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Cogito ergo sum

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Atheism And Moral Progress

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  • Originally posted by carpedm9587 View Post
    If that is indeed the case, I would suggest that the car mechanic should be having his conversations with someone else. S/he is likely wasting his/her time with the automotive illiterate.



    How kind..



    A thesis you have no reason to accept should be rejected. Outside of that, the rest of this paragraph has little/no meaning to me. It might be because I don't understand cars.



    Actually, it's not. I find that it is perfectly possible to discuss things without engaging in cryptospeak. Let me tell you a story, if I may.

    25 years ago, I set out on an audacious course: to build my own house. It was a ridiculous quest. I had no tools. I had no formal training. I just had a reasonable intellect, a willingness to learn, and a desire to have a particular house at a particular price. So I set out to do so. Each time I encountered something new that I knew nothing (or little) about, I used the same technique: I found someone who had done it before, hired them to do the thing with me - so long as I could participate and learn. And then I did the rest myself. I had never installed a window, so I hired someone to install the first one with me - then I installed the rest. Today, I live in the house I wanted, mostly built by my own hands. In the process, I learned that there were two types of people out there in the land of "construction." There were the people willing to share what they know - so I could be empowered to continue on. And there were the people who buried what they knew in "cryptospeak," making it virtually impossible for me to actually learn anything. The former had value to me. The latter had none. The former could take what they knew, and express it in terms I could understand. The latter lorded their knowledge like a cudgel - doing everything they could to keep me in the dark and maintain their superiority.

    I knew little about cars. I have had several mechanics over the course of my life. The ones that last a very short time are the ones that continue to throw cryptospeak at me, lording their superior knowledge over me. The ones that last a long time are the ones willing to "dumb down" what they know so I can learn. Nick is my current car mechanic. He's a gem. Hell take the time to provide me information in language I can understand. Over time, I've gained a lot from his tutelage. A good student recognizes a good teacher.

    I am a teacher, Matt. I understand the student who is not at my level of understanding. My area of expertise is telecommunications. I could, if I wanted to, bury my students with my knowledge. But that is not my job. My job is to help them learn. So I take what I know and reframe it in language that is at the level they can understand. I think of it as the equivalent of a Olympic-level swimmer helping a new swimmer to learn. They will never learn if they are ridiculed for not already being Olympic level - or if the teacher constantly insists they need to be at an Olympic level before they are considered worthy of conversation. As I teacher - I meet them where THEY are - I do not expect them to be where I am.



    It is not incompatible with moral absolutism, Matt. The problem is that the moral absolutist cannot show that an absolute moral framework actually exists. As I have noted several times - do not add to an explanation an element unnecessary to the explanation. Moral relativism explains how moralism works. It accounts for all of its dynamics. And it does not require me to include an absolute framework I cannot show to actually exist - not to mention cannot show that there is an absolute interpretation thereof. If you're going to make a case for moral absolutism, it seems to me you have to show something fairly basic: how does moral absolutism solve a problem that moral relativism cannot? Then, perhaps, we can get somewhere.

    As for the rest - I leave it to you to decide if you wish to remain in the world of cryptospeak. I am actually a ready and willing learner. But I have little patience for the teacher with an ego problem. I will learn from the teacher interested in teaching. I will reject the teacher only interested in fluffing their own ego.
    With regard to the house-construction example, I don’t see the parity. I too abhor the type that lord over knowledge like a cudgel. I’ve done nothing of the sort. I’m telling you that these are the correct tools to use to build a window. If at any point in this conversation, you had a question about what you thought was cryptospeak, then of course I’ll define it for you. But what I can’t do is just concede the stipulative way you’ve defined the terms as used by the professional carpenters, so to speak. There’s a humility that’s for teachers and students. The humility of a teacher consists in breaking down whatever is unclear for the student. The humility of the student consists in conceding to the carpenter that the carpenter knows how to build the window, and you don’t. If the student persists in wanting to pound hammers with nails, the window isn’t going to be built. And if the student objects that any clarification involved with the purpose of tools is so-called cryptospeak, the student is just jumping to conclusions about whether the teacher is lording his knowledge over like a cudgel. And then it’s extra puzzling when the student launches into some sort of parable about two types of teachers after the student stopped the teacher from expounding anything the student had been puzzled about in order to hint at the somewhat insulting intentions of the teacher when the student has passive aggressively stopped the teaching process to impugn the latent motives of a teacher that the student presumptively made a judgment about.

