aristotle, Augustine with Pelagius, and the realists with the nominalists. One could claim that, in a way, a polar divergence in the human way of thinking manifests itself in this – which, strangely enough, expressed itself for the first time and most emphatically in two eminently great men who lived simultaneously and side by side." (Arthur Schopenhauer Parerga and Paralipomena Short Philosophical Essays Volume 1 Translated and Edited by Sabine Roehr Christopher Janaway §10. Scholasticism Fragments for the history of philosophy)
A certain relativism cannot be denied here. It seems to be objectively given. Individuals are the standards of their chosen philosophy. Everyone truly needs to realize this.
You often see it in acquaintances when they talk about their philosophers and philosophies. It all fits together. You know their preferences and character and the choice of their philosophy is not a big surprise.
If you are honest with yourself, you will see it in yourself. You can ask yourself, what does this philosopher have that the other philosopher doesn't have? Answer: He appeals to you more.
That is why the German philosopher Fichte rightly says:
“What sort of philosophy one chooses depends, therefore, on what sort of man one is; for a philosophical system is not a dead piece of furniture that we can accept or reject as we wish, it is rather a thing animated by the soul of the person who holds it.” (Johann Gottlieb Fichte)
There are simply people who are more inclined to pessimism, others to philosophical optimism. Some are more oriented towards the concrete, others more towards the very abstract. Then there are those who prefer to proceed analytically and others prefer to proceed continentally synthetically. There are many who prefer a poetic philosophy, many others like it very dry and prefer gray theory. Some love only the deconstruction of everything, the epistemic nihilism, others would rather dwell in their thoughts in a well-constructed theoretical edifice built on solid foundations.
Sometimes one chooses one's philosopher merely because they write in a clearly understandable way, others find it superficial and embrace the obscure. And so on and so forth.
Schopenhauer has also already seen that there is often a polarity of thinking distributed among people:
"A certain affinity, or at least a parallelism of opposites, becomes evident when one contrasts Plato with Aristotle, Augustine with Pelagius, and the realists with the nominalists. One could claim that, in a way, a polar divergence in the human way of thinking manifests itself in this – which, strangely enough, expressed itself for the first time and most emphatically in two eminently great men who lived simultaneously and side by side." (Arthur Schopenhauer Parerga and Paralipomena Short Philosophical Essays Volume 1 Translated and Edited by Sabine Roehr Christopher Janaway §10. Scholasticism Fragments for the history of philosophy)
A certain relativism cannot be denied here. It seems to be objectively given. Individuals are the standards of their chosen philosophy. Everyone truly needs to realize this.
Comments (108)
I have often wondered about this and have written here that temperament and aesthetics probably inform people's choices. I'm fairly certain people with strong beliefs often choose the philosophy or school that most supports the ideas they have already determined to be true or reflective of reality. How far does this go?
But to Banno's point - this ain't a brilliant thing for the philosophical enterprise if accurate.
If true, it raises follow up questions - can this be overcome or dealt with in some way? How is it identified?
Can we make an effort to read and understand thinkers we are not drawn to? What should matter is the quality of the content, not whether it appeals, but I guess it could be argued that even our ability to sit with some ideas and not with others may rest with personal taste.
From my own perspective I am personally struck by this from Nietzsche's The Gay Science
We have arranged for ourselves a world in which we can live - by positing bodies, lines, planes, causes and effects, motion and rest, form and content; without these articles of faith nobody now could endure life. But that does not prove them. Life is no argument. The conditions of life might include error.”
Quoting Tom Storm
Only if they call into question those vital philosophical positions which one is drawn to. How could one so troubled not?
There is no denying that deep psychological preferences do weigh on one's attitudes toward people and life, but if philosophy is to be a logical enterprise then philosophy can just as easily act to correct tendencies to be governed by our guts. This was Plato's hope for the philosopher perhaps because he was more rational and rationally oriented than those others you mention.
Rationally there is no reason to stick to any one philosophy. Just look at the sciences. Is there just one science? When people do stick with one science can they deny all other sciences? Why not? When people do stick with once science can they deny all other sciences? Isn't that answer also applicable to philosophy?
Fair point. You would hope intellectual honesty was the winner.
The true philosophy is one that somehow reconciles all of those different “tastes” together into a single cohesive whole. Optimistic and pessimistic in the ways that each of those is practical. Bridging the abstract to the concrete, the analytic to the synthetic. Both mathematical and artful, well-structured but also well-presented. Breaking old things down and building new things up out of those parts. Etc.
Taste may decide which direction we fail at philosophy, but succeeding at it requires overcoming such biases.
There is One True Philosophy?
Why should we think that?
Well said. The only thing I would add is about how "truth" actually functions in our thinking. "Truth" is not unaffected by for example whether someone is an eternal optimist or dark pessimist. There is no such thing as looking at the world objectively, I can make fact-based arguments for contradictory descriptions and characterisations. How we interpret things, what we emphasise, what we see as important, they're going to be important premises in our positions but it's not objectively wrong if one chooses to emphasise the good things or the bad things, what we know or what we don't know, and so on.
The trouble is with those who view their fact-based arguments as backed up by truth rather than just including true things. It's not the same as talking about an actual fact.
My view is that philosophy should be considered conditional, how one evaluates their choices is part of the process. Personally, I see philosophy as though we were cooking and it was just one ingredient, we're trying to make a great dish. I allow people to make their own arguments for what type of ingredient they want and what a "great dish" is. I don't feel threatened by others not having the same answers as me.
This also has an absurdist touch to it. Some people would be happy about it, others afraid.
Perhaps one can say that many philosophies are not so far away from each other, if one looks more closely. I have found, for example, that Neoplatonic thought is present in many seemingly incompatible philosophies. More ancient Hindu philosophy, even medieval Scholasticism, German Idealism including Schopenhauer up to New Age thinkers and Woo Woo esotericists like Deepak Chopra are somehow hanging on the same big philosophical branch and should, if they make an effort, understand each other.
Quoting Tom Storm
Out of respect and humanity alone, one should give the other person at least a brief hearing. That is my opinion.
As - not that there is one true philosophical system, or one true philosopher, but that the ‘vision of unity’ is at the heart of true philosophy. The Greek word ‘Cosmos’ means ‘unified whole’ notwithstanding that in current science the unified vision has been totally fragmented. Although I suspect that is probably a little too cosmic for plain-language philosophy.
