Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
“Bulverism” is a term coined by C.S. Lewis to describe the state of public discourse and debate in the 20th century, or, as he also meant to convey by the term, the foundation of 20th century thought. “Bulverism” is a malady, if you will, which is alive and well, even rampant, here among we denizens of Free Republic. I personally can think of only a very few FReepers who have never succumbed to its blandishments, and I ain’t one of them. Enter here at your own risk.
It is a disastrous discovery, as Emerson says somewhere, that we exist. I mean, it is disastrous when instead of merely attending to a rose we are forced to think of ourselves looking at the rose, with a certain type of mind and a certain type of eyes. It is disastrous because, if you are not very careful, the color of the rose gets attributed to our optic nerves and its scent to our noses, and in the end there is no rose left. The professional philosophers have been bothered about this universal black-out for over two hundred years, and the world has not much listened to them. But the same disaster is now occurring on a level we can all understand.
We have recently “discovered that we exist” in two new senses. The Freudians have discovered that we exist as bundles of complexes. The Marxians have discovered that we exist as members of some economic class. In the old days it was supposed that if a thing seemed obviously true to a hundred men, then it was probably true in fact. Nowadays the Freudian will tell you to go and analyze the hundred: you will find that they all think Elizabeth [I] a great queen because they all have a mother-complex. Their thoughts are psychologically tainted at the source. And the Marxist will tell you to go and examine the economic interests of the hundred; you will find that they all think freedom a good thing because they are all members of the bourgeoisie whose prosperity is increased by a policy of laissez-faire. Their thoughts are “ideologically tainted” at the source.
Now this is obviously great fun; but it has not always been noticed that there is a bill to pay for it. There are two questions that people who say this kind of thing ought to be asked. The first is, are all thoughts thus tainted at the source, or only some? The second is, does the taint invalidate the tainted thought - in the sense of making it untrue - or not?
If they say that all thoughts are thus tainted, then, of course, we must remind them that Freudianism and Marxism are as much systems of thought as Christian theology or philosophical idealism. The Freudian and Marxian are in the same boat with all the rest of us, and cannot criticize us from outside. They have sawn off the branch they were sitting on. If, on the other hand, they say that the taint need not invalidate their thinking, then neither need it invalidate ours. In which case they have saved their own branch, but also saved ours along with it.
The only line they can really take is to say that some thoughts are tainted and others are not - which has the advantage (if Freudians and Marxians regard it as an advantage) of being what every sane man has always believed. But if that is so, we must then ask how you find out which are tainted and which are not. It is no earthly use saying that those are tainted which agree with the secret wishes of the thinker. Some of the things I should like to believe must in fact be true; it is impossible to arrange a universe which contradicts everyone’s wishes, in every respect, at every moment. Suppose I think, after doing my accounts, that I have a large balance at the bank. And suppose you want to find out whether this belief of mine is “wishful thinking.” You can never come to any conclusion by examining my psychological condition. Your only chance of finding out is to sit down and work through the sum yourself. When you have checked my figures, then, and then only, will you know whether I have that balance or not. If you find my arithmetic correct, then no amount of vapouring about my psychological condition can be anything but a waste of time. If you find my arithmetic wrong, then it may be relevant to explain psychologically how I came to be so bad at my arithmetic, and the doctrine of the concealed wish will become relevant - but only after you have yourself done the sum and discovered me to be wrong on purely arithmetical grounds. It is the same with all thinking and all systems of thought. If you try to find out which are tainted by speculating about the wishes of the thinkers, you are merely making a fool of yourself. You must find out on purely logical grounds which of them do, in fact, break down as arguments. Afterwards, if you like, go on and discover the psychological causes of the error.
In other words, you must show that a man is wrong before you start explaining why he is wrong. The modern method [Note: This essay was written in 1941.] is to assume without discussion that he is wrong and then distract his attention from this (the only real issue) by busily explaining how he became to be so silly. In the course of the last fifteen years I have found this vice so common that I have had to invent a name for it. I call it “Bulverism.” Some day I am going the write the biography of its imaginary inventor, Ezekiel Bulver, whose destiny was determined at the age of five when he heard his mother say to his father - who had been maintaining that two sides of a triangle were together greater than the third - “Oh, you say that because you are a man.” “At that moment,” E. Bulver assures us, “there flashed across my opening mind the great truth that refutation is no necessary part of argument. Assume your opponent is wrong, and then explain his error, and the world will be at your feet. Attempt to prove that he is wrong or (worse still) try to find out whether he is wrong or right, and the national dynamism of our age will thrust you to the wall.” That is how Bulver became one of the makers of the Twentieth Century.
I find the fruits of his discovery almost everywhere. Thus I see my religion dismissed on the grounds that “the comfortable parson had every reason for assuring the nineteenth century worker that poverty would be rewarded in another world.” Well, no doubt he had. On the assumption that Christianity is an error, I can see clearly enough that some people would still have a motive for inculcating it. I see it so easily that I can, of course, play the game the other way round, by saying that “the modern man has every reason for trying to convince himself that there are no eternal sanctions behind the morality he is rejecting.” For Bulverism is a truly democratic game in the sense that all can play it all day long, and that it give no unfair advantage to the small and offensive minority who reason. But of course it gets us not one inch nearer to deciding whether, as a matter of fact, the Christian religion is true or false. That question remains to be discussed on quite different grounds - a matter of philosophical and historical argument. However it were decided, the improper motives of some people, both for believing it and for disbelieving it, would remain just as they are.
I see Bulverism at work in every political argument. The capitalists must be bad economists because we know why they want capitalism, and equally Communists must be bad economists because we know why they want Communism. Thus, the Bulverists on both sides. In reality, of course, either the doctrines of the capitalists are false, or the doctrines of the Communists, or both; but you can only find out the rights and wrongs by reasoning - never by being rude about your opponent’s psychology.
Until Bulverism is crushed, reason can play no effective part in human affairs. Each side snatches it early as a weapon against the other; but between the two reason itself is discredited. And why should reason not be discredited? It would be easy, in answer, to point to the present state of the world, but the real answer is even more immediate. The forces discrediting reason, themselves depend of reasoning. You must reason even to Bulverize. You are trying to prove that all proofs are invalid. If you fail, you fail. If you succeed, then you fail even more - for the proof that all proofs are invalid must be invalid itself.
The alternative then is either sheer self-contradicting idiocy or else some tenacious belief in our power of reasoning, held in the teeth of all the evidence that Bulverists can bring for a “taint” in this or that human reasoner. I am ready to admit, if you like, that this tenacious belief has something transcendental or mystical about it. What then? Would you rather be a lunatic than a mystic?
So we see there is justification for holding on to our belief in Reason. But can this be done without theism? Does “I know” involve that God exists? Everything I know is an inference from sensation (except the present moment). All our knowledge of the universe beyond our immediate experiences depends on inferences from these experiences. If our inferences do not give a genuine insight into reality, then we can know nothing. A theory cannot be accepted if it does not allow our thinking to be a genuine insight, nor if the fact of our knowledge is not explicable in terms of that theory.
But our thoughts can only be accepted as a genuine insight under certain conditions. All beliefs have causes but a distinction must be drawn between (1) ordinary causes and (2) a special kind of cause called “a reason.” Causes are mindless events which can produce other results than belief. Reasons arise from axioms and inferences and affect only beliefs. Bulverism tries to show that the other man has causes and not reasons and that we have reasons and not causes. A belief which can be accounted for entirely in terms of causes is worthless. This principle must not be abandoned when we consider the beliefs which are the basis of others. Our knowledge depends on our certainty about axioms and inferences. If these are the results of causes, then there is no possibility of knowledge. Either we can know nothing or thought has reasons only, and no causes.
[The remainder of this essay, which was originally read to the Socratic Club before publication in the Socratic Digest, continues in the form of notes taken down by the Secretary of the Club. This explains why it is not all in the first-person, as is the text-proper.]
One might argue, Mr. Lewis continued, that reason had developed by natural selection, only those methods of thought which had proved useful surviving. But the theory depends on an inference from usefulness to truth, of which the validity would have to be assumed. All attempts to treat thought as a natural event involve the fallacy of excluding the thought of the man making the attempt.
It is admitted that the mind is affected by physical events; a wireless set is influenced by atmospherics, but it does not originate its deliverances - we’d take no notice of it if we thought it did. Natural events we can relate one to another until we can trace them finally to the space-time continuum. But thought has no father but thought. It is conditioned, yes, not caused. My knowledge that I have nerves in inferential.
The same argument applies to our values, which are affected by social factors, but if they are caused by them we cannot know that they are right. One can reject morality as an illusion, but the man who does so often tacitly excepts his own ethical motive: for instance the duty of freeing morality from superstition and of spreading enlightenment.
Neither Will nor Reason is the product of Nature. Therefore either I am self-existent (a belief which no one can accept) or I am a colony of some Thought and Will that are self-derived from a self-existent Reason and Goodness outside ourselves, in fact, a Supernatural.
Mr. Lewis went on to say that it was often objected that the existence of the Supernatural is too important to be discernible only by abstract argument, and thus only by the leisured few. But in all other ages the plain man has accepted the findings of the mystics and the philosophers for his initial belief in the existence of the Supernatural. Today the ordinary man is forced to carry that burden himself. Either mankind has made a ghastly mistake in rejecting authority, or the power or powers ruling his destiny are making a daring experiment, and all are to become sages. A society consisting solely of plain men must end in disaster. If we are to survive we must either believe the seers or scale those heights ourselves.
Evidently, then, something beyond Nature exists. Man is on the border line between the Natural and the Supernatural. Material events cannot produce spiritual activity, but the latter can be responsible for many of our actions in Nature. Will and Reason cannot depend on anything but themselves, but Nature can depend on Will and Reason, or, in other words, God created Nature.
The relation between Nature and Supernature, which is not a relation in space and time, becomes intelligible if the Supernatural made the Natural. We even have an idea of this making, since we know the power of imagination, though we can create nothing new, but can only rearrange our material provided through sense data. It is not inconceivable that the universe was created by an Imagination strong enough to impose phenomena on other minds.
It has been suggested, Mr. Lewis concluded, that our ideas of making and causing are wholly derived from our experience of will. The conclusion usually drawn is that there is no making or causing, only “projection.” But “projection” is itself a form of causing, and it is more reasonable to suppose that Will is the only cause we know, and that therefore Will is the cause of Nature.
A discussion followed. Points arising:
All reasoning assumes the hypothesis that inference is valid. Correct inference is
self-evident.
“Relevant” (re evidence) is a rational term.
The universe doesn’t claim to be true: it’s just there.
Knowledge by revelation is more like empirical than rational knowledge.
Question: What is the criterion of truth, if you distinguish between cause and
reason?
Mr Lewis: A mountainous country might have several maps made of it, only
one of which was a true one; i.e., corresponding with the actual contours. The
map drawn by Reason claims to be that true one. I couldn’t get at the universe
unless I could trust my reason. If we couldn’t trust inference we could know nothing but
our own existence. Physical reality is an inference from sensations.
Question: How can an axiom claim self-evidence any more than an empirical judgment on evidence?
"How can an axiom claim self-evidence any more than an empirical judgment on evidence?"
Any FReeper thinkers care to take a stab at answering the question for Mr. Lewis?
Care to step in for Mr. Lewis?
You folks might enjoy this. Care to step in for Mr Lewis, and answer the question to which his answer was lost?
You may appreciate this. :)
Just for you guys.
Perhaps you might be able to use parts of this in your on-going series.
What, no invite for me? *grin*
A smart-aleck BUMP.
Yours in Truth,
I'll bump this to the top, and try to strain my brain around it. C.S. Lewis makes me think, and it gives me a headache.
"How can an axiom claim self-evidence any more than an empirical judgment on evidence?"
I don't know that I can answer it, but I can criticize it. The question is framed badly, so as to lead the respondent to a foregone conclusion, namely that an axiom can indeed claim self-evidence more than an empirical judgment. I guess that's a roundabout way of answering the question, "It can't."
Probably the most famous axiom is Descartes "I think, therefore, I am." Since it began his Pensees, it is the foundation on which his dualism was predicated. While the statement seems axiomatic -- how can one think if one doesn't exist? -- it is no more verifiable (and probably less) than an empirical occurrence. Isn't an empirical judgment just an aggregated axiom, the result of repeated observations, leading to a conclusion that is "self-evident?"
No answer yet, but here's a bump!
Hi, Jon:
Great post. I always love my namesake's writing!
On the origin of conscious thought itself: Roger Penrose proved in The Emperor's New Mind that it is impossible for it to have arisen through evolution.
On objectivity: Bill James in The Historical Baseball Abstract: "Not everyone who has pondered or studied the issue has drawn the conclusion that the greatest player who ever lived was Babe Ruth; not everyone, but certainly most. There is an attraction, that being so, to the insistence that it was someone else. That insistence dovetails nicely on many occasions with the desire to make some particular point….The problem is that if one does not wish to assert some particular point, but one wishes only to identify the greatest player who ever lived, one is drawn almost unavoidably to the conclusion that it was George Ruth."
On truth: "When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies." Jesus speaking of the devil, John 8:44
"How can an axiom claim self-evidence any more than an empirical judgment on evidence?"
1. "Evidence" may be faulty, misconstrued, trumped-up.
2. "Judgment" may be inexperienced, faulty, or biased.
3. An axiom contained within the reliable empirical data of the Bible is itself reliable, because it is derived from and divulged by He who is Reliable.
Dan
P.S. Here's a question for you: What was amazingly remarkable about Clive Staples' death? Hint: It's a proof of how much Satan respected and feared him!
I suggest we begin by considering the sense in which "axiom" is intended. There are several possibilities, of which two seem pertinent --
1. A rule or precept sanctioned by practical experience (eg. maxims of war)
2. An internally consistent statement taken as self-evident, from which, together with other axioms, inferences can be made (eg. axioms of Euclidean geometry).
Good thing we're all sages (but me). I don't understand the question. =(
I thought an axiom was the embodiment of "self-evident". I feel like he's asking how come knowing has more knowledge than study.
P.S. Here's a question for you: What was amazingly remarkable about Clive Staples' death? Hint: It's a proof of how much Satan respected and feared him!
I'll answer the easy question first: C.S. died on the day that John F. Kennedy was assassinated, thereby going almost completely unnoticed by the world.
Judges 14:18 And the men of the city said unto him on the seventh day before the sun went down, What is sweeter than honey? and what is stronger than a lion? And he said unto them, If ye had not plowed with my heifer, ye had not found out my riddle.
First, let me say that I don't quite have an answer formulated just yet (nor may I ever, for that matter).
However, two points are raised by the responses so far:
One: I think Askel & Bonaparte are on the right track by first asking what definition of "axiom" we should use.
Two: Considering the whole of the essay, I suspect Lewis' answer would have had something to do with his understanding of inference.
Quite frankly, I think it is truly unfortunate that the question is so poorly formulated (IronJack is right on that), and further that the answer was not recorded. But I'll continue working on a possible answer.
Isn't an empirical judgment just an aggregated axiom, the result of repeated observations, leading to a conclusion that is "self-evident?"
Haven't you just described inference, as used by Lewis, by your suggestion of an aggregated axiom as one and the same as an empirical judgment?
> In other words, you must show that a man is wrong before > you start explaining why he is wrong. The modern method > is to assume without discussion that he is wrong and then > distract his attention from this (the only real issue) by > busily explaining how he became to be so silly. In the > course of the last fifteen years I have found this vice so > common that I have had to invent a name for it. I call it > “Bulverism.” Some day I am going the write the biography > of its imaginary inventor, Ezekiel Bulver, whose destiny > was determined at the age of five when he heard his mother > say to his father - who had been maintaining that two > sides of a triangle were together greater than the third - > “Oh, you say that because you are a man.” “At that > moment,” E. Bulver assures us, “there flashed across my > opening mind the great truth that refutation is no > necessary part of argument. Assume your opponent is wrong, > and then explain his error, and the world will be at your > feet. Attempt to prove that he is wrong or (worse still) > try to find out whether he is wrong or right, and the > national dynamism of our age will thrust you to the wall.” > That is how Bulver became one of the makers of the > Twentieth Century.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, Bulverism: otherwise known as argumentum ad hominem.
> Question: How can an axiom claim self-evidence any more > than an empirical judgment on evidence?
Answer: It cannot.
Axioms cannot claim self-evidence (except for axioms which claim "This axiom is self-evident." An exception which proves the rule. Any axiom which claims "This axiom is self-evident." is actually two axioms—that axiom is self-evident.); people can claim axioms are self-evident. People are mostly stupid and usually wrong.
No axiom is self-evident except that which is—like this one.
. The forces discrediting reason, themselves depend of reasoning. You must reason even to Bulverize. You are trying to prove that all proofs are invalid. If you fail, you fail. If you succeed, then you fail even more - for the proof that all proofs are invalid must be invalid itself.
Many thanks logos. Lewis's prose is so refreshing. He shows you don't need complex sentences to deal with complex thoughts.
It occurs to me that the various permutations of "Bulverism" must ultimately lead to skepticism. And while Marxism and Freudianism are new, skepticism as a philosophic position certainly isn't. And as Lewis clearly points out, skepticism is self-refuting. The Freudian says the product of our reason is determined by the unconscious; the Marxist says the determining factor is class-interest. If this is true, then both Freudians and Marxists must concede their respective systems are also determined. Both systems are therefore epistemological failures.
Mr. logos, what a fine post. And then tapping the wisdom of deep-thinkers in Freeperdom--who are all diseased with Bulverilalia. Is the question poorly phrased? Only for Bulvers, you know. But here is my reasons why an axiom MUST CLAIM self-evidence more than an empirical judgment.
The short answer: because the part is greater than the whole, and the present is miniscule in the entire span of history, past and future.And so I humbly submit that the answer must include the factor of time.The long answer: Certainty has such value that a faith presented in terms of certainty will have great appeal. Self-evidence also has great value and often serves as a criteria for certainty. However, in this way, only what is evident for the present is certain. Certainty of the present alone is very limited since each person is forced to depend on memory to deal with dimensions that the evidence of the present opens: past and future. Understandably, the scientist, although he must depend on the predictive power of repeated experiments, seems more certain in his experiments. Compare the Christian believer whose life after death escapes the examination of the laboratory. The surety of the present has such value, that reality which falls outside of the immediate present is often closed out. One may ask whether certainty of the present ought to be the criteria for truth if it canot disclose the end of the human person.
At the same time, it is presently self-evident, that the whole is greater than the part and that only a part of our knowledge is certain in respect to self-evidence, overshadowed by so much that is uncertain. Is it self-evident that man has a final end? (The laboratory of natural reason can demonstrate that God exists and that he is one) Or at least a greater end than the immediate? Indeed many unique events throughout human history involved the risk that defies the threat of uncertainty. Can such a certainty then be a veritable criteria for truth?
