Last night I was talking with an old friend of mine, an atheist Jew, who is now in the best relationship of her life with a devout Roman Catholic. We talked about the fact that she was more surprised than he was about the fact that their connection transcends their difference in metaphysics. He sees himself as a devout Roman Catholic; she sees him as a good human being.
This conversation reminded me of an older thought that’s been swirling around in my head for a few weeks: the disunity of reason.
It is widely held by philosophers (that peculiar sub-species!) that reason is unified: that the ideally rational person is one for whom there are no fissures, breaks, ruptures, or discontinuities anywhere in the inferential relations between semantic contents that comprise his or her cognitive grasp of the world (including himself or herself as part of that world).
This is particularly true when it comes to the distinction between “theoretical reason” and “practical reason”. By “theoretical reason” I mean one’s ability to conceptualize the world-as-experienced as more-or-less systematic, and by “practical reason” I mean one’s ability to act in the world according to judgments that are justified by agent-relative and also agent-indifferent reasons (“prudence” and “morality”, respectively).
The whole philosophical tradition from Plato onward assumes that reason is unified, and especially, that theoretical and practical reason are unified — different exercises of the same basic faculty. Some philosophers think of them as closer together than others — for example, Aristotle distinguishes between episteme (knowledge of general principles in science, mathematics, and metaphysics) and phronesis (knowledge of particular situations in virtuous action). But even Aristotle does not doubt that episteme and phronesis are exercises of a single capacity, reason (nous).
However, as we learn more about how our cognitive system is actually structured, we should consider the possibility that reason is not unified at all. If Horst’s Cognitive Pluralism is right, then we should expect that our minds are more like patchworks of domain-specific modules that can reason quite well within those domains but not so well across them.
To Horst’s model I’d add the further conjecture: that we have pretty good reason to associate our capacity for “theoretical reason” (abstract thinking and long-term planning) with the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and also pretty good reason to associate our capacity for “practical reason” (self-control and virtuous conduct) with the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (and especially in its dense interconnections with the limbic system).
But if that conjecture is on the right track, then we would expect to find consistency between theoretical reason and practical reason only to the extent that there are reciprocal interconnections between these regions of prefrontal cortex. And of course there are reciprocal interconnections — but (and this is the important point!) to the extent that these regions are also functionally distinct, then to that same extent reason is disunified.
And as a consequence, metaphysics and ethics may have somewhat less to do with each other than previous philosophers have supposed.
Patrick,
And evolutionists claim to have objective, empirical evidence for natural selection and drift producing complex adaptations. Yet they have failed to produce it.
What?
Did you not even read my comment? I explained exactly what it means.
Do you have any idea why you could miss something so simple and obvious?
I do 😉
Your alleged inability to see the evidence does not mean it’s not there.
Contrary to what you might believe you are not the judge of these things
peace
My point, however, is this: one you start off with the idea that the reliability of one’s own cognitive faculties must itself be justified, there is no non-circular, non-arbitrary alternative to total skepticism (“the solipsism of the specious present”). Descartes’s attempt to get out of this mess just doesn’t work, for reasons that have been well known for 375 years. (Descartes’ friend Arnauld was the first to point out the Cartesian circle, in the Fourth of the Objections to the Meditations.) And neither does anything else — certainly not presuppositionalism as its been defended in this forum!
Van Cleve’s article and similar work by Westphal confirms this: there’s no way to avoid solipsism once the question gets raised “but how do I know if my own cognitive faculties are reliable?”
Descartes gives us this question precisely in order to avoid the more mitigated, Academic skepticism of Montaigne, who says, ‘we should be cautious and tentative in our judgments because, as fallible beings, our cognitive capacities are not always reliable’. Descartes doesn’t want that kind of pragmatic, humanistic, continual willingness to engage in discourse with others — he wants CERTAINTY, and he wants as much certainty in metaphysics (and esp. in theology!) as he has attained in mathematics.
The pragmatist alternative to Cartesianism rejects the initial move of the Cartesian, where the question gets asked, “how do we know if our cognitive capacities are reliable?” or “what justifies the use of our capacities?” The justification of this rejection lies in the history of philosophy. The pragmatist (following Hegel, who first developed this method) reflects on the history of theories of knowledge; she observes, from that history, that there is no escape from the Cartesian circle, and thereby establishes her entitlement to refuse the Cartesian conception of our cognitive situation.
