D
davidv
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It seem as though we are talking past each other, so I will take my leave. Have a blessed day.
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T
Thales
Guest
That could be true. Maybe I’m just not convinced about reducing the need for evidence simply to persuading another party. I don’t see why we must always require evidence for any kind of belief, but the fact of the matter is that we seem to desire it. The need to produce evidence does manifest when confronted with another party who has differing beliefs, but I don’t think it is solely because of the confrontation. I hesitate to say that evidence is for convincing or persuading, because it seems that, like I alluded to before it is more about appealing to or answering to a question. Evidence is needed a lot in confrontations or differing beliefs because both sides need to inquire in order to gain knowledge of where the difference really is. The need to question seems to be what really begs for evidence.I wonder if there are sorts of beliefs where you would not find it at all important to have reasonable evidence that would convince anyone else. For example, do you feel the need to justify your belief that you love your wife, children, or other loved ones? If your belief is not aimed at satisfying a desire to predict and control such others, and does not include an implicit demand that others need to recognize the truth of your belief, then it seems to me that there is no need to collect evidence to convince anyone including yourself that you really do love your loved ones.
Whether there are multiple parties involved or just a single person, I think mankind has the natural, and insatiable, desire to question and he is not content, at least for a little while, until he feels his questions are answered sufficiently. At this point in our evolution, we seem to think evidence of all kinds and sorts, provides sufficient answers.
Another good question which naturally follows is why we have the desire to question everything, and why are we rarely ever satisfied with the answers. From my Catholic perspective I think the human mind has evolved into a questioning mind, through a constrained randomness design, in order to acquire the proper knowledge, which allows him to develop a relationship with God. If it is true that we can know God both through revelation and through creation, we must have the mechanism in place to do so. The mechanism is inquiry, and the validation is evidence, reasoned, revealed, and scientific.
B
Betterave
Guest
But what religious beliefs do you have in mind as not including a demand that others believe likewise? Are you just trying to positively characterize/conceptualize how liberal Christians think, people who claim that they are spiritual, rather than religious, and don’t think that the NT has any historical value, or that interpret it like TS or David Strauss?In short, I am saying that if no demand has been mad for me to believe what you believe, then I do not necessarily have the right to demand evidence for your belief. But if your belief contains a demand that I believe as you do (and I’ve argued that historical and scientific claims always include such a demand), then I have the right to demand evidence and you have the duty to submit to demands for evidence.
If I truly believe something, I must have something to say about why I believe it. If I don’t, how is it even a belief qua habit of action? Do you really want to include purely verbal habits of action - “Leela is in the habit of saying she believes in X; therefore…”? That doesn’t seem likely…
Do you think, contra Wittgenstein, that the notion of a private language makes sense?
L
Leela
Guest
Hi Thales,That could be true. Maybe I’m just not convinced about reducing the need for evidence simply to persuading another party. I don’t see why we must always require evidence for any kind of belief, but the fact of the matter is that we seem to desire it. The need to produce evidence does manifest when confronted with another party who has differing beliefs, but I don’t think it is solely because of the confrontation. I hesitate to say that evidence is for convincing or persuading, because it seems that, like I alluded to before it is more about appealing to or answering to a question. Evidence is needed a lot in confrontations or differing beliefs because both sides need to inquire in order to gain knowledge of where the difference really is. The need to question seems to be what really begs for evidence.
Whether there are multiple parties involved or just a single person, I think mankind has the natural, and insatiable, desire to question and he is not content, at least for a little while, until he feels his questions are answered sufficiently. At this point in our evolution, we seem to think evidence of all kinds and sorts, provides sufficient answers.
Another good question which naturally follows is why we have the desire to question everything, and why are we rarely ever satisfied with the answers. From my Catholic perspective I think the human mind has evolved into a questioning mind, through a constrained randomness design, in order to acquire the proper knowledge, which allows him to develop a relationship with God. If it is true that we can know God both through revelation and through creation, we must have the mechanism in place to do so. The mechanism is inquiry, and the validation is evidence, reasoned, revealed, and scientific.
Your mention of revealed evidence is interesting here since this is the sort of evidence that often gets dismissed. Can you describe what revealed evidence is like? Are the criteria for evaluating revealed evidence different from the criteria for evaluating scientific or historical evidence?
Best,
Leela
T
Thales
Guest
In this particular phrase I was using evidence broadly, as what one appeals to in order to justify or substantiate a belief or to answer a question. Revelation would obviously include the Bible, or any knowledge which cannot be obtained through observation of nature and has to be given to man by the transcendent (God). Revealed evidence would be an appeal to that species of information/knowledge. I’m not making a case here for whether this sort of evidence is valid, but instead that it could be called evidence, if evidence could be called that which we appeal to in hopes of corroborating our beliefs in the face of inquiry.Your mention of revealed evidence is interesting here since this is the sort of evidence that often gets dismissed. Can you describe what revealed evidence is like? Are the criteria for evaluating revealed evidence different from the criteria for evaluating scientific or historical evidence?
The different forms of evidence I mentioned also should not be too liberally applied outside their category. Scientific evidence corroborates beliefs about the natural/physical world, reasoned evidence about the world of thoughts and language, while revealed evidence applies to the metaphysical and transcendent. They all of course can give hints to the others, and the beliefs or answers arrived at through one method should not contradict findings from another method. For example, the belief that Jesus is God is corroborated by the revealed evidence of the Bible. I don’t see how science can really comment on whether that is true one way or the other. Any scientific findings or historical evidence of the time period or any time period really cannot disprove the belief. Neither is the belief totally unreasonable. It is within reason to believe in a transcendent God, and if you cannot admit that at least you can admit nothing within reason says definitively there cannot be a God. So, science, history, and reason do not disprove the possibility that Jesus is God. In the realm of the metaphysical where revealed knowledge provides evidence to such beliefs as, Jesus is God, the only starting point of contention might be to point to other revelations and debate on those grounds whether the point is true or a sufficient answer.
It does bring up the issue of whom or what are we appealing to. It would be silly to appeal to ourselves for the answers, since if we held the answers already we should probably already know it. Appealing to others can be helpful since we all have varied experiences and can offer differing opinions. Ultimately, relying on other subjective minds is dubious since how will we know if what they know is valid either. It seems only logical that we appeal to what is authoritative, objective, eternal, or transcendent. Hmmm… sounds like someone I know… , but nature is also objective; the laws of physics are objective and seemingly eternal and we use science to inquire about those things. If we are always appealing to what we consider is authoritative, objective, etc. but we really do not know for absolute certain, revelation is just as valid a constant, objective, authoritative source as nature or physics.
L
Leela
Guest
Hi All,
Syntax replied to this thread in a different thread, so I am moving his post to here:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Leela
Hi Syntax,
I have been very impressed by your posts in this thread. I would love it if you would read my OP in this thread on demands for justifying religious beliefs and share any thoughts you have.