Or perspectivism. I think, the term relativism does also work, if it is understood as a view, according to which every insight is only relatively (conditioned by the viewpoint of the interpreter) valid, but might never be universally true.
That's a nice picture. But do you think it's ever feasible? For one cannot agree even on the deepest philosophical foundations. Whoever says that non-being is always and in every form and without form preferable to being, does not come to a common denominator with someone who says that being is better in and for itself and in every manifestation than non-being.
According to my theory, however, your vision could be achievable if people become more and more alike and similar. That is not excluded, provided that one believes in biological and also cultural evolution. The corners and edges in the different personalities, which corners and edges just seem to dispose philosophically haphazardly, are carried off so slowly until everything is smooth and equal. All would then devote themselves in the future merely to the one philosophy.
Yes, it is especially problematic when some want to passive-aggressively impose their philosophy on others.
This totality stuff again? The "one complete" map of the territory is the territory itself, which is useless as a map and therefore why we make and use abstractions – simplifications – of the territory in the first place. The one is many but the many is not one – how could it be (e.g. Eudoxus' exhaustion method, the continuum hypothesis, incompleteness theorems (re: Gödel & Chaitin), lack of absolute reference frame (locality, SR), computational irreducibility)? Sorry, Pfhorrest, I don't see how philosophy can, in the end, do anything other than reflectively problematize the ineluctability of ignorance (which the above theoretical discourses corroborate) rather than discovering / uncovering / justifying "the one truth".
I use these terms / distinctions a little more precisely:
C checks and yet extends B while also deflating / defeating A. YMMV.
The idea of one's philosophy being a matter of taste suggests that it is completely subjective, as being a matter of attraction, like taste in music, or what people one is attracted to. It would really involve attitudes, but probably an intuitive leanings towards certain ideas and ideals. In some ways, I am sure that we choose to adopt certain views on the basis of attitudes and what we like or dislike. This is connected with values.
But, if philosophy is only entered into in this way, surely it would be rather shallow, and avoid any real attempt to understand life and the questions of existence. I think that it is important to be aware of personal attitudes and how they play a role. In a way, each person is trying to construct a philosophy to find a way of living meaningfully, so is entitled to choose what to believe. However, if those ideas are to be a serious endeavor to understand, and exchange ideas I believe that it is not worth engaging in if it is just like supporting one's favourite football team or rock band.
:clap:
This kinda paradoxical situation arises precisely when we lack definitive answers to questions in a given area/subject/discipline. Why is it a paradox? It's one because philosophy goes all out of its way to project an image of absolute objectivity and attempts to maintain a safe distance from subjectivity, a concept cognate with taste/personal preference but, try as philosophers might, their attempts to remain objective has not borne the expected fruits. Thus, not surprisingly, they've given their subjective side just the right amount of freedom to, well, do what it wants, no strings attached, no questions asked.
That said, philosophy, it appears, is a very broad discipline and though it might've begun with the spirit of fairness in judgement, it has, over the centuries, acquired a new persona that not only tolerates but also encourages the study of subjective human experiences. This, as far as I'm aware, has spawned a new generation of thinkers investigating the subjective aspects of our mind and how they impact/bear on our relationship to the world. In the simplest sense, philosophy treats tastes/personal preferences as perfectly legit domains of inquiry and also warmly embraces anything that might be all subjectivity and no objectivity.
I’m not sure we really overcome such biases entirely, though - at least, it’s difficult to articulate this level of objectivity. I think we can be aware of them and adjust for them, but it’s always interpreted as relative. You and I might consider our understanding to be unbiased, but I think that our reductive methodology - that is, how we render our thoughts as words or actions - will be largely a matter of taste.
I don’t think this is necessarily failing at philosophy. I think people can only evaluate someone else’s philosophy based on their own interpretation of the words or actions, which are a limited aspect of the entire process.
Personally, I think what philosophy might be moving towards is a logical and qualitative structure that enables the most accurate awareness of, and adjustment for, the energy biases in our interactions.
These biases are a large part of English language use, requiring the kind of linguistic acrobatics that took us through Russell and Wittgenstein, among others. I think they demonstrated that writing a complete philosophy which would either eliminate or overcome such biases is an exercise in futility. Some aspect will always be missing, which I think is whatever we hold back or reject of ourselves as irrelevant to the philosophy as described.
Any philosophy that hopes to ‘succeed’ in written form will need to not only account for what is missing - a lesson in humility, no doubt - but also make ‘space’ for diverse interpretations from bias.
Why do you disagree with people (and publicly ridicule them etc.), if not because you believe there is One True Philosophy (which also happens to be yours)?
That is not a more precise use of the term, it is a stipulated use. Not all relativism accepts the claim that all truths are equally justified, but rather, take the position that all justification is relative. There is no fixed standard by which we judge an invariant world. These are the conditions in which we judge.
Joseph Margolis has written extensively on this.
http://www.escholarship.org/editions/view?docId=ft2779n7t4;query=;brand=ucpress
http://www.escholarship.org/editions/view?docId=ft209nb0kk&brand=ucpress
http://www.escholarship.org/editions/view?docId=ft6t1nb4gf;query=;brand=ucpress
I think that we start in the middle of our webs of beliefs and find our way down to our respective foundations that we think underlie those middling beliefs, and that there is necessarily much in common in those middling beliefs if we share enough of our worlds in common to even be communicating with each other in the first place, so we can (if everyone is open to trying) find common foundations that work for the purposes that we’ve chosen all our different foundations for. In your above example, it’s possible that both of those sides are wrong — but they both think they’re right for good reasons, and the actual truth will be whatever accords with all of those good reasons at once, which is probably neither of their competing views but some creative new solution.
Quoting Possibility
I agree that it’s not possible to ever conclusively finish overcoming them, but we can in principle make progress in that direction, overcome some of them, reconcile some apparent dichotomies, ruling out some extremes, and narrowing down the range of possibilities. It is still always a range though, so there always remains more narrowing-down to be done.
My philosophical views do not reflect my tastes. I had no desire to believe in God, and no vested interest in doing so, yet now I do due to philosophical reflection. Lots of my views are like this. Don't you change your views when you encounter arguments for views you do not yet hold yet cannot refute?
Of course, many are not like this and decide approximately what's true in advance of philosophical investigation and then look to philosophy to provide them with rationalizations of their convictions. But those people are not really doing philosophy. For they are not trying to follow reason but trying to get reason to follow them.