If we admit with St. Thomas, that while things are self-evident to us, and yet other things self-evident but not to us, then all things presently certain (or self-evident) to us cannot be the criteria for truth since there are other things which are certain but not to us.
Referring to my post #12, I will maintain that if "axiom" is taken here in the first sense, ie. gleaned through cumulative experience, then it differs in no significant way from an "empirical judgment," which does not rely on scientific theory but on practical observation. Both are "seat of the pants," if you will. An axiom of this type would not, per se, have any greater claim on the truth.
If "axiom" were construed as in the second sense, then it would really be no more than an intuitively satisfying (and possibly quite useful) assumption. In this case, it might make no claim at all to being "true." It's universally accepted that 1+1=2, and yet very few people actually know how to prove this proposition (in abstract algebra, it takes roughly 15 minutes to jot this proof down, if memory serves).
Ah... Thank you for dealing with "Bulverism."
Of course it was my fault that no one else did so by my pointing everyone toward the "unanswered question." Actually, what I find so fascinating about this particular little essay is that, not only does it fairly describe today's political campaign tactics, it was written in 1941, 59 years ago!
I also find his insight concerning inference quite helpful in understanding how we "know" things. It sort of smudges the line between empiricism and transcendence, don't you think?
And so I humbly submit that the answer must include the factor of time.
Beautiful! However, the introduction of time also raises questions; e.g., did you ever wake up tomorrow? That may sound like a "trick question," but the answer may very well lead one to a contemplation of the Eternal Now.
If "axiom" were construed as in the second sense, then it would really be no more than an intuitively satisfying (and possibly quite useful) assumption.
Yes, but ... wouldn't your use of assumption here mean about the same as Lewis' use of inference? And, if you really think about it, isn't he right that we know just about everything we know by inference? How much do we really know, directly?
No corollary questions yet. Although if you must, consult Lewis' Screwtape Letters for Eternal Now.
"How can an axiom claim self-evidence any more than an empirical judgment on evidence?"
As others have pointed out, this question is poorly formulated, but it is also invalid. I would respond by asking this questioner to provide an epistemological definition of the word "axiom"-- his attempt to do so would demonstrate that the question is not valid. The epistemological definiton of "axiom" is: a self-evident truth. A self-evident truth is one that states something the opposite of which it is impossible to think. It can also be called a necessary truth, because it's opposite is impossible. For example, the "whole" must by necessity be always greater than its component "parts".
Furthermore, the questioner's concept of "empirical judgement [based] on evidence" depends upon numerous presuppositions which are based on the very axioms that he is questioning. The concepts "empirical", "judgement" and "evidence" are all based on the axiom of the Law of Identity (A = A, or "a thing is itself"). The questioner cannot ask the question without smuggling in this axiom, because in doing so he must implicitly agree that "empirical" does not mean "subjective", "judgement" does not mean "non-judgement", and "evidence" does not mean "belief".
So, boiling down your remarks - and assuming I understand them correctly - you seem to be saying that an axiom, since it is self-evidently true, must be at least as true as any judgment based on empirical evidence. Is that the gist of it?
You, logos, are a master weaver! Absolutely. Were we not living in this three-dimensional world, different axioms would have gained favor, simply because we would be drawing inferences from different observation.
Of course, Euclid only said what he did because he was an egghead. ;-)
The question is a real Pandora's box. A possible (and simple) line of argument:
An empirical judgment based on evidence is a "relative" truth. A truth based on perspective, knowledge, and experience. An axiom on the other hand is an "absolute" truth. A truth that we all would agree on regardless of our own bias.
You could also argue that an axiom is merely an empirical judgment based on evidence that has achieved a consensus and is therefore passed on as truth without further regard to the evidence.
JW
LOL!
No ... I was hoping to induce others to contemplate the Eternal Now. My question was intended to suggest the difference between linear time and time as it must be outside our space-time continuum. Obviously, it didn't work.
I don't want to turn this into some kind of FReeper Family Feud, but ... good answer! (Both of them.)
Were we not living in this three-dimensional world...
Ah! Now there's a universally accepted axiom about this universe. Are you absolutely sure it's true? Are there only three dimensions? :)
In answer to your second question, I would have to say that nothing can be known directly, except where absolute cause-and-effect is found, ie. the spiritual. (What is called "science," as many of us "know," does not deal with cause-and-effect.)
So, boiling down your remarks - and assuming I understand them correctly - you seem to be saying that an axiom, since it is self-evidently true, must be at least as true as any judgment based on empirical evidence. Is that the gist of it?
That is correct, but I am asserting a bit more than your summary states. Not only am I saying that axioms must be at least as true as judgement based on empirical evidence, I am also saying that the very concept of " judgement based on empirical evidence" is completely dependent on the very axioms which it is challenging in the question put forth.
I happen to agree completely with your #34, but I suspect we'll get a lot of argument tomorrow when OWK and the boys get here. :)
"Are you absolutely sure it's true?"
No, sir. But I have great faith that, while I continue to reside on this planet, God will continue to indulge me in this notion -- and will not be too harsh when he disabuses me of it.
...I am also saying that the very concept of " judgement based on empirical evidence" is completely dependent on the very axioms which it is challenging in the question put forth.
I understood that - just didn't say it - but it appears we have two opposing schools of thought represented here so far on the thread.
What is your take on Lewis' use of inference and its implications for the boundaries between empiricism and transcendence?
What is your take on Lewis' use of inference and its implications for the boundaries between empiricism and transcendence?
I'm off to bed now, but I will certainly write a detailed post on this subject tomorrow. 'Till then, be well.
Hmmm...bed sounds good.
Peace, all.
Goodnight, logos. I'll check back here tomorrow (on the assumption that there will be a tomorrow). :-)
I also recommend "The Great Divorce" for the Eternal Now. Particularly the momentary observation of the "Glass Bead Game" at the end.
Thanks for the heads up. Nice post - lots of "either/ors."
Question: How can an axiom claim self-evidence any more than an empirical judgment on evidence?
Seems to me it can't. But then again, I never seem to be able to go further than subjective existence so what do I know?
"How can an axiom claim self-evidence any more than an empirical judgment on evidence?"
If it (or some part of it) can be tested by sense empiricism, test it. That's the firmest knowledge (unless it is all a dream).
If it is knowledge not subject to sense empiricism, subject it to logic and reason.
If it applies to knowledge beyond the scope of logic reason, use verification (others with the same knowledge base looking at the same area and comparing results), falsification and repeatability as much as possible.
Some evidence will still be only visible to a few, there you can choose to accept it based on the credibility of the source, or continue in your own experiments. I recommend the later for it's own sake, the former for faith, courage, compassion and inspiration.
When I give gifts to adults, they are almost invariably copies of C.S. Lewis. He is the only Christian writer that I fully respect. He was a thinker of great quality, a student of the world and of man, and a Christian in the truest, most admirable sense of the word. I cried when C.S. Lewis died and read some of his unpublished fragments to console myself. To me, C.S. Lewis was love in human form.
When my eyes dry I may read your post and come back with some comment.
Yes, to all that you said.
If you haven't got it, try to find The Quotable Lewis; W. Martindale & J. Root, Eds.; Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, IL; 1989; ISBN: 0-8423-5115-9. This arranges just about everything Lewis wrote alphabetically by topic; e.g., faith, love, technology, etc.
Interesting approach.
What about those individual transcendental experiences had by most Christians? The ones we accept on hearing from other Christians based only on the fact that we've had similar (but not the same) experiences ourselves. The ones non-Christians immediately label "anecdotal stories not subject to verification," and therefore not acceptable as proof of anything at all.
Would not such phenomena also be known by inference, the same way we obtain knowledge about empirical events, as the term is used by Lewis in this essay?
LOL!
...so what do I know?
You seem to be suggesting that what I know changes from moment to moment. Would that make knowledge transitory?
When I read the above essay, the first thing that came to mind was this, he is talking about politicians. The more I read, the more convinced I am that he still talking about politicians.
Perhaps you might be able to use parts of this in your on-going series
Use it? It is my ongoing series!
logos, first my apologies for being so emotional this morning. It will be the strain of having tried to deal with some of the Bulverism on FR while lamenting the beautiful morning outside my window that I am missing. I stopped reading at the name C.S. Lewis and made a copy I expected to read much later today.
I couldnt resist though and came back prepared to agree with anything you cite from C.S. Lewis, but now, like betty, like MK, like cornelis, like so many others on our recent threads, you have surpassed my wildest expectations. In fact, logos, you have given me confidence that we will go somewhere with our discussions, that understanding is in no way dead!
I wanted my next article to help guarantee that we continue to progress in our thinking. Your posting this does that for me. Anyone doubt it?
I think I've said what Lewis says here many times the past few days. I am sick of errors which come from ideology and from a fixation on the working parts of human thought that clouds thinking. C.S. Lewis' rose is Reality, and a lot of Freepers have lost sight of the rose trying to dissect the thorns.
It gets me to wondering if my ability to see truth despite my education, to see liars even among my co-religionists (Radical Conservatives), to denounce crime even when someone is telling me it is to my benefit, somehow stems in part from some influence of C.S. Lewis. You see I believe I have read every word of the man that is possible to encounter in print.
I began to read C.S. Lewis in 1966. I searched out every extant work of his around 1977, and I don't believe I have read anything new since 1986 when I left all my books at home in the U.S. and moved to Europe.
When I began to read C.S. Lewis I was a convinced leftist and atheist. So apparently I was never a Bulverist, the truth in his writing broke through my ignorance, beliefs, ideology and delusions about the greatness and omniscience of Man. The beauty and sheer brilliance of his thought was something I felt a need to drink in thirstily. I think I can in all conscience say that my objectivity has never suffered because of my convictions. I have also lived long enough to witness the rarity in that.
My thesis in every effort I make here is that indeed some thoughts are tainted and some not. We need to identify those tainted and throw them out. We have to protect the rose and let its Reality nurture our souls.
If you try to find out which are tainted by speculating about the wishes of the thinkers, you are merely making a fool of yourself. You must find out on purely logical grounds which of them do, in fact, break down as arguments. Afterwards, if you like, go on and discover the psychological causes of the error.
I hope, logos, you see that that is what you and Dumb_Ox have disregarded in trying to find your "way out of the morass", something I was working on for a post to reply to you last evening. If you don't follow me, say so, and I will get it to you.
In other words, you must show that a man is wrong before you start explaining why he is wrong
A practice many people condemn right here on FR each time I do so! Here when you say two sides of a triangle together are always longer than the third you are a Communist. The illogic revealed by the parson comment reminds me of ChrisM's "HRW said something true about the KLA, what they say about Serb atrocities must be true!" Thats why I'm always talking about Aristotle and syllogisms.
Until Bulverism is crushed, reason can play no effective part in human affairs.
Let us crush it!
Now I know why I got so emotional at just seeing the name C.S. Lewis. Its because I love him, and d***it, logos, I'm beginning to love you! Wonderful, wonderful. The best possible post! This reply is getting too long...
I hope, logos, you see that that is what you and Dumb_Ox have disregarded in trying to find your "way out of the morass", something I was working on for a post to reply to you last evening. If you don't follow me, say so, and I will get it to you.
I'm afraid I've forgotten the context of my "way out of the morass" comment, so unfortunately, I am unable to make the connection to which you allude. Perhaps you can enlighten me through FR mail?
Uhhh ... should my wife be worried ... about the "love" I mean?
No, dixie, he was talking about you and me! C.S.Lewis talked about himself and everyman. And he did talk, most of what he wrote he conversed with fellow professors at Cambridge and earlier, Oxford and he gave public lectures. If you have not read ALL of Lewis, you have missed some of the finest thinking (and conclusions) ever recorded! Ever think man isn't worth much? Read Lewis, and you will never give up on mankind again!
When I began to read C.S. Lewis I was a convinced leftist and atheist. So apparently I was never a Bulverist, the truth in his writing broke through my ignorance, beliefs, ideology and delusions about the greatness and omniscience of Man. The beauty and sheer brilliance of his thought was something I felt a need to drink in thirstily. I think I can in all conscience say that my objectivity has never suffered because of my convictions. I have also lived long enough to witness the rarity in that.
You describe what is probably the reason so many I recommend Lewis to here at FR shy away from reading what he has to say. He blows away intellectual chaff quicker than the coldest north wind.
I'm afraid I've forgotten the context of my "way out of the morass" comment. Not surprising, your thoughts were going nowhere :-)...or I thought not :-)) Perhaps you can enlighten me through FR mail? I think rather we will be enlightening each other.
Uhhh ... should my wife be worried ... about the "love" I mean? You're the one who's supposed to be the avowed Christian. I should think your wife would be pleased. (About the only time I am in agreement with the real morons on FR is when they shout homosexuality is a perversion and a sin. I would probably lock up anyone who openly practices homosexuality, and I am certainly against considering them fit members of our society. It is an illness, a sort of birth defect. Before the popularity of the Second Reality, I think most intelligent homosexuals had pretty much the same opinion.) One of the most wonderful things in my life is the practice of heterosexuality. Again, it is the Biologist in me.
Oh, I have found things in Lewis I respectfully disagree with. It is the perfectionist in me.
It is the perfectionist in me.
I think I learned about the age of five, maybe six, that perfection was beyond me, and gave up trying. It's the pragmatist in me. :)
Yes, I too have found a thing or two of Lewis with which I disagree, but not many. In his earlier writings he seemed to be a little too accepting of whatever the Darwinists had to say, although he later corrected that (maybe I'll post his The Funeral of a Great Myth one day - that should stir up the natives a bit).
I was joking with the love remark, of course. But you knew that.
Yes, I knew that.
(maybe I'll post his The Funeral of a Great Myth one day - that should stir up the natives a bit).
Interesting you should mention this. Those interested in an excerpt and the ensuing discussion may wish to check out The Funeral of a Great Myth ('Popular' Evolutionism), posted on 11/16/99.
Hey, you sure saved me a lot of trouble! Thanks.
And my supposition about stirring up the natives was certainly born out. Wow! (Hard to reason with folks who don't read well.)
Good morning, I trust this day finds you well
It may not.
An axiom is a supposed truth, but an empirical judgement is a proven truth.
Axiom: A maxim widely accepted on it's intrinsic merit.
Maxim: A general truth, fundamental principle or rule of conduct.
Mornin' backatcha...
You might want to consider Posts #27, #28 and #35. There seems to be a fundamental disagreement.
I did, and I chose not to use the epistemological definiton of axiom, but rather the Webster's definition.
But then again, the defining of words can be construed as an axiomatic endeavour anyhow, eh?
It seems to me that Bulverism could have been a description of modern academe's rejection of the very idea of reason and objectivity.
Or, as the description of Deputy Director Wither puts it in That Hideous Strength: "he had passed from Hegel into Hume, thence through Pragmatisim, and thence through Logical Positivism, and out at last into the complete void."
"A dogmatic belief in objective value is necessary to the very idea of a rule which is not tyranny or an obedience which is not slavery. . . The process which, if not checked, will abolish Man, goes an apace among Communists and Democrats no less than among Fascists." The Abolition of Man
He was warning us a long time ago. Thanks for another great thought piece, as usual.
Cordially,
re:
"What about those individual transcendental experiences had by most Christians? ... The ones non-Christians immediately label "anecdotal stories not subject to verification," and therefore not acceptable as proof of anything at all."You mean the transcendental common to all humans that Christians humans describe in Christian terms and context?
"Would not such phenomena also be known by inference, the same way we obtain knowledge about empirical events, as the term is used by Lewis in this essay?"Inference is a logical method. You can use reason to show the limits of reason; however past that you can not use it to know what is beyond reason to know - without the act of doing so limiting the knowledge to reason once again. In fact, and in practice, reason cries out for something beyond reason, it is useless without it. As useless as a tool without a toolman.
There are common methods we can apply to all knowledge: accuracy and calibration of the instrument, isolation of variables, repeatability, verifiability, falsifiability. These can be used in some manner on most subjects of our knowledge. But to say that knowledge of truth is somehow outside human experience, truly non-empirical, makes it impossible for humans to know - by sense, by reason or by our existence transcending reason.
There is an important role for interpretation of transcendent experience, this brings inference and reason into play - bringing the transcendent back down into reason for other tests, discernment, discussion and use. But the two should not be confused.
C.S. says "... this tenacious belief has something transcendental..." He is too tentative, just show what all who look can see. If you define transcendental as transcending, going beyond, reason, that's exactly what we all, ALL, do. It is impossible not to.
The first thing you have to have "reasoner-onlys" see is that they are not reasoners only. It is impossible to be human and not either "know" something transcending reason, or act as if you do. In fact, if all we had was reason, and we based our actions on reason, we could never act. It is inherent in the tool of reason that it cannot be used in the most important places - as demonstrable as that a crescent wrench can't turn a screw. You don't have to be a logician, philosopher or theologian to understand this. No, the question is not "if transcendental" but which transcendental. Any rationalist who has the courage to look can be shown this: you may as well spin on your heels as try to live based on reason alone. It cannot be done, and no one does. This is so easy to demonstrate I get frustrated when some, even C.S. in all his brillance, dance all around its simplicity.
The only rationalists who can't be shown this are those who won't look. There are plenty of them, but they exhibit their "value" of reason by their fear of using it. They have become the bishops telling Galileo, there is no need to look, they already know what's there. Their knowledge beyond reason is that they know nothing beyond reason and they know it beyond reason. Treat them gently as one would someone in fear of great pain.
"Knowledge by revelation is more like empirical than rational knowledge."
Even rational knowledge is empirical, if we define empirical as based on direct personal experience. Two people can look at the same syllogism and one will know it's true - have rational knowledge - and the other will not. What's the difference? One had direct personal experience of the truth. Yes, it could all be a dream - that's your alternative.
Sorry to go on so long, you know how we get. Thanks Logos.
Took Big Ezy's advice and gamboled with the dog on Elysian Fields for lunch. (Already thinking of ditching plans for a cape on Tuesday.) Looks like D-fendr's running with the ball.
You mean the transcendental common to all humans that Christians humans describe in Christian terms and context?
Yeah, that one, the one that only Christians get accused of doing. :) Around here, at least.
If we define religion as the area of human existence that deals with the unconditioned, the absolute, then all mentally capable adults have a religious view or position, examined or unexamined, known or assumed.
And, if they look around enough they will find that whatever basic contour their's may take, some major religion is largely congruent with it.
There is nothing new under the sun.
There is nothing new under the sun.
Well, not exactly. But I would say that anyone who wishes to find something new must look within.
Totally unrelated to this thread, I would recommend to you a book which I promise will surprise you immensely once you pass the title.
The Apocalypse Conspiracy; John Noe; Wolgemuth & Hyatt, Publishers, Inc., Brentwood, TN; 1991; ISBN 1-56121-040-4
I'm not even sure it's still in print, but if you can find it you will find a new perspective on Revelation, surprisingly related to "finding something new."