Syntax says:
There are too many claims in that post which deserve to be taken apart one by one, and I’m not sure the argument by analogy on which this pragmatic view depends is an accurate analogy. But I will respond to a couple claims you make.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Leela
When does the intellectual responsibility of having evidence to support our beliefs arise? And what do we mean by evidence, anyway? Having dropped the notion of objectivity as being in accordence with reality and having replaced it with objectivity as the ability to get consensus among informed inquirers, evidence is then whatever may help us get consensus about a belief.
Syntax says:
First, “objectivity” is a metaphysical notion about the representational character of truth, not an epistemic notion about evidence or justification, but you are really close to conflating these two notions.
Second, I think your claim I bold-faced is false. I don’t think “objectivity” should be defined whatsoever in terms of “universal consensus,” since that kind of move would relativize the notion of truth to “what most people think” when what most people think could still easily be false. So I retain the definition of “objectivity” as “propositions which are in accordance with reality” in spite of universal consensus. But you seem to flat out disagree.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Leela
Evidence is only of issue when there is some need to get consensus…
Syntax says:
It is true that evidence becomes important when universal consensus becomes a goal in public discourse, but universal consensus does not constitute evidence.
Moreover, having appropriate evidence is an important issue not only when my goal is to persuade my opponent that my own beliefs are justified or true, but also when the consistency and plausibility of my own beliefs are at stake independent of what others think: for surely having evidence is of private importance, too, independent of what others may think, is it not?..At least I know I couldn’t live with myself if I knew some of my beliefs were inconsistent with each other, for example…lol
Quote:
Originally Posted by Leela
there is no outside authority to which we can appeal about what ought to be counted as evidence beyond what authority has been agreed upon between the parties that seek to have one another’s backing for their public projects.
Syntax says:
This is true. But is it problematic? An atheist and a religious person, if they are both rational, both agree on what counts as appropriate evidence such as 1st-person experience, empirical data, probability, and reason. The only difference between the atheist and the man of faith is that the the atheist lacks a 1st-person religious/spiritual experience. So with respect to this kind of (lack of) evidence the atheist’s belief that there is no God is a rational belief. What is problematic for the atheist is not so much the private 1st-person experience of the religious person, but rather the alleged authority of others’ own testimony for which he thinks is not a reliable authority–and he is right, especially the more the content of that testimony (Jesus rose from the Dead, e.g.) becomes increasingly unlikely. However, his belief could also be irrational with respect to other sources of justification, such as probability, logic, and the principle of sufficient reason. And supposing he does have a 1st-person veridical religious experience and then denies that it is veridical–then he would also be behaving irrationally.
However, I do know that some atheists will deny 1st-person experience counts as evidence, but this is another subject that would take too long to discuss, and which I think would be self-undermining since, by the same token, the atheist ought not to be trusting the veracity of any of his own ordinary day-to-day experiences going about his world.
When we ask what counts as evidence, this will vary depending on context, but it doesn’t vary from one individual or culture to another (at least it shouldn’t because others would simply be wrong). In other words, what counts as evidence is contextual, not relative. For instance, if a person cites his experience of seeing his own hands as evidence for his belief “I have hands” in the context of philosophical discussion of whether or not we have good reason for believing we are not brains in a vat (BIV), then the person’s “evidence” cannot be counted as such at all, since in the context of this discussion the data would appear exactly the same if he were a BIV because a BIV would have an experience perfectly indistinguishable from a non-BIV. Moreover, everyone would still be in unanimous agreement that this context changes the standards of what counts as acceptable evidence.
On the other hand, when I cite my experience of seeing my own hands as a sufficient reason to believe “I have hands” in the normal everyday context, then this is perfectly
Syntax replied to this thread in a different thread, so I am moving his post to here:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Leela
Hi Syntax,
I have been very impressed by your posts in this thread. I would love it if you would read my OP in this thread on demands for justifying religious beliefs and share any thoughts you have.
Syntax says:
There are too many claims in that post which deserve to be taken apart one by one, and I’m not sure the argument by analogy on which this pragmatic view depends is an accurate analogy. But I will respond to a couple claims you make.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Leela
When does the intellectual responsibility of having evidence to support our beliefs arise? And what do we mean by evidence, anyway? Having dropped the notion of objectivity as being in accordence with reality and having replaced it with objectivity as the ability to get consensus among informed inquirers, evidence is then whatever may help us get consensus about a belief.
Syntax says:
First, “objectivity” is a metaphysical notion about the representational character of truth, not an epistemic notion about evidence or justification, but you are really close to conflating these two notions.
Second, I think your claim I bold-faced is false. I don’t think “objectivity” should be defined whatsoever in terms of “universal consensus,” since that kind of move would relativize the notion of truth to “what most people think” when what most people think could still easily be false. So I retain the definition of “objectivity” as “propositions which are in accordance with reality” in spite of universal consensus. But you seem to flat out disagree.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Leela
Evidence is only of issue when there is some need to get consensus…
Syntax says:
It is true that evidence becomes important when universal consensus becomes a goal in public discourse, but universal consensus does not constitute evidence.
Moreover, having appropriate evidence is an important issue not only when my goal is to persuade my opponent that my own beliefs are justified or true, but also when the consistency and plausibility of my own beliefs are at stake independent of what others think: for surely having evidence is of private importance, too, independent of what others may think, is it not?..At least I know I couldn’t live with myself if I knew some of my beliefs were inconsistent with each other, for example…lol
Quote:
Originally Posted by Leela
there is no outside authority to which we can appeal about what ought to be counted as evidence beyond what authority has been agreed upon between the parties that seek to have one another’s backing for their public projects.
Syntax says:
This is true. But is it problematic? An atheist and a religious person, if they are both rational, both agree on what counts as appropriate evidence such as 1st-person experience, empirical data, probability, and reason. The only difference between the atheist and the man of faith is that the the atheist lacks a 1st-person religious/spiritual experience. So with respect to this kind of (lack of) evidence the atheist’s belief that there is no God is a rational belief. What is problematic for the atheist is not so much the private 1st-person experience of the religious person, but rather the alleged authority of others’ own testimony for which he thinks is not a reliable authority–and he is right, especially the more the content of that testimony (Jesus rose from the Dead, e.g.) becomes increasingly unlikely. However, his belief could also be irrational with respect to other sources of justification, such as probability, logic, and the principle of sufficient reason. And supposing he does have a 1st-person veridical religious experience and then denies that it is veridical–then he would also be behaving irrationally.
However, I do know that some atheists will deny 1st-person experience counts as evidence, but this is another subject that would take too long to discuss, and which I think would be self-undermining since, by the same token, the atheist ought not to be trusting the veracity of any of his own ordinary day-to-day experiences going about his world.
