Man's most valuable trait is a judicial sense of what not to believe.
Euripides
Applying radical skepticism to Belief Conservation in the next section , Morris reemploys Bertrand Russel's Five Minute Hypothesis. The Five Minute Hypothesis counts as proposition P. Would it be rational to take the cognitive stance of believing this outrageous proposition? To do so would require the denial of a great number of our previous beliefs, there is no independent positive reason to deny those previous beliefs, and we have no compelling reason to affirm as belief, this absurd hypothesis. By application of The Principle of Belief Conservation to the Five Minute Hypothesis, it is most rational to not believe the Five Minute Hypothesis. *L*
Nor is it rational to take the cognitive stance of suspension of belief because to do so "would require doubting, or remaining undecided about, a great number of our previous beliefs, all those beliefs that require it being false." Moreover, we have no independent positive reason to become doubtful of all those previous beliefs, and there is no compelling reason to suspend judgement over the Five Minute Hypothesis. Thus it is most rational not to take the cognitive stance.
Because it is most rational not to believe or withhold judgement on the Five Minute Hypothesis, it is therefore most reasonable to disbelieve it. Application of this reasoning to all other wild propositions yields the same outcome of disbelief. The author then turns to source skepticism applied to The Principle of Belief Conservation.
The source skeptic's question of how we are sure of our sense experience, memory, or testimony ever being reliable cannot be well answered. There isn't a "single piece of untainted evidence" for the certainty "we have that any of our basic sources of belief are ever reliable connections to reality."(p.74)Given the proposition that:
Our basic belief-forming mechanisms are some times reliable,
The Principle of Belief Conservation shows that the most rational stance is one of belief.
Thus, radical and source skepticism
Can't bully us away from our most basic beliefs. But it can show us that we hold them rationally without proof or evidence, which in itself is a startling revelation, for which we should be grateful. It should make us think. And it will. (p.75)
Morris then reveals The basic status of belief conservation. It captures "a fundamental way in which all rational people think." It is how we respond to the skeptic. We know The Principle of Belief Conservation to be true in itself because, unlike evidentialism, it passes its own test.
We accept it without proof. We accept it without independent evidence that it is true. Aned we are rational in so doing. There is no independent standard of rationality that can condem or call into question this principle. Nonetheless, we accept it without any further independent support. It is just true. We just believe it. It is not bad on any deeper beliefs. It itself is basic. (p. 75)
The Principle of Belief Conservation is "a basic belief," which can be used to justify other beliefs but has itself no further independent justification. One finds that one believes it, and that it would be impossible not to believe. That is not in itself proof of its truth, but it is true.
Morris then lists four propositions that the Principle indicates are rational to believe, even without direct evidence of proof:
1. Sense experience is sometimes reliable.
2. Memory is sometimes reliable.
3. Testimony is sometimes reliable.
4. Our basic belief-forming mechanisms are sometimes reliable.
It is reasonable to think the Principle of Belief Conservation to be true, but then classical evidentialism is false because The Principle justifies the rationalism of believing things "that are neither self-evident, nor evident to the senses, nor evidentially supported or inferable from propositions that fall into those categories." (p.76)
Monday, September 5, 2011
Sunday, September 4, 2011
Stu Taba's Rogue Messiah:The Philosophical Wanderer Chapter 4 (Pgs. 32-33)
Author Tom Morris turns next to evidentialism, which holds the principle It is irrational for anyone, anywhere, to believe without sufficient evidence. One can see how self-evidence and sense-evidence are included among. "the allowable possible supports for a rational belief" when the evidentialist principle is broadly interpreted. But immediately one runs into the circular reasoning problem we have already encountered:
If everything has to have proof or evidence, then what is the evidentialist's
proof for the truth of the evidentialist principle itself- the principle that makes
this demand? (p. 71)
Evidentialists may claim their principle to be self-evident, but "many philosopher have denied that it's true at all and they clearly understood it." So it's not true by understanding, or by sense-evidence. And if we nevertheless accept it to be true, we must reject it because it is without sufficient evidence. Thus, the principle is self-defeating. :-[ Yet evidence is important to rational life, so a line must be drawn.