Peace.
I remember a strong revelation: "God is good."
Now that was new - new to me.
Thank you for the recommendation; I'm more of the Petrine view of Revelations, but I'll look for it. Thanks.
How can an axiom claim self-evidence any more than an empirical judgment on evidence?
My answer to the question, for what it's worth, is based on the contributions of Hebrews 11:6 and Cajun Against Carville.
For the purposes of academic consideration one can easily suppose that the terms "judgment" and "evidence" are pure; i.e., that judgment is always true and faithful to the evidence in question, and that the evidence is always complete and trustworthy. However, in reality neither is often true. Human judgment is always encrusted with human "baggage," even from those trained to eliminate any and all preconceived notions about the subject at hand. The training to ignore personal biases may be superlative, and the individual motivation to do so honestly may be present, but it is difficult to imagine the human being who is able to approach any problem with a "blank slate." I doubt that such seldom, if ever, happens.
Likewise, the evidence itself, even if trustworthy in itself, is almost never "complete." Lacking completeness evidence can only be trusted, and judged, provisionally while we wait for completeness to come about. Most often, judgments are made in the world of human reality before evidence is complete, and later revised - often many times; e.g., the field of evolution - as new evidence comes to light.
An axiom must be true, however, because it's opposite cannot be true (thank you, CAC), and therefore an axiom can be seen to be true on its face and in itself. By any definition an axiom that may be questioned is not an axiom in the first place, hence an axiom is at least as true (and more likely more true) as any judgment based on empirical evidence.
I freely admit that this answer may not stand in the academic environment, but then few of us live and operate in such a place anyway.
Jon:
What is both self-evident and empirically known:
"...what may be known about God is plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse." Romans 1:19-20
What may be known about God:
"And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him." Hebrews 11:6
Q.E.D.
Very good. Of course, I'd add something. :)
An axiom that may be questioned, when answered, creates another axiom which may be questioned, which when answered, creates another axiom which may be questioned, which when answered, creates another axiom which may be questioned, which...
Conditional truths extend to infinity, we live in a finite world, in which we must act.
If there are no unconditional truths, we must assume them or else be paralyzed.
I realize this a step before the "are they known, how are they known, how are they "proved." But if you can prove them (using reason), they aren't unconditioned, your act of proof has just conditioned them, and round you go again, spinning on your heels.
If there are no unconditional truths, we must assume them or else be paralyzed.
And...if there is no Absolute Truth...there is no God. :)
Yes, by all definitions or attempts at descriptions of what we call God, it cannot exist unless there is the unconditioned. In fact in the East, many, whom some might consider deity-less, refer nonetheless to "the unconditioned."
What is frustrating to me is for someone to maintain there are no absolutes, absolutely. :)
What is frustrating to me is for someone to maintain there are no absolutes, absolutely.
LOL!
Absolute denial of any absolutes. Methinks you have perhaps coined a new phrase:
An axiom that may be questioned, when answered, creates another axiom which may be questioned, which when answered, creates another axiom which may be questioned, which when answered, creates another axiom which may be questioned, which... Conditional truths extend to infinity, we live in a finite world, in which we must act. If there are no unconditional truths, we must assume them or else be paralyzed. I realize this a step before the "are they known, how are they known, how are they "proved." But if you can prove them (using reason), they aren't unconditioned, your act of proof has just conditioned them, and round you go again, spinning on your heels.
I would appreciate some clarification of this argument of yours concerning axioms. For the sake of discussion, let's use the axiom of the Law of Identity: A = A (a thing is itself). How do you prove this argument by reason? You can't, because axioms, by definition are beyond such proof. Does this mean that the axiom is invalid? No, because an axiom is, by definition, a necessary truth, or a truth about which it is impossible to think the opposite--for example, the "whole" can never be less than its component "parts". So, while it is true that axioms cannot be proven by reason, they are "reasonable" simply because their opposites would contradict logic.
My basic questions to you are:
1. Are you asserting that axioms are conditional truths?
2. If axioms are conditional truth, upon what do they depend?
Your argument reagarding conditional truth and human action would seem to depend on your proof of these assertions, and I eagerly await your answers.
An axiom that may be questioned, when answered, creates another axiom which may be questioned, which when answered, creates another axiom which may be questioned, which when answered, creates another axiom which may be questioned, which... Conditional truths extend to infinity, we live in a finite world, in which we must act. If there are no unconditional truths, we must assume them or else be paralyzed. I realize this a step before the "are they known, how are they known, how are they "proved." But if you can prove them (using reason), they aren't unconditioned, your act of proof has just conditioned them, and round you go again, spinning on your heels.
I would appreciate some clarification of this argument of yours concerning axioms. For the sake of discussion, let's use the axiom of the Law of Identity: A = A (a thing is itself). How do you prove this argument by reason? You can't, because axioms, by definition are beyond such proof. Does this mean that the axiom is invalid? No, because an axiom is, by definition, a necessary truth, or a truth about which it is impossible to think the opposite--for example, the "whole" can never be less than its component "parts". So, while it is true that axioms cannot be proven by reason, they are "reasonable" simply because their opposites would contradict logic.
My basic questions to you are:
1. Are you asserting that axioms are conditional truths?
2. If axioms are conditional truth, upon what do they depend?
Your argument reagarding conditional truth and human action would seem to depend on your proof of these assertions, and I eagerly await your answers.
I apologize for the confusion. I started off repeating Logos' phrase "an axiom that may be questioned" is not an axiom and used that to go off on the cycle of never-ending conditions. So I was using humor to discuss the problem of having only conditional truths rather than axioms.
However, I would like to use your question to elaborate on the problem that axioms create for logic. Logic/reason cries out for something beyond it; it can't function without it.
An axiom is variously described as self-evident, and established principle, universally accepted as true. However, no statement is incapable of question. And certainly no value upon which it rests is unquestionable.
You can say it does not need a reason to be true, but then you wouldn't know it by reason. This is fine, and I think necessary for existence, but to place something for which you have no reason within the realm of known by reason violates reason. ^_^
Your example was very close to a definition, and axiomatic value statements are closer to what I had in mind, but we can try it for an example: "Why is it true that the whole can never be less than it component parts?" Because I cannot think otherwise. Why is something true if you cannot think otherwise? Because that would violate logic? Why is something true if it doesn't violate logic? It just is.
You can take whatever path you wish, end wherever you wish, but end you must at some point (or go round in circular logic) without a because, without a condition. You start or end with either a known or assumed unconditional, or self-evident, truth statement.
A self-evident truth is one that does not require a condition to be true. If it did, it wouldn't be self-evident, and that proof would have to be unconditioned or else you aren't done using reason. So long as it is known by reason, it has a reason or condition, and for reason to start (or stop depending on your direction), you need an assumption, a self-evident, something true or known without conditions, without requiring a reason, something unconditioned, something absolute.
So, no, I'm not asserting that axioms are conditional truths, but that since they are not, they are not logically proved, logic proves by using conditions. Axioms are the starting point that keeps us from never be able to begin to use logic at all.
You can think of logic as a tactical tool, but one which fails when tried to use to determine your primary strategy.
If you would still like an example of my assertion about actions and reason alone, let's pick one. Tell me something, some act you have done that is based completely and totally on known reason without some unconditional value, some axiom, required at some point.
Thank you very much for your questions and the discussion.
Yes, we can establish:
The Church of the Holy Bulver
Of course we will need to join with the Southern Bulverites, and we must of course oppose the unorthodox Bulverites, which we can discuss as the First Bulverian Council, and of course we need a creed:"I believe there are absolutely no absolutes.. "
But I would say that anyone who wishes to find something new must look within.
Hello logos! What a stunning idea! William James observed that "the recesses of feeling, the darker, blinder strata of character, are the only places in the world in which we catch real fact in the making." Then another stunning idea, from Bonaparte: "I would have to say that nothing can be known directly, except where absolute cause-and-effect is found, ie. the spiritual." And yet another, from D-Fendr: "Inference is a logical method. You can use reason to show the limits of reason; however past that you can not use it to know what is beyond reason to know -- without the act of doing so limiting the knowledge to reason once again. In fact, and in practice, reason cries out for something beyond reason, it is useless without it. As useless as a tool without a toolman.... If you define transcendental as transcending, going beyond, reason, that's exactly what we all, ALL, do. It is impossible not to."
Boiling it all down, reason, as indispensable a tool as it is, is limited; and if we turn it into a supreme value in itself, it can be self-limiting and self-deforming. It seems to me that the only direct and certain knowledge that I have is of what is going on in my consciousness which, while constituting a part of existent reality, has a transcendental extension that seems to be unavoidable, as D-Fendr has observed. This, of course, is an experience of subjectivity for which I can adduce no proof that would be considered acceptable to a rationalist.
It seems to me that transcendence can be experienced as contact with and participation in absolute cause-and-effect, as Bonaparte suggests, i.e., with the spiritual order, as a reaching out for an ordering truth outside and beyond the limits of one's own concrete existence. It may also be experienced as a projection of self, which becomes the ordering principle for the subject inclined to this variety of experience of transcendence. But this is a "funny kind" of transcendence, because it unfolds within the order of time -- which would seem to disqualify it as a true experience of transcendence. Yet, to the extent that it produces a result that constitutes an ordering "reality" beyond one's self, it, too, has a self-transcending quality. In the latter case, the "reality" will likely be some species of Bulverism.
Plato's myth of the metaxy provides a way to understand this experience of transcendent self-consciousness, constituted as it is by the two "poles," human and divine (the orders of time and timelessness respectively). The quality of the content of the experience, its ability to liberate us into truth or confine us by referring us back to radical selfhood -- depends on which pole the subject is mainly resonating with (so to speak: I struggle to articulate these ideas).
Bulverism resonates with the human pole because the Bulverizer typically rejects non-existent reality -- the spiritual order of eternity; and thus he is thrown back onto himself. Two quick illustrations might shed some light.
I classify Sigmund Freud as a classic Bulverizer. Also Karl Marx. I gather their experiences of radical self-consciousness are the constituting sources of their respective doctrines. In Freud's case, I think the dominant theme that may have emerged in self-reflection is the experience of his own libido, possibly one that is not quite "healthy." This he "projects" into the world in the form of a doctrine of the psyche that is mainly constituted by experiences of repressed sexual desire. This is Ziggy Freud writ large, so to speak: The putative "disorder" of Freud becomes paradigmatic in the world through his experiences of radical self-consciousness and their projection.
Similarly, Marx was clearly distressed by the enormous social upheaval of the Industrial Revolution. I wouldn't be the least surprised if this theme constituted the greater part of his experiences of radical self-consciousness. The projection of such meditations clearly did constitute "a new fact in the making" in the objective reality, just as in the case of Freud.
In both cases there is complete closure to the "divine pole" of the metaxy and an unmistakable belief in what unaided human reason and self-confidence can do to ameliorate the human condition.
Honestly, I don't know if any of the above makes any sense at all. Please share your thoughts with me, if you have the time and inclination. Thank you! Best wishes, bb.
In Freud's case, I think the dominant theme that may have emerged in self-reflection is the experience of his own libido, possibly one that is not quite "healthy." This he "projects" into the world in the form of a doctrine of the psyche that is mainly constituted by experiences of repressed sexual desire. This is Ziggy Freud writ large, so to speak: The putative "disorder" of Freud becomes paradigmatic in the world through his experiences of radical self-consciousness and their projection.
May I try a shorter version - not because your version is deficient, but just because I like shorter. :)
As human beings we all tend to judge the world around us by the only measure we know; to wit: ourselves. What I am is what I see and what I experience through the self-reflecting lens I hold up between me and the world. The only way to avoid this phenomena is to find and become comfortable with the transcendent.
Most of us live this way until we die, and affect only those close to us. Every now and then, someone like Freud or Marx comes along, their projections catch on with some promoter who finds, through them, a way to line his/her own pockets, and the whole world suffers. Fortunately, most of us "project" in obscurity, but we all do it.
Yes, we can establish: The Church of the Holy Bulver
Okay, but I've been in this "religion business" long enough to know I want the publishing rights. You can have all the rest of it. :)
"Honestly, I don't know if any of the above makes any sense at all."
If it doesn't we're both silly as loons. :)
I must go, hope to discuss more later. Thanks Ms. boop.
Wow, bb, metaxy, poles, experience of transcendence, ordering truth, -- nifty words all (although I haven't seen you use aperzeptionsverweigerung --although you did catch Cajun in the act.
Wow, bb, metaxy, poles, experience of transcendence, ordering truth, -- nifty words all
I know, I know cornelis: JARGON. We try to articulate experiences in words and, rather than illuminate, we find they may conceal and obscure. Have you ever had the experience of an insight that appeared to be so complete, a unifying gestalt that accounts for and organizes a whole raft of disparate experiences only to find that it was not presented to the mind in the form of language? And then you had to figure out how to put it into words? Man, it's wearying, and I'm feeling a bit tired today....
Thanks for making me chuckle! I'm always open to suggestions about how this little chimera could have been better "translated!" Feel free to just jump in, cornelis, any time at all! (You're a good man to learn from.) best wishes, bb.
As human beings we all tend to judge the world around us by the only measure we know; to wit: ourselves. What I am is what I see and what I experience through the self-reflecting lens I hold up between me and the world. The only way to avoid this phenomena is to find and become comfortable with the transcendent.... Fortunately, most of us "project" in obscurity, but we all do it.
Shorter's better, logos! How about this: Human life is a process of inference and projection of what we are into the world at large. The self-referential nature is impossible to delete entirely: What we tend to see in others is what we see in ourselves. If we are "formed" in God (i.e., Eternal Truth), the self-referential projection tends to support order, in self and society. If we are "formed" in the opinion of the age (relative, contingent "truth"), then we get something else.
Who shall we get as pastor for the First Church of Bulver? (You sly fox, nabbing the royalty rights like that! You'll be a rich man soon!) Thanks for writing, logos -- peace, bb.
...we need a creed: "I believe there are absolutely no absolutes.... "
LOL D-fendr!!! How VERY fitting! Cognitive dissonance at its finest! Thanks for the laugh.... best wishes, bb.
although I haven't seen you use aperzeptionsverweigerung --although you did catch Cajun in the act.
Hey now--I go away for a few hours and return to find myself accused of using German terms! Rest assured that I have yet to stoop to such lows, although I have been looking for a good thread in which to casually mention the ding an sich. Oh well, like the saying goes: "Wenn die Katze fort ist, tanzen die Mause." *Sigh*
Tell me something, some act you have done that is based completely and totally on known reason without some unconditional value, some axiom, required at some point.
In responding to your post, I have placed your last statement at the beginning, so I can make my position on the matter of axioms clear from the outset. To begin with, my epistemological position is somewhat foundationalist. As such, I assert that axioms are foundational knowledge, which makes it unnecessary that I provide you with an instance which proves the opposite, since such would not represent my view (BTW, my aplologies if my previous post did not make my foundationalist position sufficiently clear). Having established my position, I can now proceed to the rest of your argument.
Actually, your argument rests on (correct me if I'm wrong) two assertions:
1. Axioms are self-evident truths which have absolutely no relationship to reason in the area of proof.
2. Because axioms are beyond the scope of proof by reason, they cannot be used as a the foundation for logic or reason.
At this point, a question (which has hitherto not entered the discussion) must be asked: By what means does man perceive the truth of such axioms? To say that the axiom is self-evident is all well and good, but what faculty within man enables him to realize that which is self-evident? Several answers to this question have historically been put forward, but most of them can be boiled down to the fact that man's mind is by nature capable of grasping the truth of such propositions. Furthermore, though it is true that reason cannot be used to prove the truth of such a proposition in a positive manner, it is also the case that such a proposition could not be true, were it to contradict reason ("the part is greater than the whole", for example). Though reason cannot prove the truth of an axiom, neither can an axiom which runs contrary to reason be considered true--in fact, such propositions are self-evidently false. Therefore, reason and logic corroborate axiomatic truth. I was a bit surprised to see that you did not discuss this corroboration in your former post, for it is exactly this point which gives logic a toe-hold upon which to proceed. There is obviously much more that could be discussed on this topic, but I will end here for now, and respond to any further posts you may have on the subject.
Excellent questions and direction for further discussion, thank you. I'll clarify first, then give a little thought for future exploring if you wish.
"1. Axioms are self-evident truths which have absolutely no relationship to reason in the area of proof."I wouldn't say "no relationship" without thinking more about it. The key is that they do not require reason to be true. That's all. That's what unconditioned means. It can seem like a lot one minute, and you wonder what its value is the next. One way to phrase it is: "all things being equal Value A is better than not A." If it requires a reason, condition, in order to be true it is knowledge that's still within the area of reason. Doesn't mean it is unreasonable, which leads to your point later on.
Sometime we should look at examples which will help illuminate what this really means, we should at some point really look at what we are talking about here - specifically. It will help.
"2. Because axioms are beyond the scope of proof by reason, they cannot be used as a the foundation for logic or reason."They can be used as the starting point, the strategy; in that sense a foundation, but if your foundation is rotten, your logic won't do much except help you develop the best tactics for a rotten foundation.
If your IF is off, your THEN could be right, but worthless. The first IF is a given, self-evident, etc.. and, in that sense, the foundation or strategy for what you wish to use logic to determine tactics, something they are the best tool for. Logic has to be told what it's purpose is - in use in human existence.
"At this point, a question (which has hitherto not entered the discussion) must be asked: By what means does man perceive the truth of such axioms?"Yes, the horse I've been beating to death is only to say, "forget there is only reason, forget there is nothing transcending it; even if there isn't you'd have to assume there is." So, now we get to the point of: Since we have to, at the least, act as if there are transcendent values and truths, which ones, why, how, etc?
"... what faculty within man enables him to realize that which is self-evident? "What faculty of man enables him to realize "It is true that I am touching the keyboard."? (no reason at work here, just sense input, concept recognition, truth experience) What faculty enables him to realize that A2 + B2=C2 is true? (symbolic axiomatic logic, truth experience) [Note: there is a difference in memorizing the formula and experiencing its truth, yes?]
In both these cases one thing is common - the direct personal experience of truth. To a rock the first is amazing, to a crustacean, the second a miracle, to some humans the following is impossible to realize - so far:
What faculty of man allows him to experience the unconditional truth that kindness is better than cruelty?
The simple answer is "our spiritual faculty." And a great deal of humans' highest value has been placed on finding and developing this faculty - because reason is not enough. We can discuss the methodology another time. For now, a touch of why it's not that mysterious: Does a drop of water reason that it's part of the wave? If the rules are unconditioned, does this mean they are unknowable to man? One brief piece of a quote and I'll leave this part for the future:
"there is an unseen order, and our supreme good lies in harmoniously adjusting ourselves thereto."And finally:
"Though reason cannot prove the truth of an axiom, neither can an axiom which runs contrary to reason be considered true--in fact, such propositions are self-evidently false."Excellent, excellent, key point. Transcending reason does not mean violating reason. It ONLY means it does not REQUIRE reason to be true. And yes, this can be very valuable in the exploration and validation of the transcendental. But, it must be used properly. If you can, you should look for ways to test the transcendent in a limited way in logic. But this requires skill to use. For example: "I and the Father are One... I pray that they may be as one as we are one. " Logically, two people cannot occupy the same physical space. But this is not what's meant, it concerns the non-material, this is a transcendent truth, requiring other means for validation.
