Mauvaise foi, eh? — 180 Proof

That's just.

The Plague is a great novel. Like many others, it can be interpreted in many different ways, but Camus' main intention was political. The Plague is a parable about the Nazi occupation of France and a warning about the danger of Stalinism. Camus made this more explicit in his next work L'état de siège. Sartre criticized him for making a metaphor based on an abstract danger when the responsibility of Nazism was human. The careless European citizens who turned their backs on the resistible rise of Hitler (Arturo Ui in Brecht's play) were guilty of more than frivolity. They were also guilty in other sense of stupidity and selfishness. They thought they were saving themselves while Hitler was killing Communists, Jews, Gypsies and others. "First he came after the communists, but I'm not a communist...", you know the story.

The criticism against the novel seems to me too exaggerated but there is some point to it. Like many leaders in Europe - including Churchill - Europeans thought it was enough to give the beast something to eat to be sure. From an indecent position - in Camus' words - came devastation for all.

I believe that current civilized public opinion is similar. We have turned the Corona-virus into a calamity of fate, a more or less unpredictable natural force, and all we care about is whether we were prepared for the inevitable war against an invisible enemy. My question is: Do we have any responsibility for the plague? Is our way of life responsible for it in any way? The mass production of meat, the dismantling of health care, the overpopulation of the suburbs... advanced capitalism has nothing to do with it?

We can say no and go straight ahead towards the following plague... or the ultimate end: global warming.

Don't worry. Be happy playing martian wars in your console. Nothing really important happens outside.

Oh, yeah. You have to buy a shotgun too. It's the best weapon against the tsunami.

these as proof, but the door is certainly not closed — Coben

Thanks for the links.

As far as we can see, retrocausation is a hypothesis maintained by some isolated scientists -and pseudo-scientists- that is neither unitary nor admitted by the immense majority of scientists. Some of the formulations that were made in the past by respectable scientists (Feynman) have been refuted.

No conclusions of any kind can be drawn on such a poor basis. If we admit that possibility we would have to admit the action of consciousness on matter, the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin or telepathy, to cite some of the absurdities that have been defended as hypotheses by scientists.

There is not, to my knowledge, a generally agreed upon interpretation of quantum theory that recovers the whole theory and exploits this idea. It is more of an idea for an interpretation at the moment, so I think that other physicists are rightly skeptical, and the onus is on us to flesh out the idea. — Matthew S. Leifer

Note that this skeptical comment comes from a proponent of the theory.

There seems to be retrocausation in qm. — Coben

Can you give me a reference? Thank you.

Furthermore, It is objective because it is rooted in our human nature as intelligent social creatures. — iam1me

To claim such a thing you must first demonstrate that there is a human nature and how to know it. This is the first step. Then you must prove that human nature is good.

Let us start from the beginning: How do you know that there is a human nature?

You have merely quoted some precepts that are more or less universal. But that does not mean that they are natural. In fact, it happens that many human beings do not follow them. Even if they are a minority, this disproves the thesis that they correspond to human nature.

Explanation:
The nature of X is the set of properties necessary for something to be an X. If there are human beings who do not follow a rule y, you have only two options. Either say that they are not human or recognize that y is not natural. The second seems more rational.

But post-20th-century scientists --- since the advent of Quantum Theory --- are losing that battle. — Gnomon

I don't know what quantum mechanics has to do with final causes. I don't know of any studies about the purposes of elementary particles.

But I was surprised to read that biologists especially (including Darwin himself) have begun to tackle even Teleology, the Fourth Cause. Is this appropriate in Modern Science? — Gnomon

I suppose in biology and anthropology it is impossible to work without some teleological explanations. But they are always abandoned when they can be explained in terms of efficient causes. The role of final causes in Darwinism seems to me to be secondary, if it exists at all. Its explanatory principles are based on mechanisms of response to the environment. It was Lamarck who was the finalist. There are not many Lamarckian biologists today.

