CheshireJune 23, 2021 at 20:097100 views54 comments
What was the last philosophical stance or relevant position you changed your position on. Why?
Comments (54)
BitconnectCarlosJune 23, 2021 at 20:43#5557000 likes
I recently became a theist after reading Hannah Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem. The book fully lays bare just how normal, healthy secular moral reasoning was absolutely destroyed when faced with genuine, uncompromising evil. I just reject that kind of world.Reply to Cheshire
Metaphysics. Over a decade ago, influenced mostly by various thread discussions with @Tobias, I'd reconsidered and thereby gradually translated my vacuous, scientistic, interpretation of 'positive metaphysics' (as useless as tits on a bull) into an intensively critical, 'negative metaphysics' (apophasis), which, among other things, has 'solved' the great jigsaw puzzle of my many disparate philosophical concerns.
I'm pretty much constantly making minor refinements, elaborations, etc. The most recent of those worth mentioning was the realization, some time in the past month or two, that the spectrum of philosophical positions within which I framed my own position was not one dimensional but two dimensional; and that the poles of that second dimension constitute, on the one hand, postmodernism, which merges the worst of both of the poles of the first dimension, and on the other hand, what postmodernists call "modernism", which is not my own position but an unstable opposite extreme that cannot help but collapse into postmodernism.
The last actual reversal of anything in my view came some time just over a decade ago. At that time my views had gradually been shifting more and more skeptical for a long while, and I was basically at a point where I thought there was no real good reason not to be a complete nihilist. I refused to actually go there because I just didn't want to, but I couldn't see any good reason not to, no way of arguing to anyone why they should accept the views I still "baselessly" clung to, if they didn't just feel like it like I did. Then I found a pragmatic reason not to give in to nihilism, and that reframed all of the views I had transitioned through, from the naive religious faith I had been raised in through the nigh-nihilism I was teetering on the edge of, as the first dimension of the aforementioned philosophical spectrum, with my own general position (the one I was "baselessly" clinging to at that time, and that I've been refining and elaborating on ever since) around the middle of that spectrum.
During the Holocaust, various Jewish community leaders were essentially placed in charge of large, mostly Jewish communities known as ghettos under Nazi control. However, due to lack of manpower most of the municipal services including policing was placed under the control of these Jewish councils. Different Jewish leaders employed different survival strategies, but ultimately the most tragic fates befell those who practiced what I would call reasonable, secular moral reasoning when it came to dealing with a much more powerful enemy.
Judaism, like Christianity, says that there are absolute lines that we must not cross, like delivering one's own community to certain death even if it is to avoid a greater evil (e.g. if the Nazis promise that they'll come in and do worse), but during these times the logic was more along the lines of "cut off the leg to save the body." Leaders put the noose around their own populations in the name of avoiding greater evil and in doing so sacrificed something unbelievably deep as I understand it.
That makes even less sense to me as I thought you were focusing on Eichmann who didn't appear to be religious or a theist, the banality of evil and all that jazz.
The Jewish leaders in Nazi ghettos were theists, were they not?
BitconnectCarlosJune 23, 2021 at 22:51#5558180 likes
The Jewish leaders in Nazi ghettos were theists, were they not?
Some were, some weren't. I don't know the exact breakdown. Everyone can get scared and collaborate to save their own necks. I'm not really talking about individuals here; I'm more talking about the type of moral reasoning used.
Plenty of Jews are atheists and they're still considered Jews because Judaism isn't primarily a religious faith. It's really not a faith at all.
I took Plato's Forms to be real. I now see them as part of Plato's philosophical poetry suitable for those who need answers. I now think he is far more interesting.
BitconnectCarlosJune 23, 2021 at 23:01#5558250 likes
It's just different from Christianity or Islam. It's not that hard to grasp. You're Jewish if your mother is Jewish and it doesn't really matter what you believe. Sure there's Jewish religious thought but we're not going to excommunicate you if you don't engage in it or believe it.
Reply to BitconnectCarlos I donât want to make this thread all about debating your choice, but I feel the need to note that you can change ethical principles out of strategic considerations without having to change your metaphysical beliefs. A secular moral code could just as easily say âdonât give them one single inchâ (or however you would phrase the maxim against the behavior you see as detrimental) without having to believe in God. Thereâs far from only one secular morality, or even one religious morality for that matter.
Mmm. That solidity is something found in objects. I suppose it was the one irreducible aspect of realism that kept me a bit sane.