Enter The Principle of Belief Conservation, which is a rational response to skepticism, which allows certain basic beliefs to be rationally held without evidence or proof:
For any proposition, P: If
1. Taking a certain cognitive stance toward P (for example, believing it,
rejecting it, or withholding judgement) would require rejecting or doubting a
vast number of your current beliefs,
2. You have no independent positive reason to reject or doubt all those
other beliefs, and
3. You have no compelling reason to take up that cognitive stance toward P.
Morris concludes his introduction to the Principle of Belief Conservation with a fitting metaphor and quotation.
Your current beliefs are like a raft or boat on which you are floating, sailing across the seas of life. You need to make repairs and additions during your voyage. But it can never be rational to destroy the boat totally while out on the open sea, hoping somehow to be able to rebuild it from scratch, or else to swim without it.
If everything has to have proof or evidence, then what is the evidentialist's
proof for the truth of the evidentialist principle itself- the principle that makes
this demand? (p. 71)
Evidentialists may claim their principle to be self-evident, but "many philosopher have denied that it's true at all and they clearly understood it." So it's not true by understanding, or by sense-evidence. And if we nevertheless accept it to be true, we must reject it because it is without sufficient evidence. Thus, the principle is self-defeating. :-[ Yet evidence is important to rational life, so a line must be drawn.
Enter The Principle of Belief Conservation, which is a rational response to skepticism, which allows certain basic beliefs to be rationally held without evidence or proof:
For any proposition, P: If
1. Taking a certain cognitive stance toward P (for example, believing it,
rejecting it, or withholding judgement) would require rejecting or doubting a
vast number of your current beliefs,
2. You have no independent positive reason to reject or doubt all those
other beliefs, and
3. You have no compelling reason to take up that cognitive stance toward P.
Morris concludes his introduction to the Principle of Belief Conservation with a fitting metaphor and quotation.
Your current beliefs are like a raft or boat on which you are floating, sailing across the seas of life. You need to make repairs and additions during your voyage. But it can never be rational to destroy the boat totally while out on the open sea, hoping somehow to be able to rebuild it from scratch, or else to swim without it.
Friday, September 2, 2011
Stu Taba's Rogue Messiah:The Philosophical Wanderer Chapter 4 (Pgs. 29-31)
Chapter Four
From a small seed a mighty trunk may grow.
Aeschylus
In Chapter Six, author/teacher Morris shows how- without proof of evidence- it can still be rational to believe our most basic beliefs of life. In doing so, he adds to our thought processing tool-kit. But first, Morris outlines the foundations of knowledge held by the camps of empiricism , on the one hand, and rationalism on the other.
In empiricism , "sense experience is the ultimate starting point for all of our knowledge." Without the "raw material" provided by the senses, "there would be no knowledge at all" The author notes the difficulty in identifying a single belief that was not first encountered by one of our senses: sight, hearing, touch, smell or taste. Therefore, it's "natural...to come to believe that the senses are the sole source and ultimate grounding of belief." (p. 68)
I turn now to Get a Grip on Philosophy, by Neil Turnbull for a look at John Locke (1632-1704), the first empiricist philosopher of note. An "influential anti-Catholic involved in protestant politics," Locke gained attention in both epistemology and political philosophy. He believed that individuals were born without a priori- innate- knowledge; instead, he "viewed the mind of a newborn baby as being rather like a blank slate (tabula rasa) on which experience was to write its knowledgeable story." (p. 110) Locke believed a thing's property was of primary (size, shape, material composition) or secondary (color, smell, beauty) quality. Primary Qualities are "objective properties inherent in a thing, and hence the true source of scientific knowledge out that thing," while secondary qualities are "mere subjective appearances and hence...of no concern to an objectively oriented science." (p. 111)
At any rate, the opposing view to Locke and the empiricists is that of rationalism, which holds that "the ultimate starting point for all knowledge is not the sense but reason." Rationalists believe that "without prior categories and principles supplied by reason, we couldn't organize and interpret our sense experience in any way. We would be faced with just one huge, undifferentiated, kaleidoscopic whirl of sensation, signifying nothing." (p.69)
Rationalists claim we are born with "innate knowledge," that is, "fundamental concepts or categories in our minds ready for use." (p. 69) Examples are "categories of space, of time, and of cause and effect." The principle of causation is not impressed upon our psyches by experience, contend rationalists, but a "prior mental disposition"that connects the process of cause and effect.
