Why is so much rambling theological verbiage given space on 'The Philosophy Forum' ?
Okay, I'm an atheist, but it seems to me that the quality of discussion on these prolific religious threads falls far short of 'philosophical debate' or even 'coherence' for participants . Even the apocryphal question about 'the number of angels who can dance on the point of a needle', would make better reading than what I have read here !
Comments (185)
And maybe I'm the aspiring butler !
At least they mostly manage to post in the right category.
As you can see, all the threads are started by the same member.
And no - the moderators did not actually edit this post.
If Baden is correct and they are posting in the right category, and presumably in threads where they are on topic, I am not what the problem is. There is, in practical terms. endless space 'in here' and those threads should be easy to avoid. Unless the mere occurance of them nearby is problematic. If people are coming into threads and ruining them somehow, that's a problem.
Interestingly, the original debate which was thus parodied, was about whether two immaterial beings could be located in the same space - which I don't think is at all a silly question.
As to the general issue - I have noticed a greater focus on spiritual/religious on this forum, but I think it's because people really do have questions about it, and its a very hard topic to articulate by its very nature.
What, as an atheist, would be a quality discussion about religion?
Religion is a critical cultural activity, and has been for quite a long time--far longer than atheism. Longer than philosophy. Longer than agriculture.
Do you have any further questions?
You oughta see the political forums.
Which continent? America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, or Antarctica?
And how does that make any difference which continent the loser is from? I am from two continents.
How stupid, inconsequential, and hair-raisingly seriously taken some of the beliefs of the religious are.
This gives us Humanists topics for millions of hours of satisfying discussions.
Politics is a form of religion. You act largely by faith. And most often you are betrayed, so it is little or not at all different from the batting average of the religious' trust in gods' promises coming true, or from prayer being answered.
The trouble is, atheist humanism has no conception of why humans are in the universe in the first place. Like them or not, religions situate mankind in a story, give them a reason for being here and something to strive towards and live up to. Whereas a lot of folks are nowadays actually nihilist - 'nothing matters' - which doesn't necessarily manifest in very spectacular ways, just an overall absence of meaning. And sure as hell a lot of people suffer from that in today's cultures.
This is true, but for me, personally, it takes a lot of the magic away from the otherwise cute stories that give mankind a reason to be, that they are complete bullshit.
A. It is not a myth. A myth is that the world was created in six days, and is less than 6000 years old. That's a myth. Reality is a myth only to the ignorant. "Reality is for people who can't handle drugs." "Religion is the opiate of the masses." Not different now from when they were first said.
B. Humanism is not precisely defined, but it has to do something with human beings' conscious ability to make a life without the help (real or imagined) given by any supernatural forces.
[quote=George Harrison]Everything else can wait, but the search for God cannot wait.[/quote]
[quote=Unknown]Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm[/quote]
:rofl:
:rofl: :up: :clap:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/6623/the-kantian-case-against-procreation
And not too many days ago another new one was merged with one of the older antinatialist threads.
I have never seen this in another philosophy forum. I've seen the issue come up sure, but not with so many advocates and not with new or purportedly new angles on the issue leading to new threads, nor threads lasting so long.
and how many Christians do you think actually believe that?
Every age has its myths, but the view from inside them is that they're the obvious truth.
Then number of Christians believing in it does not change its status form a myth to a non-myth. Your answer is a non-sequitur. It neither supports, nor denies my point.
I am on the opinion which is unproven, that you feel humanism is void of humanity, because it is void of god... and that can only be because god is a glorified human in most religions, definitely in Christian faiths. In Greek mythology, big time, too. Every human religion has some god(s) that are painfully human.
"The god of a carpenter is a carpenter. The god of a cannibal is a cannibal. The god of a businessman is a businessman." - Ralph Waldo Emerson.
He meant to say, in a way, that "the god of a human is a human".
(I once actually rephrased Emerson. "The god of a businessman is a businessman. The god of a carpenter is a carpenter. The god of an atheist is an atheist. The god of a Christian is a Jew.")
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_philosophy
Thanks, Coben!
I looked up the link. This is what it (partly) said:
1. I don't know what the analytic movement is. It is essential to know that in order to know what the continental movement stands for.
2. Of the listed movements, that the Continental School or Movement includes, in all earnesty either I know infinitesimally little of, or else I haven't the foggiest, what these are:
2.1. German idealism,
2.2. phenomenology,
2.3. existentialism (and its antecedents, such as the thought of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche),
2.4. hermeneutics,
2.5. structuralism,
2.6. post-structuralism,
2.7. deconstruction
2.8. Frankfurter Schule
To me "continentalism" stays a big black matter. Impenetrable, inscrutable, and undefined.
I'd need to study philosophy for at least 40 years before the term "continental philosophy" would start to gain any meaning.
who was one of the New England Transcendentalists and certainly no atheist.,
Well, full marks for honesty!
Thank you, WF, but did you actually look at the quote? It says "god is an image of humans." This is what I needed to emphasize for you, and who better to quote for you that you'd believe, than a religious leader? Emerson was a Unitarian minister, to my knowledge.
Notice the small 'g'.
It's because religion, idealism and continental philosophy are all easy to waffle on about for ages and sound cleverer than your less literate interlocutors without having to do any actual work. Read a book (preferably an obscure one), quote it (or its terminology) verbatim on a broadly related topic, bask in the glow of smug self-approbation. No-one can mount a counter-argument because no argument was ever made in the first place, just a long-winded translation of the blindingly obvious into the satisfyingly obscure.
There's a reason why the Royals all do Art History and not Astrophysics when they need their token degree.
Thankyou for the responses on a thread I thought had been 'closed'.
I was asked what an atheist would see as 'quality' in a discussion about religion. A few example might be....
1. Discussion of the concept of 'creation' and whether it required 'an agent'
2. Discussion of the concept of 'morality' as either an evolutionary asset or a transcendent one.
3. Discussion of the nature of the process we call 'life', and the implications for religion of the developments in biotechnology.
Now it may be that the annals of this forum would yield examples of this type, but it seems to me, not recently. Instead, what I am seeing is 'poor quality' in which assumptions are made that a particular religious argument lays claim to 'the moral high ground'. Christianity seems to be the significant claimant here. (The Catch 22 caracature of the military padre comes to mind here). Nor do I find that the demands for 'logical argument' convincing when the Zeitgeist of the origins of religious thinking fail to be considered in the assertion of religious axioms.(The adage 'life was brutish and short' in past times seems to he ignored in that respect)
NB My mention of contextual factors above, like Zetgeist, implies that I do not concur with inclusion of 'continental,philosophy' in my 'rant'. Indeed, I think, for example, that Derrida's concepts of parergon and aporia can add significant depth to any philosophical,discussion.
If X is a human endeavour, you will often end up with ontologyOf(X), epistemologyOf(X) and moralityOf(X), which are pillars of the philosophyOf(X). It clearly works for X=religion. I wonder, what exactly is the domain D for X? When will such X have a meta-level?
I've found Google Search results for the philosophy of X=fishing and X=hunting ...
That's obfuscatory discourse, goddammit! (just trying to merge threads)
You're right. I'm probably the main suspect in this crime. Poor quality discussions are my speciality.
However, imagine we always demand the best, most well considered and perfect discussions. How would anyone ever learn? A child doesn't immediately start doing calculus or philosophy. S/he needs to be taught and mistakes are an integral part of learning.
If you think of it, mistakes/poor quality discussions, have some pedagogical value. They are the hallmark of the student and whetstones to sharpen the veteran's intellect.
I'm an optimist it seems.
That said I haven't seen any poor quality posts, except maybe mine, on the forum. I sincerely hope that's not because I'm at the lowest rung on the ladder.
I dont think that 'determinists' actually look at 'creation' as 'emergence', or that 'observers' are required to specify what fonstutes as 'an emergent structure'......but I may be wrong.