Oh yes there is. He is called Yahweh. He can reveal something in such a way so that I am justified in believing it. Don’t you agree?
Who has defended presuppositionalism in this forum?
I would be interested in seeing such a defense.
Is it possible that you think you have seen something that is not there?
Peace
I don’t agree, because any such revelation would have to classified as such, characterized as such, and judged to be such using the very same fallible and error-prone cognitive capacities that are already at work here.
If our own cognitive capacities are not themselves intrinsically reliable, then they cannot be used to confer justificatory status on any experience, even that of divine revelation. One lacks a guaranteed criterion for distinguishing between a genuine divine revelation and a merely apparent divine revelation (e.g. hallucination, schizophrenia).
If you are not defending presuppositionalism, then I have no idea at all what you are doing.
Mostly just asking questions in order to get the folks to examine their presuppositions.
Instead of wondering what I’m doing here you might try thinking about how you can know stuff. Because I would be interested to here that
peace
An omnipotent being can do anything that is not logically impossible
Are you saying that all knowledge is logically impossible?
peace
I’ve already answered that question. The fact that my answer does not fit with your conception of our cognitive situation is not my problem, because I’ve already given an argument as to why I don’t accept that conception in the first place.
I’m saying that it is not logically possible for a finite, fallible cognitive agent to know that a putative revelation is in fact a genuine revelation, because (1) it is fully conceivable that any putative revelation is in fact a merely apparent or false revelation but is mistakenly judged to be genuine, and (2) anything that is conceivable is logically possible.
In other words, if I am in doubt as to the reliability of my cognitive capacities, then I cannot use those capacities to refute that doubt. But those capacities would still be used to judge whether a putative revelation is genuine or illusory. (Am I hearing God’s voice or am I losing my mind?) So even if a genuine revelation would justify my use of those capacities, I cannot use those capacities to determine if the revelation is genuine or illusory in the first place.
Would it have made you feel better if he wrote that false exists?
I can’t tell if “truth exists” is supposed to mean the same thing as “there are some true statements” or “some statements are true”.
If “truth exists” means the same thing as “some statements are true”, then it’s trivial and unobjectionable. If “truth exists” means something other than that, I can’t figure out what that’s supposed to be.
If one thinks that a correspondence theory of truth is the best (or only) theory of truth, then “some statements are true” would mean “some statements correspond to reality”.
But so far FMM hasn’t said anything what he means by “truth exists,” and it’s tiring to do his work for him.
At least fifth could provide evidence for that. In fact many of his posts would seem to qualify as evidence.
I agree, I never said otherwise
What I said was that God could reveal something to me in such a way that I could be justified in believing it.
You disagreed with that statement. It’s not a statement about Me it’s a statement about God.
Revelation does not depend on my cognitive abilities but in God’s ability to reveal. Do you deny that an omnipotent being could reveal stuff?
I did not say that God could reveal stuff in such a way that I knew the revelation was genuine. I said that God could reveal something in such a way that I could be justified in believing it.
Please try and interact with what I’m actually saying.
Thanks in advance
Like I said the exact nature of truth’s existence is an interesting philosophical topic but for the purposes of this conversation It does not matter which of those describe reality of if another understanding all together is correct.
The important thing is that truth necessarily exists because God is Truth.
This is important because truth is necessary for knowledge.
peace
Then don’t bother.
I think you are wasting effort trying to fathom what I believe when you should spend a little time justifying your own epistemology.
But haven’t given any justification as to why you should believe that your argument is correct.
IOW How do you know stuff in your worldview?
What you’ve apparently said is that you have no reason to believe that your cognitive faculties are trustworthy and granted that your whole system depends on their trustworthiness.
That seems to be quite a pickle you are in.
peace
Click…whirrr…ticka ticka ticka ticka…clunk…
“How do you know stuff in your worldview?”
Ah—— Then comes the mockery right on cue ;-).
quote:
Mockery is the last refuge of the man without an argument
end quote:
anonymous
peace
God can reveal stuff in such a way that I can know it.
see that’s not hard
your turn 😉
peace
Yes, not hard like a meaningful answer would be.