Looking for a common denominator is a reductionist methodology - you can’t move from disagreement to common denominator without first reaching for an agreement, a common space of meaning. In terms of being/non-being, that comes from acknowledging that, despite your preference, neither exists in and for itself, but that they exist only in relation to each other. So ‘better’ is a personal preference that has no bearing on objective reality, on what’s possible.
Quoting spirit-salamander
I think you’re assuming that other personalities objectively have corners and edges (but not yours), that you can accurately define or judge them by these, and that your perception of that corner or edge is not just an indication of your own limited awareness. Ultimately, this sounds like essentialism. if everyone just ignored their differences, and focused ONLY on what we have in common, then we’d all get along...How ignorant and isolated would we need to be to perceive everything as ‘smooth and equal’?
Yes, this is likely true. And in a way, it makes sense. A good deal of philosophy deals with questions for which we have no answers for. To account for this we must take up a certain attitude in relation to these matters and since there is likely no way to settle (at lost some) if not many of these issues empirically, we are left with intuition and personal dispositions.
Thus those who dislike being faced with such problems can adopt a linguistic attitude and attempt to clarify or dissolve them.
Those who think that since science has solved a good many issues and will to do so can adopt a scientistic or quasi-verificationist method.
Those who think that one cannot make sense of the world absent human being will go to idealistic varieties.
Then there are people who think the world is so strange that it makes no sense to give it a label might be persuaded to take a neutralistic or naturalistic view.
And many, many variations of the above mentioned and some not named end up being whatever we take philosophy to be. But to profess "objectivity", completely devoid of our inclinations, proclivities and everything else is another kind of philosophical outlook. One which I think isn't really attainable.
But all this is what makes the topic interesting to me. If all we had to do with every possible human problem was to look at the evidence, and nothing else, then there'd be nothing to say. And that would make everything boring. Or so it looks like to me.
Quoting Fooloso4
Other than grammatically, I don't see any significant difference between our respective definitions.
I'm in agreement with this.
Quoting spirit-salamander
Aside from truths and tastes, there’s also explanatory power involved. Here personal tastes lend themselves to what is deemed most in need of explaining.
As one general example that is readily apparent on this forum: The physicalist finds consciousness (by which I mean nothing more than the firsthand faculty of awareness) to be much ado about nothing, being primarily interested in maximally explaining that aspect of awareness’s environment which is equally applicable to all sentient beings, both affectively and effectively, and so which does not sway to the whims of any one being or cohort of such. This being what we term physical reality. To the non-physicalist, physicalism-grounded explanations fail to adequately account for givens that are deemed by such temperaments to be most pertinent: things like justice, beauty, meaning, reasoning, happiness - value in general - which are deemed contingent upon awareness and requisite for the evaluation of anything, including of that which we deem to be physical.
Once a system is obtained that explains that which one’s temperament deems most valuable, confirmation biases ensue. And here various truths are filtered in favor of maintaining the system of explanation that most assists oneself in making sense of existence. Thereby, that system of explanations which best helps one to live. I’m by no means any exception to this bias.
If there were to be a theory of everything in philosophy, it would need to explain everything to a t: both real and fictional, both metaphysical and physical, and so on. Thereby holding complete explanatory power for everything - for that which our own temperaments value as well as that which we find no great value in, though it be valuable to others.
Till then, if ever realizable, we can intend to better approximate this ideal. Or not. But I would not consider the latter lovers of wisdom.
You’re missing the very essence of understanding. You’re mistaking the pre-condition for comprehending anything with some sort of flaw, which is the point Nietzsche is trying to make. But you’re not alone here. There are never ending laments on this site about ‘prejudice’, ‘bias, the appeal of ‘emotion ‘ over objectivity. What you’re calling ‘personal taste’ is the result of the fact that the understanding of anything new must be based on compatibility with a pre-existing frame of reference. What makes us drawn to certain thing s over others is our ability to relate to them, to find them relevant and significant to our concerns. Something appeals to us because it matters to us, and it matters to us because it is comprehensible and meaningful in relation to how we see the world. Things and events completely outside of our worldview not only don’t matter to us, they are entirely invisible to us. This isn’t something unique to philosophy, it’s how scientific knowledge functions as well, which is what Kuhn was getting at.
Are you saying there is an alternative to this ‘bias’? If sense-making is a bias , what is the alternative to sense-making?
Quoting javra
I thought that every comprehensive philosophy in history, from Plato through Kant and Heidegger, did just that, explaining everything to a t. As Heidegger and Nietzsche would argue, all forms of understandings are value systems. A value system isn’t based on ephemeral ‘temperament’ , but represents a qualitative gestalt that organizes all the details of our experience in a meaningful way. There is no such thing as a value-independent fact.
The reason that theories of everything end up getting replaced is that ‘the ‘ everything’ they are describing isn’t a static set of facts but is constantly evolving, because we are a part of this everything and are constantly evolving
The last thing philosophy needs to be is a ‘logical enterprise’. That would divest it of everything meaningful it could say about the world.
Nietzsche would suggest that’s because there is nothing to distinguish. Truth is nothing but valuation masquerading as a universal.
Joshs, Interesting! I'm not sure this actually changes what I said, it only adjusts the terminology and perhaps clarifies a point or two. But I wasn't going for depth.
So my 'preexisting frame of reference' (personal taste) makes them 'significant to my concerns' (worldview).
Things outside this worldview are 'entirely invisible' to me. Well, some are and some are not. Some are shadows and shapes.
And yes, that's precisely my point.
Now here's the thing. I have sometimes been made to read something (I did not want to consider) by someone (work/friendship/associates) and it has significantly changed or enlarged my worldview. I'm pretty sure we can behave in ways which trigger such moments more often.
To render the invisible visible (your word) is something I believe can be done by exposure to ideas and philosophy not to one's taste - and that essentially was the nature of my comment, which you nicely deconstructed for me.
Hmm, by “truth filtering” I was referring to forsaking certain truths that don’t cohere into one’s system of explanation in favor of those truths that do. And not to "sense-making". As one possible example, that the human mind is inherently teleological, goal-driven, thereby granting teleology an ontological reality, is a truth that is filtered out of the picture by all those whose system of explanations holds no place for teleology in the cosmos. To the latter, teleology is bogus, fictional, illusory, and so forth, even though they have goals in mind in so conceiving. Such as that of establishing what is and is not real.