I then read Thomas Reid's excellent An Enquiry Into the Human Mind and as he points out, trivially, but powerfully - as a lot of philosophy is, at bottom - that solidity is an effect the objects produce in us. They're not a necessary component of them.
Damn.
BitconnectCarlosJune 23, 2021 at 23:29#5558460 likes
but I feel the need to note that you can change ethical principles out of strategic considerations without having to change your metaphysical beliefs. A secular moral code could just as easily say âdonât give them one single inchâ (or however you would phrase the maxim against the behavior you see as detrimental) without having to believe in God.
I don't even care whether these men were theists or atheists. All I'm talking about here is the type of reasoning used. This is not an "atheists are bad" post and there were plenty of atheists who acted honorably.
I'm sure strategic considerations and fear played a huge role, but ultimately, as I see things, there are lines that one cannot cross such as ordering one's community to round up members of that community and send them to certain death. I also understand that there are other types of secular ethical systems but "don't give them an inch" is just not feasible in this type of situation -- I'm talking here about reasonable secular systems that can be applied. "Cutting off the arm to save the body" makes intuitive sense and draws back on the common intuition that what ultimately matters is lives saved and preserving life, it's quite humanist.
Holocaust scholar Michael Berenbaum writes: "In the final analysis, the Judenräte had no influence on the frightful outcome of the Holocaust; the Nazi extermination machine was alone responsible for the tragedy, and the Jews in the occupied territories, most especially Poland, were far too powerless to prevent it."
Assuming that was the case, and assuming I'm following your claims correctly, how was the Judenrätes' moral reasoning absolutely destroyed? And whatever the case, it's not clear how this may be conducive to theism.
BitconnectCarlosJune 23, 2021 at 23:59#5558560 likes
I'm not granting your assumption here because it would sidetrack the entire discussion. We are going by Arendt's version where the Judenrat did carry moral agency and did make meaningful policy decisions, as it was in actual history.
Whatever. Still not clear how their moral reasoning was absolutely destroyed, and how learning of these events may lead one to theism. I understand that the Judenrat were all but literally destroyed, if not completely destroyed, or did they sacrifice others to save themselves?
BitconnectCarlosJune 24, 2021 at 00:14#5558600 likes
Because their commitment to saving lives at all costs ("cutting off the leg to save the body") led them to collaborate and actively assist in the deportation (death) of one part of the community to save the other parts.
Because their commitment to saving lives at all costs ("cutting off the leg to save the body") led them to collaborate and actively assist in the deportation (death) of one part of the community to save the other parts.
Does this make sense to you?
And if they did not collaborate and actively assist their moral reasoning would have remained intact?
BitconnectCarlosJune 24, 2021 at 00:23#5558620 likes
One is not allowed to rip a child from its mother's arms and send that child to certain death because one is afraid of what the enemy would have done otherwise or to make the process more humane (as it is you doing it and not the brutal enemy.)
A secular moral code could just as easily say âdonât give them one single inchâ (or however you would phrase the maxim against the behavior you see as detrimental) without having to believe in God.
Under this strategy, they would just kill you and replace you with someone else. That's a big part of the logic of totalitarianism - your "noble death" is made out to be meaningless.
Imagine this situation: There's a form on your desk requiring your signature that is needed to ship off 10,000 of your own people to certain death. They want your signature on it because everything needs to be done by the books.
If you refuse the 10,000 still get shipped off regardless, but in this case you get hanged and now someone else is in your position.
This was a real situation, by the way although I'm not sure about the exact number. The man responsible for signing the document, an atheist, committed suicide which I would consider honorable.
As long as you survive you are complicit, but there needs to be some point at which you make your stand otherwise you are totally lost.
Under this strategy, they would just kill you and replace you with someone else. That's a big part of the logic of totalitarianism - your "noble death" is made out to be meaningless.
So how does being a theist help in that situation? They'd do that if you refused for religious reasons too, right?
I totally get the awfulness of totalitarianism and the ethical difficulties in dealing with it, I just don't see how believing in God makes any difference to them.
BitconnectCarlosJune 24, 2021 at 22:14#5562810 likes
So how does being a theist help in that situation? They'd do that if you refused for religious reasons too, right?
I totally get the awfulness of totalitarianism and the ethical difficulties in dealing with it, I just don't see how believing in God makes any difference to them.