Another example: "Guru Charlie says we should join his commune so we can all levitate with him to heaven." Maybe so, but before I sell the house, I'll need Charlie to step into the lab and levitate for us..."
I'm sorry, I've gone on way too long. I'll blame it on the quality of your post and questions. I do hope you and others will respond, it is of great value to me, and I'll wait til then.
Thank you very much.
I must make a quick technical change for fear of confusion. I should have said:
An unconditioned or absolute truth does not mean it violates reason. It ONLY means it does not REQUIRE reason to be true.
One last expounding, correcting thing, honest. re:
"Because axioms are beyond the scope of proof by reason, they cannot be used as a the foundation for logic or reason."There's another way to look at that than the way I did before.
The best way I can think to look at it, hopefully closer to what you are asking, is to use the analogy of a tool again. I use a hammer to drive a nail. Because it works. (In a similar way I observe that logic works.) Empirical evidence can be used here based on observing the hammer/nail. But I am assuming, rediculous as it seems, that my senses can be trusted. I don't have much choice, but nonetheless, I assume it. I can use others to verify my senses, "did you see that nail? did it go into the wood, or am I imagining... " But, then I assume my senses can be trusted when hearing them, their senses can be trusted - as well as their honesty.
I won't take this all the way down, but again we cannot confine our existence within the bounds of reason alone; and a case could be made that logic has a foundation in the axiom:
This is not all a dream and I can know truth. IOW: My sense input and my experience of rational truth are real.
I hope this better addresses what you meant.
I'm sure I'll want to change the whole damn thing tomorrow anyway; my brain is fried.
While D-fendr and Cajun Against Carville are working out a concensus concerning reason - very useful, I might add - here's something for the rest of us to think about, in light of this snippet from the original essay:
Everything I know is an inference from sensation (except the present moment). All our knowledge of the universe beyond our immediate experiences depends on inferences from these experiences. If our inferences do not give a genuine insight into reality, then we can know nothing. A theory cannot be accepted if it does not allow our thinking to be a genuine insight, nor if the fact of our knowledge is not explicable in terms of that theory.
Given the above (if you are in serious disagreement with the above snippet, please tell us why), you are presented with two pieces of evidence to evaluate:
One: Reported in all the media outlets is the news that a scientist whose name you've never heard has discovered through his microscope and subsequent testing that there is a cure for the common cold.
Two: Your best friend, whom you've known for years and, so far as you are aware, has never lied to you, has always seemed to be rational, sane and aggravatingly logical, sits down at your kitchen table and proceeds to tell you that he has just experienced a "miracle" (the kind or type of miracle is immaterial; suffice it to say upon hearing the details, it is an event you yourself would agree which should be impossible according to all your knowledge).
Which event, One or Two, is more deserving of your belief, and if you don't mind, why? (Remember now: both pieces of information are coming to you indirectly; you witnessed neither.)
The above is directed to you also.
You must find out on purely logical grounds which of them do, in fact, break down as arguments. Afterwards, if you like, go on and discover the psychological causes of the error.
I do this often, for example it is the basis of Thoughts on Conservative Thought 2). the problem is that the person who is wrong immediately shies away from the argument or begins to insult or disqualify. No one should criticize who is not prepared to defend his criticism, and it y he won't defend his own words, he should not speak. Bulverism as it exists for Capitalism and Marxism also exists for Non-Christian andChristian, Leftist and Rightist, North and South. We all need to avoid it, not just the side we choose to be against.
This is easy for me because I'm not in favour of any ideology and am equally against them all. It believe each question deserves our attention and the solutions should be based, not on doctrine, but on experience and logic. I always have the right answer, but you don't convince many people when 99% of them are Ezekial Bulver.
the modern man has every reason for trying to convince himself that there are no eternal sanctions behind the morality he is rejecting.
Papists, Jews, Buddhists, Muslims and Lutherans (only as some examples of thought not at all modern) have every reason for trying to convince themselves that there are no logical arguments against the source for the morality they accept.
Neither Will nor Reason is the product of Nature. Therefore either I am self-existent
Not at all true. Both will and reason can actually be demonstrated to have an aspect which is genetically inheritable. Reason results from the thought processing that occurs in the brain, it depends on neural pathways and connections with access to other connections which serve to give us memory. The brain is an immense and marvelous computing machine. Will involves a combination of reason and emotion. Its origin is in first the before mentioned pathways and connections and a clearly hereditary hormonal production. The strong-willed person is brave, courageous, firm...the weak-willed person is afraid, cowardly, vacillating. The impact of hormonal secretions on brain centers comes into play, the development of those centers, the number of hormonal binding sites on cells is determined by both hereditary and early childhood experience. Adrenaline can effect the processes as can administered drugs. A creator God may very well have designed the system but he is not the source of will or reason. Were he, we might as well be carrots...all talk of free will would be a farce, as it may be anyway.
Evidently, then, something beyond Nature exists
Almost anyone can belie the arguments that get us to this "evident" conclusion. What evidently exist are things we do not understand rationally, whether they be supernatural or simply unknown is not possible to determine while we wallow in superstition and the Bulverism of either side of the question. Only step by step rational thought can get us there, and no one man can do that, we need "open" communication and real acceptance of all ideas that are demonstrably correct. We here on FR are far from that, but I also would guess we ARE capable of it, intrinsically. Again, I don't care if that intrinsic capability is God created or an accident of evolution in a completely natural world. I only care that we use enough of that capability to live in peace with a justice that gives everyone the chance who wants to try to get a little further toward the answer.
"How can an axiom claim self-evidence any more than an empirical judgment on evidence?" It can't. Science and Philosophy used to be practised in such a way that beginning with an axiom we began to apply empirical judgment and almost always ended up throwing out the axiom based on the evidence. Today, the majority of "thinkers" (and I use the term as loosely as those "thinkers" deserve) will not renounce their self-evident axiom at any cost. And somehow everyone seems to recognize their "right" to exclude the evidence and be devoid of judgment. I haven't read any other opinions on the thread, I hope to later tonight. If I am wrong, point me to the correct answer based on judgment and evidence. I only wish Mr. Lewis was here to give me a hand in the argument that might rightly ensue.
As for your answer to 92, I do indeed doubt the accuracy of the snippet. ALL we know subjectively is the result of sensation and inference. But the human mind, C.S. himself says so, is the product of an evolution in consequence with the world we live in. If the critical, objective capacity of the human brain did not give real, accurate answers, we would never have survived to this day. All rational thought is objective, it can make real progress in clarifying our remaining questions about reality. However it depends on data being available to it, data most people don't have. How can I have an accurate opinion of the images shown on CNN of Russian atrocities in Chechenia, if I have no data about warfare, no experience with the smell of a rotting corpse, no understanding of what a problem disposing of bodies on a battlefield is? And that is just the objective side, subjectively what accuracy can exist in spoiled children of 30-40 years of age who think a splinter in one's finger requires a trip to the doctor's surgery? Hypocrites who hate the military yet call the police the moment they hear a noise downstairs? The problem arises in the "eternal questions" that we are asking questions about things divorced from our experience, therefore we cannot expect our earth evolved brains to give us the answers through inference, something mystics seem to count on, we have to be completely objective and that has a cost few care to pay in doubt and intranquility.
If my trusted friend witnesses a miracle, I pat him on the shoulders and asked him how he passed the previous day. Then if the answer isn't obvious I take him step by step through his experience. Then, if he saw a miracle, I congratulate him...if he didn't he will recognize his error and we will share a whisky and laugh. My friend always merits more trust than the media, unless I succeed somehow in making the media my friend. I don't even think we should be looking for a cure to the common cold. In doing so we are creating things far worse, things we may not be able to live with.
Learning to reason serves no purpose if people don't have any data stored in their brains. Most people need to go out and learn some little something before they bother trying to formulate opinions on other things they know nothing about.
anyone like history? bump to:
http://bulldogbulletin.com/page19.htm Jayne wonders if anyone looks at her history trivia quiz, I wonder if anyone knows any answers.
ALL we know subjectively is the result of sensation and inference.
It seems to me that the above statement is equally true of all that we know objectively, as well. Objective truth only comes to us, after all, through our observations, whether we have heard, seen, smelled or felt something through our various nerve endings, it is something that we have sensed, and in our sensing an objective datum, we immediately infer things about it based on the knowledge we have already attained.
As an example, I know that I have nerve endings. But how do I know this? I have never seen a single nerve ending, not even one of my own. Do I know about my nerve endings objectively or subjectively, or in both ways? Note that I'm not talking about anything I'm "told" by my nerve endings, but about the nerve endings themselves.
I'm afraid I must disagree, at least to the extent that there can be very little we actually "know" without the use of some inference leading to the bits and pieces of knowledge that we do possess.
"Because axioms are beyond the scope of proof by reason, they cannot be used as the foundation for logic or reason." ... They can be used as the starting point, the strategy; in that sense a foundation, but if your foundation is rotten, your logic won't do much except help you develop the best tactics for a rotten foundation.
D-fendr, this is wonderful. I think not only "can" axioms be used for the starting point, but they must be used for the starting point: Reason simply has no traction, and nothing to do, without them.
D-fendr, I was thinking last night about your critique of the cosmological/ontological proof over on Cajun's recent thread. And I realized that what I had been trying to do is to use reason to establish the Limit that reason itself depends on in order to function; i.e., to "get traction." You showed me that to reason from the law of cause-and-effect to establish the First Cause (the Absolute Limit) is to enter into an endless series which has no principle in itself from which to derive the idea of a beginning, or limit. Without a limit, reasoning is like an endless falling in "empty space," with no place to land.
In order for something to exist as a particular something, it must be subject to a limit. Otherwise, we'd have no way of knowing if it was what it was, or some other thing. There must be some criterion by which we can know these things. But since reason has no principle in itself by which it may produce the limit, the limit must come from someplace else.
Therefore, I wonder if you would say whether the following proposition holds water: The limit always has the character of an axiom; i.e., it does not depend on reason. In effect, the axiom itself is the limit for any particular inquiry by which truth may be discovered and confirmed on the basis of logic and experience.
By what means does man apprehend axioms, let alone validate their truth? D-fendr, you said: "...'even if there isn't [anything transcending reason], you'd have to assume there is.' [my bold] So, now we get to the point of: Since we have to, at the least, act as if there are transcendent values and truths, which ones, why, how, etc?"
This is the "IF/THEN" that you touched on, D-fendr. It cannot be overestimated how critically important the quality of the axiom is in determining the quality of the results, as you point out. Reason and logic cannot constitute quality: They are only operations. They can validate or falsify what is presented to critical judgment; but the content of the operation must come from someplace else, just as the standard by which we may judge it -- the limit -- must come from someplace else.
But from where? "True" axioms are "givens" that seem to be constituted by the structure of reality itself. An axiom is "not true" if it is inconsistent with the real order of existence. Anything constructed out of such an axiom is a castle built on sand.
Hope you're completely recovered from the "fried brains syndrome," D-fendr: This stuff will definitely do that to ya. Been feeling the same way myself lately. :-). Thank you both for the marvelous insights. I hope you and Cajun will share your thoughts with me. Best wishes, bb.
Thank you, betty,
I like your points on limits, and traction. That's what it's like if we isolate it and take a look, isn't it?
No traction, sliding around, going on forever without limit: reason alone.
We can think of it as a train that lays it's own track going on for ever. Or like an infinite string of becauses with an "I don't know." on each end - flapping in the wind.
Thanks betty, very much.
Later, maybe I can ramble a bit on the "where does it come from" question, first I think I'll just sit quietly a while - with no reason.
{^_^}
Later, maybe I can ramble a bit on the "where does it come from" question, first I think I'll just sit quietly a while - with no reason.
Sounds good to me, D-Fendr. Think I might do a bit of that myself this weekend. But I'm interested in your thoughts on the "where does it come from" question. I have some ideas, and I'd enjoy comparing notes with you in due course. I'm looking forward to hearing from you. But first -- a little R and R for both of us! Thank you! best wishes, bb.
Couldn't help but eavesdrop, bb and D-; so here are some thoughts in re reason from one of my best friends, C.S. Lewis - again. nik - I think this speaks a bit to your last comments, as well.
It must not be supposed that I am in any sense putting forward the imagination as the organ of truth. We are not talking of truth, but of meaning: meaning which is the antecedent condition both of truth and falsehood, whose anttithesis is not error but nonsense. I am a rationalist. For me, reason is the natural organ of truth; but imagination is the organ of meaning. Imagination, producing new mataphors or revivifying old, is not the cause of truth, but its condition. It is, I confess, undeniable that such a view indirectly implies a kind of truth or rightness in the imagination itself.
As well as...
All possible knowledge, then, depends on the validity of reasoning. If the feeling of certainty which we express by words like must be and therefore and since is a real perception of how things outside our own minds really "must" be, well and good. But if this certainty is merely a feeling in our own minds and not a genuine insight into realities beyond them - if it merely represents the way our minds happen to work - then we can have no knowledge. Unless human reasoning is valid no science can be true.
It follows that no account of the universe can be true unless that account leaves it possible for our thinking to be a real insight. A theory which explained everything else in the whole universe but which made it impossible to believe that our thinking was valid, would be utterly out of court. For that theory would itself have been reached by thinking, and if thinking is not valid that theory would, of course, be itself demolished. It would have destroyed its own credentials. It would be an argument which proved that no argument was sound - a proof that there were no such things as proofs - which is nonsense.
And again...
Reasoning is never, like poetry, judged from the outside at all. The critique of a chain of reasoning is itself a chain of reasoning: the critique of a tragedy is not itself a tragedy.
And this...
If...a proof that there are no proofs is nonsensical, so is a proof that there are proofs. Reason is our starting point. There can be no question either of attacking or defending it. If by treating it as a mere phenomenon you put yourself outside it, there is then no way, except by begging the question, of getting inside again.
And my personal favorite...
An open mind, in questions that are not ultimate, is useful. But an open mind about ultimate foundations either of Theoretical or Practical Reason is idiocy. If a man's mind is open on these things, let his mouth at least be shut.
Which event, One or Two, is more deserving of your belief, and if you don't mind, why? (Remember now: both pieces of information are coming to you indirectly; you witnessed neither.)
Objectively, the two reports are probably about equal in deserving my belief. There is no political factor in this supposed discovery of the cure for the common cold, so the media doesn't have any obvious motivation to exaggerate or lie. Neither does my friend. Therefore, in both cases I might suppose them to be mistaken, and therefore do my own investigation before I swallow the stories completely, but neither report is deserving of simply being ignored out of hand.
The naturalist, of course, will argue that finding the cure for the common cold is vastly more likely than the laws of science being broken (as if those laws were imposed on nature rather than deducted from our observations of nature). But that is only imposing one's philosophy on the evidence rather than building one's philosophy from the evidence.
Yours in Truth,
We are not talking of truth, but of meaning: meaning which is the antecedent condition both of truth and falsehood, whose antithesis is not error but nonsense.... For me, reason is the natural organ of truth; but imagination is the organ of meaning. Imagination, producing new mataphors or revivifying old, is not the cause of truth, but its condition. It is, I confess, undeniable that such a view indirectly implies a kind of truth or rightness in the imagination itself.
Wonderful, logos! Need some time to take it all in, but will reply soon. Til then, thanks for writing. Peace, bb.
I'm like the sentiment I once read expressed on a sign over a urinal by the janitor responsible for keeping it clean: "I aim to please."
The second half of the sentiment, "You aim too, please.", probably isn't applicable here.
Enjoy your rest this weekend.
As that Greek once said -- "What is said to be so, what appears to be so, and what is."
You ask which event is more deserving of my belief -- the "cure report" or the "miracle report." Just on the basis of the information you have given and of my own experience, I would not hesitate to say that the friend's report of the miracle would engage my credulity much more readily. Who am I to be so uncharitable as to doubt the sincerity of his narrative, the legitimacy of his experience, or the purity of his motive? On the other hand, there is a wealth of reasons to hold the scientist's report at arm's length. Anti-viral agents come and go, and even Lancet and the New England Journal have had to wipe egg off their faces far more than once. (Remember the "cold cure" concocted by that brilliant charlatan and self-publicist, Linus Pauling? And the money he made from it? Just one example of many.) Medicine is best described as an empirical art ("Isn't it true, doctor, that this is only your medical opinion?" said the lawyer.). If something seems to work, and there is no reason to suspect an unacceptable risk, you go with it and hope it pans out. As any experienced (and honest) research physiologist will tell you, it is almost imposssible to "prove" anything in human physiology.
That said, there is a more profound "reason" to give preference to the friend's report over the scientist's (subject to even greater doubt since it was trumpeted and promoted in the media). And this relates to the concept of the "present moment," cited in your quoted excerpt. God has given us free will. If He wanted to obliterate our free will, all He would have to do is to show Himself to us directly. If He were to do this, all our vain imaginings, our fondest and most dearly held conceits, our airs of self-importance and "knowledge," would instantly evaporate -- along with our ability to arrive at "conclusions" and to act on them. We would be much too busy giving up the ghost to do anything else. However, if He makes Himself accessible to us through one, tiny aperture (a narrow gate, if you will); and always places this "eye of the needle" right in front of us; and even interposes the Holy Spirit to further shield our weak and mortal eyes from the blinding light of His overawing power and love; we would then always have a conduit to Him, free and uncoerced.
To me, this is the sole purpose of "the present moment," the only point at which we can touch the eternal. This is where the Truth ultimately resides. Everything we do in the present moment, the here and now, either gives praise to His glory or denies it. (Oddly enough, the tinier, the more compressed, the more focused (indeed, the more quiet) that moment gets, the more powerfully it draws us.) Everywhere else along the "temporal continuum," we are in no "danger" of being anywhere near God. (I am here somehow reminded of Kierkegaard's castle of grief -- "I immerse myself in a baptism of forgetfullness, unto an eternal remembrance.") When a friend such as you describe comes to me and speaks of that "present moment," he is kneeling in humility before the only Truth that can be relied upon absolutely, and to squander such a moment in pointless skepticism would be to miss its significance entirely.
Faith, babe :-)
When a friend such as you describe comes to me and speaks of that "present moment," he is kneeling in humility before the only Truth that can be relied upon absolutely, and to squander such a moment in pointless skepticism would be to miss its significance entirely.
You touch upon Absolute Truth here, my friend, and I can only say thank you.