Glen Davidson
How do you know a meaningful answer would be hard?
Is there a unknown rule that says that meaningful answers must be obscure and difficult?
How do you know that your secret rule is valid?
peace
Fifth:
Click…whirrr…ticka ticka ticka ticka…*spoink*…
“Your turn.”
If everyone has presuppositions, does presuppositionalism really need defending?
Exactly
As I understand it presuppositionalism is not one Philosophical school of thought among many others
Instead it’s just the common sense recognition of reality. When it comes to reasoning we all begin somewhere.
The problem is that apparently common sense is not a common as it should be.
peace
The statement “there are some true statements” presupposes the existence of truth. The statement “some statements are true” presupposes the existence of truth. If fifth was asserting that statements exist would everyone be arguing about that? Perhaps if he had claimed that there are no true statements.
If it’s all subjective, how can anything at all be objective? What causes statements to correspond to reality at all?
No, what you said was:
Would you care to pick one of those as what you mean when you say “Truth exists”?
What evidence? Please present the objective, empirical evidence that supports the claim that a god or gods exist. If necessary, look up the meaning of “objective” and “empirical” first.
In a weird way, I would find that more interesting.
Several people have pointed out that that isn’t true, Kantian Naturalist most recently.
It is logically possible that you are mistaken about every thing you think a god has revealed to you. In fact, since you have no objective, empirical evidence for the existence of any god or gods, that’s the most likely scenario.
Not at all. Those merely recognize that it is possible to make statements that reflect reality more or less closely. There is no need to reify “truth”, and it makes no sense to do so.
If only they had provided objective empirical evidence that it was not true. But, sadly, “objective empirical evidence” just doesn’t seem to work for everything.
FFM, Is it (logically) impossible for god to reveal “truth” (AKA himself according to you), to an atheist… and if he can, why does he suck balls at it?
Then they differ only in degree and not in kind from a false statement and either could be said of any statement and it’s just a matter of linguistic preference which one you choose to use.
It could in fact be raining outside and you could state that it is not raining outside and your statement would only be approximately false. But it would still reflect reality, more or less. So it would be true.
In fact, to say that what fifth was claiming is not true only means it more or less reflects reality, so it is true.
Or are you saying that there are some statements which do not more or less closely reflect reality and those statements are always false? Is it only true statements that have this sliding grey scale of more or less closely reflecting reality?
Again My evidence is the things “that have been made” some of these things are
empirical—–based on, concerned with, or verifiable by observation or experience rather than theory or pure logic.
God’s says that he has revealed himself to you through these things and by definition his opinions are
objective——- not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts.
I’m not sure how I could make this any more clear. Your unwillingness to accept this evidence says more about you than the quality of said evidence.
Repeatedly asking for evidence after it has been offered also says more about you than the quality of the evidence.
I have no doubt that any evidence whatsoever presented to you would be rejected out of hand.
It’s like a child denying the existence of air using lungs that are filled with the stuff.
Peace
1) He doesn’t suck. He does it well enough so that you are without excuse
2) You already know he exists
3) Jumping through hoops for you is not God’s priority. If it was you would be acting as god instead of him.
peace
Is truth defined as reflecting reality?
If so those statements presuppose truth.
This is not difficult
I agree
We don’t need to make truth “real”. Truth is “real” by definition.
peace
To Patrick (and others) truth is just a name we give to something that does not actually exist. Like God. I wonder if there is a connection.
This is simply an irrelevant tangent.
We are not discussing certainty we are discussing knowledge.
I might be mistaken about everything but that does not change the fact that God can reveal stuff if he chooses to. My knowledge does not depend on my own fallible reasoning ability but on God
Why is this so difficult for you to understand? Is it because you are so use to thinking you are the center of it all that you can not fathom a system that does not have you as the focus?
peace
I think there is not just a connection. There is an equivalence.
Since God is truth his inability to grant the existence of truth is the same thing as his inability to grant the existence of God.
Imagine asking for objective empirical evidence that truth exists and you understand the silliness of his position.
peace
Mung,
Patrick agrees that true statements exist. He just objects to what he sees as the reification of “truth”.