When we ask what counts as evidence, this will vary depending on context, but it doesn’t vary from one individual or culture to another (at least it shouldn’t because others would simply be wrong). In other words, what counts as evidence is contextual, not relative. For instance, if a person cites his experience of seeing his own hands as evidence for his belief “I have hands” in the context of philosophical discussion of whether or not we have good reason for believing we are not brains in a vat (BIV), then the person’s “evidence” cannot be counted as such at all, since in the context of this discussion the data would appear exactly the same if he were a BIV because a BIV would have an experience perfectly indistinguishable from a non-BIV. Moreover, everyone would still be in unanimous agreement that this context changes the standards of what counts as acceptable evidence.
On the other hand, when I cite my experience of seeing my own hands as a sufficient reason to believe “I have hands” in the normal everyday context, then this is perfectly
L
Leela
Guest
More from Syntax…
Quote:
Originally Posted by Leela
In addition to her moral projects to get people to adhere to her ethics, another area where a believer may face a justified demand for evidence is if she makes any scientific or historical claims. Rorty wrote that “On a pragmatist account, scientific inquiry is best viewed as the attempt to find a single, unified, coherent description of the world–the description that makes it easiest to predict the consequences of events and actions…” This attempt is the attempt to gratify particular desires–the desire to predict and control.
Syntax says:
Though I agree with Rorty that science aims at a “single, unified, coherent description of the world” for purposes of prediction and control, I also think science aims at truth and a better understanding of how things actually work–which is that aspect of science Rorty’s pragmatism seems to ignore.
More importantly, his pragmatism ignores that the only explanation for these apparent “successes” in science can only be attributed to the fact that scientists are learning something about how the objective world works independent of human goals and purposes, and this is precisely where I have a fundamental disagreement with him: truth is NOT reducible to human practices and goals. It seems most pragmatism employs this kind of pragmatic/reductionist attitude toward “truth” in some form or another.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Leela
claims about virgin birth, raising the dead, the Biblical account of the origin of the universe, and the effectiveness of various sacraments are the sorts of assertions that, if taken to be historically and scientifically true, need to face up to the demands for evidence and the standards for what counts as evidence that apply to the public projects of doing history and doing science.
Syntax says:
(Just to clarify, the Church doesn’t take the Biblical account of the origin of the universe as a literal reading of what actually happened. Only fundamentalists do that. It is also perfectly consistent with our faith to believe in human evolution. The Church herself does not take any official position on it, and there are no “official” requirements to believe one way or another…though alot of catholics don’t know this. Anyway…)
As historical or scientifc claims these propositions are certainly accountable to scientific and historical standards, but they are also accountable to other standards since they are not merely scientific or historical claims. They are also spiritual and metaphysical kinds of claims, and for which they are therefore not fully accountable to scientific and historical standards of what counts as “evidence.”
Quote:
Originally Posted by Leela
It is possible to imagine a theist whose beliefs about God are “sufficiently privatized” such that they do not serve the scientific purposes of predicting and controlling the world or influencing the moral choices of others. Such beliefs would not conflict with science and would not need to face any demands for evidence.
Syntax says:
I believe the bold-faced piece is false. Though I agree the Articles of Faith do not confllict with science, they are still rational beliefs, therefore, they do demand evidence in terms of 1st-person experience and personal witnessing, just not always the scientific or historical kind of evidence. I always found it interesting that Aquinas said, “A believer’s act of faith does not terminate in propositions but in the realities which those propositions express.” 1st-person experience and personal witnessing is still sufficient evidence even for the historical truth of the claim “Christ rose from the dead,” for example, precisely because it is not merely a historical proposition demanding historical evidence, but contains a much deeper reality than what any ordinary historical proposition could be capable of expressing at all.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Leela
Richard Rorty has recommended such “public versus private” considerations to help us untangle beliefs as part of his version of pragmatism. Someone who holds to a privatized version of religion may view “the supposed tension between science and religion as the illusion of opposition between copperative endeavors and private projects.”
Syntax says:
Though Christ’s own historical resurrection occurs also as a private experience within the believer himself, this experience alone is sufficient evidence for the historical reality of it. So the claim is also a very publicly believable claim, for which reasons and justifications should be offered to others (again, just not historical or scientific ones).
I’m laughing because this sounds absurd even to my own ears, but I whole-heartedly believe it. It’s weird, but this is the best way I can express it. This is why I wouldn’t hold any atheist accountable for not believing it without this 1st-person experience. The debate comes down to precisely what kind of higher spiritual and metaphysical realities the historical proposition “Jesus rose from the dead” is capable of expressing. And I don’t think the atheist has the gift of grace necessary for having the kind of epistemic access to the metaphysical/spiritual import of this claim that he would like to; he has access only to its historical import which is precisely why he is incapable of accepting its historical truth. So I think the atheist is perfectly rational for denying it. On the other hand, those who believe it are perfectly rational for asserting it because they have a kind priviledged epistemic access to its content due to God’s grace.
hmmm…I definitely want to think about this more. This is fascinating!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Leela
In addition to her moral projects to get people to adhere to her ethics, another area where a believer may face a justified demand for evidence is if she makes any scientific or historical claims. Rorty wrote that “On a pragmatist account, scientific inquiry is best viewed as the attempt to find a single, unified, coherent description of the world–the description that makes it easiest to predict the consequences of events and actions…” This attempt is the attempt to gratify particular desires–the desire to predict and control.
Syntax says:
Though I agree with Rorty that science aims at a “single, unified, coherent description of the world” for purposes of prediction and control, I also think science aims at truth and a better understanding of how things actually work–which is that aspect of science Rorty’s pragmatism seems to ignore.
More importantly, his pragmatism ignores that the only explanation for these apparent “successes” in science can only be attributed to the fact that scientists are learning something about how the objective world works independent of human goals and purposes, and this is precisely where I have a fundamental disagreement with him: truth is NOT reducible to human practices and goals. It seems most pragmatism employs this kind of pragmatic/reductionist attitude toward “truth” in some form or another.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Leela
claims about virgin birth, raising the dead, the Biblical account of the origin of the universe, and the effectiveness of various sacraments are the sorts of assertions that, if taken to be historically and scientifically true, need to face up to the demands for evidence and the standards for what counts as evidence that apply to the public projects of doing history and doing science.
Syntax says:
(Just to clarify, the Church doesn’t take the Biblical account of the origin of the universe as a literal reading of what actually happened. Only fundamentalists do that. It is also perfectly consistent with our faith to believe in human evolution. The Church herself does not take any official position on it, and there are no “official” requirements to believe one way or another…though alot of catholics don’t know this. Anyway…)
As historical or scientifc claims these propositions are certainly accountable to scientific and historical standards, but they are also accountable to other standards since they are not merely scientific or historical claims. They are also spiritual and metaphysical kinds of claims, and for which they are therefore not fully accountable to scientific and historical standards of what counts as “evidence.”
Quote:
Originally Posted by Leela
It is possible to imagine a theist whose beliefs about God are “sufficiently privatized” such that they do not serve the scientific purposes of predicting and controlling the world or influencing the moral choices of others. Such beliefs would not conflict with science and would not need to face any demands for evidence.