The rationalist camp asserts "that at the foundations of our knowledge are propositions that are self-evident, or self-evidently." An example would be the following deductive syllogism:
1. All men are mortal.
2. Socrates is a man.
3. Therefore, Socrates is mortal.
The conclusion Socrates is mortal follows naturally from the application of the second proposition Socrates is a man to the first All men are mortal. Once the first two premises are recognized, it takes no further sense experience to deduce the conclusion.
From a small seed a mighty trunk may grow.
Aeschylus
In Chapter Six, author/teacher Morris shows how- without proof of evidence- it can still be rational to believe our most basic beliefs of life. In doing so, he adds to our thought processing tool-kit. But first, Morris outlines the foundations of knowledge held by the camps of empiricism , on the one hand, and rationalism on the other.
In empiricism , "sense experience is the ultimate starting point for all of our knowledge." Without the "raw material" provided by the senses, "there would be no knowledge at all" The author notes the difficulty in identifying a single belief that was not first encountered by one of our senses: sight, hearing, touch, smell or taste. Therefore, it's "natural...to come to believe that the senses are the sole source and ultimate grounding of belief." (p. 68)
I turn now to Get a Grip on Philosophy, by Neil Turnbull for a look at John Locke (1632-1704), the first empiricist philosopher of note. An "influential anti-Catholic involved in protestant politics," Locke gained attention in both epistemology and political philosophy. He believed that individuals were born without a priori- innate- knowledge; instead, he "viewed the mind of a newborn baby as being rather like a blank slate (tabula rasa) on which experience was to write its knowledgeable story." (p. 110) Locke believed a thing's property was of primary (size, shape, material composition) or secondary (color, smell, beauty) quality. Primary Qualities are "objective properties inherent in a thing, and hence the true source of scientific knowledge out that thing," while secondary qualities are "mere subjective appearances and hence...of no concern to an objectively oriented science." (p. 111)
At any rate, the opposing view to Locke and the empiricists is that of rationalism, which holds that "the ultimate starting point for all knowledge is not the sense but reason." Rationalists believe that "without prior categories and principles supplied by reason, we couldn't organize and interpret our sense experience in any way. We would be faced with just one huge, undifferentiated, kaleidoscopic whirl of sensation, signifying nothing." (p.69)
Rationalists claim we are born with "innate knowledge," that is, "fundamental concepts or categories in our minds ready for use." (p. 69) Examples are "categories of space, of time, and of cause and effect." The principle of causation is not impressed upon our psyches by experience, contend rationalists, but a "prior mental disposition"that connects the process of cause and effect.
The rationalist camp asserts "that at the foundations of our knowledge are propositions that are self-evident, or self-evidently." An example would be the following deductive syllogism:
1. All men are mortal.
2. Socrates is a man.
3. Therefore, Socrates is mortal.
The conclusion Socrates is mortal follows naturally from the application of the second proposition Socrates is a man to the first All men are mortal. Once the first two premises are recognized, it takes no further sense experience to deduce the conclusion.
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Stu Taba's Rogue Messiah:The Philosophical Wanderer Chapter 3 (Pgs. 26-28)
Asking "where is our anchor to reality? What ties our beliefs-forming mechanisms to the way things really are?" Morris moves onward for answers in his next question, The questions of radical skepticism.
Radical skepticism of the past, present, and future presents itself in Bertrand Russell's Five Minute Philosophy, which asserts, "The entire universe sprang into existence from nothing five minutes ago, exactly as it then was, apparent fossils in the ground, wrinkles on people's faces, and other signs of age all instantly formed and thoroughly deceptive." If this hypothesis is true, writes Dr. Morris, all his past-oriented beliefs would be false because, "nothing existed before that cosmic appearance act five minutes past." The point of radical skepticism's Five Minute Hypothesis is not to convince the student of its assertion, but to challenge her/him to prove the hypothesis to be false.