As to an alternative, it's difficult if at all possible to establish, but it would be that of not denying the reality of truths which don’t fit in with one’s currently held system of explanations - regardless of how much damage this would do to one's presently held system of explanation. Fallibilism, what the ancient Greeks termed “skepticism” - which, unlike Cartesian skepticism, is in no way contingent upon doubts - can help to better establish such state of mind.
Quoting Joshs
Even by this account, their so called explanation of everything failed to explain everything: here, failed to explain the evolution of everything. Thereby in fact not being explanations of everything.
[quote=Adorno's moral philosophy; https://iep.utm.edu/adorno/#H4]Adorno’s moral philosophy is similarly concerned with the effects of ‘enlightenment’ upon both the prospects of individuals leading a ‘morally good life’ and philosophers’ ability to identify what such a life may consist of. Adorno argues that the instrumentalization of reason has fundamentally undermined both. He argues that social life in modern societies no longer coheres around a set of widely espoused moral truths and that modern societies lack a moral basis. What has replaced morality as the integrating ‘cement’ of social life are instrumental reasoning and the exposure of everyone to the capitalist market. According to Adorno, modern, capitalist societies are fundamentally nihilistic, in character; opportunities for leading a morally good life and even philosophically identifying and defending the requisite conditions of a morally good life have been abandoned to instrumental reasoning and capitalism. Within a nihilistic world, moral beliefs and moral reasoning are held to have no ultimately rational authority: moral claims are conceived of as, at best, inherently subjective statements, expressing not an objective property of the world, but the individual’s own prejudices. Morality is presented as thereby lacking any objective, public basis. The espousal of specific moral beliefs is thus understood as an instrument for the assertion of one’s own, partial interests: morality has been subsumed by instrumental reasoning. Adorno attempts to critically analyse this condition. He is not a nihilist, but a critic of nihilism.
Adorno’s account of nihilism rests, in large part, on his understanding of reason and of how modern societies have come to conceive of legitimate knowledge. He argues that morality has fallen victim to the distinction drawn between objective and subjective knowledge. Objective knowledge consists of empirically verifiable ‘facts’ about material phenomena, whereas subjective knowledge consists of all that remains, including such things as evaluative and normative statements about the world. On this view, a statement such as ‘I am sitting at a desk as I write this essay’ is of a different category to the statement ‘abortion is morally wrong’. The first statement is amenable to empirical verification, whereas the latter is an expression of a personal, subjective belief. Adorno argues that moral beliefs and moral reasoning have been confined to the sphere of subjective knowledge. He argues that, under the force of the instrumentalization of reason and positivism, we have come to conceive of the only meaningfully existing entities as empirically verifiable facts: statements on the structure and content of reality. Moral values and beliefs, in contrast, are denied such a status. Morality is thereby conceived of as inherently prejudicial in character so that, for example, there appears to be no way in which one can objectively and rationally resolve disputes between conflicting substantive moral beliefs and values. Under the condition of nihilism one cannot distinguish between more or less valid moral beliefs and values since the criteria allowing for such evaluative distinctions have been excluded from the domain of subjective knowledge.[/quote]
Bolds added. It seems to me that an awful lot of the debates on this forum reflect this analysis.
Quoting Adorno's moral philosophy
I'm not sure if moral beliefs were any easier to discern before rationalism - pre-democratic, verging on monolithic cultures, nurtured less diversity.
I agree that temperament is a strong determiner of philosophical approach. I'm an engineer - genetically, psychologically, spiritually. Pragmatism, otherwise known as engineering philosophy, works for me.
Quoting Tom Storm
I don't think it's a bad thing. It's inevitable and reasonable. What I believe reflects my heart, my mind, and my soul. Somebody said:
Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal sense; for the inmost in due time becomes the outmost,--and our first thought, is rendered back to us by the trumpets of the Last Judgment.
Quoting Tom Storm
I like the quote, and it's right. There is not just one correct way of looking at things. Our philosophy has to let us live our lives. One philosophical approach will never supersede all others without coercion. Philosophy isn't about winning a fight, it's about searching for the best path forward.
I think it’s a consequence of liberal individualism where the individual is the arbiter of morality. The arguments on this subject often revolves around whether there’s an ‘objective’ moral code. But then, science is held to be the authority as to what is ‘objectively the case’, but it only falls on the ‘fact’ side of the ‘fact-value’ dichotomy. However if you propose a transcendent source of values, that usually provokes ‘what do you mean’ or ‘according to whom’ and the strong presumption that you’re therefore ‘theist’. A lot follows from that.
Now, sure, I hear this idea that in theory 'the good' is in some way connected to, or emanates from a transcendent source. But what is the precise advantage of saying that morality is founded on something when there's no clarity about what that something stands for or might require from people in terms of moral behaviour?
It sounds to me as if moral concerns - divorce, abortion, capital punishment, gay rights, euthanasia, roles for women, environment - are matters for secular debate. As in fact they generally have been, often dragging theisms into a more compassionate and humane world, but let's not go there.
Incidentally, in case we are heading here, can we wait a bit before we go down the path of where human rights and the 'sacred' status of human beings originate?
What you say may be true. I think it's important to be honest with oneself first. I have certain philosophers that I believe are closer to the truth. But these philosophers have also appealed to me "tastefully". When I introduced them to others, I often heard them say: I don't like that, and the interest of the others was quickly gone.
Rightly you say the following about them:
Quoting Bartricks
Perhaps there is a certain dialectic at play: I hold this philosophy to be true because I like it, and I like it because I hold it to be true.
Quoting Bartricks
The question is, how exactly did your intellectual development proceed? Perhaps one would be able to psychologically uncover taste dispositions during this time.
You're right, I was probably thinking more along the lines of "decorative" philosophy.
I do technically agree with most of this - even though you and I rarely agree.
I will say, however, that this God you now believe in consists of a formless quality that you attribute to a certain language structure of three letters. How you might describe or define ‘God’ is then a matter of taste.
I also think that you’re willing to ignore or exclude feeling or desire for the sake of logic, but this is arguably a narrow reasoning. I get that you’re trying to ‘follow reason’, but I’m afraid we’re really not as rational in word and action as we might assume. We only appear rational by projecting affect or emotion outward as ‘logical’ judgement or evaluation.