Syntax says:
I believe the bold-faced piece is false. Though I agree the Articles of Faith do not confllict with science, they are still rational beliefs, therefore, they do demand evidence in terms of 1st-person experience and personal witnessing, just not always the scientific or historical kind of evidence. I always found it interesting that Aquinas said, “A believer’s act of faith does not terminate in propositions but in the realities which those propositions express.” 1st-person experience and personal witnessing is still sufficient evidence even for the historical truth of the claim “Christ rose from the dead,” for example, precisely because it is not merely a historical proposition demanding historical evidence, but contains a much deeper reality than what any ordinary historical proposition could be capable of expressing at all.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Leela
Richard Rorty has recommended such “public versus private” considerations to help us untangle beliefs as part of his version of pragmatism. Someone who holds to a privatized version of religion may view “the supposed tension between science and religion as the illusion of opposition between copperative endeavors and private projects.”
Syntax says:
Though Christ’s own historical resurrection occurs also as a private experience within the believer himself, this experience alone is sufficient evidence for the historical reality of it. So the claim is also a very publicly believable claim, for which reasons and justifications should be offered to others (again, just not historical or scientific ones).
I’m laughing because this sounds absurd even to my own ears, but I whole-heartedly believe it. It’s weird, but this is the best way I can express it. This is why I wouldn’t hold any atheist accountable for not believing it without this 1st-person experience. The debate comes down to precisely what kind of higher spiritual and metaphysical realities the historical proposition “Jesus rose from the dead” is capable of expressing. And I don’t think the atheist has the gift of grace necessary for having the kind of epistemic access to the metaphysical/spiritual import of this claim that he would like to; he has access only to its historical import which is precisely why he is incapable of accepting its historical truth. So I think the atheist is perfectly rational for denying it. On the other hand, those who believe it are perfectly rational for asserting it because they have a kind priviledged epistemic access to its content due to God’s grace.
hmmm…I definitely want to think about this more. This is fascinating!
L
Leela
Guest
For example, one holding to Tillich’s account of faith as “ultimate concern” need not include as part of one’s faith a demand that others share her ultimate concern.But what religious beliefs do you have in mind as not including a demand that others believe likewise?
I am saying that the belief demands of Christianity can be interpreted as not requiring anyone (including the Christian believer) to believe that certain historical and scientific facts obtain, and if it is interpreted in that way, then one’s religious beliefs need not submit to demands for evidence. On the other hand, if one does think of Christianity as including scientific and historical beliefs, then such a Christian does have a duty to justify.Are you just trying to positively characterize/conceptualize how liberal Christians think, people who claim that they are spiritual, rather than religious, and don’t think that the NT has any historical value, or that interpret it like TS or David Strauss?
It was not my intent to say that one or the other view is better, though I have my opinion on the matter. The intent is simply to distinguish beliefs that need to be justified to others from beliefs that do not need to submit to demands for justification.
The denial of private language idea as I understand it depends upon a dichotomy between the cognitive and the noncognitive, between what we should rightly call a belief and what is merely a desire, an intention, or a hope. Wittgenstein may argue that there is no “right to privacy” when it comes to beliefs as distinct from desires, hopes, and intentions since whatever is rightly called a belief is a cognitive affair where all language users are in it together. It inherently falls into Rorty’s category of public projects, so to be rational is taken to be equivalent to submission of one’s beliefs to public justification.If I truly believe something, I must have something to say about why I believe it. If I don’t, how is it even a belief qua habit of action? Do you really want to include purely verbal habits of action - “Leela is in the habit of saying she believes in X; therefore…”? That doesn’t seem likely…
Do you think, contra Wittgenstein, that the notion of a private language makes sense?
Can you predict the pragmatist’s move here? The pragmatist, as usual, wants to blur such sharp distinctions and does not accept the premise that there are things called beliefs which are utterly distinct from desires, hopes, and intentions. Beliefs cannot be independent of desires, since, as James said “belief’s are only there for behavior’s sake.” We only have any beliefs at all because we have the sorts of desires we have. (Compare to Hume’s “reason is, and ought to be, the slave of the passions.”)
This is not to say that there is no difference between a desire and a belief. But hopes and desires guide behavior just as beliefs do, and we only have beliefs to satify certain desires, so a dichotomy between beliefs and desires when it comes to religion may be unwarranted. When you think about your religion, is it a hope, a desire, an intention, or a belief? Making a distinction between public and private concerns, we need not worry too much about answering this question so long as your way of “being religious” does not frustrate anyone else’s pursuits of their own desires.
Best,
Leela
S
Syntax
Guest
Sorry, everyone, for committing the blunder of not having originally posted my reply to Leela in this thread. All my intonations got lost in the transfer too. I hope the move won’t preclude intelligent responses to my post.
First, Hume said reason is a slave of the passions, not that it ought to be (Hume wasn’t a pragmatist)–meaning, reason alone unaided by our desires is incapable of being a motive for putting the will into action. This sounds right to me.
But when Hume declared that morality cannot be derivde from reason at all, this seems false. Morality arises from human passion with the collaboration of human reason. Certainly morals *arise with *our passions and become explicit in human contexts, but that doesn’t discredit the objectivity of our moral claims–this would be an instance of the Genetic Fallacy. Nor does this entail reason cannot be used to justify the plausibility of these objective moral claims.
Second, Hume wasn’t “explicitly” a self-declared *anti-realist *about the objectivity of moral claims, but only a skeptic about the objectivity of moral claims. He was, however, a non-cognitivist–df: all obective moral statements are identical to subjective reports about personal tastes and preferences. I’ve explained why I think the non-cognitivism thesis is false in the “Does objective morality exist?” thread.
Some of the “blurring” of pragmatism is evident in your remarks below, and I took the liberty to interject questions within the passage. I get confused rather quickly about what is being actually said. This is one of the reason’s why I don’t respect a sloppy thinker like Rorty. He is not taken very seriously either in most analytic philosophical circles precisely because of his lack of precision and clarity. Nevertheless, be assured I still respect your own attempt to makes sense of these things. We are all in this boat together.
I think Wittgenstein was right about the impossibility of a “private language.” But the subsequent pragmatic move is highly suspect which carries little weight. I have already explained why in my “cut-and-pasted” post.The denial of private language idea as I understand it depends upon a dichotomy between the cognitive and the noncognitive, between what we should rightly call a belief and what is merely a desire, an intention, or a hope. Wittgenstein may argue that there is no “right to privacy” when it comes to beliefs as distinct from desires, hopes, and intentions since whatever is rightly called a belief is a cognitive affair where all language users are in it together. It inherently falls into Rorty’s category of public projects, so to be rational is taken to be equivalent to submission of one’s beliefs to public justification.
Ibid.Can you predict the pragmatist’s move here? The pragmatist, as usual, wants to blur such sharp distinctions and does not accept the premise that there are things called beliefs which are utterly distinct from desires, hopes, and intentions.