I am convinced that a miracle, like faith, is impossible to share, in the sense of my giving you part of mine. Those who have experienced a miracle need no explanation of such, but for those who have never experienced one, no explanation is sufficient.
One day we will have to exchange views of the Eternal Now. Peace.
Faith...
In the end, that will be all we take with us when we leave. :)
Seems to me that an empirical judgement on evidence becomes an axiom only when it is self-evident.
Seems to me that an empirical judgement on evidence becomes an axiom only when it is self-evident.
Doesn't everything that's "proven" have to become self-evident? Isn't that what "proof" ultimately is? Isn't logic just the science of pointing out the self-evident?
Doesn't everything that's "proven" have to become self-evident? Isn't that what "proof" ultimately is? Isn't logic just the science of pointing out the self-evident?
Some routes to proof are certainly more torturous than others. So, "self-evident" doesn't mean "recognised as a axiom immediately from the stated concept". Coming upon such an obvious statement as "I think, therefore I am", you still have to reflect on the evidence before you buy the statement as self-evident.
I have no time to read more but will respond to you, friend logos:
It seems to me that the above statement is equally true of all that we know objectively, as well. Objective truth only comes to us, after all, through our observations, whether we have heard, seen, smelled or felt something through our various nerve endings, it is something that we have sensed, and in our sensing an objective datum, we immediately infer things about it based on the knowledge we have already attained.
You are wrong. What you say above you infer. You obviously know nothing of Human Biology and less about the morphology and physiology of the brain. You are using Bulverism, not arguments. Our brain obtains information through the senses, but it then processes the information in a most valid and correct form (if we are healthy). I wish you would believe me. If you do some reading of Biology, perhaps some seven years of it, we can begin to argue. And I'm not downgrading you, you know that (I think), there will be areas of human understanding wherein you cannot argue with me because of my ignorance...but this is not one of them.
As an example, I know that I have nerve endings. But how do I know this? I have never seen a single nerve ending, not even one of my own. Do I know about my nerve endings objectively or subjectively, or in both ways?
Example that proves my point. I have seen many nerve endings. I also know how they function. There is nothing subjective about my knowledge, so I can argue about the significance of what I know in a way that is valid.
I'm afraid I must disagree, at least to the extent that there can be very little we actually "know" without the use of some inference leading to the bits and pieces of knowledge that we do possess.
I am afraid I must agree and disagree. We know very little. Anyone who reaches a certain level of knowledge knows that! But we need only infer what we cannot know objectively. When I use logic, I do so in a moment of time which is real. I have data and use that (my brain both stores and processes the data faithfully, objectively, and without mysticism unless I want the mysticism), but no inference. That is why when I did research I could often save fellow researchers effort simply showing them their proposal was wrong. That is why even every good researcher and theorist throws out five ideas of every six at best when it comes time to make empirical judgments based on the evidence his experimentation or observation gives him. An axiom can claim self-evidence, but once you have sufficient information many of the most beautiful and attractive axioms die a rather horrible death to empirical judgment.
Coming upon such an obvious statement as "I think, therefore I am", you still have to reflect on the evidence before you buy the statement as self-evident.
So self-evident isn't necessarily proven, and proven isn't necessarily self-evident.
You obviously know nothing of Human Biology and less about the morphology and physiology of the brain.
I certainly am no biologist, so I "plead guilty" to knowing very little about morphology and physiology. However, I do know this: the brain and the mind are two different things entirely. After all, one can have a physical brain, and no mind at all! All living human beings have a brain that functions at some level, but there are vast differences between the thoughts that this many brains produce.
It seems to me your argument falls apart when you begin to differentiate between a physical organ which may or may not give rise to a transcendent thought.
Me: As an example, I know that I have nerve endings. But how do I know this? I have never seen a single nerve ending, not even one of my own. Do I know about my nerve endings objectively or subjectively, or in both ways?
You: Example that proves my point. I have seen many nerve endings. I also know how they function. There is nothing subjective about my knowledge, so I can argue about the significance of what I know in a way that is valid.
Since you have seen nerve endings, you know objectively that they exist. I have never seen any nerve endings. I must take your word that I have such, and you must infer from what you have seen in others that you have the same as they, unless you have seen your own.
Perhaps we are using different meanings for inference?
Then, what is "self-evident", definitionwise?
what is "self-evident", definitionwise?
It's obvious.
Seriously, in many philosophical arguments, language fails. "Self-evident" is one of those times. In truth, nothing is truly "self-evident" any more than anything else is. To the person who has had it explained to them, integral calculus is self-evident. But if you've ever tried explaining commutative laws to an 8-year-old, you'll understand that what's apparent to one is hardly perceptible to another.
Self-evident -- axiomatic -- serves as a convenient starting point for most arguments, since all derivations require some first principle. For example, if we can't agree that logic itself is beyond suspicion, then no meaningful discourse is possible, since rational thought presupposes linear rationality. I can't invoke logic to press my point if the vehicle for the chase won't start. So we begin an argument with certain assumptions, and in some cases, declared axioms, which we label "self-evident."
Just as a side note, Jefferson didn't say that the truths he espoused in the Declaration WERE self-evident. The exact language is "We HOLD these truths to be self-evident ..." In other words, "It is our considered opinion that these truths are self-evident. It is upon this rock that we will build our ensuing argument."
I respond to your #112, my friend, I haven't read your latest. I hope all the rest of you flagged in will read all my posts on the thread and decide if I am or not being foolish or arrogant in trying to insist on the direction of my thread. I value your opinions. I have enjoyed something in the replies of all of you.
No, logos, it doesn't. I am really sorry I haven't time to debate it though. Have you looked at my second thread? That can be debated without resorting to Bulverism. No one wants to discuss it because it is an attempt to do what C.S. Lewis says you must do if you are honest with yourself and want a result which is valid.
You can't admit to ignorance about how the brain works and then make conclusions about it. Want to show me your mind without a brain? Yes, I know, when we are dead and can get together again on the subject. :-) Plato or Aristotle or base, relatively ignorant fools like St. Augustine or Karl Marx or even a brilliant thinker and person above reproach like C.S. Lewis had an excuse to not know how the brain functions and still reason for themselves what is the human mind. But we have learned a lot, Christian scientists have learned a lot, about the human brain and its function since then. I'm not talking about inferences by psychologists and sociologists (incompetent social parasites that they are), I'm talking about objective fact determined empirically by clever and healthy people with perfectly functional brains. We know too much today to separate mind and brain...that is, those of us who bother to know...who really search for truth instead of deciding on what truth is subjectively. C.S. Lewis was always asking his scientific colleagues for the current "facts", he wouldn't try to reason without them.
All this discussion began with Second Reality. That you must respect the First reality, the same as saying you can only base a valid philosophy on what we know about the real world. Any attempt to say the real world is some mystical house of worship is as much a second reality as anything the Marxists believe. The human mind could well be created by God, could well be influenced by God, but it has a real, verifiable function that if not objective when man struggled for survival would not be present today when life is something we sign up for or our forebears give us.
I don't want this debate. As you and aristeides said early on, some people need a Second Reality. Sometimes they call that faith. I agree, some people need a Second Reality. Some need it very badly. I don't want to disprove something that leads people to be decent. I don't need Christianity to act like a Christian, but many people do. I admire Christianity, it is essential to our Society. I don't need a school system either, I can teach my children everything any school can, but the Society does. I don't break laws and I love my neighbour so I don't need courts or laws, but Society does. I don't need doctors and health care systems, come to think of it society doesn't either.
Whether or not I need God is something I look forward to learning when the time comes. You posed that question about your friend who says he witnessed a miracle...well I answered I would congratulate him, but I neglected to say that I would be immensely thrilled too!
I am keeping people waiting at dinner. Today I cooked and made "glumpies" a Polish grandmother would be proud of. I feel badly to do this so quickly and perhaps not adecuately.
Why don't we address things that can cure our society of its ill, the same "disease" betty boop understands completely. Whatever people's beliefs. To hold and practice any faith we wish is a freedom I am proud that my country's founders chose to defend and institutionalize!Our founding fathers believed in an intimate relationship with God, and lived accordingly, and probably with that made my wonderful life possible.
Government exists to control people's ACTS not their beliefs. Liberty of thought is the inalienable right of every man.
Right now our government is entering into Christian homes, its "Hessians" are bashing in faces and destroying classrooms attended by Christian students. It has abetted rape, murder, theft and terror.
I don't care what the decent person fighting with me to end that believes in the intimacy of his own mind/brain! Neither would C.S. Lewis !
We are getting lost here. Good decent people who also have talent and intelligence berating one another over what they know and don't about questions that have defied answers for centuries!
I began this thread to pulverize Bulverism. You recognized that I think and reminded me it wasn't an original idea. I don't even care if that Bulverism is yours or mine. I just recognize that it is making us useless against an evil enemy that we all share even when we don't always share the same opinions.
Would some of you please, thanks to you betty for having gone already, refer to Thoughts on Conservative Thought: 2), the thread no one wants to touch either to save me embarrassment or because I am right, again I don't care. I say Maritain's quote is false. I have tried to prove it. I see no defense of it or attempt to argue with my reasoning. It is important if it is true or false, the erroneous notions it supports have affected the response of many sane men negatively since it was written. Maritain was more concerned with the survival of Jews in WWII than he was the truth, so he misleads people who know less than he does, whether consciously or unconsciously would make a meaningful debate. Other people think his lie is "profound" or a criticism of the "second reality of the Nazis", do you?
Anyone capable of reading Macaulay can have a valid opinion on whether that statement is profound or mere propaganda, one person in a thousand can give a valid argument on the existence of God and few of them are interested. Our country and the world are not witnessing nightmares like Waco or the bombing of Belgrade or Nigeria or Timor because of people who might represent that .0003% of mankind might be interested in this thread. We need answers to convince the people responsible, maybe some 5 or 6 or 8% of mankind, to cure the world's ills. I don't have those answers myself. I appeal to you and your Christian values, wherever you get them I don't care, to help me.
Anyone who thinks it useful, please lets go on, anyone who thinks I err, more welcome still. Please flag anyone I omit without bad intention.
You can't get anywhere with Bulverism, so lets get on to thread two posted long before but which represents taking the sage advice of C.S. Lewis. Let us find out how to prove something that is wrong is wrong. When more people have the necessary tools and the world is a better place, I'll be more than interested in this wonderful debate where you accept C.S. Lewis' conclusions and I just admire the logic,intelligence, knowledge, and humanity that got him there.
Ah, nik, my friend, I see now where our difficulties lie. We are not engaged in "Bulverism" as Lewis describes it, but we are speaking two different languages; consequently, we are not communicating.
When I speak of First Reality, I speak of God. To me, everything after God is a Second Reality. The difference is between Ultimate Cause and penultimate causes, and as long as we have a totally different idea of what is the First Reality we will continue to speak of different things.
As to the connection between brain and mind, we seem to be saying almost the same things, yet again with different meanings. A brain is an organic thing; a mind is a transcendent reality. A brain can be weighed, measured, sliced, diced and eventualy thrown on the ash heap. A mind is capable of taking none of those measurements; it is a "thing," yet it is not a thing. Certainly one cannot have a mind without a brain; but there are many recorded cases of brains without minds. Material things - ephemeral things; we live with them both, but they are not the same kind of "things." Much the same, I think, in this example: I have feet and legs, both of which can be measured in themselves, and again in their normal stride; however those measurements will tell you little or no detail about my "walk," which is likely to be entirely different than another man with all the same measurements.
Having said all that, certainly we can agree on many things and work together to bring about needful change in the world - even if we don't speak the same language.
Ah. So "self-evident" is a meaningless term. It is neither more nor less equivilant to the word "proved". Kind of like finding a pig, a witch and a handsaw in this picture. Once you puzzle them out of the surrounding lines, they're obvious.
If we admit with St. Thomas, that while things are self-evident to us, and yet other things self-evident but not to us, then all things presently certain (or self-evident) to us cannot be the criteria for truth since there are other things which are certain but not to us.... And so I humbly submit that the answer must include the factor of time.
Very interesting formulation of the problem, cornelis. I hope I’m not reading into the above statement what you didn’t intend to put there; but IMHO, viewed superficially, the first sentence might be restated: Can something be “true” absent unanimous consent -- perfect consonance of everyone’s “self-evident truths” as the minimal condition for establishing truth with certainty and “objectivity”? If that’s the question, then one might be tempted to reply, “Well, if that’s true, then what am I supposed to be doing with my life while I’m ‘Waiting for Godot?’ Life must be lived, not thought.”
We are saved from this debacle by your most perceptive introduction of “the factor of time” as indispensable to the solution of this problem. Life must be lived through in the now. It cannot be deferred to any putative future time when we have finally gotten the human existential problem “right” by waiting for complete certainty in regard to Pilot’s question, “What is Truth?”
In any case, IMHO, the problem of truth in that sense is perfectly obviated if we accept C.S. Lewis’ statement, “The universe doesn’t claim to be true: it’s just there.” That is, it just IS. There is much insight here into the problem of the certainty of Truth.
The biggest clue Lewis gives us (if I’m reading him right) is that we ought to start with the “there,” the IS, if we want to get to the “true.” The modern habit is to do this problem the other way around.
He also suggests, “Knowledge by revelation is more like empirical than rational knowledge.” What is a modern-day skeptic to do with a statement like that? The modern-day skeptic rules out revelation as a source of valid knowledge because he absolutely rules out the possibility of transcendence in the first place. Yet here is Lewis, contradicting him. What does Lewis mean by this?
If I understand Lewis correctly, he intends “empirical knowledge” to mean knowledge that is derived via sense perception, knowledge derived by means of actual, lived experience. “Rational knowledge” is knowledge “at once-remove” from lived experience: It is self-reflected experience as mediated by reason. The former is the “now”; the latter, its recollection in memory, ordered and structured according to whatever axioms the given thinker is using to critique his original experience. Clearly we are speaking of different orders of time here: present, which quickly enough becomes past, which in turn constitutes future. And suddenly we see how critically important axioms are.
IMHO, Bonaparte shows the keenest insight in noting that an axiom is, quite plausibly, “no more than an intuitively satisfying (and possibly quite useful) assumption. In this case, [the axiom] might make no claim at all to being ‘true’.”
It seems clear to me that, for an axiom to be “intuitively satisfying,” it must refer to something which already has been experienced. Which gets us back to Lewis’s emphasis on the there as the necessary precondition of the true.
And it also gets us back to the implicit problem, human nature being what it is, of how can we tell whether any particular axiom is any good at all as a true description of reality? [And I must note that, IMHO, the central strength of Bulverism is its great facility for constructing or reconstructing axioms willy-nilly as it goes along, as needed, to rescue itself from its own logical self-contradictions at virtually any point, at will. But THIS is the very problem we want to avoid.]
We reason according to axioms. Reason is impossible without axioms -- it would have absolutely nothing to do without (1) a body of data from experience; and (2) rational standards by which the data are to be analyzed -- that is, axioms.
So, it seems to me the real question is: Since human beings need axioms to make sense of their own existence, from whence may true axioms be derived? And how can we tell whether they’re “true” axioms at all?
If my job is to live a truthful life, then I must conform myself with what is, and not with what I wish for that “is” to be. But if in the order of Time we cannot discover “final truth” (because until the order of Time ceases, immanent truth is never “complete”), then I must look for truth someplace else. Which is to say that I must as far as possible orient myself into the order of the Eternal Now.
If folks are wondering what I mean by the Eternal Now, I can only try to make it explicit: Human being is the junction of two orders of reality: the order in Time, and the order of Eternity. Man alone among creatures has a foot “in two worlds.” For man truthfully to mediate “truth” into the present order of creation, he must be able to resonate to the Truth that subsists in the Eternal Order of Being -- which order most definitely (and tellingly, for its truth) includes Man. But how does a person do that?
IMHO, Plato’s insights regarding right human understanding as principally deriving from true existential awareness seem particularly germane to our present problem. Plato’s “metaxy” puts us squarely, cornelis, into the heart of the problem you raised: The problem of Time.
I gather Plato conceived of the “metaxy” or “in-between” nature of human existence as the core of human existential reality. “In-between” is an acknowledgement of human existence in and consciousness of two orders: Time (incarnated Life) and Timelessness (i.e., Eternity, the Spiritual Order). Plato says that man is a denizen of both orders simultanteously. The order of day-to-day human experience is experienced as “flow” (which presupposes sensation of linear time) -- as whatever enters the stream of consciousness; but the order of Eternity can only be experienced as the One that does not subsist in Time -- this is the Divine Presence, of which the metaxy itself is but the field in which such an articulation of Truth can become evident to man. In essence, Plato is telling us that the true order of human existence can only be derived from direct experiences in that articulating field.
Plato saw that any particular human life is an expression in time of the order of the Timeless. His theory of the human psyche makes this explicit: The human psyche is simultaneously oriented toward two modes of existence: immanence and transcendence -- the orders of Time and the Eternal. In the metaxy, a man consciously participates in the Eternal Now. On Plato’s reasoning, a man finds his true being in contemplation, not of the experience of his own unique particularity, but of the Eternal -- and ordering himself accordingly.
Both Plato and Christ place human life at the intersection of Time and Eternity. The only way man can experience “truth with certainty” isn’t by means of an established human consensus; but by means of “hanging out” in the metaxy, the “in-between” of two distinct orders of time where God may directly “speak for Himself,” in which man may give a loving response, and in which somehow man, if he will do so, manages to integrate into unity his own personal being with the (timeless) Divinely-ordained Truth of which he is already a constituent part: Man is already and always an End in himself in that order.
Is any of the foregoing a demonstration of certain truth? Absolutely not. Do I think it might constitute a decent working hypothesis? Yes, I do. And until something in my actual lived experience comes along to contradict it, I’ll probably continue to find the hypothesis useful. (I’m donning my asbestoes suit.) And now, cornelis, since I’ve run on so long, it’s definitely time for me to stop. Thank you for your most perceptive reply. best wishes, bb.
Life must be lived through in the now.
Hi, betty.
It seems, if not a sin, at least the height of impertinence to reduce your beautifully worked out essay in #119 to this one little sentence toward its beginning, but I don't doubt that you knew this is the one sentence that would resonate with me.
Life must be lived in the now because to refuse to do so by re-living the past or projecting ourselves into the future is, in effect, a denial of our very selves. We have no choice but to live in the now, and, in fact, we all do. Do you know anyone who woke up tomorrow? I don't. Whenever anyone awakes, it is always now for that person in that moment. Now is all we ever have.
That fact is perhaps the most important reality of our existence impacting on "truth" as we know it. However we learned the "truth" of yesterday, it is now a part of memory, and the workings of human memory alone alter yesterday's "truth" - to one degree or another - for all of us. The only time any of us may know reality, the absolute truth of it according to our understanding, is now, at the moment of our experiencing that reality; we cannot project with any certainty at all into the future, our pasts begin to grown hazy as soon as they pass out of the present moment.