The issue for me is that for 'philosophy' to have a separate status from 'bar room banter' or 'word salad', it needs to be grounded in consensual semantic fields, usually by appeal 'the literature'. I don't see that happening in many cases.
:up:
What would you like the mods to do? (if that's the direction you're heading)
Can't you just avoid those threads?
I see a bigger problem with pissing contests, which can underlie really quite clever posts.
Then don't read them? :chin: In fairness, most of the threads you refer to aim at interesting aspects of religion and religious belief. That they often dissolve into less admirable discussions is just a fact of life, and of human nature. But discussion is good, no matter how many times individual discussions fail. If, as an atheist, you find that you are not entertained or educated by these 'debates', the simple answer is to ignore them and carry on living your life, as most true atheists do with God. They are indifferent to the whole discussion, and simply choose not to take part. Isn't that the way to go?
Or do you wish to change this forum, so as not to tolerate these religious discussions? :chin:
I don't 'read'them, since I find them 'unreadable' !
My criticism is about the frequency of these threads relative to other forums. I'm fairly new here and perhaps expected that the forum title implied a certain degree of sophistication. Obviously I was mistaken.
Well the only rejoinder on 'The Philosophy Forum', I have to that, is that there are 'interests' and then there are 'philosophical interests.':smile:
Point taken about those who put 'continental philosophy' in a 'gibberish box'. I put that down mostly to knee jerk fear of iconoclasm and restricted exposure to the literature.
I do ignore most of the religious threads. Maybe I'm expressing my UK/European attitudes to religious discussion in general as being of no consequence, relative say to its status in the US and elsewhere.
I also say this as someone who think theology is something like philosophy's inbred, pervert cousin whom we bring out into the open only with shame.
Quoting Pattern-chaser
I'm not all that interested to hear your judgements on this forum, or its members. I inhabit this place because I want to, but I'm not forced to stay, or to take part. The same applies to you. You just seem to be complaining that this forum doesn't operate as it would if you were in control. ... And you do so by insulting the forum and some of its members. Even as an autist, I can guess this could be a poor approach to the issue. 'Poor' as in 'it is unlikely to achieve anything'.
For example, allow me to hold up for ridicule the belief that all belief is foolish. What kind of idiot would believe that? Ha ha, ha ha ha...
I'm not aware of insulting anybody in particular except one religious 'troll' who has found a refuge here after being given short shrift, elsewhere (Oh, and one pompous poster who criticizes authors he has not read) Nor do I expect the nature of discussion to shift much from the level already established. After all, birds of a feather flock together. I merely offer my general 'philosphical thread ' experience, of a dozen or so years (plus live local debate), as a basis for my personal observation. Take it or leave it.
I think you may have missed @unenlightened's point, which was not about belief but the standards of discussion in certain cases. :chin:
You dislike poor arguments ... yet you have no backup for your premise. You haven't defined "rambling theological verbiage" nor given any specific examples that fit your definition.
If you just want to be passive aggressive against religious people, I guess points for A. not addressing religious members with your question (such as, "Religious posters, why do you think x,y,z relevant to discuss") and B. bringing a reddit quality circle jerk to the forum for atheist members to pat themselves on the back, perhaps more. Key word here is being reddit, that's where you want to be with your material.
Quoting fresco
Since you're clearly new here and haven't seen the annals pass by first hand. A little history lesson.
It takes a long time to build a forum. This is actually the fallout of the previous forum (just "philosophyforum") that fell apart when it was sold for scrap. It had taken a really long time for the previous forum to get to high quality discussion, which depends on a threshold of high quality posters.
When the previous forum stopped working, some members took the initiative to make this one, but in many ways it was starting from zero.
For years I'd check in here, but quality was so low it wasn't worth my time to engage,and I didn't have time (like Baden had time) to battle against the torrent of Libertarians and Randian Objectivists who thought squatting a backwater philosophy forum lent credibility to their arguments.
What's my point?
If you want higher quality discussion on a topic, you need to do the painstaking work of demonstrating the low quality stuff that's being tossed around is irrelevant next to the "important questions" and meticulously placing your lowly novice opponents in their non-credible place again and again. This will attract your equal in the force to rise against you: when the ground is cleared and the air is still and the aesthetic is right for a true fight between masters. It is the way of things, one must always easily dispatch with a dozen or so novices before squaring off against the boss.
If you don't want to do that work, well don't complain. I signedup to the new forum after the moderators and credible members who founded the present quality discussion did the work: I didn't drop into complain "Why is space made for the libertarian and Randian rambling verbiage?" because the answer is obvious "go ahead, teach them that lesson then".
Second point, don't be passive aggressive, it's unbecoming of a aspiring philosopher, just be plain ol aggressive to the limits allowed if something irks you, it's more honest, and I think you'll find honesty is appreciated here.
Send not to ask at whom the unenlightened laugh, They laugh at us.
Should I mention that knowledge is widely considered to be a species of belief?
1. I'm not going to define 'rambling', but if pushed I could give a few recent examples.
2. I will accept the attribute of passive-aggressive in that I consider it to refer to what my experience has been of 'philosophy' prior to observing aspects of this forum, and this thread as an expression of my subsequent disappointment.
3. Religion per se is not my target, although its subject matter hardly lends itself to scrutiny by dissenters. It is what I see as 'the talking past each other' taking place on religious threads. Nowhere do Wittgenstein's remarks about 'language on holiday' seem more appropriate.
Best not, eh? :wink: :rofl:
Yes I have noticed that: sciencists want everyone to use science exclusively for any and every example of considered investigation or thought...
Quoting Coben
...so it just goes to show that we notice what we want/expect to notice, just as our senses show us what we expect to see, not (necessarily) what's there. :smile: :yikes: No-one's immune from bias, it seems. :chin: :rofl:
I think what you are noticing is not the forums tolerance to low quality religious discussion, but rather to low quality discussion in general. The reason, I presume, is to build the forum by providing a platform for people interested in philosophy. You aren’t going to get very far with a heavy handed, elitist sort of attitude. If you want diverse discussion and a wide range of people its obviously not going to pay off to be intolerant of novice philosophers or people inexperienced with the format. (Or even just folks with poor quality thoughts).
People have different levels of quality they can bring, but that quality can never improve if those people are excluded. Anyway, I think that's what you are noticing, as its pretty clear the low quality isnt just restricted to religious topics.
Even as an atheist, I am surprised that of all the garbage threads that are started here, @fresco chooses to pick on the few religion-themed ones.
But then of course, asking why so many of the threads posted on the forum are garbage is as pointless as asking why the world is such an iniquitous place. There's simply no non-trivial and satisfactory answer to that.
I blame women. Eve and Pandora in particular. And that is non trivial and highly satisfactory to most men.
:rofl: Very unenlightened!!! :rofl:
lol
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_philosophy
I sometimes wonder if people in other forums--like say antinatalist forums, or particular apologetics forums, don't tell each other to head over here and start threads about their pet topics.
Either that I sometimes I wonder if it's not a one or two housebound, over-the-top OCD folks with numerous accounts here.
:up:
'Ineffability' is all there is for believers to push forward with, which doesn't really do anything, no matter how much babbling. Some, then, push back, such as against science. They want what they want, and so they repeat their wishes a zillion times in a zillion ways over and over again. That's human nature.
On and on they say of Who paved the way,
Then even tell the nature of such Theity,
And on and on they presume further upon,
In that support group: ‘On and On Anon’.
I would also like to add that the concept of troll is generally too limited. It has to be conscious. They have to be intending to trigger people. I think there are people looking for certain reactions and they may not realize it. The Philosophy forum offers a certain kind of long term engagement with anti-natalism, for example. I couldn't put it into words, though perhaps if I read the threads- horrors- a couple of times, I'd get a whiff.