    And with the car-example, I’m more than willing to dumb down (your words) anything you want. But what I will not concede is any attempt on the part of the learner to define the tools that the mechanic has mastered. I will not call ‘oil’ a kind of ‘window-washer fluid’. In philosophy, the tools are little more abstract, so it won’t be as clear cut in our conversation. But you have wielded the terminology in an idiosyncratic way. I’ve pointed that out and have charitably clarified how the terminology ought to be used, and how it’s in fact used by the professionals. If you are unclear about any term I’ve used, I will be more than willing to clarify any part of it.

    In no way am I trying to bury you in knowledge. We can - if you want - go concept by concept, post by post, and nail down any ambiguities you happen to be struggling with. I have absolutely no problem with that. But I will say that you are entering into the world of Ethics, a branch of philosophy with its own nomenclature and vocabulary and concepts - and the humility of a student entering a realm as a novice should want clarification from the teacher and not settle with their own stipulative usage of the terms, especially if such usages don’t jive with the way such terms are used in the literature. We should have the humility to let the experts in a subject matter lay the ground for us, ground that hasn’t been easily won, the result of thousands of years of contemplation, courage, and painstaking dialogue.

    I understand that you’re conceding that your view of morality isn’t incompatible with moral absolutism. That’s all I had been originally trying to demonstrate. I didn’t attempt to show that moral absolutism is true. If you want to go there, I suggest we cut out all the other things that have been mentioned so far, and start afresh. I obviously won’t think that moral absolutism will be unnecessary for fully explaining moral reality and experience. I contend that moral relativism categorically does not do this and has received substantial and debilitating objections in the literature. Please let me know if you want to shift the conversation to this particular topic, and I will happily oblige.

    Let me go back to the carpentry example. If you had no idea how to build a window, and I said, ‘Pick up that hammer, and hammer that nail, after sanding down that framing with such and such particular measurements, etc.’, and you proceeded to pick up a nail to attempt to hammer a hammer, and I corrected you and perhaps told you that hammers and nails aren’t meant to be used that way, it wouldn’t be helpful if the student objected that my explanation is guilty of cryptospeak. If I saw that the student, after my explanation, continued to pick up the nails and hammers in the wrong way, the humility of the teacher would tell the student to put the nails and hammers down and listen to what their proper function is until the student understands. The first impulse of the student, after the teacher attempts to teach the student, shouldn’t be that the first syllables of the explanation (if not immediately understood) are in the realm of cryptospeak - because in a certain sense, it will be an inkling of cryptospeak . . . at first - after all, I’m attempting to explain something that you don’t understand using other things that you do understand: there won’t be immediate comprehension in the context of any teaching situation.
    Many and painful are the researches sometimes necessary to be made, for settling points of [this] kind. Pertness and ignorance may ask a question in three lines, which it will cost learning and ingenuity thirty pages to answer. When this is done, the same question shall be triumphantly asked again the next year, as if nothing had ever been written upon the subject.
    George Horne

    Comment


    • Originally posted by mattbballman31 View Post
      I obviously won’t think that moral absolutism will be unnecessary for fully explaining moral reality and experience. I contend that moral relativism categorically does not do this and has received substantial and debilitating objections in the literature. Please let me know if you want to shift the conversation to this particular topic, and I will happily oblige.
      Perhaps you and Carp can focus here, that Carp claims that moral relativism does in fact account for moral reality and experience, and that moral absolutism is unnecessary.
      Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

      Comment


      • Originally posted by seer View Post
        Perhaps you and Carp can focus here, that Carp claims that moral relativism does in fact account for moral reality and experience, and that moral absolutism is unnecessary.
        Exactly. And since it cannot be shown to actually exist...it is not only unnecessary, it's irrelevant.
        The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy...returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Martin Luther King