Aristotle did make a distinction between a> empirical Induction and b> rational Deduction, which roughly parallel the methods of a> Science and b> Philosophy. Are you saying that Philosophy is mere opinion, hence of no value to science? — Gnomon

You're talking about argument types, not science types.
On the other hand, the author of the Stanford encyclopedia article (R. Smith) warns that the concept of "syllogism" and "epogee" do not exactly coincide with deduction and induction in the modern sense.
Finally, Moreau warns that, contrary to what Smith says, the inductive procedure is insufficient to scientifically demonstrate the first principles (Analytica priora, II, 23, 68 b 13-29). The induction guides knowledge. Only rational demonstration shows the necessity and causality.

The separation of science and philosophy does not belong to Aristotle. According to him, philosophy is the way to higher knowledge, or superior science. Not opinion, in any case.

Aristotle called philosophy zetoumene episteme, the sought-after science. The formula is ambiguous, and now we understand why: because we do not know whether it alludes to the first or second of the two dimensions of philosophy. — Xabier Zubiri

Are you asking my opinion or Aristotle's?

They are now called "axioms". — Gnomon

Currently, the term axiom is reserved for the formal sciences, mathematics and logic. But the Aristotelian first principles covered the physical sciences.

I'm not sure which "interpretation" you are referring to. A> That Science has rid itself of the "pernicious influence" of Philosophy, or B> That "Analysis" is superior to "Synthesis"? — Gnomon

The two options you propose do not relate to my question.
I was asking you why you consider the theories that interpret science to be metaphysical. For example, the Copenhagen school's interpretation of quantum mechanics versus Einstein's. Do you see any difference between metaphysics and philosophy of science? I think there's a difference.

Meta-physics is the design (form, purpose); physics is the product (shape, action). The act of creation brings an ideal design into actual existence. The design concept is the “formal” cause of the thing designed. — Gnomon

This is a marginal case I was referring to earlier. One of the battles of science against medieval scholasticism was the elimination of final causes (purpose) in the study of nature. The author you quote introduces this old concept -the purpose of Universe-, but does not make it clear whether he is interpreting science or adding a first, purely speculative principle. In the first case it would be a very personal interpretation, without any basis, in my opinion. In the second case he would be trying to impose a metaphysical principle on science. This is even much odder and more retrograde.

Aristotle divided his treatise on science into two parts. The world as-known-via-the-senses was labeled “physics” - what we call "Science" today. And the world as-known-by-the-mind, by reason, was labeled “metaphysics” - what we now call "Philosophy" . — Gnomon

I don't know if a little history of philosophy is helpful to our subject. Anyway, since we are...

Aristotle never made a distinction between inductive science and rational science. This is a further interpretation of his writings. His division was between science and opinion. Science is universal and necessary. Opinion is contingent and particular. Intuition is in the middle. It can help the intellect in the search for the first principles, but as a mere assistant to making hypothesis.

So Aristotle breaks the strict Platonic distinction between two worlds, the ideal and the empirical. This is an advantage for science because it encourages the empirical study of nature. And an obstacle -which lasted for centuries- because he subordinated natural science to metaphysics (in our modern language).

Modern science had to make a long journey to get rid of this pernicious influence by fighting with Aristotelian Scholastica. No modern philosopher (marginal exceptions are possible) tries to impose "first principles" on any science now. Science makes its way without internal restrictions (social determinants are something else). The only link between philosophy and science is a posteriori, not a priori. That is to say: interpretation, not guidance. Analysis, not synthesis.

In what sense is interpretation metaphysical? I do not see the point.

'Iron age', tosh. — Wayfarer

Aristotle's metaphysics is not a book made up of one hand. It is a series of readings for the Lyceum. What has come down to us is either some notes from Aristotle himself or the notes collected by some disciples. From Werner Jaeger' study on Aristotle it is assumed that they were written in various periods and put together more or less correctly (we see contradictions between some parts and others). The most radical critics, such as J. Zucher, think that much of Aristotle's work is actually attributable to others -specially Theophrastus (371-287 BCE). As Joseph Moreau -another scholar of reference- says, we should not go that far, but the truth is that we are not dealing with a homogeneous body of writings more or less faithfully collected by tradition. This idea is untenable. "Texts that are collected under the same common name can go back to different times, without prejudice to successive additions or revisions".
That is why, as I said, metaphysics is not a book written by Aristotle. In fact, its title comes from the first century CE, more or less.