And, in accordance with the rest of your thinking, it is only in the now that human linear time co-exists with God's eternal time, the Eternal Now. Those who wait for tomorrow, or some point in the future, to meet God will never "shake his hand;" we meet God now, or not at all.
Those who wait for tomorrow, or some point in the future, to meet God will never "shake his hand;" we meet God now, or not at all.
Beautifully said, logos. Peace, bb
C.S.: "All possible knowledge, then, depends on the validity of reasoning."Oh, how we wish to solidify knowing. Why not take it all the way down and say: "All I know is what I know from my senses."?
But I think we've been here before. All we know from our senses is variations in light frequency and amplitude, variations in sound frequency and pressure… You don't have to take mind-altering drugs to realize there are many ways your brain could order its input stimuli. Even the given from our senses is not objective, pure, and certainly not complete.
So we move on to the less firm: reason—if, then, because, cause and effect, forever relative and conditional. Mind can look at sense, it is more than. It's a larger view than sense empiricism, while still firmer than bare conscious reality—effortless awareness—but it runs out on us and leaves us without a foundation. It is still much too reduced to last us—if we wish to act, if we wish to know more of the reality we can experience.
So, we go on to the self-evident, the intuitive, the unconditioned. We are leaving the firmer ground of reason, long past the firmest ground of senses, but we are closer to the larger picture of reality, more inclusive. Here we can look at reason, the reasoning mind, what we thought of as our "self" before, because we are not that, not our thoughts. Here we can see thinking is less than reality, a subset, conceptual, symbolic. We can even see that thoughts cause other thoughts, that mind thinks just like eyes see. And what we are includes these thoughts, but is not limited to them. But this is subtle ground, and how we crave the firm.
And, as we observe it, if we are not controlling our mind, who or what is? And if we are not that, what are we? If we can't name it, how can we hold it?
So, in our insecurity, our lack of faith, our fear of falling, we contract again, reduce reality to what we can see, hear, touch and know with our reasoning mind.
We leave the eternal, re-enter time, let go of God's hand, cling to the constantly-changing but firm material of our knowing; and, with a death-grip, we hold on to the cause of our suffering, because we crave the firm so much.
Sometimes it all seems bittersweet.
[My apologies to nikolatesla for continuing off his subject.]
We leave the eternal, re-enter time, let go of God's hand, cling to the constantly-changing but firm material of our knowing; and, with a death-grip, we hold on to the cause of our suffering, because we crave the firm so much.
Yes. There is nothing we know more surely than that which we know wrongly.
If ye had not plowed with my heifer, ye had not found out my riddle.
Hello Thinkin' Gal! Just wanted to thank you for this. It seems so perfectly fitting to the theme of this thread. Thank you! best wishes, bb.
D-fendr: We leave the eternal
logos: There is nothing we know more surely than that which we know wrongly.
What have you guys been smokin'?
Is this moving from the poetic to the silly? Logos, perhaps your experience grants some credence for yourself, but I prefer Socrates. : >
Is this moving from the poetic to the silly?
There is always that danger, I suppose, and there's no doubt I could have made my point more clearly. What I meant to highlight was our propensity to hold tightly to our biases, even when faced with incontrovertible proof that our "knowledge" was wrong. In fact, I think we cling to our pieces of faulty knowledge even tighter in this so-called "information age;" new knowledge is revealed so quickly any more, and across such a broad spectrum, that we find it overwhelming. Consequently, it seems to be easier to continue to believe something that's not true than it is to try to keep up with every new revelation.
And in the case of every new scientific revelation of what foods are good or bad for you, the old, out-dated information often even seems to be safer for us.
(But I did like the poetic way I said it first better. So there.)
I find the dogmatist an interesting character. I'm not sure that the dogmatist and the character that you describe are the same.
Dogmatist cling to dogma for the sake of simplicity and reiterate their dogma at the expense of new knowledge. The dogmatist has a truth, and knows it well. The principle may be held as D-fendr says, "in the death grip." Yet the knowledge of this principle, as it is truth in part, can distort the larger context of other truths, if held dogmatically.
For example, fod thinks that the Christian God cannot be a libertarian because the Christian God does not subscribe to his stated principle of "no force or fraud." Now in itself, the libertarian principle he and OWK reiterate has a truth. But when this principle, insofar as it is truth, is absolutized, at the expense of other truths, that's dogmatism. I liked Tory Notion's statement from the thread The Forgotten Essentials of Thomas Jefferson
So here's the difference. There's one who for the sake of simplicity clings to a truth; and the other who clings to a falshood for, as you say, "it seems to be easier to continue to believe something that's not true."
I'm a moral absolutist, but I see relativity in everything touched or seen by man. I see many that are relativists where morals
are concerned, but require absolutism where understanding and application of these principles is concerned. For example,
requiring the rejection of religious sentiment and practice as a precondition for living 'the life of reason'.
So, is it dogmatic to give a tongue in cheek answer (e.g.: God can't be a Libert.) to an inane question (Is God a Republican?).
BTW, My dictionary, in the defining of dogma, uses the word 'truth' not at all.
dogma: something held as an established opinion. A point of view or tenet put forth as authorative without adequate grounds.
Later,
But when this principle, insofar as it is truth, is absolutized, at the expense of other truths, that's dogmatism.
Truth is absolute.
A truth may NOT be absolutized, at the expense of other truths.
If the establishment of a certain truth as absolute, comes at the expense of some other truth, then one "truth" or the other, is false. (or in the words of the inestimable Rand.... when this appears to happen "check your premises")
The phrasing can be fine-tuned, so that we're on the same wave-length. Your words describe the character logos has in mind, I think. But I'm concerned with someone who has experienced something, subscribes to it, understands it, knows it, believes it, and then that settles it, but this at the expense of other things that can be understood, known, or believed.
Hayek approaches the a similar problem in The Counter-Revolution of Science, speaking of scientism or the abuse of reason: a mechanical and uncritical application of habits of thought to fields different from those in which they have been formed.
There's one who for the sake of simplicity clings to a truth; and the other who clings to a falshood for, as you say, "it seems to be easier to continue to believe something that's not true."
I'm re-reading Eric Voegelin's 'Science, Politics and Gnosticism'. Your statement reminds me of something he says:
The tempation to fall from the uncertain truth into certain untruth is stronger in the clarity of Christian faith than in other spiritual structures
Gnosticism, as manifested in ideologies and mass movements that exhibit Gnostic tendencies is identified with the 'certain untruth'.
Yes. Voegelin. So that's who you've been reading.
In Voegelin's paper, discussing the concept of immortality, he refers to doctrine or dogma, as "truth at second remove."
". . . There is the seminarian, as a Catholic friend once bitterly remarked, who rather believes in Denzinger's Enchiridion than in God; or, to avoid any suspicion of confessional partisanship, there is the Protestant fundamentalist; or, to avoid any suspicion of professional partisanship, there is the professor of philosophy who informs you about Plato's "doctrine" of the soul .. . though to conceive of Plato as a promoter of doctrine is preposterous . . . the symbols [the Bible, Plato's dialogues, Rand's rhetoric of reason, codified laws and doctrines of right] may altogether cease to be translucent for reality. They will, then, be misunderstood as propositions referring to things in the manner of propositions concerning objects of sense perceptions; and since the case the case does not fit the model, they will provoke the reaction of skepticism on the gamut from Pyrrhonian suspense of judgment, to vulgarian agnosticism, and further on to the smart idiot questions [of late exemplified by the infamous Patrick Henry] of "How do you know?" and "How can you prove it?" that every college teacher knows from his classroom. We have reached T.S. Eliot's Waste Land with its broken images:
What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water.
There's one who for the sake of simplicity clings to a truth; and the other who clings to a falshood for, as you say, "it seems to be easier to continue to believe something that's not true."
Are you not speaking here, as an example, of Jonah after God pardoned Ninevah? When he discovered that God was of a totally different nature than he had believed, he would rather sit in the desert until he died than accept the truth that did not comport with his original conception.
Hmmmm. Although Jonah didn't make that discovery. He already knew God was merciful and sparing and didn't like that. He was willful. Of course a dogmatist can be wilfull too. Let me think about it some more. Perhaps Jonah valued his own honor more than others and to that extend had an inordinate estimation of his own life -- at the expense of the thousands of Nineveh. A dogmatist may be one who can't see the forest for all of the trees, and I suppose Jonah is such a one. And yet Jonah could see the forest; he ignored it. That's willful Apperzeptionsverweigerung, aversion to the truth when you see it. The willful abuse of reason.
So I don't see an act simplification going on for Jonah; if it was operative, it is not immediately apparent. Jonah didn't have a problem with knowledge, but with will. Jonah's problem was anger at the way God did things. Anger may be the motivation for some, and an interesting one at that. I'm not sure if this comes up in the thread above. (Certainly original sin is operative in more ways than one)
Enough theology--I gotta get some sleep.
But why Jonah?
If bulverism has anything to do with not defining terms adequately for the sake of discussion, then clearly the article here is a perfect example. There are numerous definitions of axiom and empiracal observation. Going any further is of course, quite pointless.
Read Book 1, in C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity and it will all make sense.
Cornelis, thank you so much for the quote from Voegelin -- right though the T. S. Eliot. I've been admiring these passages in recent times myself (especially the T. S. Eliot...). Don't have time to write now -- busy day ahead! Hope to be in touch soon. best wishes, bb.
Jonah's problem was anger at the way God did things.
Agreed. And, now that I think on it a little more, Jonah probably exemplifies that person of whom I was speaking, rather than your "simplification" fellow. Originally I was only referring to those folks who "catch on" to a truth, new and different to them and what they thought the truth was, and simply refuse to accept it because they don't like it.
How would you describe, for example, all those folks who know the truth about Bill Clinton, but refuse to accept it or believe it, and act as if it (the truth) is all a big lie?
So, we go on to the self-evident, the intuitive, the unconditioned. We are leaving the firmer ground of reason, long past the firmest ground of senses, but we are closer to the larger picture of reality, more inclusive. Here we can look at reason, the reasoning mind, what we thought of as our "self" before, because we are not that, not our thoughts. Here we can see thinking is less than reality, a subset, conceptual, symbolic. We can even see that thoughts cause other thoughts, that mind thinks just like eyes see. And what we are includes these thoughts, but is not limited to them. But this is subtle ground, and how we crave the firm.... If we can't name it, how can we hold it? ... So, in our insecurity, our lack of faith, our fear of falling ... we ... reduce reality to what we can see, hear, touch and know with our reasoning mind.
D-Fendr, you touch on the pathos of the human existential condition here: We never possess "final" truth. Life and the world unfold before us; but we never have complete certainty about anything beyond the mere fact of our own existence. And yet we must ACT on this "subtle ground" -- we must decide, choose, somehow order our lives in ways that are meaningful to us.
After what you have so brilliantly (and movingly) written here, it seems reductionist of me to observe that doctrine -- be it religious, scientistic, ideological, whatever -- is, for most people, a proxy for that firm ground we crave but do not find. I mention this because some of our participants are discussing the subject of doctrine (dogma) and its relationship to "absolute truth" You've provided a context that allows for some light to shine on these issues, IMHO.
It seems the central question that must be asked is: How do human beings deal with what Eric Voegelin calls "non-existent reality" -- your "unconditioned?" This oxymoronic term really isn't the self-contradiction it appears to be at first glance. What Voegelin's getting at is the idea of a reality that really exists, but not in the order of Time. That is, it can never appear to us as a datum of sense perception, for it is not an "object" in the empirical sense (i.e., susceptible to falsification tests). Yet human beings for millennia have sensed non-existent reality operating "in the background," so to speak, principally as the source of that order that can be perceived and validated by empirical means in the natural world. And the vivid reality of such experiences, and their universality, is such that theology and philosophy have attempted to account for them.
What passes for science, post-Hegel, tries to account for them, too -- by dismissing non-existent reality as pure fiction, in favor of a theory that stipulates order is produced randomly, spontaneously, by virtue of the mechanisms inherent in matter itself. This explanation can be refuted by simple observation. You can take an old junker car, and stick it out in a field somewhere, and just forget about it. If you return to the scene at a later time, you will not find that the old hulk has spontaneously generated a new form -- it did not become a Harrier Jump Jet, or a bicycle, or a child's toy truck. It's just sitting there, rusting, decomposing. The same thing happens with all living things, once they cease to be "alive": They decompose.
The better question, it seems to me, is this: What prevents this natural tendency of all creaturely (i.e., material) things to dis-integrate and dis-aggregate into their lesser component parts during the life of a lifeform, so that it can continue to express as a living entity in Time?
In nature it looks very much like matter, if left to its own devices, is going to fall apart every time, not produce more order. But for the materialist, this is something that we must overlook because the main point of his assertion -- that matter generates order -- is to deny that there is any extra-mundane ordering principle at all. In spite of all evidence to the contrary, the materialist continues to maintain that order is generated by means of "natural processes," not by a non-existent reality that transcends the world of space-time in which we live. By definition, order must come from "inside" the world; it cannot come from "outside" of it.
Actually, the ancients were rather better at handling this problem, it seems to me, than modern man is (with his nasty habit of simply dismissing whatever it is he personally dislikes, "with prejudice"). As far back in time as second millenium B.C. Egypt we see the human mind engaging the problem of the source of ordering Truth. Plato was in a certain way a great culmination of the cosmological approach to analyzing this problem. He thought the Cosmos was an image or reflection (that is, already ordered being) of the Unseen God that stands behind it. Another way to put it is the Unseen God, which exists in the order of the Timeless and which "from there" creates and sustains the Cosmos and its constituted order, is made manifest in the order of Time through the Cosmos itself. Man can know something about the Cosmos and the Unseen God it reveals, because he, like the Unseen God, possesses mind and soul -- reason and free will. Thus man can be said to be a creature standing at the crossroad of two orders: Time and Timelessness. Man himself, in addition to being a creature in Time, also has a Timeless (transcendent) extension.
Apparently, this insight of Plato's was a directly-lived experience of participation in "Divine Presence." I can't go into the details of his method here; but for Plato, the experience was tantamount to insights into the nature of Absolute Truth. Then he turned around and attempted to describe his insights, fully realizing that any such description would constitute a "once-remove" from the Truth of lived experience, a deformation. In other words, the insight would assume doctrinal form for other thinkers who lack direct experience of Plato's insights. But Plato doesn't want us merely to accept doctrine; he wants us to go find out for ourselves -- to experience Truth as he saw it.
As another example of doctrine as a "deformation" of Absolute Truth, we have this one from the Old Testament. Moses goes to Mt. Sinai, where he happens upon the Unseen God. Now I have no way of knowing of what that encounter consisted; but it certainly seemed to have had considerable impact on Moses. He brought down the tablets bearing the Ten Commandments (which were probably rather vividly experienced as much more than pure language statements during the actual encounter), and tells the people of Israel that they have been "chosen" to come under the Law revealed to Moses by the Unseen God. An entire people that lives to this day was formed out of Moses' insights/experiences of 3,000 years ago. But the direct Truth of that experience is incommunicable to those who have not had similar experiences. All that can be communicated to them is Truth in doctrinal form. (Note: If the Ten Commandments were actually to be consciously and deliberately lived by a man, then there's a shift from doctrine back into Truth -- so to speak. Then the Truth that lies back of Moses' experience may become articulate for that man.)
Then finally, there is the example of Christ and the Truth that He points to. As Voegelin has noted, the stunning revelation of Christ is that the Unseen God has been made manifest, not simply in the Cosmos, but in the life of a man, Jesus of Nazareth. The imago Dei is not the Cosmos; the imago Dei is fully realized as man himself. For the immediate participants in Christ's passion and death, the events of the drama were actually lived experiences in which could be perceived the Truth of Christ's revelation. In time, these experiences and insights were recorded. That is, they assumed the doctrinal form that has had abiding relevance for human beings for two millennia, up to our own day.
Well, that would be a brief and very generalized sketch of the history of human consciousness with regard to Order in the universe up to the 19th century. Then Hegel and friends simply trashed it all, stood Plato, Moses, and Christ on their heads, "ended history," and prepared the ground to "just start everything all over again, from scratch," with Hegel as the New Messiah of the earthly New Eden of Man. This is a "flight from reality" as thinking mankind has conceived it for the past three millennia at least.
As far as I can tell, Absolute Truth requires this leap of faith: Not everything That Is is confined to the order of spatio-temporal reality. This is extraordinarily difficult for modern man to accept, with his rationalistic and naturalistic tendencies, so tenderly nurtured by the mavens of our "official" elite culture....
In our skeptical age when faith seems so difficult for so many (although it is unconsciously at work in untested premises everywhere), living in Truth is a difficult, if not impossible, "option." From the standpoint of man, Truth is never final so long as our order in on-going: It is an increasingly full revelation in Time. That means having to live with a great deal of uncertainty, which in turn can lead to a sense of anxiety, even alienation.
In any case, we can't possibly validate absolutely everything by means of our own lived experiences. Who would have the time? So -- we use doctrine as a substitute, relying on the authority of others for the validation of aspects of our own existence. To the extent that the Truth of the original experiences that lie behind the doctrine was genuine, the doctrine is "valid," notwithstanding it is a deformation of the original informing insights. It can still serve to guide and order human life, and does so.
And order, IMHO, is better than disorder -- in an individual human life and in society and culture. In conclusion, we're all dependent on doctrine to some extent or other. So how can you tell if a given doctrine is truthful or not? Doctrines seem to come in two flavors: in the form of what Plato called "the saving tale," or in the form of "the tale that destroys." And there is a deep mystery there; but this one doesn't come from the side of the Unseen God, IMHO. This mystery comes from the side of man -- who must think, who must discriminate, who must decide. Thank you for your magnificent essay, D-Fendr. Best wishes, bb.
In any case, we can't possibly validate absolutely everything by means of our own lived experiences. Who would have the time?
I made this same point just the other day...
I think you'll be interested to know that I used Voegelin as a guidemap while forging through some very bizzare French feminist thought the other day. It fulfilled all of Voegelin's criteria for the Gnostic, from rejection of the order of being to the death of God to the prohibition of questioning. I was keeping pace with my professor throughout the whole lecture once I realized the aforementioned feminists fell into the gnostic taxonomy. For once, I wasn't unduly addled by my stultified brain.
As a sidenote, I learned that Voegelin's last name means "little bird" while listening to Mozart's Papageno sing "Ein vogelfanger bin ich ja."
Good thoughts, bb. It seems we are nearing the point for discussing the 2-4 c. AD 'beatific vision.' Maybe its time to do that with new language, like Voegelin has done so well--with new language. The struggle is truth is always admirable.
You mention skepticism. Skepticism was the last option for rationalist who discovered that reason was insufficient on its own to discover that totality the Greeks sought. The writings of the skeptic Sextus Empiricus were read by Enlightenment Deists.
Hopefully, more thoughts later. P.S. good work on the science thread.