My own philosophical reflection might have been a mirror image to yours. Except it brought me instead from an existing belief in God to a broader understanding that I hold, despite a desire to believe. I cannot refute the existence of ‘God’, as you say, but nor can I refute its non-existence. Logic would insist that only one of these can be true, and yet nothing but ignorance or judgement either way would tip the scales. My philosophy, therefore, must allow for both possibilities, even as I’m aware that my words or actions at any time will always be interpreted as if only one is true.
So, despite what reason tells me, I cannot ‘follow reason’ with entirely rational action. I can only render reasoning with affect, logically excluding one possibility or another. Any attempt to explain such an inclusive philosophy seems paradoxical, contradictory or illogical. Which is how I think you justify a change in view by ignoring the equally unrefuted possibility that ‘God’ does NOT exist.
I’m not really interested in an argument about the existence of ‘God’. I merely wanted to illustrate what I see as a distinction between reason and logic. Logic is arguably as much a matter of taste as Shakespeare’s timeless question.
In order to point out the error of their ideas.
It’s an interesting issue. Negative emotions like fear, threat and anger mark our response to events that we are not able to comfortably assimilate into our existing worldview. In other words, ideas and ways of being that are just beyond the frontiers of our thinking, which represent opportunities for personal growth , are precisely what we instinctively flee from. We can’t just force ourselves to embrace such unassimilables, at least not without some way to make what appears incoherent understandable. Otherwise personal chaos results. The best one can do is to believe in principle that there are many equally valid ways of construing situations , and to approach what appears threatening in a piecemeal fashion.
The difference is more than merely grammatical. To say that all justification is relative is not necessarily to say that all justification is equal.Just as to say that all aesthetic judgement is relative is not to say that all works of art are equal.
But if one’s system of explanation functions as a unity, like a scientific paradigm , then it wouldn’t be a question of seeing certain truths and then making a decision to foresake them , but of not having a coherent glimpse of them in the first place. Kuhn said that events that fall
outside of the scope of a paradigm are not experienced as evidence.
Quoting javra
I would say that what is meant by teleology isn’t properly grasped in the first place by the group rejecting it, because they have no framework in which to make it coherent.
Right.
No she isn't. Nothing I've said gives you any ground for thinking such a thing. She's not a language - languages don't issue instructions, people do. So Reason is a person - a mind. So, one of us. Just she's also going to be omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent, by virtue of being the one among us whose attitudes constitute reasons. And thus she will qualify as God. So the exact opposite of what you said. She - God, Reason - is a personality. And nothing stops her having a flesh and blood body too, if she so wished.
Quoting Possibility
And a bloody good job I'm doing too, if I do say so myself. And why is 'follow reason' in inverted commas? You show already that you're not interested in doing so, not seriously, and that you've already made your mind up about how things are with Reason.
Quoting Possibility
Speak for yourself.
Quoting Possibility
You do realize this argument proves God, right?
1. Imperatives of Reason exist
2. Existent imperatives require an existent mind to bear them.
3. Therefore, imperatives of Reason are the imperatives of an existent mind
4. A mind whose imperatives are imperatives of Reason will be omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent
5. Therefore, the mind whose imperatives are impertatives of Reason - Reason - is a mind who exists and is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent
6. An existent mind that is omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent is God
7. Therefore, God exists.
You don't think it does, because you don't follow reason. If you did, you'd know the conclusion follows and the premises are all true far, far beyond a reasonable doubt.
Quoting Possibility
Yes, because you're not really interested in following Reason. (And again with the inverted commas).
I so far don’t find a necessary contradiction between your statement and mine. As adults we all dwell in our own paradigms. A Young-Earth Creationist will build museums exhibiting a time when dinosaurs and humans coinhabited Earth, because this aligns to his paradigm. That he “forsakes the truth of biological evolution” else “doesn’t have a coherent glimpse of the truth of biological evolution in the first place” seem to me to go hand in hand for all purposes here intended. Likewise with the reality that we experience goal-directed behavior, this just as much as we experience physical reality. That we hold firsthand experience of goal-directed behavior is an unequivocal truth. But the belief that no such thing as a goal-directed processes can metaphysically occur forsakes this truth, denies it, fails to glimpse it as such, on grounds that it is deemed contradictory to the paradigm one upholds and via which one’s adult awareness of reality is filtered.
Quoting Joshs
Yes, but were this to have been pivotal for Kuhn, he would have never addressed the reality of paradigm shifts in physics.
Quoting Joshs
I would concur. If X contradicts one's system of explanations, either one's system of explanations is wrong or X is wrong. Unlike with young enough children, we adult humans will almost without exception choose the alternative that X must be wrong, rather than question and reevaluate our own system of beliefs. But then, so habitually doing leads to dogmatism, as per the Young-Earth Creationist previously mentioned.
A complete truth. It's statements that are true or false. So a complete truth is perhaps the conjunction of all true statements. Is that what you have in mind?
So suppose you had such a thing. For you, philosophy would be finished? There would be nothign left to philosophise about?
Noncognitive?
I wonder what you are getting at here. In so far as philosophy has pretences to rationality, mustn't it be cognitive?
Yes, though I don't think it's possible to ever actually get to there, only to make indefinite progress toward there.
If only that were true. I started off philosophy with Nietzsche and Dostoevsky. Later Plato.
I was absolutely delighted like many students reading these authors. It would have been great to have been able to fully commit to Plato there, to reject Aristotle's critiques. Because, of course, Aristotle is not as fun to read. Instead of a series of polished dialogues we mostly have cluttered, meandering lecture notes stapled together. It would be preferable to get to ignore him, if he wasn't right. Nietzsche is like a thunderstorm, pouring down vigorous prose and ideas, Aristotle is dry like a desert, and only the thirst his burning sun creates keeps one going onward. It's his sound analysis that draws people to him.
People often change their philosophy over time. However, just as often they either feel they have resolved, or fail to resolve major issues, such as the existence of God and grow weary of retreading the old steps. The paths they travel over and over become calcified. People don't choose philosophies, they have philosophies carved into them over time.
