Tom Storm

Interesting. I personally agree that way too many people go to university and that many attain degrees and remain impervious to both knowledge and wis...

I've heard variations on Tolstoy's assertion for decades too. People who chase higher consciousness and unification with the divine are often crass, s...

No, I meant how do you define plebeians and how do you identify them in situ before they do damage?

Yes, that's interesting. I don't reach for the word 'fact' very often which is why I priviledged the term belief. I am more interested in looking at s...

You are raising a separate matter - the justification of beliefs - I have not touched upon that. Morality is not a science. Remember too that Hitler b...

Perhaps it would help to examine your assumptions. Seems like you are missing the point. Hitler thought what he was doing was good - engaged in righte...

Nice. Is this the 'path' you think humans are on? That's a pretty bold idea. I feel uneasy with the word 'necessary' but I see what you mean. Yes - th...

This is the key. When we retrofit our own moral judgements and assume people are 'justifying' actions using rationalisations we are assuming that 'evi...

Or is it more accurate to say that some people have false beliefs. I wonder if using the word facts here blurs the issue. There have always been peopl...

Well put.

Not justifications. The use of the word evil may be problematic as it suggests a convenient explanation for what we all may see as atrocity. Surely Hi...

It's also for some readers (me, anyway), a turgid, often dull book that makes you think of shopping lists, washing the car, clipping the dog's fur - a...

Like most putative Christians, Peterson celebrates Nietzsche only because he can be used to support the proposition that atheism leads to Hitler. It's...

I don't disagree but this latter part involving the plebeians - how do you see this working?

:up:

Interesting. Do the 'laws' of logic count as presuppositions? I'd be interested to see examples of some common presuppositions versus suppositions as ...

I can only go by what I do which is muddle through. If I had anything to guide me it is the Golden Rule - a version of which has been conceived by jus...

Nice. Tangential perhaps but I come at this from 30 years of working in the area of addiction and mental health services. A key responsibility for sus...

That's a very helpful and nicely phrased paragraph. Nice OP. I relate to Wittgenstien's view of philosophy but I don't have his intellectual fire powe...

I wonder if we must take Tolstoy seriously as any kind of critic. Let's recall what he said about Shakespeare: "I remember the astonishment I felt whe...

Not really. The question is, can you refute the whole of the Koran or the whole of the bhagavad gita or the whole of the Book of Mormon or the whole o...

"The Postmodernists' tyranny wears people down by boredom and semi-literate prose.” ? Christopher Hitchens "Simplifying to the extreme, I define postm...

Thanks. I've always thought that the famous 'god shaped hole' is most apparent in religions themselves. Especially Christian denominations where Jesus...

Oops - yes, I unthinkingly reversed the story. It should should have read: Hmmm, not sure I quite get this one but well expressed. The issue with FN i...

He did say 'sometimes'. It's not like this isn't true.

I brought this up because it was left out as it so often is and really should not be. I simply quote what I have heard directly from the faithful. I m...

I could read Star Wars in the same way. But can you drill down without getting too theoretical?

You see I would say the faith doesn't generate, it's retro fit in order to justify.

I'm not taking any cues from Dennett but he may be onto something here and there. Perhaps you could provide an example of faith in the context you are...

For me it is the value of nothing and, perhaps, everything as there is nothing it can't cover off on.

Having met in my work over 30 years, around four Yahwehs, two Kirshna's, a Vishnu, four Jesus' and a Darth Vader, I concur with our aphoristic friend.

Faith is the excuse a person gives when they don't have a good reason for a belief. The real problem with faith is there is nothing you can't justify ...

I agree but I was just quoting what some might say about Derrida. I personally have no position on Derrida. Epistemology is tricky. This would matter ...

There's different levels and then there's wrong? No? If we say Derrida says nothing is true and nothing matters, do we not challenge and to some exten...

You may be right. I guess my take on this kind of critique would be that getting a coherent or appropriate reading on much of the work by these theori...

Most cultures and religions seem to end up with some variation of The Golden Rule it seems to me. It's sheer ubiquity suggests that self-interested al...

It's a key cultural question whether this is right or not. I am not sure myself. I suspect that post-truth was the inevitable trajectory of corporate ...

Totally agree. I would add prison to this. Thirty years ago I would have added university too, which used to function as a kind of sheltered workshop ...

This must be to 180 Proof since I have not raised theory. Any female pomo theorists other than Kristeva? Joshs, what I am really interested in is do y...

I guess it all boils down to hard scientific certainty versus the application of scientific enquiry and principles. I mentioned philosopher Susan Haac...

I hear you and I have often thought likewise. Agree about WWI and mechanized slaughter erasing the final optimistic glint from modernism and the 'wond...

Well, spacetime is doomed, so why not? I was always taught (sociology, sorry) that postmodernism begins mid 20th Century, esp 1960's. I think the theo...

I think you would first still need to agree that po-mo had provided a particular lens through which to view things. I am not sure this can be readily ...

Now that's something to think about. :up:

I'm not sure how to and I imagine it depends on the type of psychology and the definition of science one uses.

:up:

Distrust, tyranny and corruption has taken place on and off during the history of the Republic. Lincoln abolished habeas corpus and shut down newspape...

Wow... what brought this on? A quote from WLC too, nice. More shadows cast by Nietzsche's Death of God? Is that post modernism, or just the result of ...

But that is precisely what any competent psychologist would do. One important part of psychology is assisting people to deal with extraordinary situat...

The idea is broader and more nuanced than this and even the original word 'dukka' as suffering may also be translated as pain, dissatisfaction, anxiet...