Turning now to our beliefs of the present, Morris turns to the "Father of Modern of Philosophy," Rene Descartes, who in the 17th century asked, "How do you know that it's not all a dream?" Or, Descarte asked, "How can we be certain our beliefs are not created by an evil demon who has us hypnotized?" Writes Tom Morris,
We cannot refute The Dream Hypothesis, or the Demon Hypothesis, or any such
wild,comprehensive scenario. We can't even come up with a single shred of positive,
independent evidence that either of these radical alternatives is false. (p. 64)
The author then glances at radical skepticism about the future by employing Futuristic Nihilism. In this philosophic vehicle, " the future is now just one huge void."
The futuristic nihilist points out that the future does not exist. In order for a
belief to be true, the object about which it is true must be among the furniture
of reality, and that object must have the property attributed to it in that belief.
At any second, we could wake up from Descartes Dream and find things in
the immediate future to be very different from what we might have inductively
inferred. [derived a conclusion using part to whole reasoning]
Or Descartes' Demon could snap his fingers and wake us up to a radically divergent
future from anything we had in time. (p. 64)
There is no good answer to the suppositions, as radical skepticism " shows us that there is very little room in human life for cocky, arrogant dogmatism." Morris thus concludes Chapter Five, and goes on in Chapter Six: The Amazing Reality Of Basic Beliefs to further test the cajones of our beliefs by evaluating the foundations of knowledge held in Empiricism (experience) and Rationalism (reason) , the tests of knowledge provided by Evidentialism, the Principle of Belief Conservation, and the rational choice to believe the possibility of achieving the impossible through the application of Precursive Faith.
By doubting we come at the truth.
Cicero
Radical skepticism of the past, present, and future presents itself in Bertrand Russell's Five Minute Philosophy, which asserts, "The entire universe sprang into existence from nothing five minutes ago, exactly as it then was, apparent fossils in the ground, wrinkles on people's faces, and other signs of age all instantly formed and thoroughly deceptive." If this hypothesis is true, writes Dr. Morris, all his past-oriented beliefs would be false because, "nothing existed before that cosmic appearance act five minutes past." The point of radical skepticism's Five Minute Hypothesis is not to convince the student of its assertion, but to challenge her/him to prove the hypothesis to be false.
Turning now to our beliefs of the present, Morris turns to the "Father of Modern of Philosophy," Rene Descartes, who in the 17th century asked, "How do you know that it's not all a dream?" Or, Descarte asked, "How can we be certain our beliefs are not created by an evil demon who has us hypnotized?" Writes Tom Morris,
We cannot refute The Dream Hypothesis, or the Demon Hypothesis, or any such
wild,comprehensive scenario. We can't even come up with a single shred of positive,
independent evidence that either of these radical alternatives is false. (p. 64)
The author then glances at radical skepticism about the future by employing Futuristic Nihilism. In this philosophic vehicle, " the future is now just one huge void."
The futuristic nihilist points out that the future does not exist. In order for a
belief to be true, the object about which it is true must be among the furniture
of reality, and that object must have the property attributed to it in that belief.
At any second, we could wake up from Descartes Dream and find things in
the immediate future to be very different from what we might have inductively
inferred. [derived a conclusion using part to whole reasoning]
Or Descartes' Demon could snap his fingers and wake us up to a radically divergent
future from anything we had in time. (p. 64)
There is no good answer to the suppositions, as radical skepticism " shows us that there is very little room in human life for cocky, arrogant dogmatism." Morris thus concludes Chapter Five, and goes on in Chapter Six: The Amazing Reality Of Basic Beliefs to further test the cajones of our beliefs by evaluating the foundations of knowledge held in Empiricism (experience) and Rationalism (reason) , the tests of knowledge provided by Evidentialism, the Principle of Belief Conservation, and the rational choice to believe the possibility of achieving the impossible through the application of Precursive Faith.
By doubting we come at the truth.