In a practical, material sense being a theist changes nothing. As it seems to you and me it doesn't really matter whether the aforementioned man signs the document or not -- but to him it might (it should) and if we were him it might matter too (I would think it would.)
Personally, it matters to me whether my own hand -- as a leader responsible for that community -- signs my community's death warrant regardless of what happens afterward.
Rather than discuss which 'philosophical position' we've changed our minds and/or belief about, it's far more fruitful to discuss which particular beliefs, and it's even more interesting to discuss changes in deeply held beliefs, you know, those accompanied by nearly unshakable convictions along with those which formed a basis for a large plurality of subsequently formed and/or held beliefs.
Personally, it matters to me whether my own hand -- as a leader responsible for that community -- signs my community's death warrant regardless of what happens afterward.
Right, and I get that, and even agree with it. I just don't see what that has to do with theism or atheism; it seems like one could take that same principled stand either way. (Or fail to take that stand either way, for that matter).
(Should we perhaps be having this conversation about your conversion and the holocaust etc in a different thread? I feel bad cluttering up this thread with it, but I'm really curious to understand your thought process more, as it sounds like others are too).
I figured throw a wide net and look for any common threads. It seems a few people changed their metaphysical frameworks. One nearly escaped nihilism. The open prompt was more of a challenge to the philosopher in general. If you haven't corrected a mistake in a while; then maybe there's one to look for.....I would be interested to participate in your revision.
I've always been interested in and good at science and math. When I was young - still in high school on into college, materialism and determinism seemed self-evident to me. After I dropped out of school, I didn't really think about it much for 20 or 30 years, even when I went back and got my engineering degree 15 years later.
When I started paying more attention to philosophy and the nature of reality, two things became clear to me. 1) the nature of reality is a metaphysical question - the various answers people have found are not true or false. They are useful or not useful in particular situations. 2) there are ways of seeing things that are more useful for me than a materialist perspective. The idea that there is an objective reality is one we can choose to follow or not without undermining the basis of science.
Reply to Cheshire After reading Popper's Postscript to the Logic of Scientific Discovery trilogy two years ago my lifelong "orientation" of idealism changed to scientific realism.
Reply to Pantagruel It's funny I read Popper first(20 years ago), so most philosophy has seemed very strange as a result. As much as he seems to want to dismiss a lot of it, I believe his intention was to make it useful. He was also the inspiration for the thread if it wasn't obvious.
Reply to Cheshire Yes, it definitely resonates with me also. I was referring also to his idea of the "metaphysical research program" which guides and shapes scientific discovery....
I just don't see what that has to do with theism or atheism; it seems like one could take that same principled stand either way. (Or fail to take that stand either way, for that matter).
Yes, one could take the same principled stand either way. When I say that I made the move to theism, I'm not saying that others are rationally obliged to follow that path. I fully acknowledged that I have made a jump here and that theism (at least my own theism) cannot be completely rationally justified or proven. I'm fine having beliefs of that character.
I really think this situation exposes an interest conundrum in morality and game theory. From a game theory standpoint it makes sense to give in your oppressor's demands because your oppressor does have all the power and if you play nice he'll play nice which means you and your people live longer. This was absolutely one of the driving forces behind Nazi terror.
(Should we perhaps be having this conversation about your conversion and the holocaust etc in a different thread? I feel bad cluttering up this thread with it, but I'm really curious to understand your thought process more, as it sounds like others are too).
Oh thanks - if you want to start another thread I'll join in, but as far as I know I don't think the mods are going to mind this. I also wouldn't call it a conversion; in Judaism one never ceases being a Jew even if they're an atheist. I only said I was a theist though I don't one particular religion in mind.
:smile:
Ah, philosophers, their egos and tantrums.
I have been turned on and off Plato so many times...
Now, it might be the turn of the Pragmatists.
Here's my latest at : https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/10814/is-deweys-pragmatism-misunderstood-/latest/comment
Wittgenstein's change of mind and heart.
How many of the 'Greats' - or anyone really - have admitted to 'Error Correction' and given thanks to someone for making them see differently ? Not many. But a few on this thread :cool:
I found the article linked to by @Shawn most informative, enjoyable and a bit tragic:
https://aeon.co/essays/what-is-truth-on-ramsey-wittgenstein-and-the-vienna-circle
...Wittgenstein was stung by this onslaught. In 1930, he wrote: âRamseyâs mind repulsed meâ; he had no capacity for âgenuine reverenceâ; he had an âugly mindâ; and âhis criticism didnât help along but held back and soberedâ. He told his friends that Ramsey was a âmaterialistâ. Ramsey thought that Wittgensteinâs philosophy needed sobering up, and needed to pay attention to human beliefs, rather than independently existing propositions.