        I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong. Frederick Douglas

        Comment


        • Originally posted by carpedm9587 View Post
          Exactly. And since it cannot be shown to actually exist...it is not only unnecessary, it's irrelevant.
          First, let’s set some preliminary expectations. I don’t want to get caught up in the scientism debate, so I need to know whether or not we can engage in philosophical demonstrations. That’s the only way absolute/objective morality can be ‘shown’ to exist. I also believe that I can know a thing without being able to ‘show’ or ‘demonstrate’ a thing. This won’t apply to what I think about objective morality. Before we get to that, I just want to make sure we agree on ‘method’.
          Many and painful are the researches sometimes necessary to be made, for settling points of [this] kind. Pertness and ignorance may ask a question in three lines, which it will cost learning and ingenuity thirty pages to answer. When this is done, the same question shall be triumphantly asked again the next year, as if nothing had ever been written upon the subject.
          George Horne

          Comment


          • Originally posted by mattbballman31 View Post
            First, let’s set some preliminary expectations. I don’t want to get caught up in the scientism debate, so I need to know whether or not we can engage in philosophical demonstrations. That’s the only way absolute/objective morality can be ‘shown’ to exist. I also believe that I can know a thing without being able to ‘show’ or ‘demonstrate’ a thing. This won’t apply to what I think about objective morality. Before we get to that, I just want to make sure we agree on ‘method’.
            What do you consider a "philosophical demonstration?"
            The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy...returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Martin Luther King

            I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong. Frederick Douglas

            Comment


            • Originally posted by carpedm9587 View Post
              What do you consider a "philosophical demonstration?"
              Carp, you have told me more than once that you are not a materialist, so rejecting scientism is no big deal for you. And as we have discussed you also believe certain things to be fact without empirical or deductive justification (like what goes on in your mind actually corresponds to reality). So let's not nit pick, accept Matt's conditions and let's move on. I'm sure there will be much that you can attempt to pick apart...
              Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

              https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

              Comment


              • Originally posted by seer View Post
                Carp, you have told me more than once that you are not a materialist, so rejecting scientism is no big deal for you. And as we have discussed you also believe certain things to be fact without empirical or deductive justification (like what goes on in your mind actually corresponds to reality). So let's not nit pick, accept Matt's conditions and let's move on. I'm sure there will be much that you can attempt to pick apart...
                I am looking for him to define his terms. I'll wait for his response.
                The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy...returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Martin Luther King

                I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong. Frederick Douglas

                Comment


                • Originally posted by carpedm9587 View Post
                  I am looking for him to define his terms. I'll wait for his response.
                  Or nit pick so we can't even get off the ground?
                  Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

                  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

                  Comment


                  • Originally posted by seer View Post
                    Or nit pick so we can't even get off the ground?
                    That is never my approach to a discussion, Seer. I'm disappointed you would even consider it.
                    The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy...returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Martin Luther King

                    I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong. Frederick Douglas

                    Comment


                    • Well, this gets into criteria for what constitutes a successful philosophical argument, criteria that’s distinct from criteria that constitutes a scientific confirmation/demonstration. Thus, this is a meta-philosophical, normative issue about the criteria of success that attaches to philosophical arguments. In the context of Natural Theology, for example, atheist philosopher Graham Oppy has erroneously (and implausibly) argued that a successful philosophical argument is one which does the following:

                      When should we say that an argument for a given conclusion is a successful argument? I defend the view that, in circumstances in which it is well known that there has been perennial controversy about a given claim, a successful argument on behalf of that claim has to be one that ought to persuade all of those who have hitherto failed to accept that claim to change their minds (1).
                      Not only this, but that the arguments under discussion ought to persuade those people who have reasonable views on the subject or are reasonable themselves. The corollary is that if a philosophical argument Q hasn’t persuaded someone P, then P is unreasonable or that Q is a failure. All P has to do to show that Q fails is for P (if P is reasonable) to negate a premise in the argument without P failing to be reasonable.