Cicero
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Stu Taba's Rogue Messiah: The Philosophical Wanderer Chapter 3 (Pg. 23-25)
Chapter Three
Testing purifies the gold by boiling the scum away
Jalal Udo-Din Rumi
The "sufficient evidence" requirement of justified belief leads to the truthseeker's application of scrutiny, which shall be our next focal point. In Chapter Five: The Challenge of Skeptisism, author Tom Morris shows "how the most basic form of skeptical inquiry can give us a fresh perspective on the foundations of all human knowledge." (p. 53)
Skeptism puts all one "knows" in a new light and "can inspire us with a new and needed humility concerning all our claims to knowledge." Morris first points out that, etymologically, skeptism derives from a Greek word meaning "to inquire." Thus, "skeptisism at its best is not a matter of denial, but of inquiring, seeking, questioning doubt."
The author next divides all our beliefs into three categories:Past Oriented, Present Oriented, and Future Oriented. Then, the skeptic asks two types of questions: those of source skepticism and radical skepticism. Regarding questions of source skepticism, testimony of others is our main source of our past beliefs, along with our own first person memory. The skeptic asks how one is to know how reliable onc's memory is.
There is a logical problem in the answer of past recollection of reliable memory because this reasoning is circular: relying on memory to justify memory is assuming the truth of the thing one is trying to prove. :-[ Regarding testimony as a reliable source for justifying past beliefs, one runs into the same circular reasoning problem when one justifies the reliability of testimony on the testimony of trusted sources (Mom, Dad, etc.). Further, if one reasons that many times in the past, other peoples testimony has proved reliable, "a bigger circle of reasoning is drawn because one is relying on memory to justify testimony.*L*
And as regards present beliefs, we base most of them on testimony (of family, friends, and news authorities), which leads to the same circular reasoning problem. :-[ How about sense experience? That is the medium through which we filter our memory and testimony of others. "Perhaps sense experience can give us the direct, provable tie to reality that the skeptic seems to be seeking." But no, the proof of sense experience reliability runs into the very same circular reasoning pitfall!
One may recall (memory)having seen (sense experience)a penny on the street and upon closer inspection, it had-- in fact--turned out to be a penny. So is your sense experience proved reliable? Well,no, because you first invoked your memory- which cannot be proven reliable- then your memory was of seeing- a sense experience- an object, so once again the logical proof fails. :-[
Just as our proofs of past and present beliefs fail "that just transfers over to any equal lack of justification for trusting our justification of beliefs about the future." Concludes Morris:
Notice that the skeptic's questions don't just show that we can't prove the reliability
of our sources for belief. The point is much deeper. We can't provide one single,
pure piece of evidence for this assumption that we all share and on which the
credibility of our beliefs depends. The sources of our beliefs are sometimes
reliable. And this fact is certainly perplexing, if not deeply troubling. (p. 61)
Testing purifies the gold by boiling the scum away
Jalal Udo-Din Rumi
The "sufficient evidence" requirement of justified belief leads to the truthseeker's application of scrutiny, which shall be our next focal point. In Chapter Five: The Challenge of Skeptisism, author Tom Morris shows "how the most basic form of skeptical inquiry can give us a fresh perspective on the foundations of all human knowledge." (p. 53)
Skeptism puts all one "knows" in a new light and "can inspire us with a new and needed humility concerning all our claims to knowledge." Morris first points out that, etymologically, skeptism derives from a Greek word meaning "to inquire." Thus, "skeptisism at its best is not a matter of denial, but of inquiring, seeking, questioning doubt."
The author next divides all our beliefs into three categories:Past Oriented, Present Oriented, and Future Oriented. Then, the skeptic asks two types of questions: those of source skepticism and radical skepticism. Regarding questions of source skepticism, testimony of others is our main source of our past beliefs, along with our own first person memory. The skeptic asks how one is to know how reliable onc's memory is.