And here their debate breaks off, for Ramsey died on 19 January 1930, aged just 26. But years later, Wittgenstein would come around to Ramseyâs side.
When he did, he stopped saying nasty things about his friend, and instead thanked him in the preface to his second great treatise, Philosophical Investigations, which charted a very different course than the Tractatus:
since I began to occupy myself with philosophy again, 16 years ago, I could not but recognise grave mistakes in what I set out in that first book. I was helped to realise these mistakes â to a degree which I myself am hardly able to estimate â by the criticism which my ideas encountered from Frank Ramsey, with whom I discussed them in innumerable conversations during the last two years of his life.
Good for Wittgenstein - giving recognition to Ramsey's ideas. Pity about the nastiness that can develop between philosophers...but then again, good to see some emotion in all the dryness.
Metaphysics. Over a decade ago, influenced mostly by various thread discussions with Tobias, I'd reconsidered and thereby gradually translated my vacuous, scientistic, interpretation of 'positive metaphysics' (as useless as tits on a bull) into an intensively critical, 'negative metaphysics' (apophasis), which, among other things, has 'solved' the great jigsaw puzzle of my many disparate philosophical concerns.
That is a nice compliment 180, thank! Indeed those discussions formed me too quite a bit. Under that influence and under the influence of people I met at the time I was here less I shifted perspective somewhat. I do not know if it is changing my mind, but now my central concern would be some ineluctable 'more' over and above what metaphysics has to offer. A fundamental impossibility of metaphysics or thought to reach. I think indeed you were the first one to confront me with that. It is similar to a Heideggerian 'zwischen' I guess or some other fundamental category of 'not that', a difference.
Also I focus much more strongly on the role of the body in metaphysics. I cannot be called a materialist since I still hold that the categories of thought are mental and that without this categorical ordering there 'is' nothing, but if we want to know how we think we cannot dispel the body, as that fundamentally does the talking. So I switched from 'logic' to phenomenology perhaps. that said, I am rusty nowadays, I have done more in law and in sociology which also shifted at least my approach. At the recent philosophy conference I was the only one with a methodology paragraph.... felt slightly over dressed. :D
Reply to BitconnectCarlos What was Arendt's argument that such a person has moral agency? Because I don't see it. You take someone's freedom, then you give him two shitty choices and we are to condemn one of them because...?
BitconnectCarlosJuly 01, 2021 at 20:28#5598810 likes
I'm not aware of any explicit argument that Arendt makes but her tone is very clear in Eichmann in Jerusalem. I 100% understand that these men were in very difficult situations, and I also understand that the Holocaust was occurring regardless, but I do have to blame these men for assisting with the organization and deportation to what at the time was known to be certain death. I don't care how scared you are or how much you're trying to save the community in the long run -- there are just certain things you can't ever do, like rip a child from it's mothers arms to be shipped to its death (the fact that it was Jewish policemen often assisting with deportations is extremely disturbing.)
Even if the Nazis would have came in and done worse, you can't do evil yourself. There's an old rabbinic phrase that goes something like 'Let them kill you, but don't cross the line.'
It is possible that continuously giving in to the Devil was the "best" course of action here and maybe it extended people's survivability the longest, but I reject that world. I just can't bear it.
Reply to BitconnectCarlos I think it's perfectly fine to come to that decision by yourself for yourself. What I reject is judging others for making different decisions in such situations. Here's the alternative view : I think you're weak that you're letting sentiment withhold you from making the decision that saves the most lives.
Both judgments are inappropriate in my view.
As an analogy, if there are 100 dishes and I offer you a choice between beef tacos and veal tacos and you choose beef, who decided what we had for dinner?
As an analogy, if there are 100 dishes and I offer you a choice between beef tacos and veal tacos and you choose beef, who decided what we had for dinner?
:clap:
BitconnectCarlosJuly 02, 2021 at 12:23#5601730 likes
I think it's perfectly fine to come to that decision by yourself for yourself. What I reject is judging others for making different decisions in such situations.