But I suspect what is happening there is appealing. You would think winning/convincing people would be the goal. But I suspect that isn't it and what is happening there is.
Regarding nihilism, in the OT The Book of Ecclesiastes asks a lot of existential questions that can get a little depressing. Part of the NT on the other hand , was 'the answer' to the existential human condition.
But going back to the original question. I realized this when trying to study the various domains of Philosophy and noticed a common theme: Deity reared its head in almost every Philosophy. Each discipline seems as though it has an underlying infinite regressive series of arguments, that ultimately asks about the nature of things. For which there is no substantial 'answer' .
Perhaps one takeaway from Philosophy is knowing the right questions to ask when... . And/or uncover the real reason why humans ask those kinds of Existential questions.
Maybe George Harrison said it best: a lot of things in life can wait but the search for God cannot wait.
Or at least that's what the forum is reflecting...
But the NT teaching is to 'seek out your treasure where moths and rusts do not corrupt'.
Where might that be? And where in modern philosophy is it addressed?
Only if you were a moron. It doesn't take that long to assimilate the central ideas of any philosopher if you care to make the effort.
i'm well aware of Emerson, I did thesis work on him and the transcendentalists. He saw through organised religion but he wasn't anti-religion; he was really a type of neoplatonist mystic.
Quoting Janus
He probably has in mind the Sokal scandal or something similar. And a lot of continental academic philosophy is indubitably waffle.
I think it is unseemly to justify one's own biases by noting that everyone has them. It is not so much that science should be used for every investigation and inquiry, as that the scientific attitude which consists in attempting to find counter-evidence that refutes one's own theories should be used as an antidote to bias confirmation.
On the other hand simple religious faith does not require either justification or refutation, which means that discussion of your faith really has no place on a philosophy forum, unless you are plagued by doubt and really want to question it. The problem is then that the militant atheist vultures who see your plight will descend and attempt to feast on the corpse of your faith to sustain their own confirmation biases.
The main point I want to make is that if someone wants to justify their faith to others on a public philosophy forum they leave themselves open to critique. I have seen this with some people here, and the frustrating thing is when they make pronouncements that invite critique and then fail to respond in good faith when their reasoning is questioned.
Zen student: 'There's something you can learn, some vital insight, that you can only arrive at by disciplined za-zen practice'.
Friend: 'Yeah? What's that?'
Zen student:
I agree, but the point I was making is that Emerson would have had no truck with some of the kind of fundamentalist superstitious beliefs to be found in organized religion. Although it is questionable as to whether his was a consistent philosophy:
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.”
Such a disposition hardly seem to be something worthy of aspiration, although Nietzsches admired him. Although if all he meant is that one should be ever ready to change one's mind it would be inn accordance with the scientific spirit and understanding of the provisional nature of knowledge, but I doubt that was his intended meaning.
Quoting Wayfarer
Perhaps he did have Sokal in mind. Some of continental philosophy may undoubtedly considered to be waffle, as may some of any school of philosophy, although opinions seem to be very diverse as to just which works count as such. Which continental philosophical works do you consider to be "indubitably waffle"?
When it comes to professions of "knowing that" however, then justification in the form of inter-subjectively corroborable evidence and reasoning amenable to rational critique is required lest the claims be empty.
Sure, and I really do try to do that here, but it's tricky, and easily misunderstood. And also there is an element that is definitely out-of-scope for modern analytical empirical philosophy. And culturally, what lexicon do we have for even discussing that? As soon as it 'sounds religious' then it pushes all kinds of buttons.
Quoting Janus
When I was at Sydney (late 70's early 80's) the full-on desconstructionist po-mo movement hadn't become totally entrenched yet.) But that's the kind of thing (see e.g. http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo/)
You see, it has to matter to you. That is something I've picked up about Heidegger - that your concern has to be caring about or properly intending. I've discovered that Heidegger was quite influential in a lot of mid-century theological philosophy. Haven't made much headway with Heidegger, but I certainly feel some resonance with his project.
I don't know, I think if there is no "lexicon" to discuss something then it is simply not a good subject for philosophical discussion.
Quoting Wayfarer
I agree with this. But surely if people are drawn to discuss some topic then it must matter to them somehow? Unless what matters is not so much the topic, but for them to either confirm their biases or to win the argument come what may, in which case I would not think they would be participating in fruitful discussion.
I'd count Hegel and Heidegger certainly, even Kant, to a degree. Yes, I've read some of their writing (mostly secondary analysis, though). Have I made any 'serious' attempts to understand them? I doubt it, as 'serious attempts' is generally a euphemism for "if you don't agree with me yet, go back and try harder".
Making straw men is a nice hobby, but.... :meh: To recognise and admit bias is different from justifying it.
I was alluding to the tendency here to equate a dismissal of some quarters of philosophy with a failure to understand, rather than a legitimate decision.
Its not necessary to attempt to understand a philosopher in order to dismiss their work as waffle. For that to be the case, it would require that it be necessaryto understand work before distinguishing between a child's writing and Shakespeare, or between poetry and a technical manual.
Writing style, approach and even attitude (to an extent) is identifiable without needing anything more than a superficial understanding of the semantic content.
I might well find a gem of insight in the middle of Mein Kampf, but I already know enough about it to make a reasonable decision that its not worth the effort.
I think I might not have been clear enough (the initial comment was meant to be somewhat facetious, I didn't take the thread too seriously). The philosophers I'd happily dismiss as producing 'waffle' are not ones I know nothing about. They're ones I've either read, or more likely read passages from in critique. I wouldn't just dismiss out of hand someone I've neither read nor been introduced to the ideas of. But for anyone with even more than a passing interest in philosophy, that's unlikely to be the case for many given authors. The point is that making a personal judgement about the quality of the text doesn't require an intimate understanding of it. There are sufficient clues in a superficial reading to make such judgements to a perfectly reasonable level of likelihood.
Quoting Coben
Yeah, this is the kind of thinking I'm opposing. That some texts are 'dense' with meaning as an objective fact. Meaning (in the sense I think you're referring to here) is something taking place in the mind of the readers, not contained in the text.
It might be reasonable to say that the meaning of the word 'dog' is somehow contained in the word (not literally, but as a term of speech), but it would not be so reasonable to say that the meaning of some paragraph from Heidegger was similarly contained in the text. If that were so, there'd be widespread agreement about it among epistemic peers, and there is not. So, if the meaning can be different for different readers, then it's hard to see what mechanism might make the quantity of meaning invariant. Absent of such a mechanism, it follows that zero might be one of the available quantities.
If no convincing evidence is provided for a claim, and it appears as though no definitive evidence either way is possible, then suspension of judgement would seem to be the most intellectually honest way to go. A physicalist, or anyone, could simply say that there seems to be no reason to believe in the paranormal or supernatural.
I don't know if that was the kind of answer you are looking for?
Someone, I think, Randi, offered a lot of money to whomever could show something, and though a lot of people tried no one showed anything.
Quoting JanusAttempting to find counterevidence sounds active to me, not simply reacting to a perceived lack of evidence. IOW doing active research, or perhaps engaging in certain practices to seek counter-evidence.
If people are interested in the paranormal or supernatural and want to make claims about such matters then it is up to them to provide convincing evidence; and I would say that if they can find what they take to be convincing evidence for an extraordinary claim then it is up to them to find counter-evidence or more plausible alternative explanations if they value intellectual honesty. In any case why should anyone be called upon to investigate areas they find to be of little or no interest to them?
You are of course free to "dismiss", in the sense of saying you have no interest in, or that you find no value in, any particular area of philosophy or any other discipline. But to claim tout court that there is no significant value or original insight in philosophers such as Kant, Hegel and Heidegger is something else altogether. If you don't find value and insight in them it is arguably because you are not interested enough to spend the time to understand, or because you hold some polemical view such that you reject or devalue the insight that others have found there.