                      Craig has argued (rightly, in my opinion) that that sets the bar too high. If Q fails to persuade P, this doesn’t make Q a failure and it doesn’t mean P is irrational or unreasonable. Even if we were to run with Oppy’s criteria and apply it the criteria itself, Oppy’s view self-destructs. For philosophers who are reasonable disagree with Oppy’s criteria! So, by Oppy’s own lights, the reasons for his criteria fail! There’s absolutely no reason why the philosopher can’t reject the criteria, set up another one with the bar not absurdly high, and proclaim their arguments to be successful philosophical arguments. If P doesn’t feel rationally obliged to accept Q, it doesn’t follow that Q doesn’t give P a reason to be rationally obliged. Does P need to be obliged to reject every premise in Q, or is it sufficient for P to reject one premise in Q? Isn’t it possible for P to not find Q reasonable, but that another person R does find Q reasonable? It would follow that if my arguments for objective morality actually persuaded you, and so you and I are not in happy agreement, if Tassman were to come along and disagree, then automatically my arguments are a failure, which is absurd.

                      My criteria for a successful philosophical argument Q is that Q has premises that are more plausible than their denials (P is rational in accepting Q’s premises in that P has good reasons for thinking Q’s premises to be true), Q is deductively valid or inductively cogent, regardless of whether another reasonable person R thinks Q’s premises are not more plausible than their denials (regardless of whether R is rational in rejecting Q’s premises), and regardless of whether R thinks Q is not deductively valid or inductively cogent. However, the devil is in the details and philosophical argumentation shouldn’t stagnate in meta-philosophical questions about method, but should engage in productive and rational dialectic to determine whether particular Q’s or particular defeaters to Q are successful or not. The methods philosophers use are legion and I can only pretend to scratch the surface in the following list: Among the analytic methodologies that philosophers use are intuitions, intellectual and non-intellectual seemings, direct acquaintance, thought experiments as counterexamples or intuition-pumps, conceptual analysis (sometimes called explication) or engineering, linguistic analysis, imaginability, unimaginability, conceivability, inconceivability, a priori proof via logic simpliciter, inferences to causal/non-causal explanations, using versions of probability to assess the likelihood of propositions, inferences to the best accounts for truth-conditions of bivalent propositions, transcendental considerations, pragmatic usefulness, computational considerations, formal-modeling considerations, et al.; among the continental strategies involved are hermeneutics, deconstruction, structuralism, post-structuralism, critical theory, historicism, romanticism, existentialism, phenomenology, transcendentalism, Marxism, neo-Kantianism, genealogical approaches, et al.

                      This method is widely agreed upon by the majority of philosophers in academia. Thus, Plantinga can say at the end of motivating his version of the Ontological Argument (contrasting it with scientific establishment or mathematical proof):, “Hence our verdict on these reformulated versions of St. Anselm's argument must be as follows. They cannot, perhaps, be said to prove or establish their conclusion. But since it is rational to accept their central premiss, they do show that it is rational to accept that conclusion. And perhaps that is all that can be expected of any such argument.” David Chalmers says similar things in his essay, “Why Isn’t There More Progress in Philosophy?”. Aristotle says similar things in his Nicomachean Ethics: "Our discussion will be adequate if it has as much clearness as the subject-matter admits of, for precision is not to be sought for alike in all discussions, any more than in all the products of the crafts . . . In the same spirit, therefore, should each type of statement be received; for it is the mark of an educated man to look for precision in each class of things just so far as the nature of the subject admits; it is evidently equally foolish to accept probable reasoning from a mathematician and to demand from a rhetorician scientific proofs."
                      Many and painful are the researches sometimes necessary to be made, for settling points of [this] kind. Pertness and ignorance may ask a question in three lines, which it will cost learning and ingenuity thirty pages to answer. When this is done, the same question shall be triumphantly asked again the next year, as if nothing had ever been written upon the subject.
                      George Horne

                      Comment


                      • Originally posted by mattbballman31 View Post
                        Well, this gets into criteria for what constitutes a successful philosophical argument, criteria that’s distinct from criteria that constitutes a scientific confirmation/demonstration. Thus, this is a meta-philosophical, normative issue about the criteria of success that attaches to philosophical arguments. In the context of Natural Theology, for example, atheist philosopher Graham Oppy has erroneously (and implausibly) argued that a successful philosophical argument is one which does the following:



                        Not only this, but that the arguments under discussion ought to persuade those people who have reasonable views on the subject or are reasonable themselves. The corollary is that if a philosophical argument Q hasn’t persuaded someone P, then P is unreasonable or that Q is a failure. All P has to do to show that Q fails is for P (if P is reasonable) to negate a premise in the argument without P failing to be reasonable.