So here's where it gets interesting: Religious scripture here binds the Jewish people, and in this case the teaching is clear - one cannot deliver one's community to certain death. However, I suppose if the population in this case were not Jewish they'd be free to make that decision according to however that community decides (the choice would ideally be left to the community, not a council.) For the Jews, however, this is not a "you have your views and I have mine."
Here's the alternative view : I think you're weak that you're letting sentiment withhold you from making the decision that saves the most lives.
Yep, this was the logic employed as Lodz i.e. saving lives is paramount, and difficult sacrifices need to be made to preserve the greater whole. I believe that to be true honest secular humanistic logic and it likely saves the most lives.
As an analogy, if there are 100 dishes and I offer you a choice between beef tacos and veal tacos and you choose beef, who decided what we had for dinner?
I fully understand that their decisions were not free. As unfortunate as it is, this is one of those cases where the leaders need to sacrifice themselves for their community -- that is real leadership. It would have been extremely honorable and it reminds me of the King of Denmark when he told the Nazis upon occupation that if the yellow star were made mandatory for Jews in his country he'd be the first to wear it.
Comments (54)
The last actual reversal of anything in my view came some time just over a decade ago. At that time my views had gradually been shifting more and more skeptical for a long while, and I was basically at a point where I thought there was no real good reason not to be a complete nihilist. I refused to actually go there because I just didn't want to, but I couldn't see any good reason not to, no way of arguing to anyone why they should accept the views I still "baselessly" clung to, if they didn't just feel like it like I did. Then I found a pragmatic reason not to give in to nihilism, and that reframed all of the views I had transitioned through, from the naive religious faith I had been raised in through the nigh-nihilism I was teetering on the edge of, as the first dimension of the aforementioned philosophical spectrum, with my own general position (the one I was "baselessly" clinging to at that time, and that I've been refining and elaborating on ever since) around the middle of that spectrum.
It would be interesting to hear an explanation, of any sort, if you feel like it at all. I can't begin to wrap my head around how this works out.
During the Holocaust, various Jewish community leaders were essentially placed in charge of large, mostly Jewish communities known as ghettos under Nazi control. However, due to lack of manpower most of the municipal services including policing was placed under the control of these Jewish councils. Different Jewish leaders employed different survival strategies, but ultimately the most tragic fates befell those who practiced what I would call reasonable, secular moral reasoning when it came to dealing with a much more powerful enemy.
Judaism, like Christianity, says that there are absolute lines that we must not cross, like delivering one's own community to certain death even if it is to avoid a greater evil (e.g. if the Nazis promise that they'll come in and do worse), but during these times the logic was more along the lines of "cut off the leg to save the body." Leaders put the noose around their own populations in the name of avoiding greater evil and in doing so sacrificed something unbelievably deep as I understand it.
That makes even less sense to me as I thought you were focusing on Eichmann who didn't appear to be religious or a theist, the banality of evil and all that jazz.
The Jewish leaders in Nazi ghettos were theists, were they not?
Some were, some weren't. I don't know the exact breakdown. Everyone can get scared and collaborate to save their own necks. I'm not really talking about individuals here; I'm more talking about the type of moral reasoning used.
Plenty of Jews are atheists and they're still considered Jews because Judaism isn't primarily a religious faith. It's really not a faith at all.
Making even less sense... I give up.
I took Plato's Forms to be real. I now see them as part of Plato's philosophical poetry suitable for those who need answers. I now think he is far more interesting.
It's just different from Christianity or Islam. It's not that hard to grasp. You're Jewish if your mother is Jewish and it doesn't really matter what you believe. Sure there's Jewish religious thought but we're not going to excommunicate you if you don't engage in it or believe it.
Mmm. That solidity is something found in objects. I suppose it was the one irreducible aspect of realism that kept me a bit sane.
I then read Thomas Reid's excellent An Enquiry Into the Human Mind and as he points out, trivially, but powerfully - as a lot of philosophy is, at bottom - that solidity is an effect the objects produce in us. They're not a necessary component of them.
Damn.
Not a problem, let's keep it friendly.
Quoting Pfhorrest
I don't even care whether these men were theists or atheists. All I'm talking about here is the type of reasoning used. This is not an "atheists are bad" post and there were plenty of atheists who acted honorably.
I'm sure strategic considerations and fear played a huge role, but ultimately, as I see things, there are lines that one cannot cross such as ordering one's community to round up members of that community and send them to certain death. I also understand that there are other types of secular ethical systems but "don't give them an inch" is just not feasible in this type of situation -- I'm talking here about reasonable secular systems that can be applied. "Cutting off the arm to save the body" makes intuitive sense and draws back on the common intuition that what ultimately matters is lives saved and preserving life, it's quite humanist.