I would like to add a quote from Schopenhauer to this:
"Aristotle’s main characteristic could be described as the greatest sagacity, combined with circumspection, talent for observation, versatility, and lack of profundity. His view of the world is shallow even if ingeniously elaborated. Depth of thought finds its material within ourselves; sagacity has to receive it from outside in order to have data. However, in those times the empirical data were in part scanty and in part even false. Therefore, the study of Aristotle is nowadays not very rewarding, while that of Plato remains so to the highest degree. The lack of profundity reprimanded in Aristotle of course becomes most visible in metaphysics, where mere sagacity does not suffice, as it does elsewhere; so that in this he satisfies least. His Metaphysics is for the most part talking back and forth about the philosophemes of his predecessors, whom he criticizes and refutes from his point of view, mostly in reference to isolated utterances by them, without really penetrating their meaning, rather like someone who breaks the windows from the outside.a He advances only a few, or none, of his own dogmas, at least not in systematic fashion. That we owe a large part of our knowledge of the older philosophemes to his polemics is an accidental achievement. He is hostile towards Plato mostly where the latter is completely right. Plato’s ‘Ideas’ continue coming back up into his mouth, like something that he cannot digest; he is determined not to admit their validity." (Parerga and Paralipomena Short Philosophical Essays. Volume 1. Translated and Edited by Sabine Roehr, Christopher Janaway)
So there is another way to look at it. Schopenhauer was by his nature rather a Platonist, therefore he had given a preference to Plato.
What I mean by taste is perhaps always the whole of a philosopher, not individual arguments with which one would agree.
I like Aristotle here and there, some analysis and the basic idea of individual substances as ontological primacy. But otherwise he is not part of my philosophical reading, he is more useful for reference. Or books about him are more interesting than he himself. His style is often atrocious. His arguments are also often vague and imprecise. This is only my personal impression.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
I agree with you only in part. I want to bring up again a quote that is also about the decision to be a Thomist:
"[i]FOLLOWERS. The difference between great philosophers who disagree is perhaps less considerable than that which separates them from their followers. Members of philosophic schools or coteries live on what others have seen, and the disciple usually applies his master's insights with a confidence which, most of the time, the master lacked.
The adherent of a philosopher is often a man who at first did not understand him at all and then staked several years on a tireless attempt to prove to himself that he did not lack the ability to gain an understanding. By the end of that time he sees clearly that his master's critics simply fail to understand him.
Whether one becomes a follower of Wittgenstein or Jaspers, Heidegger or Carnap, Thomas, Kierkegaard, or Hegel is almost accidental in some cases: what all such followers have in common is that after their initial great expenditure no capital remains for a second, third, or fourth investment of comparable magnitude, let alone a novel enterprise.[/i]
[...]
Followers are people with no wish to be convinced, and great philosophers rarely understand the criticisms urged against them.
[...]
[i]THOMIST VERSUS NON-THOMIST. Even the difference between Thomist and non-Thomist is apt to be a matter of temperament and loyalty as much as a matter of belief. This, of course, takes our argument a step further, and what has been said so far does not stand or fall with this extension. For Thomism involves acceptance of an unusually articulate and comprehensive theology.
Consider a book which is in many respects at opposite poles from St. Thomas" Summa Theologica: Genesis. A resourceful philosopher should be able to present all of his thought in the form of a commentary on Genesis. This would be a tour de force, but not impossible. It is a reflection of our current climate of thought that those who write philosophy at all prefer to sail under their own colors—or under those of a previous philosopher, like Thomas.
A great deal of the present book could have been presented in the form of a commentary on the Book of Job. A quotation from Job 13, in my own translation, may show what I mean:
Behold, my eye has seen all this,
my ear has heard and understood.
What you know, that l also know . . .
But you, you beautify with lies,
idol-physicians, that you are. . . .
Would you speak wickedly for God
and deceive for his sake?
You think, you favor him?
You think, you take his side? . . .
Be still and leave me that l speak,
and let come on me what will.
Wherefore? I will take my flesh between my teeth,
and my life I will put in my hand.
He will slay me? For that I hope.
But my ways I will maintain to his face.
And let this be my salvation
that no hypocrite comes to face him. (Cf. § 65.)
My critique of theology, and my polemics against finished philosophic edifices and the finding of dubious reasons for what we believe anyway, could have been forced into the mold of a commentary on Job.
In that case, the verse "I only am escaped alone to tell thee" might have evoked the reflection that beasts earn survival by being fit while men must justify their survival after the event. And this might have led to a revision of the quotation from Gide's Counterfeiters, used early in the Preface: What right has a survivor to do over again what other people have done already or might do as well? A commentary on Job need not be dry or impersonal.
The man who chooses Genesis or Job has much more freedom than the Thomist; even those who take off from Plato will encounter less constraint.[b]Thomism furnishes an extreme case, but even the decision to be a Thomist cannot be understood in terms of agreement alone.
The decision is made before one has studied all of Thomas' writings and is not meant to be provisional. A Thomist does not adopt Thomism as a working hypothesis. He is not prepared to renounce it the first time he comes across a sentence which seems false. Rather he decides that he will interpret apparently false sentences in such a way that they will not be false. And he finds his reward in hundreds of surprises: Thomas already knew this, and Thomas anticipated that.
The same attitude is feasible in relation to Plato, Aristotle, Kant, or Hegel, and some have adopted it; but no other philosopher can offer a sense of community with as many others as St. Thomas.[/b] And this sense of being part of a living tradition, of not standing alone, of belonging, is part of the meaning and inspiration not only of a man's acceptance of Thomism but of adherence to any religion.[/i]" (Walter A. Kaufmann - Critique of Religion and Philosophy)
For sure, I am currently working my way through J.M. Bernstein's two semester series on Hegel and reading reading Hackett's 1,700 page line by line commentary on PoS, after having had to brush up on Kant and Boehme to get started. I can't imagine taking on a similar project for many years.
The part of me that preferred Plato to Aristotle had to fight of the temptation to go after Boehme and the Hermetics instead of continuing with old Georg.
As to Aristotle being so boring, I believe classical sources point to "delightful" dialogues by him with his mature thought included. They have just all been destroyed. What we have left is quite possibly not even written wholly or at all by Aristotle, but is a later compilation to save his insights, so he can't totally be faulted for that, just like how PoS is full of grammatical train wrecks, but we have to cut Hegel some slack since Napoleon was bearing down on him as he wrote it.
So it will always remain speculation. I consider it a legend that there was ever anything delightfully readable by Aristotle. For one cannot construct a great literary man out of Aristotle from the extant writings, whether one or the other of them is by students.
But who knows. Maybe something will be discovered someday.
This is a view of Aristotle that has recently been challenged; that his writings are neither doctrine nor lecture notes, but dialogic. He is in dialogue both with earlier writers and with the reader who is provoked to think these things through rather than accept them as either the truth or Aristotle's opinion. Like Plato's dialogues they lead to aporia. Rather than answers Aristotle guides the reader through questions.