Excellent, betty -really excellent. Now it's time, I think (I do hope you'll pardon the pun) to add some thoughts on Time from C.S. Lewis.
From The Screwtape Letters: Humans live in time ... therefore ... attend chiefly to two things, to eternity itself and to ... the Present. For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity ... in it alone freedom and actuality are offered.
And again: The Future is, of all things, the thing least like eternity. It is the most completely temporal part of time - for the Past is frozen and no longer flows, and the Present is all lit up with eternal rays ... Hence nearly all vices are rooted in the Future. Gratitude looks to the Past and love to the Present; fear, avarice, lut and ambition look ahead. ...With the present ... there, and there alone, all duty, all grace, all knowledge, and all pleasure dwell.
From Miracles: It is probable that Nature is not really in Time and almost certain that God is not. Time is probably (like perspective) the mode of our perception. There is therefore in reality no question of God's at one point in time (the moment of creation) adapting the material history of this universe in advance to free acts which you or I are to perform at a later point in Time. To Him all the physical events and all the human acts are present in the eternal Now. The liberation of finite wills and the creation of the whole material history of the universe (related to the acts of those wills in all the necessary complexity) is to Him a single operation. In this sense God did not create the universe long ago, but creates it at this minute - at every minute.
And in Christian Reflections: Historicism: Where, except in the present, can the Eternal be met?
That should be more than enough to furrow some brows...
I learned that Voegelin's last name means "little bird" while listening to Mozart's Papageno sing "Ein vogelfanger bin ich ja."
An experience of the first order.
Man can know something about the Cosmos and the Unseen God it reveals, because he, like the Unseen God, possesses mind and soul -- reason and free will.
John 8:12 "Ego eimi to phos tou kosmou." Kinda helps you read the words in a new, um, Light. Doesn't it?
Skepticism was the last option for [the] rationalist who discovered that reason was insufficient on its own to discover that totality the Greeks sought
Hi cornelis! So by all means, banish that reeking concept, "totality." It must be a fiction if reason alone can't constitute it! New language? Yes. These ideas need to be made accessible to our own age. Would have to lose the technical language.... But how does one express the idea of "beatific vision" in modern colloquial English? Hmmmmmmm...grist for the mill. Please share your thoughts with me? Thanks for your kind words, cornelis. best wishes, bb.
"Ein vogelfanger bin ich ja."
It doesn't get any more gnostic than that! I can't even listen to Die Zauberfloete without groaning in embarassment. Hard to see how the bawdy, uninhibited Mozart of Amadeus could be the source for this priggish, pompous work. It's the sort of thing you'd expect Hillary to adore.
Would you please flag me on anything concerning 2-4C AD? I sort of specialize in late antiquity. Thanks.
Another reason Hillary would love The Magic Flute is its contempt for simple, traditional people, who are unenlightened and require elites to show them how to live.
My favorite Mozart opera has always been Don Giovanni, which I knew backwards and forwards before I'd ever heard of Bill Clinton. A masterful study of mendacity and appetite.
Please resume conversation at so that the slowpokes can load. Thread Two
I'm astonished to see that this thread is still going after all these weeks! Since you guys are still quoting so much Lewis, I'll liven things up a bit more: one of the things that led me to my atheism was reading the chapter in Christian Reflections called 'Petitionary Prayer: A Problem Without an Answer." Do any of you have any thoughts about this problem and any possible solutions to it?
If you have a mind to answer Cajun, would you be so kind to use the new thread?
It is probable that Nature is not really in Time and almost certain that God is not.
Hello logos! Oh, by all means, do bring on C. S. Lewis! Looks like I'm going to have to invest in his Miracles, if only to come to grips with the above italics (the "probable" part sounds rather Kantian to my ear...well, Lewis did claim to be a rationalist -- not that I particularly believed him when he said it, in "Bulverism," above). The insights about time from Screwtape are so beautifully and truthfully (IMHO) expressed.... Thank you so much for providing these wonderful excerpts! And thank you so much for your kind words. Peace, bb.
"Ego eimi to phos tou kosmou."
"I am the Light of the world." Yes, Romulus -- Christ's statement certainly has put things in a different Light. An excellent subject for meditation during this Lenten season.... Thank you so much! best wishes, bb.
Penetrating, eloquent, moving and instructive. A deep bow in your direction. Keep posting.
Hi, betty. Thanks so much for all your work and inspiration. You guys really have become my adjunct course in philosophy. I am greatly indebted, and I hope you will understand if this is an anti-philosophical philosophical treatise.
I waited for others to post, cause I always have trouble keeping it short. All of this is IMHO of course, fully mindful that I could always be wrong. I agree with so much of what you said, I leave out all the "I agree" and "well put" parts. This will be more of an elaboration and a further expansion, and a bit contrarian though at times I even disagree with myself on these matters, but I'll try to make it as if it were a conversation between friends.
"...doctrine -- be it religious, scientistic, ideological, whatever -- is, for most people, a proxy for that firm ground we crave but do not find.We are lazy and insecure at times, aren't we? In the area of religion: If spirit is like chocolate, doctrine is like settling for memorizing the recipe. What we really crave is re-union, and words are a lousy substitute for a hug. What we are truly longing for is longing for us. Sometimes, when we are still for long enough, it finds us.
"...what Eric Voegelin calls "non-existent reality" -- your "unconditioned?" This oxymoronic term really isn't the self-contradiction it appears to be at first glance. What Voegelin's getting at is the idea of a reality that really exists, but not in the order of Time."How much time passes when you have no thoughts? It's the same reality, thinking or not, we just are consciously focusing on, sitting at, different perspectives. That the order of Time is the only reality is a notion caused by lack of awareness of timelessness. Yes, it really exists, and I believe it can be known, in a limited human manner. I think it is what many spiritual writers refer to as "eternal" or outside time.
"...That is, it can never appear to us as a datum of sense perception, for it is not an "object" in the empirical sense (i.e., susceptible to falsification tests).Yes, not capable of being known by only sense perception, but it is empirical in that it can be known by direct personal experience, the same way we truly know anything. And, it is verifiable, but not in the same manner as physical or mental phenomena. The transcendent can also, in a very limited fashion, be interpreted, brought down/reduced, to the conditioned and be subjected to proof, though this is sometimes difficult to do without error. For example: "kindness is better than cruelty" is both an unconditional truth and a conditional truth (subject to logical proof). It is a test of the transcendent that it does not violate logic, or physics; it includes and transcends both physical and mental; but again, this takes care to avoid category errors.
"...Yet human beings for millennia have sensed non-existent reality operating "in the background," so to speak, principally as the source of that order that can be perceived and validated by empirical means in the natural world."That would be another way of saying it. Truth, goodness and beauty exist. Or, you could say that transcendent values have value in the material world, that the ten commandments are for our own good, that the universe works to encourage goodness, and that God is good. It would be interesting to re-phrase the commandments in positive "thou shalts," but I think Jesus already did that reducing them to two.
"...Man himself, in addition to being a creature in Time, also has a Timeless (transcendent) extension. "Or the transcendent has an extension, or manifestation, in time. It's the same thing, just depends on which direction you look.
"An entire people that lives to this day was formed out of Moses' insights/experiences of 3,000 years ago."Aren't seeds amazing? But it would not have lasted a few generations without others' experience to keep it alive. It will die soon after us unless there are those who do so, something similar to Moses, over and over and over. Moses brought down more than moral guidelines; there is no need of going up to the mountaintop for those.
"As far as I can tell, Absolute Truth requires this leap of faith: Not everything That Is is confined to the order of spatio-temporal reality. This is extraordinarily difficult for modern man to accept, with his rationalistic and naturalistic tendencies, so tenderly nurtured by the mavens of our "official" elite culture…"Yes. It is so hard to accept that modern man must see it for himself without faith required, and even then he likely wouldn't know what he saw; but here he's not unique. It's just a bit harder these days since God was declared officially dead and science became the only thing we could know. And since too many in religion require him to choose between what he can know and what he must choose to believe. This is my complaint with much of popular Christianity.
To some, belief is alpha and omega; to others, belief alone becomes like cardboard and no amount of believing harder can aid their growth or relieve their pain of separation. Many turn to very harmful distractions. In past ages, for them the available progression was belief, faith, experience—that is how they were led by grace at the proper time. Modern man seems often to demand the skipping of the first two stages, and that puts a larger burden on grace, and leaves many needlessly by the wayside.
"That means having to live with a great deal of uncertainty, which in turn can lead to a sense of anxiety, even alienation."Uncertainty is a gift as sure as suffering and disease. It is part of the discomfort needed to grow. Suffering is God's fertilizer: We can't avoid the sh*t, but we can use it to grow.
Or we can distract ourselves.
One method that's effective for some is to grow their faith by questioning their beliefs, even seeking out uncertainty. But, yes, all this is a greater problem when beliefs are not much considered past what improves our chances for better distractions.
"...we use doctrine as a substitute, relying on the authority of others for the validation of aspects of our own existence."…never really knowing for ourselves, only taking another's word for it. And when the final act comes, and we have not rehearsed our death, we must look away again; and, never having faced death, we have never fully seen life. What doctrine can describe that experience to us as a substitute? Doctrine has many good uses, substitute is not one of them.
"So how can you tell if a given doctrine is truthful or not? "Like Galileo told the bishops: You can look for yourself. Like Jesus said: "Watch and pray." Have we too little faith to look for ourselves? If we ask for bread, do we think we'll be given stone?
And, there are experts for guidance in all fields, we are fortunate that the search for reality did not begin with us.
If we wish to know science, we have scientists to guide us, but still we must perform the experiment if we really want to know.
If we wish to know philosophy, we have philosophers such as Voegelin, but still each has to reason through for himself—if he wishes to truly know instead of only memorizing the philosopher's doctrine.
In our search for knowledge, the method is the same: gain the knowledge base, perform the experiment and observe the results.
Here is one definition of mysticism: "attaining knowledge of spiritual truths through intuition, i.e. through personal experience transcending the reasoning mind." If the method is "attaining knowledge through personal experience" then mysticism differs from all other methods of learning only in the data observed and the instrument used.
When we wish to know more about something we learn best through personal experience. Are we to be mystics in our search for knowledge of science and philosophy and not spirit? Can we have the confidence to say to modern man: "Honestly seek the truth with us."?
If we wish greater knowledge of reality than can be known by reason alone, we have guides from many traditions—we have lost so much appreciation for spiritual practice in our culture. But, still, even with guidance, each has to experience for themselves. I cannot know chocolate for you; I can't be with your lover for you.
Everyone strives to be a mystic in their own fashion. Aren't we all trying to understand realilty based on our experience? Isn't this what we do when we read scripture? Do we want to know God as Jesus did? Or do we want to know only what Jesus said about His Father? What words or arguments must we know to rest in God? How should we come as children to the lap of an immense and infinitely compassionate intelligence? Repeating doctrine?
In many ways it's similar, but in other ways the transcendent is different than science or philosophy: it is a larger view, it is the largest view, it includes the viewing itself. That's what is so frustrating when we try to hold it in the walls of philosophy, in our reasoning mind. It's like trying to grab water, like trying to see seeing. And, we will never fully know in this life; but, we can be in fuller realization of our spiritual union, in more conscious contact with God. If we lose this, we are left with only words, other's words.
We can never hold God with words, yet the conceptual mind is useless without words. Isn't the limitation obvious, and the first step apparent?
Many have gone before, we are not alone. There are many ways to judge our direction. One is by the diminishing of the desire to know in reasoning mind, by wanting less and less to capture spirit in reason. Spirit is grounded in reason, but that's its legs, not its heart. The longing for union replaces the desire to possess, much as true love only wants to be with, not to own.
Yes, mystics, always held in suspicion by some, are prone to their own errors; there is bogus spirituality as well as bogus science, bogus philosophy. Trustworthy wise guidance is valuable and necessary. But what we are left with in each area is: the only way we really know is through direct personal experience, not by taking your word for how many moons the earth has, not by memorizing a scientific formula or a categorical imperative or a religious doctrine.
Experience on this level is what each of us is striving for here and now when we wish to understand, beyond the words, beyond the concepts, beyond the theology which can choke spirit, beyond the doctrine that often seeks to reduce the personal unfolding of spiritual experience to a legal document: something we can use to test ourselves and others that allows us to keep God to a contract for our salvation.
Sometimes we have to try this 'til it fails us. After all, we have to know what we have to believe. Don't we? Won't somebody please tell me the minimum I have to believe just in case there really is a God? I don't want to fail if there is a test.
Or, just perhaps, the kosmos is not a test, and God is not keeping score. Which is it—in your experience?
Thanks again, betty, it's great fun to ponder, pontificate and try to write words on these matters; and, how else on earth could I ramble so darn long without your posts providing the sparks?
Ooops. Wrong thread. Now I gotta post it to the second Bulver one. Sure wish we had a delete function.
Hi, betty. Thanks so much for all your work and inspiration. You guys really have become my adjunct course in philosophy. I am greatly indebted, and I hope you will understand if this is an anti-philosophical philosophical treatise.
I waited for others to post, cause I always have trouble keeping it short. All of this is IMHO of course, fully mindful that I could always be wrong. I agree with so much of what you said, I leave out all the "I agree" and "well put" parts. This will be more of an elaboration and a further expansion, and a bit contrarian though at times I even disagree with myself on these matters, but I'll try to make it as if it were a conversation between friends.
"...doctrine -- be it religious, scientistic, ideological, whatever -- is, for most people, a proxy for that firm ground we crave but do not find.We are lazy and insecure at times, aren't we? In the area of religion: If spirit is like chocolate, doctrine is like settling for memorizing the recipe. What we really crave is re-union, and words are a lousy substitute for a hug. What we are truly longing for is longing for us. Sometimes, when we are still for long enough, it finds us.
"...what Eric Voegelin calls "non-existent reality" -- your "unconditioned?" This oxymoronic term really isn't the self-contradiction it appears to be at first glance. What Voegelin's getting at is the idea of a reality that really exists, but not in the order of Time."How much time passes when you have no thoughts? It's the same reality, thinking or not, we just are consciously focusing on, sitting at, different perspectives. That the order of Time is the only reality is a notion caused by lack of awareness of timelessness. Yes, it really exists, and I believe it can be known, in a limited human manner. I think it is what many spiritual writers refer to as "eternal" or outside time.
"...That is, it can never appear to us as a datum of sense perception, for it is not an "object" in the empirical sense (i.e., susceptible to falsification tests).Yes, not capable of being known by only sense perception, but it is empirical in that it can be known by direct personal experience, the same way we truly know anything. And, it is verifiable, but not in the same manner as physical or mental phenomena. The transcendent can also, in a very limited fashion, be interpreted, brought down/reduced, to the conditioned and be subjected to proof, though this is sometimes difficult to do without error. For example: "kindness is better than cruelty" is both an unconditional truth and a conditional truth (subject to logical proof). It is a test of the transcendent that it does not violate logic, or physics; it includes and transcends both physical and mental; but again, this takes care to avoid category errors.
"...Yet human beings for millennia have sensed non-existent reality operating "in the background," so to speak, principally as the source of that order that can be perceived and validated by empirical means in the natural world."That would be another way of saying it. Truth, goodness and beauty exist. Or, you could say that transcendent values have value in the material world, that the ten commandments are for our own good, that the universe works to encourage goodness, and that God is good. It would be interesting to re-phrase the commandments in positive "thou shalts," but I think Jesus already did that reducing them to two.
"...Man himself, in addition to being a creature in Time, also has a Timeless (transcendent) extension. "Or the transcendent has an extension, or manifestation, in time. It's the same thing, just depends on which direction you look.
"An entire people that lives to this day was formed out of Moses' insights/experiences of 3,000 years ago."Aren't seeds amazing? But it would not have lasted a few generations without others' experience to keep it alive. It will die soon after us unless there are those who do so, something similar to Moses, over and over and over. Moses brought down more than moral guidelines; there is no need of going up to the mountaintop for those.
"As far as I can tell, Absolute Truth requires this leap of faith: Not everything That Is is confined to the order of spatio-temporal reality. This is extraordinarily difficult for modern man to accept, with his rationalistic and naturalistic tendencies, so tenderly nurtured by the mavens of our "official" elite culture…"Yes. It is so hard to accept that modern man must see it for himself without faith required, and even then he likely wouldn't know what he saw; but here he's not unique. It's just a bit harder these days since God was declared officially dead and science became the only thing we could know. And since too many in religion require him to choose between what he can know and what he must choose to believe. This is my complaint with much of popular Christianity.
To some, belief is alpha and omega; to others, belief alone becomes like cardboard and no amount of believing harder can aid their growth or relieve their pain of separation. Many turn to very harmful distractions. In past ages, for them the available progression was belief, faith, experience—that is how they were led by grace at the proper time. Modern man seems often to demand the skipping of the first two stages, and that puts a larger burden on grace, and leaves many needlessly by the wayside.
"That means having to live with a great deal of uncertainty, which in turn can lead to a sense of anxiety, even alienation."Uncertainty is a gift as sure as suffering and disease. It is part of the discomfort needed to grow. Suffering is God's fertilizer: We can't avoid the sh*t, but we can use it to grow.
Or we can distract ourselves.
One method that's effective for some is to grow their faith by questioning their beliefs, even seeking out uncertainty. But, yes, all this is a greater problem when beliefs are not much considered past what improves our chances for better distractions.
"...we use doctrine as a substitute, relying on the authority of others for the validation of aspects of our own existence."…never really knowing for ourselves, only taking another's word for it. And when the final act comes, and we have not rehearsed our death, we must look away again; and, never having faced death, we have never fully seen life. What doctrine can describe that experience to us as a substitute? Doctrine has many good uses, substitute is not one of them.
"So how can you tell if a given doctrine is truthful or not? "Like Galileo told the bishops: You can look for yourself. Like Jesus said: "Watch and pray." Have we too little faith to look for ourselves? If we ask for bread, do we think we'll be given stone?
And, there are experts for guidance in all fields, we are fortunate that the search for reality did not begin with us.
If we wish to know science, we have scientists to guide us, but still we must perform the experiment if we really want to know.
If we wish to know philosophy, we have philosophers such as Voegelin, but still each has to reason through for himself—if he wishes to truly know instead of only memorizing the philosopher's doctrine.
In our search for knowledge, the method is the same: gain the knowledge base, perform the experiment and observe the results.
Here is one definition of mysticism: "attaining knowledge of spiritual truths through intuition, i.e. through personal experience transcending the reasoning mind." If the method is "attaining knowledge through personal experience" then mysticism differs from all other methods of learning only in the data observed and the instrument used.
When we wish to know more about something we learn best through personal experience. Are we to be mystics in our search for knowledge of science and philosophy and not spirit? Can we have the confidence to say to modern man: "Honestly seek the truth with us."?