This is where the pragmatic “blurring” gets really convoluted, and I can’t make much rational sense of it. All of this seems intuitively false unless you can provide a reason for thinking otherwise. This is good you mentioned Hume because it puts the problem in perspective.Beliefs cannot be independent**?]** of desires, since, as James said “belief’s are only**?]** there for behavior’s sake.” We only**?]** have any beliefs at all because we have the sorts of desires we have. (Compare to Hume’s “reason is, -]and ought to be/-], the slave of the passions.”)
First, Hume said reason is a slave of the passions, not that it ought to be (Hume wasn’t a pragmatist)–meaning, reason alone unaided by our desires is incapable of being a motive for putting the will into action. This sounds right to me.
But when Hume declared that morality cannot be derivde from reason at all, this seems false. Morality arises from human passion with the collaboration of human reason. Certainly morals *arise with *our passions and become explicit in human contexts, but that doesn’t discredit the objectivity of our moral claims–this would be an instance of the Genetic Fallacy. Nor does this entail reason cannot be used to justify the plausibility of these objective moral claims.
Second, Hume wasn’t “explicitly” a self-declared *anti-realist *about the objectivity of moral claims, but only a skeptic about the objectivity of moral claims. He was, however, a non-cognitivist–df: all obective moral statements are identical to subjective reports about personal tastes and preferences. I’ve explained why I think the non-cognitivism thesis is false in the “Does objective morality exist?” thread.
Some of the “blurring” of pragmatism is evident in your remarks below, and I took the liberty to interject questions within the passage. I get confused rather quickly about what is being actually said. This is one of the reason’s why I don’t respect a sloppy thinker like Rorty. He is not taken very seriously either in most analytic philosophical circles precisely because of his lack of precision and clarity. Nevertheless, be assured I still respect your own attempt to makes sense of these things. We are all in this boat together.
This is not to say that there is no difference between a desire and a belief **[this seems true]. **But hopes and desires guide behavior just as beliefs do **[right, part of the function of beliefs is to guide behavior, but this doesn’t affect their truth-value or inherent (im)plausibility] **and we only have beliefs to satify certain desires **[wait, is this true? I can think of numerous beliefs I hold that do not have the MERE function of satisfying my desires (e.g., that Obama is president) and which I’d rather be false] **so a dichotomy between beliefs and desires when it comes to religion may be unwarranted [wait, are you now saying that in matters of religion we should be equating beliefs with desires?]. When you think about your religion, is it a hope, a desire, an intention, or a belief? **[all of the above, but there are clear-cut distinctions between them] Making a distinction between public and private concerns, we need not worry too much about answering this question so long as your way of “being religious” does not frustrate anyone else’s pursuits of their own desires[of course we should worry: private beliefs have ascertainable public consequences. Why is that “being religious” OUGHT NOT to frustrate someone else’s pursuit of their own desires? Some of these pursuits are immoral and ought to be counted as such, especially when they have consequences at large for everyone else. Religious beliefs shouldn’t be silent on these matters.–This is a loaded statement, and I don’t quite follow it because I am not sure what you are trying to say. ****
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Betterave
Guest
It need not? Perhaps true, but why would you say so? The communist’s ultimate concern with Communism, for example, certainly brings with it the demand that others share her ultimate concern. Why do you think this need not be the case when we apply Tillich’s concept to the Christian and her ‘ultimate concern’?For example, one holding to Tillich’s account of faith as “ultimate concern” need not include as part of one’s faith a demand that others share her ultimate concern.
Can they? How is this possible?I am saying that the belief demands of Christianity can be interpreted as not requiring anyone (including the Christian believer) to believe that certain historical and scientific facts obtain, and if it is interpreted in that way, then one’s religious beliefs need not submit to demands for evidence. On the other hand, if one does think of Christianity as including scientific and historical beliefs, then such a Christian does have a duty to justify.
…and by all means, keep trying!It was not my intent to say that one or the other view is better, though I have my opinion on the matter. The intent is simply to distinguish beliefs that need to be justified to others from beliefs that do not need to submit to demands for justification.
The denial of private language idea as I understand it depends upon a dichotomy between the cognitive and the noncognitive, between what we should rightly call a belief and what is merely a desire, an intention, or a hope. Wittgenstein may argue that there is no “right to privacy” when it comes to beliefs as distinct from desires, hopes, and intentions since whatever is rightly called a belief is a cognitive affair where all language users are in it together. It inherently falls into Rorty’s category of public projects, so to be rational is taken to be equivalent to submission of one’s beliefs to public justification.
Can you predict the pragmatist’s move here? The pragmatist, as usual, wants to blur such sharp distinctions and does not accept the premise that there are things called beliefs which are utterly distinct from desires, hopes, and intentions. Beliefs cannot be independent of desires, since, as James said “belief’s are only there for behavior’s sake.” We only have any beliefs at all because we have the sorts of desires we have. (Compare to Hume’s “reason is, and ought to be, the slave of the passions.”)
I tend to agree with the concerns expressed in Syntax’s comments and I’ll just say that in a matter of ‘ultimate concern,’ it seems that your “distinction between public and private concerns” ought to worry me a great deal - despite your assurances - and that I should like to know a great deal more about how and why this distinction is made before taking seriously your claim that we need not worry too much about it.This is not to say that there is no difference between a desire and a belief. But hopes and desires guide behavior just as beliefs do, and we only have beliefs to satify certain desires, so a dichotomy between beliefs and desires when it comes to religion may be unwarranted. When you think about your religion, is it a hope, a desire, an intention, or a belief? Making a distinction between public and private concerns, we need not worry too much about answering this question so long as your way of “being religious” does not frustrate anyone else’s pursuits of their own desires.
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Betterave
Guest
Let me repeat myself, with a little ‘ultimate concern’ thrown in the mix:
Leela wrote:
“If people making such assertions do indeed intend something clearly different in purpose from historical and scientific inquiry and can articulate in what other ways, if not scientifically and historically, these claims may be regarded as true, then perhaps it can indeed be made coherent to say as is so often claimed by theists that there is indeed no conflict between science and religion.”
I think you may sneak in bad assumptions about the nature of the autonomy of historical and scientific inquiry here, and about the necessary divide between realms of discourse. Moral discourse, for example, involves giving reasons, part of which is producing evidence (like science), but part of which is a matter of personal engagement with what is understood to be the totality of meaning of the world (in particular, with one’s ‘ultimate concern’). There is no way to insulate the pursuit of raw power found in ‘scientific’ enterprises from this broader context of meaningfulness (and from one’s ‘ultimate concern’). The scientific will-to-power has to be incorporated into our reflections on the meaningfulness of the world (and our ‘ultimate concern’), and not simply presumed to be an autonomous and unquestionable domain. I suspect your formulation of the situation tends to obscure this requirement.