Again, you can dismiss work as appearing to be waffle to you, but then don't expect others who find value and insight in it to believe that you have put in the necessary work to understand it. On the other hand if you want to say that what people consider to be valuable insights are wrong or merely trivial truisms or whatever other criticism you might have, then you would need to provide textual citations and arguments addressing them that support your claims.
I don't understand what are trying to say with your second sentence there.
Of course you would use the most egregious example to try to garner support for your merely subjective point of view; almost everyone is going to agree that it is not worth reading Mein Kampf unless you were a scholar of Nazism or a Hitler biographer.
And hey, you worded it in a way that I liked, and actually it is pretty much how I live, with provisos on time and resources. But I have explored looking for phenomena that went against views I've had, including engaging in practices and experiments I often thought were pointless. Sometimes they turned out not to be and my beliefs changed. You may not quite have meant that original statement as I think, given how it is worded, it should be interpreted. But that's what I was reacting to. I see that your interpretation is not the same, now. I wish there were more people with the attitude presented in that orginal quote.Quoting Janus
Here it is not...let's see if they have justified their theories. It is let me actively try to find evidence that counters mine.
This is more rare. Of course scientists do this all the time when they perform experiments, takign their own hypotheses, including those they think are likely to be true, and set up experiments to see if they can find counter-evidence. This is generally piecemeal as it should be.
I love the idea of people, and there are a number, who actually try to challenge things on a paradigmatic level, perhaps,.for example, engaging in the activities people they think are deluded engage in, that those people have said led to evidence.
That's all.
I only said the onus is on others in cases where they make extraordinary claims. You mention physicalism: I think when analyzed it is an extraordinary claim, at least in its stronger versions, because it cannot account for abstraction, generality, real possibility and even logic and semantics. The other point regarding physicalism is that being a metaphysical position, there can be no empirical evidence for or against it, and the evidence against it is its incoherence.
Taking again your example of the supernatural and the paranormal, if someone wants to positively claim there are no such phenomena, and it matters to them (which presumably it would if they made such a positive claim), then of course they should try to find evidence that refutes their belief, just as scientists do (or should). If they believe there is (or even can be) no evidence either way, then I would say they have no justification for such a positive claim.
They might still reasonably say, in the absence of evidence and because it is an extraordinary claim, that there is no reason to believe that paranormal and/or supernatural phenomena are real, and that they err on the side of caution and tend towards disbelieving in such phenomena.
By what argument are you supporting this 'arguable' assertion, then? As I said to Coben, if there is disagreement among epistemic peers as to the meaning of a passage from any of those authors (and there definitely is), then the meaning cannot be inter-subjectively contained within the text, but must be somehow more a function of the mind of the reader. If the quality of the meaning is not inter-subjectively in the text, then what mechanism ensures that the quantity of meaning is within the text in that way? In other words, how can you argue that there objectively is value and insight in the text, when there is such disagreement (even among those who agree with you) as to what that value and insight actually consists of? It would be like arguing there definitely is a cat in some box despite no-one being able to agree on it's colour, shape, sound or any other sensory clue as to it's properties.
Quoting Janus
The point is, it is not only the semantic content of the words that conveys information about the qualities of the text. Take a passage from Harry Potter, or some other fantasy. There will be lots of terms in there that you or I would not 'understand' the meaning of, but it is clearly not necessary for us to really understand the full meaning of the passage in order to recognise that it is a work of children's fiction. We could have no clue at all what the passage is about and yet still make such an accurate judgement as to its genre and likely worth as a philosophical investigation.
Quoting Janus
Exactly. That's the point of picking a polemic example. Almost everyone is going to agree, including my interlocutors, presumably. So follow the logic by which you too agree and you will understand the point I'm making. How do we know (without reading it) that we can dismiss Mein Kampf as being not worth reading? It is not on the basis of the semantic content of the words (we haven't even read them), it is on the basis of the objective of the text, the opinions of others whom we trust, the qualities of the author, the subject matter we have had summarised for us...All sorts of information outside of the actual text has been able to produce a judgement that we (and most of the sane world) are quite happy with, without having to actually read the whole text and render arguments against it from citation.
I haven't argued anything like that there is, objective speaking, value and insight in texts. I don't even know what that could mean. All I have said is that many people have found value and insight in the texts of the authors in question. Do you want to argue that there is, objectively speaking, no value and insight to be found in those texts, and that people who say they do find value and insight there must therefore be deluded?
I also haven't denied that you have every right to decide, on however minimal evidence you like, that there is no value or insight to be found there for you, but I also think that you could well be deluded about that, and that if you approached the texts with a different attitude and were prepared to put in the effort, you may well find value and insight there.
Quoting Isaac
I said that you would need to do that only if you were making a claim such as that a work was objectively speaking, and not merely according to your assessment, waffle. You would need to cite passages and show that they were without value or insight and/ or consisted in merely trivial truisms tout court, and not merely according to your understanding.
Of course this would be impossible to do, which just goes to show how vacuous such claims are when they purport to be anything more than your own subjective opinion. All I am pointing out is that your subjective opinion about such things is no more privileged than others' opinions that your opinions are poorly informed. That is why it is generally bad form to make such pronouncements; it just makes you appear ignorant. If you said instead that such works are not interesting to you or to your taste of course then that would be a different matter.
Quoting Janus
I'm asking you for that argument. You said "it is arguably because...", not "it is in my opinion because..." Your rhetoric suggests that there exists some argument in reason that there is value and insight in these texts, now you seem to be retreating to the idea that it is all subjective.
Quoting Janus
No, I'm arguing that value and insight must (according to evidence of epistemic peer disagreement) be subjective properties, therefore the text can neither have them, nor not have them. It is a category error to ascribe them to the text at all.
Quoting Janus
Quoting Janus
Again, your second comment does not match the implication of your first. Now you are saying that it is about other people's opinion of what I might find if I put in the effort. Your first comment, to which I responded, however, contained no such subjectivity. It claims that there is some valuable meaning to be had and a "necessary" amount of work required to obtain it. If the value and insight is subjective, then there cannot be a necessary amount of work required to obtain it.
Quoting Janus
There is, as far as I can tell, no connection between 'waffle' and 'value/insight/truisms'. Waffle is a style of writing and is contained in the structure of the text. Value/insight is a property of one's interpretation of the text, and not contained within it. Truism is an assessment of the logic of propositions. I'm only making the argument here that 'waffle' can be detected without understanding the full semantic content of the text, in the same way as a work of children's fiction can be detected despite us not understanding all of the terms used. The information is in the style, not the meanings of the words.
Quoting Janus
You've just contradicted yourself in one sentence. If my opinion on such matters as the qualities of a text is subjective (as is that of others) then how can it be simultaneously "poorly informed"? What objective information is my subjective opinion lacking?
The fact that hordes of scholars have pored over them for one, two or three centuries demonstrates that there is value and insight to be found. What more do you need? For myself I know there are original insights because I have discovered some of them.
Quoting Isaac
So, you are claiming that there could be value and insight in what is mere waffle? In that case you have a very different notion of what counts as waffle than I do.
Quoting Isaac
You either haven't read carefully or you are indulging in deliberate obfuscation and sophistry. I said that your opinion of the works in question, which you presented as though you were stating facts, is no better than the opinion of those who will believe that you are ill-informed on account of that opinion.
Having said that, objectively speaking you are ill-informed if you haven't studied the works that others find valuable and insightful, and are merely tossing off a half-arsed negative opinion based on your lack of familiarity with the works. Whether that is so in your case I cannot judge since I don't know how much and how well you have read the works in question.
This is becoming a waste of time.
So when Bertrand Russell, for example, said of Hegel...
...he was what? Wrong by virtue of being outvoted?