Some of what I have told you can be found in a Wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphysics_(Aristotle) or in https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle/#AriCorChaPriDiv .

Rather, Aristotle's extant works read like what they very probably are: lecture notes, drafts first written and then reworked, ongoing records of continuing investigations, and, generally speaking, in-house compilations intended not for a general audience but for an inner circle of auditors. (Shields, Christopher, "Aristotle", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Winter 2016 Edition)

From here I wanted to comment on what Aristotle's writings mean by science has little to do with what we understand now, but I don't have time now. I'll leave it for tomorrow.

I have not understood what you mean by 'Iron age', tosh

It's obvious that Aristotle believed that both volumes of his encyclopedia of early iron-age knowledge were scientific. — Gnomon

In general, I agree. Just a point:

The names "Metaphysics" and "Physics" are not by Aristotle himself. They were added later. Furthermore, Aristotle's books are not by Aristotle. He was well known in his time for having written some dialogues that unfortunately were lost early on. Aristotle's books on philosophy are actually the work of many hands of students and disciples. A copy and paste of various materials. We cannot be sure if some parts were "remastered" in the final result. What we call "scientific" works is almost certainly due to other hands, perhaps revised or edited by Aristotle.
Some relevant scholar once said that we are not able to read Plato, but the Plato that was filtered and re-edited in the Middle Ages. I think this is also true of Aristotle.

According to our contemporary criteria we can make a distinction between the "science of first principles" (Metaphysics) and empirical knowledge (Physics or natural science), but this is our distinction and it is not clear what Aristotle would think of it.

I would define metaphysics as concerned with relational structures and concepts — Possibility

This definition is extremely vague. Almost everything fits into it. Logic or philosophy, for example. Even science. You should clarify it.

I agree that Bohr and Einstein’s discussion is philosophical, not scientific, and that they are not navigating in pure abstraction. But my understanding of metaphysics is neo-positivist, not Kantian. — Possibility

Metaphysics according to neopositivism:
A statement is meaningful if and only if it can be proved true or false, at least in principle, by means of the experience -- this assertion is called the verifiability principle. Metaphysical statements are not empirically verifiable and are thus meaningless. Forbidden

These concepts are intended to correspond with the objective reality, and by means of these concepts we picture this reality to ourselves. — Einstein, Podolsky, Rosen

Can this proposition be verified?
I don't think so. According to the neopositivist concept of metaphysics, Einstein is doing metaphysics and what he says does not make sense.

Another problem: how to verify sentences about the Universe as a whole? We have no way of getting an experience of the Universe as a whole.

If you want to say that metaphysics has something to do with experience you should adopt a less rigorous criterion than the neopositivist one.
In my opinion, It would be easier if you just give up on the aspiration of seeing metaphysics as a factual knowledge.

the branch of philosophy that deals with the first principles of things, including abstract concepts such as being, knowing, identity, time, and space. — Possibility

Certainly claiming that an electron exists is interpretation of science from a metaphysical perspective — Possibility

It doesn't fit your own definition of metaphysics. Much less with the Kantian concept of metaphysics: our knowledge of the electron comes from experience. Any reflection on it is subject to that experience. It's not the level of abstraction of the first principles. When Bohr and Einstein differ on the nature of atomic particles they are doing philosophy (of science), not science. Their opposition is based on reasons that are not refuted by experience, sure. But that doesn't mean they're navigating in pure abstraction. If you want to adopt the neo-positivist concept of metaphysics, we're in another discussion.