Leela wrote:
“If people making such assertions do indeed intend something clearly different in purpose from historical and scientific inquiry and can articulate in what other ways, if not scientifically and historically, these claims may be regarded as true, then perhaps it can indeed be made coherent to say as is so often claimed by theists that there is indeed no conflict between science and religion.”
I think you may sneak in bad assumptions about the nature of the autonomy of historical and scientific inquiry here, and about the necessary divide between realms of discourse. Moral discourse, for example, involves giving reasons, part of which is producing evidence (like science), but part of which is a matter of personal engagement with what is understood to be the totality of meaning of the world (in particular, with one’s ‘ultimate concern’). There is no way to insulate the pursuit of raw power found in ‘scientific’ enterprises from this broader context of meaningfulness (and from one’s ‘ultimate concern’). The scientific will-to-power has to be incorporated into our reflections on the meaningfulness of the world (and our ‘ultimate concern’), and not simply presumed to be an autonomous and unquestionable domain. I suspect your formulation of the situation tends to obscure this requirement.
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Leela
Guest
Hi All,
There are many comments I need to respond to from Dave and Syntax, but to help focus the issue at hand, I want to explain the motivation for the OP. As I said ealier, I expected the objectoins to my thesis in the OP to come from the atheist side, because what I set out to do here is give a pragmatic critique of the demands that atheists make for believers to justify their beliefs. While believers frequently assert faith as the foundation for religious belief, nonbelievers such as Sam Harris argue that believers are not rationally entitled to their religious beliefs unless they can provide evidence. As Harris said in his Atheist Manifesto, “The atheist is merely a person who believes that the…[people] who claim to never doubt the existence of God should be obliged to present evidence for his existence…” In this thread I set out to investigate the question, is there really such a duty? Are there any limits to the sorts of beliefs that someone can be rationally entitled to have without submitting to other’s demands for evidence?
I’m reacting to such assertions from atheists as this from Sam Harris…
Sam Harris:
“It is perfectly absurd for religious moderates to suggest that a rational human being can believe in God simply because this belief makes him happy, relieves his fear of death or gives his life meaning. The absurdity becomes obvious the moment we swap the notion of God for some other consoling proposition: Imagine, for instance, that a man wants to believe that there is a diamond buried somewhere in his yard that is the size of a refrigerator. No doubt it would feel uncommonly good to believe this. Just imagine what would happen if he then followed the example of religious moderates and maintained this belief along pragmatic lines: When asked why he thinks that there is a diamond in his yard that is thousands of times larger than any yet discovered, he says things like, “This belief gives my life meaning,” or “My family and I enjoy digging for it on Sundays,” or “I wouldn’t want to live in a universe where there wasn’t a diamond buried in my backyard that is the size of a refrigerator.” Clearly these responses are inadequate. But they are worse than that. They are the responses of a madman or an idiot.
Here we can see why Pascal’s wager, Kierkegaard’s leap of faith and other epistemological Ponzi schemes won’t do. To believe that God exists is to believe that one stands in some relation to his existence such that his existence is itself the reason for one’s belief. There must be some causal connection, or an appearance thereof, between the fact in question and a person’s acceptance of it. In this way, we can see that religious beliefs, to be beliefs about the way the world is, must be as evidentiary in spirit as any other. For all their sins against reason, religious fundamentalists understand this; moderates–almost by definition–do not.”
I wonder pragmatically why “giving life meaning” is a desire that beliefs are not allowed to serve. It fair to say that this is not a criteria for scientific or historical truth, but it may be criteria for the truth of a belief that is aimed at other concerns than predicting and controlling. I also wonder whether there is a difference of opinion undelying the issue as to what should count as evidence for a belief.
Harris thinks that the fundamentalists that see an earth quake in Haitti as evidence that God is angry about homosexuality or whatever are more rational about their religious beliefs than those who see no hand of God in natural disasters but still see God’s miraculous saving power in a plane landing in the Hudson or finding their lost keys after praying. Harris and the fundamentalist agree about what should count as evidence–evertything, but the religious moderate sees tsunamis and hurricanes as irrelevant to evidence for faith. Harris and the fundamentalist both see a requirement for justification of religious belief that moderates do not acknowledge, and Harris’s concern for such moderates is that they give cover to the religious extremists by arguing that they need not defend their beliefs rationally.
Anyway, I just wanted to explain some background here.
Best,
Leela
There are many comments I need to respond to from Dave and Syntax, but to help focus the issue at hand, I want to explain the motivation for the OP. As I said ealier, I expected the objectoins to my thesis in the OP to come from the atheist side, because what I set out to do here is give a pragmatic critique of the demands that atheists make for believers to justify their beliefs. While believers frequently assert faith as the foundation for religious belief, nonbelievers such as Sam Harris argue that believers are not rationally entitled to their religious beliefs unless they can provide evidence. As Harris said in his Atheist Manifesto, “The atheist is merely a person who believes that the…[people] who claim to never doubt the existence of God should be obliged to present evidence for his existence…” In this thread I set out to investigate the question, is there really such a duty? Are there any limits to the sorts of beliefs that someone can be rationally entitled to have without submitting to other’s demands for evidence?
I’m reacting to such assertions from atheists as this from Sam Harris…
Sam Harris:
“It is perfectly absurd for religious moderates to suggest that a rational human being can believe in God simply because this belief makes him happy, relieves his fear of death or gives his life meaning. The absurdity becomes obvious the moment we swap the notion of God for some other consoling proposition: Imagine, for instance, that a man wants to believe that there is a diamond buried somewhere in his yard that is the size of a refrigerator. No doubt it would feel uncommonly good to believe this. Just imagine what would happen if he then followed the example of religious moderates and maintained this belief along pragmatic lines: When asked why he thinks that there is a diamond in his yard that is thousands of times larger than any yet discovered, he says things like, “This belief gives my life meaning,” or “My family and I enjoy digging for it on Sundays,” or “I wouldn’t want to live in a universe where there wasn’t a diamond buried in my backyard that is the size of a refrigerator.” Clearly these responses are inadequate. But they are worse than that. They are the responses of a madman or an idiot.
Here we can see why Pascal’s wager, Kierkegaard’s leap of faith and other epistemological Ponzi schemes won’t do. To believe that God exists is to believe that one stands in some relation to his existence such that his existence is itself the reason for one’s belief. There must be some causal connection, or an appearance thereof, between the fact in question and a person’s acceptance of it. In this way, we can see that religious beliefs, to be beliefs about the way the world is, must be as evidentiary in spirit as any other. For all their sins against reason, religious fundamentalists understand this; moderates–almost by definition–do not.”
I wonder pragmatically why “giving life meaning” is a desire that beliefs are not allowed to serve. It fair to say that this is not a criteria for scientific or historical truth, but it may be criteria for the truth of a belief that is aimed at other concerns than predicting and controlling. I also wonder whether there is a difference of opinion undelying the issue as to what should count as evidence for a belief.