                        Craig has argued (rightly, in my opinion) that that sets the bar too high. If Q fails to persuade P, this doesn’t make Q a failure and it doesn’t mean P is irrational or unreasonable. Even if we were to run with Oppy’s criteria and apply it the criteria itself, Oppy’s view self-destructs. For philosophers who are reasonable disagree with Oppy’s criteria! So, by Oppy’s own lights, the reasons for his criteria fail! There’s absolutely no reason why the philosopher can’t reject the criteria, set up another one with the bar not absurdly high, and proclaim their arguments to be successful philosophical arguments. If P doesn’t feel rationally obliged to accept Q, it doesn’t follow that Q doesn’t give P a reason to be rationally obliged. Does P need to be obliged to reject every premise in Q, or is it sufficient for P to reject one premise in Q? Isn’t it possible for P to not find Q reasonable, but that another person R does find Q reasonable? It would follow that if my arguments for objective morality actually persuaded you, and so you and I are not in happy agreement, if Tassman were to come along and disagree, then automatically my arguments are a failure, which is absurd.

                        My criteria for a successful philosophical argument Q is that Q has premises that are more plausible than their denials (P is rational in accepting Q’s premises in that P has good reasons for thinking Q’s premises to be true), Q is deductively valid or inductively cogent, regardless of whether another reasonable person R thinks Q’s premises are not more plausible than their denials (regardless of whether R is rational in rejecting Q’s premises), and regardless of whether R thinks Q is not deductively valid or inductively cogent. However, the devil is in the details and philosophical argumentation shouldn’t stagnate in meta-philosophical questions about method, but should engage in productive and rational dialectic to determine whether particular Q’s or particular defeaters to Q are successful or not. The methods philosophers use are legion and I can only pretend to scratch the surface in the following list: Among the analytic methodologies that philosophers use are intuitions, intellectual and non-intellectual seemings, direct acquaintance, thought experiments as counterexamples or intuition-pumps, conceptual analysis (sometimes called explication) or engineering, linguistic analysis, imaginability, unimaginability, conceivability, inconceivability, a priori proof via logic simpliciter, inferences to causal/non-causal explanations, using versions of probability to assess the likelihood of propositions, inferences to the best accounts for truth-conditions of bivalent propositions, transcendental considerations, pragmatic usefulness, computational considerations, formal-modeling considerations, et al.; among the continental strategies involved are hermeneutics, deconstruction, structuralism, post-structuralism, critical theory, historicism, romanticism, existentialism, phenomenology, transcendentalism, Marxism, neo-Kantianism, genealogical approaches, et al.

                        This method is widely agreed upon by the majority of philosophers in academia. Thus, Plantinga can say at the end of motivating his version of the Ontological Argument (contrasting it with scientific establishment or mathematical proof):, “Hence our verdict on these reformulated versions of St. Anselm's argument must be as follows. They cannot, perhaps, be said to prove or establish their conclusion. But since it is rational to accept their central premiss, they do show that it is rational to accept that conclusion. And perhaps that is all that can be expected of any such argument.” David Chalmers says similar things in his essay, “Why Isn’t There More Progress in Philosophy?”. Aristotle says similar things in his Nicomachean Ethics: "Our discussion will be adequate if it has as much clearness as the subject-matter admits of, for precision is not to be sought for alike in all discussions, any more than in all the products of the crafts . . . In the same spirit, therefore, should each type of statement be received; for it is the mark of an educated man to look for precision in each class of things just so far as the nature of the subject admits; it is evidently equally foolish to accept probable reasoning from a mathematician and to demand from a rhetorician scientific proofs."
                        Wow... and they call me wordy. All of this boils down to (as best I can tell)...

                        a) The truth of an argument is not reasonably based in who it convinces, because a person may not be convinced for a variety of reasons.
                        b) The truth of an argument should be rooted in 1) the plausibility of the premises, and 2) the soundness of the argument.