There is a logical problem in the answer of past recollection of reliable memory because this reasoning is circular: relying on memory to justify memory is assuming the truth of the thing one is trying to prove. :-[ Regarding testimony as a reliable source for justifying past beliefs, one runs into the same circular reasoning problem when one justifies the reliability of testimony on the testimony of trusted sources (Mom, Dad, etc.). Further, if one reasons that many times in the past, other peoples testimony has proved reliable, "a bigger circle of reasoning is drawn because one is relying on memory to justify testimony.*L*
And as regards present beliefs, we base most of them on testimony (of family, friends, and news authorities), which leads to the same circular reasoning problem. :-[ How about sense experience? That is the medium through which we filter our memory and testimony of others. "Perhaps sense experience can give us the direct, provable tie to reality that the skeptic seems to be seeking." But no, the proof of sense experience reliability runs into the very same circular reasoning pitfall!
One may recall (memory)having seen (sense experience)a penny on the street and upon closer inspection, it had-- in fact--turned out to be a penny. So is your sense experience proved reliable? Well,no, because you first invoked your memory- which cannot be proven reliable- then your memory was of seeing- a sense experience- an object, so once again the logical proof fails. :-[
Just as our proofs of past and present beliefs fail "that just transfers over to any equal lack of justification for trusting our justification of beliefs about the future." Concludes Morris:
Notice that the skeptic's questions don't just show that we can't prove the reliability
of our sources for belief. The point is much deeper. We can't provide one single,
pure piece of evidence for this assumption that we all share and on which the
credibility of our beliefs depends. The sources of our beliefs are sometimes
reliable. And this fact is certainly perplexing, if not deeply troubling. (p. 61)
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Stu Taba's Rogue Messiah:The Philiosophical Wanderer Chapter 2 (Pgs. 19-22)
Can't, for example, we say that rape, torture and murder are absolutely wrong?
I believe it will be it will be helpful here to interject my hypothesis (In my third manuscript Quest for Infinity) that because the universe is both finite and infinite-due to humanity's insufficient dualistic form of communication (human language)-- our reality is by nature both absolute and relative. Let me once again attempt to explain; on the one hand, the universe is finite because it began with the big bang and will end with a big collapse into a big black hole. On the other hand, the universe is infinite because a "new" universe is created by the incredible compression in the black hole leading to another big bang.
But it is only by definition that this is a "new" universe because it is of the same ingredients- the same light, matter, wave and particles -- as the "old" universe. Thus, the "flowing wholeness" of existence is such that human reality
But it is only by definition that this is a "new" universe because it is of the same ingredients- the same light, matter, wave and particles -- as the "old" universe. Thus, the "flowing wholeness" of existence is such that human reality
is both absolute (because of the finite universe) and relative (because the universe is also infinite), given the frustrating limitation of human communication and understanding. *L*
As I similarly wrote in my fourth manuscript, Transformation of the Rogue Messiah,given such a universe-both finite and infinite,both absolute and relative- I believe humanity shall achieve, by destiny and choice, a left/right brain consolidation that shall compose an "evolutionary transformation" of human consciousness envisioned by Taoism's semi-mythical founder Lao Tzu in the Tao Te Ching.
With this higher level of consciousness, our absolute and relative truths shall merge harmoniously, leading to a higher reality in which suffocating falsehood shall be overruled by self sustaining truth ^L^ My quest through all eternity has been,is, and shall always be for the coming of this new age of truthful synchronicity.
Author/teacher Morris emphasizes the importance of truth to humanity's project:
Truth is our tie to the world. Believing a
truth, or stating a truth, is like hitting a target.
Falsehood misses the mark. Truth anchors us to
reality. Falsehood cuts our connection to the way
things really are. We need truth like we need
air, or food, or water. Falsehood, by contrast,
kills. (p. 47)
I take pride in my dedication to truth; as I have written before, I am a "straight shooter." I am just trying to do what I believe God wants me to do- facilitate the coming of the new age of truthful reality by my thoughts and actions in our imperfect world.