Harris thinks that the fundamentalists that see an earth quake in Haitti as evidence that God is angry about homosexuality or whatever are more rational about their religious beliefs than those who see no hand of God in natural disasters but still see God’s miraculous saving power in a plane landing in the Hudson or finding their lost keys after praying. Harris and the fundamentalist agree about what should count as evidence–evertything, but the religious moderate sees tsunamis and hurricanes as irrelevant to evidence for faith. Harris and the fundamentalist both see a requirement for justification of religious belief that moderates do not acknowledge, and Harris’s concern for such moderates is that they give cover to the religious extremists by arguing that they need not defend their beliefs rationally.
Anyway, I just wanted to explain some background here.
Best,
Leela
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Leela
Guest
My claim that you are responding to here is simply the modest assertion that “being religious” need not include scientific or historical claims or attempts to control the behavior of others. I haven’t argued that that is what “being religious” ought to always be like. I’ve just said that there may be lots of ways of being religious and that perhaps there are some ways that never interfere with other’s pursuit of happiness and in such cases demands for evidence need not be respected. To disagree with me here (which you seem very intent upon doing) you will need to argue that claiming to be a Christian necessarily includes patterns of behavior that will always frustrate the needs of others. Certainly this claim can include such patterns and perhaps your version of Christianity does include such patterns, but why must all versions of Christianity include such patterns of behavior?It need not? Perhaps true, but why would you say so? The communist’s ultimate concern with Communism, for example, certainly brings with it the demand that others share her ultimate concern. Why do you think this need not be the case when we apply Tillich’s concept to the Christian and her ‘ultimate concern’?
Best,
Leela
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Leela
Guest
This isn’t a point that Rorty just missed. He argues that Truth can’t serve as the goal of inquiry in practice since we would not be able to aim at it, or know if we’ve gotten closer to it, or know if we’ve achieved it if we did not already possess it.Syntax says:
Though I agree with Rorty that science aims at a “single, unified, coherent description of the world” for purposes of prediction and control, I also think science aims at truth and a better understanding of how things actually work–which is that aspect of science Rorty’s pragmatism seems to ignore.
While we can’t aim at truth, we can aim at assuages our doubts, justifying our assertions to ever wider audiences, and, in general, finding better alternative to our current beliefs.
It is certainly true that the classical pragmatists conflated justification with truth. Rorty is willing to grant the distinction to the realists in a description of knowledge as justified true belief. The difference for Rorty and Plato is that for Rorty truth is always used as an adjective rather than as an essence.More importantly, his pragmatism ignores that the only explanation for these apparent “successes” in science can only be attributed to the fact that scientists are learning something about how the objective world works independent of human goals and purposes, and this is precisely where I have a fundamental disagreement with him: truth is NOT reducible to human practices and goals. It seems most pragmatism employs this kind of pragmatic/reductionist attitude toward “truth” in some form or another.
Also, the project of science as finding out “how the objective world works independent of human goals and purposes” is itself a human goal and purpose.
Best,
Leela
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tonyrey
Guest
We moderates do regard our relation to God as **one **of the reasons for our belief but it is not the only reason. Our relationship has practical and theoretical implications. It is that of a Father and His children, not just metaphorically but also literally. We owe our existence to Him and if we ignore that fact we are guilty of filial ingratitude…Here we can see why Pascal’s wager, Kierkegaard’s leap of faith and other epistemological Ponzi schemes won’t do. To believe that God exists is to believe that one stands in some relation to his existence such that his existence is itself the reason for one’s belief. There must be some causal connection, or an appearance thereof, between the fact in question and a person’s acceptance of it. In this way, we can see that religious beliefs, to be beliefs about the way the world is, must be as evidentiary in spirit as any other. For all their sins against reason, religious fundamentalists understand this; moderates–almost by definition–do not."
Meaning is directly related to value and purpose - which cannot exist in a void. What counts as evidence for a belief depends on your scheme of things and you want to achieve.I wonder pragmatically why “giving life meaning” is a desire that beliefs are not allowed to serve. It fair to say that this is not a criteria for scientific or historical truth, but it may be criteria for the truth of a belief that is aimed at other concerns than predicting and controlling. I also wonder whether there is a difference of opinion underlying the issue as to what should count as evidence for a belief.
In other words what you regard as within the realm of possibility. How do you determine that? Not scientifically for sure because science has self-imposed limits. To explain everything in terms of science is to exceed its brief and plunge into nonsense…
Harris equates rational religious belief with simplistic religious belief. Why does it have to be a question of all or nothing? It is more rational to believe that God works through the laws of nature for the most part rather than by direct volitions. Nothing can be more absurd than the notion that a loving God is directly responsible for an earthquake which maims and kills thousands of people. This is literally anthropomorphism with a vengeance! If Harris’s aim is to relegate religion to irrational, antiquated superstition and bring it into intellectual disrepute this is certainly the way to do it. The very fact that death and destruction are meted out indiscriminately demonstrates that such disasters are the result of pure coincidence. It is inevitable that sooner or later cities unwisely constructed in earthquake zones are going to be destroyed. Belief in Design does not alter the fact that we are at the mercy of blind chance on a violent planet.Harris thinks that the fundamentalists that see an earth quake in Haitti as evidence that God is angry about homosexuality or whatever are more rational about their religious beliefs than those who see no hand of God in natural disasters but still see God’s miraculous saving power in a plane landing in the Hudson or finding their lost keys after praying.
This is a distortion of the facts. A rational theist believes that God is ultimately responsible for everything but not that everything is directly willed by God. Tsunamis and hurricanes have the same physical causes that are the necessary conditions for life. An immensely complex system in which there are countless events at every second is bound to lead to undesirable side-effects. We cannot expect to have everything for nothing. Every advantage has a corresponding disadvantage…Harris and the fundamentalist agree about what should count as evidence–everything, but the religious moderate sees tsunamis and hurricanes as irrelevant to evidence for faith.
As I predicted, Harris is encouraging believers to take refuge in absurdity - or at least obscurity - and undermine their claim to any form of respect from educated persons.Harris and the fundamentalist both see a requirement for justification of religious belief that moderates do not acknowledge, and Harris’s concern for such moderates is that they give cover to the religious extremists by arguing that they need not defend their beliefs rationally.
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Leela
Guest
When something bad happens, you view it as an unfortuante side-effect of God’s goodness rather than directly willed by God, but when something good happens do you take it to be directly willed by God? If so, this sounds inconsistent to me. Don’t jets “miraculously” landing in the Hudson “have the same physical causes that are the necessary conditions for life”?This is a distortion of the facts. A rational theist believes that God is ultimately responsible for everything but not that everything is directly willed by God. Tsunamis and hurricanes have the same physical causes that are the necessary conditions for life. An immensely complex system in which there are countless events at every second is bound to lead to undesirable side-effects. We cannot expect to have everything for nothing. Every advantage has a corresponding disadvantage…
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tonyrey
Guest
You are mistaken. Where did I state that something is **directly **willed by God when something good happens? My exact words:When something bad happens, you view it as an unfortuante side-effect of God’s goodness rather than directly willed by God, but when something good happens do you take it to be directly willed by God? If so, this sounds inconsistent to me. Don’t jets “miraculously” landing in the Hudson “have the same physical causes that are the necessary conditions for life”?