Quoting Janus
No, this is exactly the view I'm arguing against (you're right about the original comment though, I had misread it, my apologies). I don't see how I can be ill-informed as a consequence of not having thoroughly read the text when there is no agreed upon body of information within the text for me to be informed about. You keep dodging the central argument with dismissive rhetoric.
If there is disagreement among epistemic peers about the meaning of a text, them how is it possible to say that there is any information within it to be informed of by study?
If Bertrand Russell can read Hegel and find nothing but obfuscated absurdity, yet Husserl can read him and find there the basis for an entire field of investigation, how can you possibly argue that my agreement with Russell is ill-informed, by virtue of not having studied the text. If there were some objective evidence within the text that could inform such an opinion, then how is it that two people with the same knowledge of it reached such radically different conclusions. How is being informed by the view of someone like Russell, less informed than if I had studied the text myself. Do we not all build our understanding of a text through the input of others?
If you wish to say that Russell was wrong, then it must be possible for someone to read the text and yet still be wrong about the quality of meaning therein. If such a thing is possible, then how is it demonstrable that it is not Husserl who is wrong?
But then it seems you are not a physicalist, so that's not a good example for you.
Whatever your beliefs happen to be, it shouldn't matter what other people's positions are if you are following....Quoting Janus
your own theories. If your theory/belief is that X is true, then you seek out counterevidence. It doesn't matter if the people who say X is false are making an extraordinary claim. That quote just says that the
attitude entails seeking evidence against one's own position. Perhaps there is a third position. Perhaps you are both wrong.
That's what I like about that sentence of yours. The implication that regardless of what 'the other team is saying', if there are opposing teams, one should oneselff seek out counterevidence related to one's own claims.
This seems to fit what you say here....Quoting Janus
So dismissing an entire field as incoherent (not just as a personal opinion, but as a property of the field itself) is "peachy"? Do you not think any physicalist work might be as you put it "a particularly dense type of text that needs work to tease out its meanings". Are we not just being partisan here, it's OK to slag off the physicalists wholesale as incoherent, but dismissing the continentals as waffle is to show a lack of understanding of the text?
Isn't this all just demonstrating as clearly as can be that meaning is imparted by the reader, not an intrinsic property of the text? It cannot possibly be the case that anyone not already disposed to do so would see the value in any given text otherwise it would be impossible to read two opposing texts (in value terms) without entering into a state of constant vacillation.
I totally so agree, but I'd like to extend the approach one step beyond cool. YOU DON'T NEED TO DEPEND ON TRANSLATIONS. I memorized "Der Kritik der reinen Vernunft" and "Quo usque tandem, abutere, Kataline, paciencia nosssssstra?" and I can silence any wafflers with these babies. (In LIterary circles I use "Die Leiden des jungen Werthers". In circles who adore opera, I use "Gotterdammerung" and "Die Zauberflote".)
This is not my original approach. I have to give credit where credit is due: My dad was in the Basilian seminary for three years before he got honourably discharged by his Father Superior. My old man never again spake a word in the rest of his worldly existence. Instead, he sermoned. It did not even matter that he became a communist, and a member of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party. He continued sermoning, and as the case was, he sermoned communist propaganda. He had a brilliant and high-reaching career because of it. Most of the other communists in the district were uneducated hoodlooms who grabbed the easy way to success without needing to do work. They respected and feared my dad. Because of his sermons. They had the brawl and brash; he had the words. A classic case of "The pen is mightier than the sword."
He learned and retained one, sage und schreibe, one latin sentence, quoted above. As quotes go, it is a good one. it can be quoted anywhere, in any occasion, to nail down and to win any argument. It is a great opener to a speech of anger, or praise, of love, of calling the warriors to fierce battle to defend the nation and the land, or in preparation to go to the outhouse with a bunch of rolled-up old newspapers. Heck, the old man used to say this even when he successfully swatted a fly. Or unsuccessfully.
Therefore I say unto you, Isaac The Insomniac, son of Andromedea, believer in Intercontinental philosophy, to not rely on translations alone.
Too many negatives for my mutual understanding, but I think I agree with you. And I at the same time plead guilty as charged.
I'm 65. By 45 I had learned enough life so that my world view would be cocooned in. I am able to accept that god-belief is philosophically acceptable, that solipsism is a valid thought, and reincarnation is possible. (I want to come back as a bouquette of carnations.) But at the same time I reject them as not my own beliefs, and I fiercly will argue against instances of these beleifs when they are out of their pure cocoon, and out in the open and attributes are attached to them (such as Christianity or Greek mythology to the god-worship, or ghost spotting to the idea of the undying soul.)
My point is that I learned a few things in philosophy, mabye, in the past 20 years, but my VALUES as they pertain to philosophical convictions, are set, and would take a godly good effort to change them.
Maybe that's the experience that you describe in others, and again, I agree with your words, if you mean what I read into what you wrote, what with your tons of negating the narrative within a sentence or two.
Quoting IsaacI think the works of many people who are physicalists are excellent works from which I have learned a tremendous amount. I think there are problems with physicalism, however.Quoting IsaacI believe in our interaction I had a problem with not having read something and dismissing it as waffle.
And since this implies I have a bias in favor of continentalists, I have perhaps a less positive view of them than physicalists, especially if we take scientists who are physicalists into the latter category. I do think many of those who are very dense and, it seems to me at time ridiculous, also have things to say with much value.
Paragraph 2 seems like an interesting idea, but the all the negatives and the possibility of irony I am not sure what the position or positions are here.
This, as well as your paragraph after it, is something he already alluded to:
Quoting Isaac
What's being agreed on there is whether Kant, Hegel, Heidegger et al are worth bothering with. Your stance if that if one feels they're basically garbage, so that one disagrees with you that they're worthwhile spending time on, one needs to go back and try harder.
Quoting Coben
Well, I did use far too many negations in that paragraph. Let me try again.
Let's take as our null hypothesis that value and insight (using the terms provided) are found more within one text than another. This would have to be the case if the poor judgment of a text were due to a lack of understanding or effort.
For this to be the case, it would have to be that the value and insight were somehow in the text (otherwise it would not be right to talk of a particular text having it to get if only I put the effort in).
Leaving aside that I'm a nominalist and would want to know where exactly the insight and value were... We know there is widespread disagreement among epistemic peers about the value and insight in any given text (I've given Russell's view on Hegel, but there are myriad others).
So, if we do trust that study yields discovery of the values and insights (rather than creation of them), then we would have to concur with the conclusions of those who had studied most and thus vacillate wildly depending on whom we are learning from at the time.
If alternatively, we can't trust that study will yield discovery of the values and insights in a text, then we cannot rightly differentiate the dismissal of texts as being empty of both with or without study, as the study clearly yields no further discovery of either.
So we seem caught. We must either conclude that study yields real insight and thus somehow simultaneously agree both with Russell and Heidegger about Hegel, or that it does not, in which case dismissal on hearsay and dismissal post-study are no different.
But there is not, as I see it, an issue of category types being conflated. Continental philosophy (insofar as that term means anything at all, which is limited) is united by some aspect of meta-philosophy. If it weren't, it would not be possible to group them meaningfully at all. It must then be possible to hold that there are serious issues with this meta-philosophical position, in no different a way than you conclude there are problems with the physicalist position.
Moreover, it is not necessary to read, in depth, the philosophers concerned to justify these issues because the issues are not with their positions as expressed in the text, but with the meta-philosophical position that their even beginning writing it implies. I only need know what phenomenology is, for example, to take issue with its premise. I would need to read Husserl in depth if I were to accept the premise, but take issue with some intricate point of it, but not to take issue with the premise itself.
This argument can be taken back as far as need be. At some point, an author simply takes some premise as granted and their work proceeds from there, they do not start from first principles each time. Thus if I have issues with that premise which is taken as given, no amount of reading their work is going to enlighten me further as to their reasoning in that regard.
what actually?