I don’t share that concern — to me, “truth” is a collective noun referring to the set of true propositions taken as a whole, just as “humanity” is a collective noun referring to the set of human beings taken as a whole.
In any case, the difference between “true statements exist” and “God exists” is massive. The evidence for the former is overwhelming, while the evidence for the latter is embarrassingly scant.
There is objective empirical evidence that true statements exist?
Kantian Naturalist,
Do you realize this statement requires a very complex biochemical explanation to support that is beyond the reach of science at this point?
I don’t need to nor do I care about “knowing” it; it is the inherent result of success. So long as the state changes and that state change can be repeated, your claims become nonsense, because there is no need for your presuppositionalism to change the states. Your claims have been thus rendered moot.
Love for you to demonstrate that. Such a tangent implies to me that you’ve realized I’ve defeated your silly claims.
It is, of course, subjective. How could such an exercise not be? But that’s irrelevant to the point. The point is that the exercise of “I’m hungry” demolishes presuppositionalism. No apologist has ever been able to defeat it. So I am perfectly content with subjectively assessing the silliness of your position.
I think that any epistemological position that starts off with a subjectivist starting-point — “I have immediate access to how things appear to me, but how do I know whether things really are as they appear?” — will not be able to avoid any of the slippery slopes that lead to idealism, skepticism, or solipsism. Once you’ve retreated into the subjectivist starting-point, there’s no magical bridge that will get one back to objective knowledge. The only winning move is not to play.
How is that a fact except by your fallible reasoning?
As you already conceded you may be mistaken about everything,
Thank you Joshua… 😉
I don’t believe I’ve retreated to a subjectivist starting point. However, I do freely acknowledge that experiencing the state “I’m hungry” (or “I’m sad”, “I’m happy”, “I’m uncomfortable”, and so forth) are subjective experiences. How could they not be? No one else is experiencing them with me. But I don’t think that invalidates the awareness of those states and the subsequent learning surrounding acting to change the states.
I chose to be pedantic in my phrasing to avoid interminable discussions about the impossibility of describing reality exactly.
My point is that capital-T Truth, the abstract noun, cannot be said to exist in the way that, say, a rock exists. I’m trying to understand exactly what fifthmonarchyman means when he says “Truth exists.”
What things, specifically?
The question is whether any god or gods exist. You cannot use the assumption that a god exists as one of your premises.
You haven’t presented any evidence.
Repeatedly claiming to have presented evidence when you have not done so says more about you than about those who are asking for the objective, empirical evidence you claim to have.
That hypothesis can be tested if you would simply present the objective, empirical evidence you claim to have.
This again. I’ve asked you about this a couple of times recently. Let me try again.
I do not know that any god or gods exist. I have never seen any evidence, or even an internally and externally coherent definition, for such an entity.
Before I ask my questions, I’d like to remind you of a few of the site rules:
– Assume all other posters are posting in good faith. For example, do not accuse other posters of being deliberately misleading
– . . . accusing others of ignorance or stupidity is off topic
– As is implying that other posters are mentally ill or demented.
And, of course, the prime directive: Park your priors at the door.
So, to participate within the rules, you must assume I’m posting in good faith (which I am). You must assume that I am not being dishonest or deliberately misleading (which I am not). You must assume that I am neither ignorant with respect to my statements about my lack of belief nor am I too stupid to understand what I am saying (roll with it). You must assume that I am not mentally ill or demented (ad arguendo).
Given the rules and my clear statement that I lack belief in a god or gods, your assertion that “Everyone knows he exists” is refuted. You’ve parked your priors by the door. How does this new knowledge change your argument, if at all? That is, what else is different about your mental model of the world now that you know that at least one atheist really does exist?
That’s the dictionary definition of “true”: in accordance with fact or reality.
That doesn’t follow. You still seem to be reifying “truth”.
In what sense?
TRUTH, n. An ingenious compound of desirability and appearance. Discovery of truth is the sole purpose of philosophy, which is the most ancient occupation of the human mind and has a fair prospect of existing with increasing activity to the end of time.
http://www.thedevilsdictionary.com/
PHILOSOPHY, n. A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.
(same source)