It is more rational to believe that God works through the laws of nature for the most part rather than by direct volitions.
It is good to have been born, to be normal, to be in good physical and mental health, to enjoy all the opportunities and pleasures of life. These are all blessings which come from God but they are not willed directly. And to some extent our parents and others are responsible because of their love and concern for us…
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Syntax
Guest
huh???..The following appear to be your reasons for thinking science can’t have truth as one of its aims, all of which are absurd reasons.This isn’t a point that Rorty just missed. He argues that Truth can’t serve as the goal of inquiry in practice since [we would not be able to aim at it,] or know if we’ve gotten closer to it, or know if we’ve achieved it if we did not already possess it.
(1) Science can’t aim at truth “because we would not be able to aim at it”–but that’s only restating what you just said.
(2) Science can’t aim at truth “because we would not know we got closer to it”–What is “IT”? THE Truth? Of course we probably won’t ever come to know the complete truth about everything–simply because we will never be God. But so what? No one should put this godlike demand on science anyway. Nevertheless, we are still making new discoveries about what is true. So why should this bar us from making even further discoveries about what is true? And why cannot this still be the aim of science?
(3) Science can’t aim at truth, “Because we wouldn’t know that something was true when we found it?”–this is a lame reason. If I didn’t know that something was true when I found it, then I wouldn’t know that I had found the truth. well duh! That’s just a tautology.
(4) Science can’t aim at truth “Because we already know the truth about everything as it is?”–this is clearly false. We don’t know everything there is to know about what is true and what is not.
.While we can’t aim at truth, we can aim at assuages our doubts
That sounds like Karl Popper’s view of science, namely, that scientific hypotheses and theories are never confirmed but only “corroborated” by having passed every single attempt to disconfirm them. But I don’t know what corroborated means other than “confirmed.” Confirmation of a hypothesis is not the same thing as proving a hypothesis anyway, and it never has been. No scientist thinks any theory is ever “proven.”
But certainly we can still aim at discovering new things that are true. We already know many things that are true as a result of science’s efforts to aim at truth.
Of course “true” is an adjective. “Truth” as a noun can’t be philosophically or scientifically defined. So what is so novel here about Rorty’s view? Here’s the simplest deflationary theory of “truth” that I can think of which most other philosphers have accepted for hundereds of years now:It is certainly true that the classical pragmatists conflated justification with truth. Rorty is willing to grant the distinction to the realists in a description of knowledge as justified true belief. The difference for Rorty and Plato is that for Rorty truth is always used as an adjective rather than as an essence.
“P” is true if and only if P. Done
That’s all we need to know about “Truth” with a capital “T.” Any linguistic, philosophical, or scientific attempts to offer definitions or further explanations of it get convoluted and weird really fast. However, even though this has been the case for all secular attempts to arrive at some understanding of “Truth,” I will nevertheless make one religious statement of identity that holds even above Plato’s: Christ is Truth.
Yes there is a duty, all beliefs demand evidence. But you, Rorty, and Harris seem to think that if there is going to be any such demand then it can only be of the scientific or historical kind. We don’t demand empirical proof for theorems in mathematics, precisely because there is none. At most we know mathematical formula have successful application to the empirical world, but their truths certainly aren’t grounded in empirical evidence, but are completely independent of it. By the same token, all religious beliefs are under the burden of providing justification for their beliefs, but by no means are these demands for evidence solely restricted to those of scientific and historical kinds evidence. To think otherwise is just assuming that religious beliefs are on par with claims like “the tooth fairy and santa claus exist,” or those of astrological predictions and such. But most religious claims are not. Some are absurd, of course. But the Articles of faith are not.There are many comments I need to respond to from Dave and Syntax, but to help focus the issue at hand, I want to explain the motivation for the OP. As I said ealier, I expected the objectoins to my thesis in the OP to come from the atheist side, because what I set out to do here is give a pragmatic critique of the demands that atheists make for believers to justify their beliefs. While believers frequently assert faith as the foundation for religious belief, nonbelievers such as Sam Harris argue that believers are not rationally entitled to their religious beliefs unless they can provide evidence. As Harris said in his Atheist Manifesto, “The atheist is merely a person who believes that the…[people] who claim to never doubt the existence of God should be obliged to present evidence for his existence…” In this thread I set out to investigate the question, is there really such a duty?
Sure, but what happens to be true is not defined by our pragmatic concerns, and is entirely independent of them. In other words, we don’t suddenly decide that “X is true” becuase it is useful to believe it, or because it makes us happy, or because it gives meaning to our existence. This would be “inventing the truth” which is completely irrational and entirely contrary to the notion of objective truth independent of human concern.Also, the project of science as finding out “how the objective world works independent of human goals and purposes” is itself a human goal and purpose.
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Syntax
Guest
I completely agree that God works through the laws of nature.You are mistaken. Where did I state that something is **directly **willed by God when something good happens? My exact words:
It is more rational to believe that God works through the laws of nature for the most part rather than by direct volitions.
It is good to have been born, to be normal, to be in good physical and mental health, to enjoy all the opportunities and pleasures of life. These are all blessings which come from God but they are not willed directly. And to some extent our parents and others are responsible because of their love and concern for us…
S
Syntax
Guest
Leela,
Again, why cannot Truth still be the aim of science even though it never arrives at it? That’s the very mystical origin of science from the beginning of its development: to understand the mind of God. We must keep this as science’s true aim, otherwise we lose sight of science’s innocence and real purpose, and it becomes a slave to our desires, technology, and pragmatism. To me, Rorty’s pragmatism is just another attempt of intellectuals to do away with the human being’s focus on God. Having our thoughts focused on God ought to pervade all our activities, including science, since it keeps us humble and respectful of others and our very own planet. It is man’s hubris about science that begins to destroy everything around him by losing sight of his dignity and purpose
Other people can express this better than I can. I am only a philosophical logician and a linguistic with most matters, not a creative writer.
Again, why cannot Truth still be the aim of science even though it never arrives at it? That’s the very mystical origin of science from the beginning of its development: to understand the mind of God. We must keep this as science’s true aim, otherwise we lose sight of science’s innocence and real purpose, and it becomes a slave to our desires, technology, and pragmatism. To me, Rorty’s pragmatism is just another attempt of intellectuals to do away with the human being’s focus on God. Having our thoughts focused on God ought to pervade all our activities, including science, since it keeps us humble and respectful of others and our very own planet. It is man’s hubris about science that begins to destroy everything around him by losing sight of his dignity and purpose
Other people can express this better than I can. I am only a philosophical logician and a linguistic with most matters, not a creative writer.
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