A text on physicalism, a particular physicalist author?
despite my never having said that. You react as if my hypocrisy or bias has been shown. Also assuming that I am a fan of continental writers.
I don't think you can batch down continental writers into some single position, not that physicalism has just one form, but it is a vastly less diverse set of positions.
But even if you disagree with that...seriously????
I get so tired of people not conceding poop here. I am not a fan of continental writers, as I said. I don't think I hold the same meta-philosophical position they hold, if they actually have one in common. I don't reject physicalist books that I haven't read, though some scientific ones are too dense for me, but I don't reject these, I feel frustrated with myself. I think there is a lot of great stuff in there that has become part of the knowledge base I have or consider is knowledge anyway. I do think there is a coherency problem with physicalism, which, even if it is a direct parallel with a meta-position held by all continental writers, you were not talking about that meta-position in your original, now we know was a facetious comment, to some degree. We were talking about books by continental writers, not the meta-position.
You assumed a bunch of stuff about me and when it's pointed out that these were incorrect assumptions, you just come back with more stuff.
Had it with ya Isaac. Maybe you have an ax to grind, I dunno. Grind it with others. I'll leave you to them.
I'm not assuming you haven't read anything. My entire argument is about disagreement among epistemological peers and the consequences of that for the ontological status of values and insight in a text. An argument which you have completely ignored in favour of taking umbrage at some some perceived personal slight.
It matters not one bit whether you have read anything or nothing about physicalism because there exist perfectly intelligent people who have read almost everything there is about physicalism and yet still disagree entirely with it. It therefore follows that disagreeing entirely with it must be a rationally possible position to hold.
Likewise, people who have read virtually everything there is to read on continental philosophy still think it is garbage. Therefore, thinking it is garbage must be a rationally possible position to hold.
I objected, to the line of argument which tries to claim it is not a rationally possible position to hold and must, instead, be born of ignorance.
Quoting Coben
This is exactly the kind of position I keep mistaking with you. I was going to say that this goes back to my argument about piecemeal agreement (that if you do not think everything an author says is of value, it must be possible that nothing an author says is of value). But then, in the light of your recent comment I'm thinking I will be rebuked for assuming some normative or ontological content where you intended none.
The trouble is, if you intended neither then I fail to see the purpose of the comment on a public forum.
The second part can be belied by different writing styles of authors.
The first part is more like it. I sicked a whole bunch of insane or borderline insane god believers on another site, I think it's called Science chat forum, because they pissed me off hugely by their heavy-handed, elitist, favouritist MODerating. The straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak, was when the Chief and Only MODerator announced his resignation and did not resign; instead, created a special thread addressed to me visible by all members what I, personally, must do and say, and other things that I must not do and must not say. I sicked the sickos from another forum on them, but only one or two stuck. The science chat forum is dead anyway, because they over-moderated it and have not been nice about it either. They tell people what to say and how to say it, and if some users don't comply, they get actioned.
This here was a good forum until a few weeks ago, wehn the proliferation of nutty religious posts occured. I swear it was not me who sicked the new wave of the nutty religious on this site, but you don't have to be a rocket scientist to realize this is one of the way some folks strike back. IN other words, it's neither new, nor unique, nor original action of civil strife.
The forums are dynamic places. There is compliance, and there is strife. Civil disobedience. If the taxes are too high (tax = curtailed freedom of speech) then people leave. If moderation is too lax, then it gets overpopulated by soapbox heroes and preaching walnuts.
I can't give any constructive advice to moderators. I discussed it with several other users on other forums, who were so exasperated by the religious, that they were willing (almost, but not quite) to put in their money and effort to open forums where religious talk would be banned.
This is the bane of society, and the bane of forums. Anachronistic, outdated, mindless, logicless submission to religious ideation. The owners are happy to see increases in number of users and in volume of traffic, but they seldom if ever realize that this is the Judas-kiss of death of resonable and reasoned discourse: letting in too many with very storng religious world views.
Yes, you're quite right. I am a... moron. No doubt about it.
You don't seem a moron to me. You seem young.
Thanks, WF.
It's two out of two in a day's work.
Me on the other hand . . . haha
I would say "garbage" is only an assertion of pejorative. In terms of anything "rational", which I assume we are taking to mean some kind of logical or justified argument in relation to content, such an account has nothing. Just calling something "garbage" is not a rational justification for anything. We've for to a detail an argument of how content fails to be rational by some standard.
I'm not sure what an assertion of pejorative means, but if it means that the term used in the assertion is a pejorative one, then yes, The sentence isn't supposed to carry with it an account. I'm not here talking about the justification for the conclusion itself, I'm talking about the justification for holding that belief without thorough investigation of the works concerned. For that I have given a fairly exhaustive argument which, in common with just about every other knee-jerk response I seem to be getting here, you have chosen to not even address.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
I'd entirely agree. I haven't made the claim that calling something "garbage" is a rational justification for something.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Not quite sure what this means (maybe a couple of typos?) but assuming the gist is that any assessment has to be accompanied by an account of how the content fails to be rational by some standard. Firstly, my comments at that stage were directed mainly at the partisanship of allowing "physicalism is incoherent", but disputing ""idealism is waffle". In that case neither assertion came along with an account of how the content failed to be rational by some standard. Nonetheless, if we take that claim on it's own...
This whole sub-discussion started when I made a comment about the qualities of theology, idealism and continental philosophy (in general), in relation to a point about why they are popular on boards like this - it's easier to sound impressive in those fields because they're full of obfuscatory waffle and it's very difficult to ever be shown to be wrong because there's no concrete argument in the first place.
I wasn't simply announcing to the world that I thought continental philosophy was garbage without any purpose, I was using my assessment of it within a speculation about something else. It is neither necessary, nor pragmatic to include behind every subsidiary assertion a justificatory account when the assertion is already supported by epistemic peers. If I included the fact that the sun will rise tomorrow as a subsidiary assertion within another unrelated argument, I do not also have to include an account of pragmatic induction to justify it.
Here's an attempt to condense a 40 year education into one paragraph for you, then:
In the early 20th century, philosophy in the English-speaking world became dominated by a group of philosophers who put very heavy emphasis on logic and empiricism, focusing almost all their philosophy on language and mathematics and leaving everything else either to be the work of the natural sciences or else denounced as utter nonsense. They emphasized philosophy as a professional academic discipline concerned with rigorous logical analysis of concepts. Like-minded philosophers from across continental Europe fled to Britain and America during the build up to WWII. Their way of thinking and its descendants are the Analytic branch of contemporary philosophy that still dominates in the English-speaking world of professional philosophy today (though not so much in other humanities departments). In contrast, all the rest of contemporary philosophy is "Continental", referring to the continent of Europe in juxtaposition to the islands of Britain, and by comparison to the Analytic tradition it focuses more on philosophy as an examination of the lived experience of being a person embodied in the world trying to figure out what to do and why.
All of this is speaking only of the Western philosophical tradition, and doesn't really apply to Eastern or other philosophical traditions at all.
Hey fresco, here's the short answer: in Philosophy, every thing returns back to the unexplained nature of existence.
Why are most philosophical domains preoccupied with reductionist arguments (causation)?
Theology is a ripe field for hypothetical discussions that can be extremely interesting. I don’t believe this forum allows for religious preaching though.
Also, keep in mind that it is likely I good idea to allow people easier access to less theological topics. Someone coming here to discuss the proposed existence of god and what that even means may be inclined to jump into ethical discussions and explore epistemic problems and other extensions of the issue into many other branches of philosophy.
Another issue is the stereotypical image of someone who is religious. Not every single person of belief holds to some dogmatic view. A great many religious people are very intelligent and don’t take every piece of scripture as literal rulebook for life.