Beliefs must be properly justified truths to be considered knowledge. Proper justification comes through the application of rationality-reason-rather than sheer chance. "Reason is supposed to better connect us with reality, and thus better guide us into the future," writes Dr. Morris. "But reason is neither as extensive nor as pure as some philosophers of the past have given us to believe." In my fifth manuscript Synchronicity of the Rogue Messiah, I analyzed the psychological processes of Synchronicity I and II, in which "the coincidence of events in space and time [mean] something more than mere chance, namely, a peculiar interdepence of objective events among themselves as well as with the subjective (psychic) states of the observer or observers." That is, the subjective mindset of the observer is necessarily projected on the observed. Proper justification, writes Morris, does not require a belief to be logically proved to qualify as knowledge, but evidentialism requires "sufficient evidence in order to be justified in believing anything." (p. 51)
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Stu Taba's Rogue Messiah: The Philosophical Wander Chapter 2 ( pgs. 18-19)
Anyways, Morris next turns to "the truth about truth," describing the philosophy of relativism (which is the Eastern spiritual world's perspective). According to relativism, truth is subjective; what is true for me may or may not be true for you: there is no absolute truth. The author points out the logical flaw here:
But notice a problem with the mere statement of relativism. There really is no such thing as absolute truth. Is relativism suggesting that this is the ultimate, absolute truth about? In that case it actually asserts what it denies, and so it's self-defeating, simply logically incoherent as a philisophical position. (p. 46)
Ah ha! I could have stuck that to Sakamaki, my former shrink (he has since retired) when he- a buddhist- belittled my claim to being Messiah by barbing me with relativity crap. :-* (Emoticon meaning "bitter ,moi?") Actually, I think Dr. Sakamaki was being like Morris' rhetorical philosophy professor, who
raises the specter of relativism...just to jolt his students into a deeper grasp of what is at stake
in making truth claims. It is meant to be a rhetorical challenge to natural childhood feelings
they've long had that what we believe is typically the absolute truth. (p. 46)
"In philosophy," he continues, "everything can be challenged. But some views can meet the challenge and stand firm."
An "utterly general relativism" is wrong, first of all, because it can be a "very persuasive intellectual excuse for very bad behavior." (If there is no absolute truth, anything goes.) :-[ (Emoticon meaning I am down and unhappy.) Morris continues,
There is a second path to adult relativism that is certainly more respectable however
wrong it nonetheless also is. Many academics have wanted to promote the virtue of
tolerance in our pluralistic world, and have wrongly thought that relativism is the royal
road to cultivating a firm and resilient openness to other people's beliefs. But the sort of
tolerance that is indeed a virtue is best grounded in respect, and it's not showing respect
for any point of view to say that no points of view can possibly capture reality the way
that it is. (p. 47)
But notice a problem with the mere statement of relativism. There really is no such thing as absolute truth. Is relativism suggesting that this is the ultimate, absolute truth about? In that case it actually asserts what it denies, and so it's self-defeating, simply logically incoherent as a philisophical position. (p. 46)
Ah ha! I could have stuck that to Sakamaki, my former shrink (he has since retired) when he- a buddhist- belittled my claim to being Messiah by barbing me with relativity crap. :-* (Emoticon meaning "bitter ,moi?") Actually, I think Dr. Sakamaki was being like Morris' rhetorical philosophy professor, who
raises the specter of relativism...just to jolt his students into a deeper grasp of what is at stake
in making truth claims. It is meant to be a rhetorical challenge to natural childhood feelings
they've long had that what we believe is typically the absolute truth. (p. 46)
"In philosophy," he continues, "everything can be challenged. But some views can meet the challenge and stand firm."
An "utterly general relativism" is wrong, first of all, because it can be a "very persuasive intellectual excuse for very bad behavior." (If there is no absolute truth, anything goes.) :-[ (Emoticon meaning I am down and unhappy.) Morris continues,
There is a second path to adult relativism that is certainly more respectable however
wrong it nonetheless also is. Many academics have wanted to promote the virtue of
tolerance in our pluralistic world, and have wrongly thought that relativism is the royal
road to cultivating a firm and resilient openness to other people's beliefs. But the sort of
tolerance that is indeed a virtue is best grounded in respect, and it's not showing respect
for any point of view to say that no points of view can possibly capture reality the way
that it is. (p. 47)
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