If we wish greater knowledge of reality than can be known by reason alone, we have guides from many traditions—we have lost so much appreciation for spiritual practice in our culture. But, still, even with guidance, each has to experience for themselves. I cannot know chocolate for you; I can't be with your lover for you.
Everyone strives to be a mystic in their own fashion. Aren't we all trying to understand realilty based on our experience? Isn't this what we do when we read scripture? Do we want to know God as Jesus did? Or do we want to know only what Jesus said about His Father? What words or arguments must we know to rest in God? How should we come as children to the lap of an immense and infinitely compassionate intelligence? Repeating doctrine?
In many ways it's similar, but in other ways the transcendent is different than science or philosophy: it is a larger view, it is the largest view, it includes the viewing itself. That's what is so frustrating when we try to hold it in the walls of philosophy, in our reasoning mind. It's like trying to grab water, like trying to see seeing. And, we will never fully know in this life; but, we can be in fuller realization of our spiritual union, in more conscious contact with God. If we lose this, we are left with only words, other's words.
We can never hold God with words, yet the conceptual mind is useless without words. Isn't the limitation obvious, and the first step apparent?
Many have gone before, we are not alone. There are many ways to judge our direction. One is by the diminishing of the desire to know in reasoning mind, by wanting less and less to capture spirit in reason. Spirit is grounded in reason, but that's its legs, not its heart. The longing for union replaces the desire to possess, much as true love only wants to be with, not to own.
Yes, mystics, always held in suspicion by some, are prone to their own errors; there is bogus spirituality as well as bogus science, bogus philosophy. Trustworthy wise guidance is valuable and necessary. But what we are left with in each area is: the only way we really know is through direct personal experience, not by taking your word for how many moons the earth has, not by memorizing a scientific formula or a categorical imperative or a religious doctrine.
Experience on this level is what each of us is striving for here and now when we wish to understand, beyond the words, beyond the concepts, beyond the theology which can choke spirit, beyond the doctrine that often seeks to reduce the personal unfolding of spiritual experience to a legal document: something we can use to test ourselves and others that allows us to keep God to a contract for our salvation.
Sometimes we have to try this 'til it fails us. After all, we have to know what we have to believe. Don't we? Won't somebody please tell me the minimum I have to believe just in case there really is a God? I don't want to fail if there is a test.
Or, just perhaps, the kosmos is not a test, and God is not keeping score. Which is it—in your experience?
Thanks again, betty, it's great fun to ponder, pontificate and try to write words on these matters; and, how else on earth could I ramble so darn long without your posts providing the sparks?
Hi, betty. Thanks so much for all your work and inspiration. You guys really have become my adjunct course in philosophy. I am greatly indebted, and I hope you will understand if this is an anti-philosophical philosophical treatise.
I waited for others to post, cause I always have trouble keeping it short. All of this is IMHO of course, fully mindful that I could always be wrong. I agree with so much of what you said, I leave out all the "I agree" and "well put" parts. This will be more of an elaboration and a further expansion, and a bit contrarian though at times I even disagree with myself on these matters, but I'll try to make it as if it were a conversation between friends.
"...doctrine -- be it religious, scientistic, ideological, whatever -- is, for most people, a proxy for that firm ground we crave but do not find.We are lazy and insecure at times, aren't we? In the area of religion: If spirit is like chocolate, doctrine is like settling for memorizing the recipe. What we really crave is re-union, and words are a lousy substitute for a hug. What we are truly longing for is longing for us. Sometimes, when we are still for long enough, it finds us.
"...what Eric Voegelin calls "non-existent reality" -- your "unconditioned?" This oxymoronic term really isn't the self-contradiction it appears to be at first glance. What Voegelin's getting at is the idea of a reality that really exists, but not in the order of Time."How much time passes when you have no thoughts? It's the same reality, thinking or not, we just are consciously focusing on, sitting at, different perspectives. That the order of Time is the only reality is a notion caused by lack of awareness of timelessness. Yes, it really exists, and I believe it can be known, in a limited human manner. I think it is what many spiritual writers refer to as "eternal" or outside time.
"...That is, it can never appear to us as a datum of sense perception, for it is not an "object" in the empirical sense (i.e., susceptible to falsification tests).Yes, not capable of being known by only sense perception, but it is empirical in that it can be known by direct personal experience, the same way we truly know anything. And, it is verifiable, but not in the same manner as physical or mental phenomena. The transcendent can also, in a very limited fashion, be interpreted, brought down/reduced, to the conditioned and be subjected to proof, though this is sometimes difficult to do without error. For example: "kindness is better than cruelty" is both an unconditional truth and a conditional truth (subject to logical proof). It is a test of the transcendent that it does not violate logic, or physics; it includes and transcends both physical and mental; but again, this takes care to avoid category errors.
"...Yet human beings for millennia have sensed non-existent reality operating "in the background," so to speak, principally as the source of that order that can be perceived and validated by empirical means in the natural world."That would be another way of saying it. Truth, goodness and beauty exist. Or, you could say that transcendent values have value in the material world, that the ten commandments are for our own good, that the universe works to encourage goodness, and that God is good. It would be interesting to re-phrase the commandments in positive "thou shalts," but I think Jesus already did that reducing them to two.
"...Man himself, in addition to being a creature in Time, also has a Timeless (transcendent) extension. "Or the transcendent has an extension, or manifestation, in time. It's the same thing, just depends on which direction you look.
"An entire people that lives to this day was formed out of Moses' insights/experiences of 3,000 years ago."Aren't seeds amazing? But it would not have lasted a few generations without others' experience to keep it alive. It will die soon after us unless there are those who do so, something similar to Moses, over and over and over. Moses brought down more than moral guidelines; there is no need of going up to the mountaintop for those.
"As far as I can tell, Absolute Truth requires this leap of faith: Not everything That Is is confined to the order of spatio-temporal reality. This is extraordinarily difficult for modern man to accept, with his rationalistic and naturalistic tendencies, so tenderly nurtured by the mavens of our "official" elite culture…"Yes. It is so hard to accept that modern man must see it for himself without faith required, and even then he likely wouldn't know what he saw; but here he's not unique. It's just a bit harder these days since God was declared officially dead and science became the only thing we could know. And since too many in religion require him to choose between what he can know and what he must choose to believe. This is my complaint with much of popular Christianity.
To some, belief is alpha and omega; to others, belief alone becomes like cardboard and no amount of believing harder can aid their growth or relieve their pain of separation. Many turn to very harmful distractions. In past ages, for them the available progression was belief, faith, experience—that is how they were led by grace at the proper time. Modern man seems often to demand the skipping of the first two stages, and that puts a larger burden on grace, and leaves many needlessly by the wayside.
"That means having to live with a great deal of uncertainty, which in turn can lead to a sense of anxiety, even alienation."Uncertainty is a gift as sure as suffering and disease. It is part of the discomfort needed to grow. Suffering is God's fertilizer: We can't avoid the sh*t, but we can use it to grow.
Or we can distract ourselves.
One method that's effective for some is to grow their faith by questioning their beliefs, even seeking out uncertainty. But, yes, all this is a greater problem when beliefs are not much considered past what improves our chances for better distractions.
"...we use doctrine as a substitute, relying on the authority of others for the validation of aspects of our own existence."…never really knowing for ourselves, only taking another's word for it. And when the final act comes, and we have not rehearsed our death, we must look away again; and, never having faced death, we have never fully seen life. What doctrine can describe that experience to us as a substitute? Doctrine has many good uses, substitute is not one of them.
"So how can you tell if a given doctrine is truthful or not? "Like Galileo told the bishops: You can look for yourself. Like Jesus said: "Watch and pray." Have we too little faith to look for ourselves? If we ask for bread, do we think we'll be given stone?
And, there are experts for guidance in all fields, we are fortunate that the search for reality did not begin with us.
If we wish to know science, we have scientists to guide us, but still we must perform the experiment if we really want to know.
If we wish to know philosophy, we have philosophers such as Voegelin, but still each has to reason through for himself—if he wishes to truly know instead of only memorizing the philosopher's doctrine.
In our search for knowledge, the method is the same: gain the knowledge base, perform the experiment and observe the results.
Here is one definition of mysticism: "attaining knowledge of spiritual truths through intuition, i.e. through personal experience transcending the reasoning mind." If the method is "attaining knowledge through personal experience" then mysticism differs from all other methods of learning only in the data observed and the instrument used.
When we wish to know more about something we learn best through personal experience. Are we to be mystics in our search for knowledge of science and philosophy and not spirit? Can we have the confidence to say to modern man: "Honestly seek the truth with us."?
If we wish greater knowledge of reality than can be known by reason alone, we have guides from many traditions—we have lost so much appreciation for spiritual practice in our culture. But, still, even with guidance, each has to experience for themselves. I cannot know chocolate for you; I can't be with your lover for you.
Everyone strives to be a mystic in their own fashion. Aren't we all trying to understand realilty based on our experience? Isn't this what we do when we read scripture? Do we want to know God as Jesus did? Or do we want to know only what Jesus said about His Father? What words or arguments must we know to rest in God? How should we come as children to the lap of an immense and infinitely compassionate intelligence? Repeating doctrine?
In many ways it's similar, but in other ways the transcendent is different than science or philosophy: it is a larger view, it is the largest view, it includes the viewing itself. That's what is so frustrating when we try to hold it in the walls of philosophy, in our reasoning mind. It's like trying to grab water, like trying to see seeing. And, we will never fully know in this life; but, we can be in fuller realization of our spiritual union, in more conscious contact with God. If we lose this, we are left with only words, other's words.
We can never hold God with words, yet the conceptual mind is useless without words. Isn't the limitation obvious, and the first step apparent?
Many have gone before, we are not alone. There are many ways to judge our direction. One is by the diminishing of the desire to know in reasoning mind, by wanting less and less to capture spirit in reason. Spirit is grounded in reason, but that's its legs, not its heart. The longing for union replaces the desire to possess, much as true love only wants to be with, not to own.
Yes, mystics, always held in suspicion by some, are prone to their own errors; there is bogus spirituality as well as bogus science, bogus philosophy. Trustworthy wise guidance is valuable and necessary. But what we are left with in each area is: the only way we really know is through direct personal experience, not by taking your word for how many moons the earth has, not by memorizing a scientific formula or a categorical imperative or a religious doctrine.
Experience on this level is what each of us is striving for here and now when we wish to understand, beyond the words, beyond the concepts, beyond the theology which can choke spirit, beyond the doctrine that often seeks to reduce the personal unfolding of spiritual experience to a legal document: something we can use to test ourselves and others that allows us to keep God to a contract for our salvation.
Sometimes we have to try this 'til it fails us. After all, we have to know what we have to believe. Don't we? Won't somebody please tell me the minimum I have to believe just in case there really is a God? I don't want to fail if there is a test.
Or, just perhaps, the kosmos is not a test, and God is not keeping score. Which is it—in your experience?
Thanks again, betty, it's great fun to ponder, pontificate and try to write words on these matters; and, how else on earth could I ramble so darn long without your posts providing the sparks?
My goodness, what a foul-up, a what a long post to triple post. My apologies for this. I kept posting on Thread 2 and it was posting to this thread. I'm going to give up trying to get it onto #2 before I break the server.
If someone can help me out on this, what I did wrong, please let me know. Use freepmail, cause I think I just used up my alloted bandwidth til 2002.
See also Ten Philosophical Mistakes by Mortimer J. Adler.
Here is the portion of the prologue where he describes these errors that underlie modern philosophy and much, as a result, of common everyday thought. Their significance lies in the fact that they're very simple and that they weren't noticed until their effects started to manifest themselves. Even then, philosophers didn't go back and correct the mistakes but devised other ways of trying to deal with the results that added their own levels of confusion.
From the prologue, Little Mistakes in the Beginning, pp. xv-xx.
[I have added numbers before each of the ten below for the sake of presentation]
The order in which these philosophical mistakes are taken up in the following chapters is somewhat arbitrary, but not entirely so.
If their seriousness for human life and action had been the criterion for deciding which should come first, the order might have been reversed. The last six of the ten chapters concern matters that have more obvious practical importance for our everyday life. The first four seem more theoretical, more remote from immediate interests.
However, though they are indeed more theoretical, the first four chapters deal with mistakes that underlie much of what follows. They are mistakes which have, among their serious consequences, little errors at the beginning of other lines of thought.
The mistake about consciousness with which the first chapter deals is, perhaps, the crucial one. It lies at the very foundation of modern thought. It determines its characteristic complexion. When combined with the mistake about the human mind that is treated in the second chapter, it sets modern thought off on a misadventure that includes many other turns in wrong directions.
1) The mistake dealt with in that first chapter may prove to be the most puzzling, even baffling, to readers because not only modern philosophers, but most other people are prone to making it. Without much reflection about it, they tend to suppose that they are directly aware of the contents of their own minds. They are, indeed, when they consciously feel pleasures and pains, or bodily strains and aches. Such feelings, however, are utterly different from their perceptions, memories, imaginations, dreams, and thoughts or concepts.
The latter let us call “ideas” for want of a single better word to cover them. Our ideas have the special characteristic and function of placing objects before our minds. It is always the idea’s object of which we are directly conscious, not the idea itself. Ideas themselves are nothing but the means whereby we apprehend the objects they have the power to place before our minds. They themselves are inapprehensible.
2) The second mistake compounds the error made by the first. The failure to distinguish between perceptual and conceptual thought--between perceiving the sensible objects that we encounter in everyday experience and thinking about objects that cannot be perceived or imagined--has serious consequences for our understanding of mathematics, theoretical physics, philosophy, and theology. It also has a direct bearing on the difference between the human mind and that of subhuman animals.
3) The third set of mistakes consists of errors that would not have been made in the philosophy of language--in attempts to explain the meaning of words-had it not been for the first two mistakes. The root of these errors lies in the failure to recognize that ideas are meanings. As such, they are the only source from which anything else--words and all other man-made signs and symbols--can acquire the meanings they have in our use of them.
4)
The fourth mistake draws the line that divides knowledge from mere opinion in such a way that it puts mathematics, investigative science, and history on one side of that line and everything else on the other side. This amounts to denying the legitimacy of the claim made by philosophy to give us knowledge of reality and provide us with truths that are, perhaps, more fundamental and important that those we learn from science.
5)
The fifth mistake also draws a line between what is genuine knowledge and mere opinion.This time it places all judgments about moral values--about what is good and evil, right and wrong, and all judgments about what ought and ought not to be sought or done--on the side of mere opinion. There are no objectively valid and universally tenable moral standards or norms. This denial undermines the whole doctrine of natural, human rights, and, even worse, lends support to the dogmatic declaration that might makes right.
6)
The sixth mistake follows hard upon the fifth. It consists in the identification of happiness--a word we all use for something that everyone seeks for its own sake--with the purely psychological state of contentment, which we experience when we have the satisfaction of getting what we want. Modern thought and people generally in our time have totally ignored the other meaning of happiness as the moral quality of a whole life well lived. This error together with two related errors--the failure to distinguish between needs and wants and between real and merely apparent goods--undermines all modern efforts to produce a sound moral philosophy.
7)
The seventh mistake differs from all the rest. We are here concerned with the age-old controversy between those who affirm man’s freedom of choice and determinists who deny it on scientific grounds. The failure here is one of understanding. This misunderstanding is accompanied, on the part of the determinists, by a mistaken view of the relation between free choice and moral responsibility. The issue between the two parties to the controversy is not joined. The determinists do not understand the ground on which the case for free will and free choice rests. Hence their arguments miss the mark.
8)
The eighth mistake consists in the astounding, yet in our day widely prevalent, denial of human nature. It goes to the extreme of asserting that nothing common to all human beings underlies the different behavioral tendencies and characteristics we find in the subgroups of the human race.
9)
The ninth mistake concerns the origin of various forms of human association--the family, the tribe or village, and the state or civil society. Failing to understand how the basic forms of human association are moth natural and conventional (in this respect unlike the instinctively determined association of other gregarious animals, which are natural only), it foists two totally unnecessary myths upon us--the myth of a primitive state of mankind in which individuals lived in total isolation from one another and the myth of the social contract by means of which they departed from that primitive state and entered into civil society.
10)
The tenth mistake is a metaphysical one. It consists in an error that can be called the fallacy of reductionism--assigning a much greater reality to the parts of an organized whole than to the whole itself; or even worse, maintaining that only the ultimate component parts have reality and that the wholes they constitute are mere appearances, or even illusory. According to that view, the real existences that constitute the physical world are the elementary particles that are components of the atom. When we regard human individuals as having the real existence and the enduring identity that they appear to have, we are suffering an illusion. If that is the case, then again we are devoid of moral responsibility for our actions.
As I have pointed out, some of these mistakes have their prototypes in antiquity, but where that is the case we can find a refutation of them in Aristotle. The repetition of these mistakes in modern thought plainly indicates an ignorance of Aristotle’s correction of them
I hope that this brief summary of the ten subjects about which philosophical mistakes have been made in modern times whets the reader’s appetite for exploring them and for learning how they can be corrected or remedied. When readers have done that, they should turn to the Epilogue for a historical explanation of why these mistake were made, who made them, and how they could have been avoided.
Incidentally, the tenth mistake lies at the heart of Janet Reno's approach to determining whether something having to do with Bill or Al should be investigated with a view to prosecution: divide the matter into the smallest possible parts, determine that each, in itself, was nothing much, and then conclude that the whole was, therefore, nothing much. Like this:
Al Gore used the telephone in his office to solicit political contributions from Democrat donors.
1. Algore used the telephone--nothing wrong here.
2. The telephone was in his office--nothing wrong here.
3. Algore solicited contributions--nothing illegal in this statement alone.
4. They were political contributions--there is no controlling legal interest here.
5. The contributions were to come from Democrat donors--nothing surprising here since Algore is a Democrat.
Therefore, nothing times 5 still yields nothing and no reason for further investigation.
>Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, Bulverism: otherwise known as argumentum ad
hominem.
Apparently otherwise known as missing the point.
aruanan, thank you so much for the selection from Mortimer Adler's Ten Great Philosophical Mistakes. I read this work on the recommendation of a friend about eight months ago; it was a rewarding experience. I recommend it to anyone interested in figuring out what's going on in the contemporary world, most of whose problems seem to relate to problems in the underlying culture. The short summary of the ten mistakes you provide is all by itself invaluable: Clip and Save!!! For more details, wander over to amazon.com and order the book, or check out your local library. Thanks so much, aruanan, for writing. best wishes, bb.
Have not crossed paths in a while, I trust you are well.
Read The Screwtape Letters today, and thought of you (from the time you posted Screwtape's Toast) Ole Clive sure knew the human mind, and how it works in society.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
[
Top
|
Latest Posts
|
Latest Articles
|
Self Search
|
Add Bookmark
|
Post
|
Abuse
|
Help!
]
FreeRepublic , LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794 Forum Version 2.0a Copyright © 1999 Free Republic, LLC |