I’m more opposed to strong anti-theistic attitudes than mild theistic ones. Anyone ‘opposed’ to theism, in terms of ‘anti-theistic’, is coming from an extreme position. This is not to say it is necessarily bad to oppose religions (I am NOT saying that at all), but an ‘anti-theistic’ attitude is actively trying to belittle and shutdown religious dialogue.
So I’d side with the ‘theist’ over the ‘anti-theist’ as stated above. Please note I am not equating ‘anti-‘ with ‘opposed to’. I interpret the first prefix as purposefully destructive and the later as being open to discussion and questioning.
At one point I was convinced that there were some proselytizers aboard; I did get some PMs from someone wanting to witness to be but I said no thanks.
Proselytizers scout forums like this and the occasional Jewish forum precisely in order to ply their ware. It's repugnant to me, these fanatical, optimistic, naive carriers of the word think they will convince people on this forum or a jewish forum. Cheeeee rist!!!!!!!
And yet religion has concealed massive amounts of athiests: all you have to do is look at history and it's easy to conclude that these people didn't follow what they'd been taught as God's laws--not a whit! Especially the popes, who were the greediest, most lustful, power-hungry bastards of them all. They were all acting a part or mouthing the words when appropriate. I say actions speak much louder than words, and these crusaders, conquistadores, pilgrims, etc. weren't fkn christians. They were sociopaths with a mask. Still far too fkn many of them around.
I don't agree: we appear to have knowledge of what we are supposed to do on the face of this planet in our corner of the universe. We may not dwell on the universe as much as others, because that's not our focus. One has to make choices about where we focus our energies and actions.
Very interesting. This takes the ban on proselytizers a step further. What do you think we should do? Have a serious discussion about re-organizing the rules and guidelines regarding religion? Stipulate that religious discussion must be firmly anchored in the arguments of philosophers who wrestile with the g_d issue? ???
I think this is a weak analogy--perhaps another one of your specialties. A child learning something for the first time has nothing in common with the process of this forum and the people who have done serious reading and in far more than a Philosophy 101 class.
Perhaps you could use having your third eye opened a bit...
Quoting Wayfarer
Most of what I write here falls under the rubric of spiritual philosophy and related subjects. But I’ve noticed this forum seems far more skewed towards spirituality than away from it, and certainly more so than the forum that it was spawned from.
It’s about ten years since I started posting on forums. My original inspiration was this review which I still thoroughly enjoy every time I revisit it. (Damn, for years that review was publicly available, but it’s gone behind a paywall.)
:rofl:
:up: :ok:
I don't mean to denigrate the intelligence and erudition of forum members here. However consider this from the perspective of the universe itself.
How much do we know?
Aren't we pitifully confined to this teensy rock we call earth, possibly in the backwaters of the galaxy to say nothing of our position in this vast universe? We can safely bet, despite the mountains of treatises that have been, are being and will be written, that our knowledge is relatively zero.
The same principle by which you judge this forum is more than a child's learning renders us playmates of children.
Indeed, that really speaks to this issue at hand here. Nice review Wayfarer!
About 20 years ago when I became interested in philosophy (outside of some freshman courses in college) I purchased https://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Made-Simple-Complete-Important/dp/0385425333 and, in all but one of the domain's there were repeated references to Diety/God as to the nature of things.
Thus my question, why is that?
Because @Hanover was chewing on Doritos and watching MMA when he should have been deleting it. Unfortunately, he's a lawyer so we can't fire him.
I have no problem with the hood I live in, and I'm not particularly concerned with infinity and infinite potential, except to say that I find it a comforting thought. Critters that we are in this backwater, we have our concerns, and until we dry up and blow away, we'll no doubt continue to stare at our navels. :razz:
Cuz the Inquisition would get you if you didn't mention the G word. Now the G word deployed by Descartes, for example, has caché in an albeit flawed argument, but it's not like that anymore. We no longer need to kowtow to the church. Now I enjoy a good discussion about an all-loving and forgiving God who will nonetheless condemn pagans and sinners to eternal hellfires and exactly how that works, but though many have tried, no one's ever convinced me that that idea makes any sense at all.
A lot of people - probably most - think the whole question has been finished with. So why bother reopening a can of worms?
My view is that much of what is important in the Western philosophical tradition is intertwined with theology because of the way that Greek philosophy became absorbed by Christian theology. So throwing out one often results in loosing the the other - throwing the baby out with the bathwater. You notice that here, because certain ideas or lines of argument are tacitly regarded as 'taboo' in that they seem to suggest theological ideas. Because secular philosophy was defined in terms of excluding such ideas, then they're effectively taboo.
But if you don't accept that the physical world/sensory domain/phenomenal realm possesses intrinsic reality, then what does? Does anything? It might sound flippant, but nihilism is a real cultural and social malaise. A lot of people suffer from it without knowing anything about it or without even knowing the word. But I'm sure it's connected to the widespread feeling that life is meaningless.
The questions behind all of these are in some sense religious questions, but in my view, the problem is that the traditional symbolism of religion (sheep, fields, 'the blood of the lamb') hasn't kept pace with the rate of cultural change, resulting in a massive disconnect. Fundamentalism attempts to solve that by simply clinging to the literal meaning, which is obviously futile. So in my view, a lot of the reason why these questions keep coming up on the forum is because they're real questions, they're deep questions, and very hard to fathom.
I have a theory that's neither truly novel yet bears a brief exploration nonetheless. Much like the problem of evil, the problem of existence, inevitably rears its philosophical head in some way, shape or form.
Epistemology, ontology, metaphysics, contemporary philosophy, et al. It doesn't matter... .
My theory is simply based on both St. Thomas' & Schopenhauer's metaphysical will. Or in cognitive philosophy, the sense of wonderment.
I'm afraid as Beings of higher intellect/consciousness, we can't escape from asking abstract questions about the how's & why's of existence(?)
Maybe the question should be reframed to say perhaps; why is there so much rambling about the problem of existence... I don't know you guys tell me...
( Or the nature of existence, whichever you prefer.)
I get where you’re coming from. Even the apologists and internal critics of faiths are wondering what the hell is going on with all the evangelical extremism of late.
I’m here to discuss, collaborate, debate and learn. What I’m not here to do is be ministered too.
I could make a crazy Taoist universalist post if I wanted to but I don’t and I wouldn’t. I like spiritual diversity, including atheism. Can the Mods please be a bit more liberal in coming down on rule breaks with some of the unresponsive crazies though.
Hey Mark, speaking of spiritual diversity, I think there are many of us who would embrace and welcome a thread on Taoism... Maybe too, talk about how Taoism reconciles the problem of evil.
There are many Christian Existentialists who incorporate Taoism as a matter of pragmatic inspiration.
Each holds within itself the seed of the other:
Yin reaches climax then retreats in Yang’s favor—
Cyclic movement of rotational symmetry.
Rounded life is the blend of Yin-Yang together.
Strive for a dynamic balance, of light
And dark, Yin and Yang, and wrong and right.
Reality is found not in separate actions
But in related events blended in twilight.
I feel the same about this post. Have an open mind.
i believe the exact opposite. You are my Joker to my Batman.
How is this not a troll post. If i posted something like this i guarantee it would be removed.
Quoting Wayfarer
Fundamentalism may seem futile to us, but it seems to gain strength every day. The force of the irrational is extremely powerful: it wins over and over again throughout much of history.
Quoting Wayfarer
I guess I thought Sartre answered that question in "Existentialism is a Humanism"--or I accepted it as such back in the 1970s. It never relieved me from suffering bouts of angst, depression and a feeling that things are absurd and meaningless, but I didn't expect it to. Those feelings are simply part of the human condition for some of us. And sometimes I think that if fundamentalism prevents someone from feeling those feelings... Is that all right? As long as I don't get burned at the stake or thrown in a concentration camp for differing in my beliefs, what's my beef with fundamentalism? Am I going to change a fundamentalist's views? No way in hell. I mean, I think it's incredibly stupid, irrational, cowardly and psychologically unhealthy, but... it seems to be quite popular.