Holocaust scholar Michael Berenbaum writes: "In the final analysis, the Judenräte had no influence on the frightful outcome of the Holocaust; the Nazi extermination machine was alone responsible for the tragedy, and the Jews in the occupied territories, most especially Poland, were far too powerless to prevent it."
Assuming that was the case, and assuming I'm following your claims correctly, how was the Judenrätes' moral reasoning absolutely destroyed? And whatever the case, it's not clear how this may be conducive to theism.
I'm not granting your assumption here because it would sidetrack the entire discussion. We are going by Arendt's version where the Judenrat did carry moral agency and did make meaningful policy decisions, as it was in actual history.
Whatever. Still not clear how their moral reasoning was absolutely destroyed, and how learning of these events may lead one to theism. I understand that the Judenrat were all but literally destroyed, if not completely destroyed, or did they sacrifice others to save themselves?
Because their commitment to saving lives at all costs ("cutting off the leg to save the body") led them to collaborate and actively assist in the deportation (death) of one part of the community to save the other parts.
Does this make sense to you?
And if they did not collaborate and actively assist their moral reasoning would have remained intact?
One is not allowed to rip a child from its mother's arms and send that child to certain death because one is afraid of what the enemy would have done otherwise or to make the process more humane (as it is you doing it and not the brutal enemy.)
This is all I'm trying to say.
You're speaking in riddles. I started by asking if you were serious. Jokes on me I guess.
I fell into nominalism a number of years ago. Having banished the specters from my mental furniture, life seems much clearer these days.
Under this strategy, they would just kill you and replace you with someone else. That's a big part of the logic of totalitarianism - your "noble death" is made out to be meaningless.
Imagine this situation: There's a form on your desk requiring your signature that is needed to ship off 10,000 of your own people to certain death. They want your signature on it because everything needs to be done by the books.
If you refuse the 10,000 still get shipped off regardless, but in this case you get hanged and now someone else is in your position.
This was a real situation, by the way although I'm not sure about the exact number. The man responsible for signing the document, an atheist, committed suicide which I would consider honorable.
As long as you survive you are complicit, but there needs to be some point at which you make your stand otherwise you are totally lost.
So how does being a theist help in that situation? They'd do that if you refused for religious reasons too, right?
I totally get the awfulness of totalitarianism and the ethical difficulties in dealing with it, I just don't see how believing in God makes any difference to them.
In a practical, material sense being a theist changes nothing. As it seems to you and me it doesn't really matter whether the aforementioned man signs the document or not -- but to him it might (it should) and if we were him it might matter too (I would think it would.)
Personally, it matters to me whether my own hand -- as a leader responsible for that community -- signs my community's death warrant regardless of what happens afterward.
Question could lead to an interesting thread...
Rather than discuss which 'philosophical position' we've changed our minds and/or belief about, it's far more fruitful to discuss which particular beliefs, and it's even more interesting to discuss changes in deeply held beliefs, you know, those accompanied by nearly unshakable convictions along with those which formed a basis for a large plurality of subsequently formed and/or held beliefs.
Is that too much to ask for?
Right, and I get that, and even agree with it. I just don't see what that has to do with theism or atheism; it seems like one could take that same principled stand either way. (Or fail to take that stand either way, for that matter).
(Should we perhaps be having this conversation about your conversion and the holocaust etc in a different thread? I feel bad cluttering up this thread with it, but I'm really curious to understand your thought process more, as it sounds like others are too).
When I started paying more attention to philosophy and the nature of reality, two things became clear to me. 1) the nature of reality is a metaphysical question - the various answers people have found are not true or false. They are useful or not useful in particular situations. 2) there are ways of seeing things that are more useful for me than a materialist perspective. The idea that there is an objective reality is one we can choose to follow or not without undermining the basis of science.
Yes, one could take the same principled stand either way. When I say that I made the move to theism, I'm not saying that others are rationally obliged to follow that path. I fully acknowledged that I have made a jump here and that theism (at least my own theism) cannot be completely rationally justified or proven. I'm fine having beliefs of that character.
I really think this situation exposes an interest conundrum in morality and game theory. From a game theory standpoint it makes sense to give in your oppressor's demands because your oppressor does have all the power and if you play nice he'll play nice which means you and your people live longer. This was absolutely one of the driving forces behind Nazi terror.