"Not necessarily"? Okay. The definition I use is stipulative and not categorical. It works in the context of the OP.
So? You were responding to a post stating that, in this context, there are different definitions of "relative". That you stipulated one and presented it as though it were the only one is precisely what is at issue.
Is philosophy the concatenation of true statements, or the process?
Such skill at argument assessment. Such insight. I imagine esteemed philosophy journals must send you work to review for them all the time.
I couldn't understand what you were saying in response to my proof of God. It didn't make any real sense to me. None of it. Not a single word.
Which premise are you rejecting and why?
If it clears anything up, when I spoke of a philosophy being a set of statements or opinions (and so of “the true philosophy” being a set of truths), I didn’t mean narrowly descriptive truths about the way the world really is, but truth in a broader sense that also encompasses prescriptive or moral “truths” (correct norms), logical or mathematical “truths” (valid inferences from coherent axiomatic definitions), rhetorical or artistic “truths” (effective presentation and delivery of useful or otherwise wanted content), and most to the point, philosophical truths, which I hold to lie in the intersection between logical/mathematical and rhetorical/artistic truths.
I do think that our philosophical opinions serve as a kind of “plumbing” for both our prescriptive and descriptive opinions, in the way that you say that article says they do.
I didn’t say ‘God’ was a language - I’m saying that you have a particular perspective of Reason as an experience of mind from eternity - one that infinitely prefers logic. I’m arguing that a philosophical understanding of reason would transcend this preference for logic that you attribute to your description. I’m saying that God/Reason as a personality or mind is only one aspect of potentiality.
As for Reason having a flesh and bone body, or wishing anything - while I’m not disputing a relational structure between reason, intentionality and flesh, I will argue that bias or affect does come into this at some point. I’m wondering where you think that point is, and how it arises. I don’t see a clear relational structure here that follows from logic to flesh - not without affect.
Quoting Bartricks
Sure, ‘good’ by your limited understanding of reason. This is what I mean about interpreting my words and actions as if my relative position is against reason, just because it doesn’t align with your perspective. I’m not against reason - I’m wary of the inaccuracy of reason bound by logic. I place ‘follow reason’ in inverted commas because I disagree with your limited perspective of reason as bound by logic. I do the same with those who profess to ‘follow God’ by rejecting gender diversity, for instance. It’s just an interpretation of what it means to ‘follow God/reason’ that’s biased against an aspect we both recognise as existing. I don’t believe that reason necessarily excludes the illogical. You do.
Quoting Bartricks
You do know there’s a difference between reason and logic, right?
Your premises are true only within a limited (and arguably inaccurate) understanding of Reason, imperatives, God, mind, and the relation between omnipotence, omniscience and omnibenevolence. You see, none of this is real. It’s all just signs and symbols, with a logical structure only. As long as you convince yourself that reality is structured only according to logic (not according to ideal quality or affect/energy), then sure, this might appear to logically prove that God exists.
But it doesn’t really prove anything.
God, mind, science, benevolence, potence, existence and reason all refer to ideas that embody different qualities according the logical relations in which they appear. Mind exists as a possibility, while an existent mind consists of potentiality. But an existent imperative is not only contingent upon the potentiality of an existent mind but also on the intentional (affected) relation of that existent mind to a temporal state of being. Otherwise it’s just words, with no imperative quality at all.
So, the existence of any imperative - yes, even an imperative of reason - is contingent upon consciousness, which muddies the waters of certainty. But we don’t even have to look at consciousness, we can just take a closer look at 4.
A potentially existent mind which has or ‘bears’ existent imperatives is potentially limited by these imperatives (in relation to consciousness). For an existent mind to be omnibenevolent, it would logically be bound by imperatives of reason. Yet for an existent mind to be omnipotent, it cannot even be potentially limited by imperatives at all. And for an existent mind to be omniscient, it would recognise this as a logical contradiction. So, a mind that is omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent with imperatives is either an illogical possibility, or logically impossible.
Therefore, God is not just an existent mind, but an idea that extends beyond the bounds of logic. The existence of God is a relation to truth. You can limit it to logic if you prefer, but the existence of God as a mind with imperatives is not beyond reasonable doubt.
Gibberish.
Quoting Possibility
More gibberish.
Quoting Possibility
Gibber. Rish.
Quoting Possibility
Oh do enlighten me.
Quoting Bartricks
Quoting Bartricks
Quoting Bartricks
There’s really not much point - you’ll just dismiss it as ‘gibberish’. Which only demonstrates complete and utter ignorance on your part. Blatant unwillingness to understand an alternative viewpoint is not philosophy. What a waste of time.
If not,then it's just second hand car sales. Which is what most of philosophy,science and religion is.
IOW, you do believe there is One True Philosophy (which also happens to be yours).
This is a common mistake. That there is not one true philosophy does not mean that all claims are equal. Some ideas are in error.
A typical statement made by someone who believes there is One True Philosophy.
So is your position that there is "One True Philosophy" or that all claims are equally true?
One cannot consistently criticize others for believing there is One True Philosophy without ending up oneself implying there is One True Philosophy (which also happens to be one's own).
I do not think it follows from the rejection of one true philosophy that one holds to their own philosophy as the one true philosophy. But since this was directed at Banno I will leave it to him to respond.
And the conjunction of all the ones that are not in error is ... ?
And the conjunction of all the ones that are not in error is ... a set of claims that are not in error. They do not amount to "the One True Philosophy".
Surely you can have only one such set of claims, since it’s the set of all such claims; and being true is being not in error; and “a philosophy” is a set of philosophical claims.
So there’s one of them, it’s true, and it’s a philosophy. How is it not thus the one true philosophy?
In my opinion there cannot be one true philosophy without complete knowledge of the whole. I don't think that is possible.
Quoting Pfhorrest
The problem is, we have no way of determining what that set would be and that it would be complete. What we have are competing opinions which are taken to be true by those who hold them or at least seem to be true or better than the alternatives.
My judging something to be in error does not mean that we are approximating the complete truth. And neither does your's or anyone else's. It is part of the question of whether philosophy makes progress. I don't think it does.
His point was that philosophy can give us justification for our beliefs, and lead us to new beliefs, but it isn't going to tell us what to believe. I don't think philosophy is changing anyone's stance on abortion for instance. Rather, it's a tool for justifying that stance and testing the assumptions that underlie it.