The question I continue to ask myself is, How to muddle through the hard times? At the very least I can say that I am better at muddling through now than I was in my 20s...
This is a philosophy forum, and the concern ought to be what is real, what is true. Just because fundamentalism provides a kind of artificial refuge for those who can't handle reality, doesn't make it right. I mean, they have a civil right to believe as they like, provided their beliefs don't impinge on others (which some fundamentalist beliefs do). But essentially they misinterpret their own traditions, IMO. Origen, a profound Platonist Christian philosopher from about 100 A D, ridiculed fundamentalists even then. (Today's fundamentalists would probably regard him as an atheist and indeed some of his ideas were anathematised not long after his lifetime.)
But that's not why I brought it up. I brought up fundamentalism because it's one response to an acute existential crisis. Sartre's was another. (I did an undergrad unit in Sartre, at the time I didn't understand him at all, but I'm of the view that he's over-rated. His philosophy lacks any basis for compassion - 'hell is other people'. )
My personal development - and I'm a boomer - was mostly impacted by some well-known Asian spiritual teachers and movements. They're neither theist nor atheist in Western terms - they're outside the framework of Western cultural dialectics. But I learned something from them that allowed me to re-intepret our own cultural history.
How to muddle through the hard times? Totally hear you on that. As you note, the years can impart some wisdom or at least resilience. But I think one point of philosophy proper is to enable you to reframe your situation - to see it from different perspectives, and hopefully perspectives within which it makes some kind of sense 'no matter what'. That's what I think is really needed from a philosophy, some way of making sense of the big picture. I don't know if Sartre succeeded in doing that; it's more like adjusting to the lack of sense and soldiering on regardless.
are actually founded on anything but guesses and hand me down introjected ideas
Quoting christian2017
I see you both as members of the justice league and the joker is personified by the morally indifferent and apathetic.
Let me be clear though, Atheists get to be the Batman(obviously, no superpowers!) Christians get to be super man. Let’s all make sure our metaphors match up please! You know how I feel about accuracy in metaphors and similes.
Two points:
1. Fundamentalism can be thought of as one making political statements about a something. For it to have any import at all, one has to already believe. Otherwise it lacks meaning and can be dangerously extreme.
2. On the other hand, it's no more irrational than our existence here. Our conscious nature is , in itself, irrational.
Good and evil
Like rain and sun
Having one without the other
Is the man without his hun
Reality is twice
Two becomes one
The perversity of man
Is the Father without the Son
Yes, indeed it does, but whose delusions cause harm to other people?
Quoting Wayfarer
Nobody here is arguing that fundamentalism is right. In my opinion, christian fundamentalism has been used as an ideological rationalization/justification for unspeakable acts of terror, greed and theft. christians stole most of the world and enslaved its peoples. It's the most repugnant historical obscenity in my view--not that I approve of what some Muslims and the Israelis are doing; they just don't have the numbers.
Quoting Wayfarer
I agree with him, but that's not his only perspective on humanity; put it back in the context of the absurdist/existentialist play it came from. Some people are horrifying, and make others' existence a living hell; many more people than we tend to think are psychopaths with absolutely no conscience or concern for others outside of a very small inner circle. History bears me out on this.
Quoting Wayfarer
I probably belong on a psychoanalytic theory/cultural criticism forum... My main concern is how to move humankind in a direction away from pretty much everything I wrote above.
I perceive it more in terms of its adherents' modes of behavior, the impacts it has in a given society.
More than happy to discuss Taoism and Universalism with you. :) I’ll open up a discussion on it soon. Probably after the weekend though as I’m moving to Chicago.
Not to denigrate truth or reality at all, but philosophy is about much more than just that. For starters it is equally much about goodness and morality, prescription as much as description. But besides that, it's not just about what is real/true and moral/good, but about what those kinds of terms mean, what criteria we might judge assertions of them by, what methods we might use to apply such criteria, what faculties we need to employ those methods, who is to exercise those faculties, and why to care about any of that at all.
So, as much as I'm opposed to religion in general never mind fundamentalism, it's not in appropriate philosophizing to say "its claims may be false but it's still useful in such-and-such way". What is or isn't actually true definitely matters, but it isn't necessarily the only thing that matters.
Hey no problem at all Mark... And be safe with your move, hopefully the weather will cooperate for you. And be safe and remember to lift with your legs.
We don't want you suffering from any Existential Angst when you're doing the Taoism thread LOL.
Indeed I've argued over the dangers of perpetuating age-old religious paradigms that no longer fit the contextual values in the 21st century...
Medical science, cognitive science, physical science have all progressed to our benefit. And it's also been argued in the past that science and religion need to come together where possible. Fundamentalism seems to resist that...
I think you're creating a false dichotomy there. The basis of philosophy comes from apprehending 'what truly is', which provides the lodestar for what is good. (I know you're generally opposed to everything religious, and if I thought religion means what you say it does, then I would be also.)
Thanks to the ambiguity of language, we could in a sense talk about what prescriptive assertions are "true" as in correct prescriptions (at least if you're a moral cognitivist like me and I would assume you, and unlike someone like Hume), but that's a different sense (on an account like mine) from talk about what is "true" as in "real", which seemed to be the sense you meant with "what is real, what is true".
rofl
Pharma, the gm industry, the nanotech industry, the neo cons....the list is long. Fundamentalists, on the scale of global or even national power, come in low on the list. They get used by the real power centers and yes, they align themselves, often, but not always with the real power abusers - but then so do good old regular secular people.
Yes, Coben, I absolutely agree: the fundamentalists are the tools of those groups because they are easy to whip into a frenzy of self-righteous support for those same groups who addict them to opoids, lead them to believe that they have their best interests at heart, that there's no such thing as global warming, that they are the ones who can make america white again. I live in a particularly backwards southern state; one day I found myself driving behind a large truck with a bumper sticker proudly proclaiming, "My carbon footprint is bigger than yours." Talk about the most destructive death wish possible disguised as redneck bravado...
Trump claims to be a christian; I'm sure all the sociopaths running corporate america do as well. That's the problem: there are millions of people who claim to be christians whose hypocrisy is flagrant. Unless it is perfectly all right for christians to lie, cheat, steal, worship money, grab women by the pussy, etc.
I think you're right: they are cynical and deceitful, but they know how to play the game of christian piety so as to appeal to the masses. For example, Ken Lay of Enron fame claimed to be a christian; I could go on and on, but I won't. Well, maybe just a little: Ferdinand and Isabel; so many horrific popes; Torquemada; KKK; ok, that's enough.
I think there are less public figures with tremendous power who do not bother to claim to be Christian. They will tend to speak up for other ideologies, like neo-liberalism or neo-conservatism and the atheist technocrats do their bidding without blinking.
Perhaps that's true. No public figure is going to come out and proudly announce his/her atheism. As I wrote above, my conclusion after observing the behavior of so many public figures is that they aren't really christians at all, don't really believe and merely claim the label so as to fit into the dominant paradigm. I also see Zukerberg as a very corrupt and contemptible person, but he never claims to be a good jew.
It doesn't really matter what label folks slap on themselves; their behavior tells the whole story--you can tell by their fruits, plain as day. It's fundamental to both christianity and to judaism to love others; many of the Torah commandments focus on having ethically respectful and compassionate relations with others, whether they are fellow jews or gentiles. I've read the gospels, but not the rest of the NT, and it certainly seems to me that Jesus, jew that he was, was preaching the same message, although I conclude that parts of the message have been distorted by editors who were strongly anti-judaism.