Quoting Pfhorrest
Oh thanks - if you want to start another thread I'll join in, but as far as I know I don't think the mods are going to mind this. I also wouldn't call it a conversion; in Judaism one never ceases being a Jew even if they're an atheist. I only said I was a theist though I don't one particular religion in mind.
The running debate is kind of keeping the thread alive, because most of the post don't necessitate a response. By all means keep rolling.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/jun/24/lost-memoir-paints-revered-philosopher-john-locke-as-vain-lazy-and-pompous
Quoting 180 Proof
:smile:
Ah, philosophers, their egos and tantrums.
I have been turned on and off Plato so many times...
Now, it might be the turn of the Pragmatists.
Here's my latest at : https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/10814/is-deweys-pragmatism-misunderstood-/latest/comment
Wittgenstein's change of mind and heart.
How many of the 'Greats' - or anyone really - have admitted to 'Error Correction' and given thanks to someone for making them see differently ? Not many. But a few on this thread :cool:
I found the article linked to by @Shawn most informative, enjoyable and a bit tragic:
https://aeon.co/essays/what-is-truth-on-ramsey-wittgenstein-and-the-vienna-circle
Good for Wittgenstein - giving recognition to Ramsey's ideas. Pity about the nastiness that can develop between philosophers...but then again, good to see some emotion in all the dryness.
Ooooh, I do like a man with brackets :cool:
Wittgenstein, here I come... :wink:
That is a nice compliment 180, thank! Indeed those discussions formed me too quite a bit. Under that influence and under the influence of people I met at the time I was here less I shifted perspective somewhat. I do not know if it is changing my mind, but now my central concern would be some ineluctable 'more' over and above what metaphysics has to offer. A fundamental impossibility of metaphysics or thought to reach. I think indeed you were the first one to confront me with that. It is similar to a Heideggerian 'zwischen' I guess or some other fundamental category of 'not that', a difference.
Also I focus much more strongly on the role of the body in metaphysics. I cannot be called a materialist since I still hold that the categories of thought are mental and that without this categorical ordering there 'is' nothing, but if we want to know how we think we cannot dispel the body, as that fundamentally does the talking. So I switched from 'logic' to phenomenology perhaps. that said, I am rusty nowadays, I have done more in law and in sociology which also shifted at least my approach. At the recent philosophy conference I was the only one with a methodology paragraph.... felt slightly over dressed. :D
I'm not aware of any explicit argument that Arendt makes but her tone is very clear in Eichmann in Jerusalem. I 100% understand that these men were in very difficult situations, and I also understand that the Holocaust was occurring regardless, but I do have to blame these men for assisting with the organization and deportation to what at the time was known to be certain death. I don't care how scared you are or how much you're trying to save the community in the long run -- there are just certain things you can't ever do, like rip a child from it's mothers arms to be shipped to its death (the fact that it was Jewish policemen often assisting with deportations is extremely disturbing.)
Even if the Nazis would have came in and done worse, you can't do evil yourself. There's an old rabbinic phrase that goes something like 'Let them kill you, but don't cross the line.'
It is possible that continuously giving in to the Devil was the "best" course of action here and maybe it extended people's survivability the longest, but I reject that world. I just can't bear it.
Both judgments are inappropriate in my view.
As an analogy, if there are 100 dishes and I offer you a choice between beef tacos and veal tacos and you choose beef, who decided what we had for dinner?
:clap:
So here's where it gets interesting: Religious scripture here binds the Jewish people, and in this case the teaching is clear - one cannot deliver one's community to certain death. However, I suppose if the population in this case were not Jewish they'd be free to make that decision according to however that community decides (the choice would ideally be left to the community, not a council.) For the Jews, however, this is not a "you have your views and I have mine."
Quoting Benkei
Yep, this was the logic employed as Lodz i.e. saving lives is paramount, and difficult sacrifices need to be made to preserve the greater whole. I believe that to be true honest secular humanistic logic and it likely saves the most lives.
https://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%205375.pdf
Quoting Benkei
I fully understand that their decisions were not free. As unfortunate as it is, this is one of those cases where the leaders need to sacrifice themselves for their community -- that is real leadership. It would have been extremely honorable and it reminds me of the King of Denmark when he told the Nazis upon occupation that if the yellow star were made mandatory for Jews in his country he'd be the first to wear it.