                        The soundness of the argument is well established - but the "plausibility" of the premises is problematic. What is plausible to one may or may not be plausible to another. The issue will be the existing worldview of the the disputants. None of us enters a discussion from a "clean slate." We bring the baggage of our pre-existing worldview. So things that are perfectly "plausible" to the theist are implausible to the atheist, and vice versa.

                        Frankly, I do not know how we overcome this problem.
                        The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy...returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Martin Luther King

                        I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong. Frederick Douglas

                        Comment


                        • Originally posted by carpedm9587 View Post
                          Wow... and they call me wordy. All of this boils down to (as best I can tell)...

                          a) The truth of an argument is not reasonably based in who it convinces, because a person may not be convinced for a variety of reasons.
                          b) The truth of an argument should be rooted in 1) the plausibility of the premises, and 2) the soundness of the argument.

                          The soundness of the argument is well established - but the "plausibility" of the premises is problematic. What is plausible to one may or may not be plausible to another. The issue will be the existing worldview of the the disputants. None of us enters a discussion from a "clean slate." We bring the baggage of our pre-existing worldview. So things that are perfectly "plausible" to the theist are implausible to the atheist, and vice versa.

                          Frankly, I do not know how we overcome this problem.
                          Well let's just hear what Matt believes, then you can debate it. We should at least get it on the table...
                          Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

                          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

                          Comment


                          • Originally posted by seer View Post
                            Well let's just hear what Matt believes, then you can debate it. We should at least get it on the table...
                            I'm voicing no objection. Simply following Matt's lead as to how he wants to proceed, and providing my input as we go. What he does with that is entirely up to him.

                            I do, however, think I'm about to get an object lesson on the wordiness I inflict on my discussion partners.
                            The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy...returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Martin Luther King

                            I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong. Frederick Douglas

                            Comment


                            • Originally posted by carpedm9587 View Post
                              I do, however, think I'm about to get an object lesson on the wordiness I inflict on my discussion partners.
                              Karma is a bitch!
                              Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

                              https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

                              Comment


                              • Originally posted by carpedm9587 View Post
                                Wow... and they call me wordy. All of this boils down to (as best I can tell)...
                                Well . . . after your lecture on the humility of a teacher, I suspected that if I took my time to break things down for you, I wouldn’t get the opposite reaction of being too wordy. You really are impossible to please. But I guess I’m just doomed to be a blade runner between these two complains: (1) say too little and be accused of cryptospeak, and (2) say too much and be accused of being wordy. Maybe I’ll find the Goldilocks middle-ground as the discussion proceeds.

                                What is plausible to one may or may not be plausible to another.
                                Yep.

                                The issue will be the existing worldview of the the disputants.
                                This will relate to one strategy of motivating the objectivity of moral values and duties.

                                None of us enters a discussion from a "clean slate."
                                Yep.

                                We bring the baggage of our pre-existing worldview.
                                Calling it baggage is pejorative. Philosophy is really cool in that we can discuss the pros and cons of the worldview, including any methodological assumptions that are driving it. If the discussion turns in that direction, it turns in that direction. I don’t see this as a reason for skepticism: not saying you’re saying it, but I’m feeling it as a kind of ‘pull’ in the way you’ve set this up.

                                Frankly, I do not know how we overcome this problem.
                                First, it’s not a problem. It’s a reflection of talking about deep issues in the real world. Reason cuts through by presenting arguments for or against various theses. Second, it’s an indispensable part of getting at the truth. Since we’re not a confluence of robotic inputs/outputs, we bring our subjective perspective to bear when assessing the veridicality of whatever thesis is under discussion.

                                Another important point is that philosophical discussion has a ‘thickness’ to it. By that, I mean that the appropriation of such arguments (and the premises that constitute them) may take time to sink in, and that an immediate impulse to discard a premise for various reasons is typically the first step on the journey of a thousand miles. This applies to me based on what you present as well!

                                Are we good, then? Do we agreed on method? If so, we'll get started!
                                Many and painful are the researches sometimes necessary to be made, for settling points of [this] kind. Pertness and ignorance may ask a question in three lines, which it will cost learning and ingenuity thirty pages to answer. When this is done, the same question shall be triumphantly asked again the next year, as if nothing had ever been written upon the subject.
                                George Horne

                                Comment

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