Unless you think everything is categorically in error, so finding one particular thing to be in error is no progress as everything already was.
“Philosophy” the mass noun, like “lets do some philosophy”, is different from “philosophy” the count noun, like “this is my philosophy, what’s yours?” The mass noun refers to an activity or process, like you say. The count noun refers to some collection of opinions. “The one true philosophy” would be a philosophy in the count noun sense; it makes no grammatical sense to be referring to philosophy in the mass noun sense.
I do not think there is such a thing as approximating complete philosophical truth.
Still you think it is nevertheless possible to be philosophically in error. If philosophy (the mass noun) is that kind of self-work, a philosophy (the count noun) would thus be a way of being, and a philosophical error would be a flaw in oneself. Then we’re back at the same situation with regards to progress: if one’s traits can be flaws, then either all traits are inherently flaws, or by identifying and removing flaws we approach a state of flawlessness, which flawless state of being would on such an account be identifiable with a completely correct philosophy.
In the dasein, the is-ness is not doubted, but encouraged, while the non-is-ness is discouraged. However; existence is futile, and the is-sing is superseded by non-is-sing, inasmuch as if everything is futile (since all existence is futile), therefore non-existence ist preferrend to the dasein.
Funny. A male person watching a double-oh-seven movie will not fit himself with thoughts of unworthiness of existence when he looks at the two-dimensional colour images of Claudia Cardinale. Therefore we may conclude that some is-sing is indeed and in existence a dasein.
This can be easily extrapolated into NO nonexistence being superior in value to any non-non-existence, that is, if the pain of torture is preferred to dying, then what governs the non-futility of existence? There is no hard-and-fast delimiter to life and no-life, but man still thinks in terms of black-and-white when it comes to the division between life and death.
The only solution I see is the sense and sensibility of pride and prejudice. One must disallow himself the privilege of non-dying, and he must submit his will to the conglomerate of his life experiences. Whether such choice is wise or futile, or just skimming along like a pebble on the surface of the body of water it's skipping on, we must force our focus on the non-trivial, as well as on the trivial, at the same time and in the same respect; this is the only quagmire human beings need to worry about.
Right. You either got it right bang on, or you are missing the goal posts by a mile.
Socrates' approaches to philosophical truths, since they were only approximations (v.o. the epistemological impossibility of discovering the true and existing forms, thus never actually feeling the pulse of Gaia, so to speak), is futile in more senses than chasing the dream of the two-headed water buffalo (fairy tale figure in Buddhist folklore).
In my approximation the belief of the self in his own worldview is the closest to the truth anyone can get. Whether it is a god, or determinism, or expanding physicality, or materialism, or ... or neokleptomania, (the Kleptomaniacal school of Holikarnassosi Hortacles, taught that a true philosophy can be built by stealing bits and pieces from the existing teachings from concurrent schools of philosophy, and then combining them into a new, hitherto unimagined yet coherent unit, was finally debunked by the post-modernists. The Kleptomaniac's failure was explained by saying they did not know 1. What parts precisely to steal, and 2. How to reassemble the disparate parts into a holistic unit, but they insisted it was possible, if only taking infinite time to try out all different combinations, which in effect proves the existence of the infinite future, and therefore also the infinite past, not to mention the infinite presence), or nihilism, or ophthalmology, or solipsism; no matter what, if one believes to be true what one believes, then it becomes a fact, and furthermore, wisdom, life force and a huge number of all kinds of other things, too numerous to mention.
Indeed. The knot of Gordius. Occam's Razor can be utilized here; cut the knot with one decisive swing of the razor. Declare that truth is variant, yet its approximations are solid, when you consider that the degree of accuracy of the matching of reality to any philosophy, which philosophies in the known world are only extant in minds, depends on nothing else but on what a person's strength of belief puts it on the scale of 0 to 100.
I got a good laugh from this!
You are extraordinarily well read! I am quite sure that no one else here has ever heard of the Kleptomaniacal school of Holikarnassosi Hortacles. They kept their activities well hidden, for obvious reasons.
One thing I wonder about is what they did with all the extra parts.
Those friggin' Phrygians. But the solution is simply yet ingenious.
There is a newfangled Hungarian joke that is applicable here. It was made in the Communist times, and as you probably well know, Hungary was one of the satellite communist countries of the Russian Soviet Union.
Ferenc Nagy, a worker in a bicycle factory is complaining to his friend:
"I am working in a bicycle factory, where we make bicycles for the Russian market, yet I can't afford a bicycle for my son."
The friend says: "Why don't you steal some parts every day, and put it together at home, and make a bicycle for little Pisti?"
"I tried that," replies Ferenc, "but no matter how I put it together, the final piece is always a tank (an armoured vehicle)."
So the apostles of Hortacles probably put together a Marxist propaganda agitation with the parts, no matter how they tried to fit the pieces together, and they were NOT going to publish that.
This reminds me of one of true statements uttered by a Canadian politician, Pierre Trudeau, who was the prime minister of Canada (the head honcho) for a long time. He said, "Canada is not a country, but a loose association of shopping malls." This is so true. Our country is vast in area, yet relatively sparsely populated; our national unity lies in all of us buying the latest fad products, not in some dignified heroic past deed of the nation or some outstanding figures of it.
Brilliant. Maybe the only absolute truth of philosophical enquiry unearthed by man.
Just wanted to let you know, that most of my here preceding posts in this thread are a tribute to your post here quoted.
While that still stands, the debate of truth between two philosophical directions is still of interest by logical considerations to the person if neither of the two directions are part of his own belief system.
Let's put it this way:
P(hilosopher) beleives in A.
The strength of his own belief that A is the truth makes for him A true or not totally true. All other beliefs: B, C, D, etc. are immaterial for their validity even if logically sound.
However, P can make decisions between B and D, C and E, etc., for their soundness in logic and reasonability.
In more concrete examples: an Atheist is capable of making reasoned judgments which philosophy is true, and which is not, as long as his Atheism is not challenged. If it is challenged, then he declares that philosophy that challenges his atheism, however reasonable it may be, tp be unreasonable.
Atheism will call Christianity unreasonable, and Sun Worship, too, etc.
But an atheist can make a solid judgment on the possibility of fitness to describe by chance reality as it really is, by such philosophies as solipsism, or nihilism, or ismism, because they do not hurt his atheistic beliefs.