That applies to pure maths, also. — Wayfarer

No. Mathematics and logic are formal sciences. That is, they are not based on experience and they do not talk about facts. In Kantian terminology they are a priori and analytical.

Applied mathematics is a part of factual science, therefore it depends on experience. Mainly because it needs rules of correspondence between abstract mathematical concepts and empirical entities, which are given in experience. Their validity depends to a great extent on the adequacy of these rules to experience. For example: Euclidean mathematics is valid for common experience, but not for the theory of relativity.

I believe that the Kantian concept of metaphysics encompasses and is broader than the Aristotelian concept. I prefer it.

The term metaphysics is very ambiguous. If we don't clarify it, we can make a mess of it.

In my opinion and since Kant (to quote the sources is useful) metaphysics is a branch of knowledge that is based on universal and necessary knowledge obtained in the sole light of reason (without being based on experience). Based on this method, metaphysics seeks to achieve a knowledge different or superior to science about certain objects that science cannot investigate: the essence of supra-natural things and entities, such as God, free will, the Universe as a whole, etc...

Metaphysics should not be confused with analysis. Analyzing ordinary language or the scientific method is not metaphysical. Analysis does not seek to discover entities or relationships independent of experience, but to clarify knowledge of experience.

Therefore, the interpretation of science is not necessarily metaphysical. Although it can be. When scientists and philosophers discuss what kind of reality an electron is they are not doing metaphysics. They're doing philosophy of science, which is something else.

Otherwise, Kant's criticism of metaphysics is valid for me. Concepts without intuition/experience are empty. Metaphysics is not knowledge of anything.

Too hard? No. Just too disoriented.

I’m interested in how Morality relates to reasoning in general — I like sushi

If you are interested in the relationship between reason and morality I recommend The Genealogy of Morals. According to Nietzsche, morality is an invention of intelligent men. However, it is not oriented towards justice, but towards resentment and revenge. A hard thesis for good people to swallow.

When you face difficult books what do you do? You keep reading even without understand? What can help in this situation? — John Pingo

In my opinion, if you find serious difficulties in understanding a book on philosophy, don't waste your time. Leave it. This is my main advice.

If you want to learn math, don't start with elliptical equations in partial derivatives -whatever the hell this means.
If you want to learn philosophy, start with simple texts for popularization or teaching. They wouldn't be the non plus ultra of philosophy but they help.
In general, great philosophers' books are difficult to understand because they pose complex problems, use particular jargon or because they are written in the past, in a language that is no longer ours.

However, it is possible that even if you do not understand the text, you may find some ideas that interest you. This is often the case with me. For example I'm not sure I understand exactly what Sartre says in Being and Nothingness, but I find that reading it enlightens me about certain aspects of my life. Perhaps it is worthwhile then to continue reading slowly and without getting impatient. This is like reading poetry. You seem to understand it, but maybe not.

These are two ways of reading philosophy. Both are productive for me.

I don't advise you to read Aristotle if you have not a previous knowledge of Ancient Greece and its culture.

You’re obsessed. — I like sushi

Obsessed with what? I've simply dismantled the idealized vision you had of Nietzsche.

He was open about his hatred of nationalism and anti-semitism. Anyone and anything he talked about was with derision and bombast. — I like sushi

So why does he call himself "incorrigible European and anti-Semitic" in a letter to his sister Elizabeth (February 7, 1886)?

The heart of his writings are not about Jews? — I like sushi

The core of Nietzsche's theory is the criticism of morality as an invention of the powerless to undermine the values of the noble. Revenge, not justice, is at the root of morality. The revenge of the weak and spiteful against those who are more noble than they are. And the Jewish people are one of the main responsible for this "poisonous" feat. Read "The Genealogy of Morals",Treatise I, section 7. For example:

It was the Jews who, rejecting the aristocratic value equation (good = noble = powerful = beautiful = happy= blessed) ventured, with awe-inspiring consistency, to bring about a reversal and held it in the teeth of the most unfathomable hatred (the hatred of the powerless). — Nietzsche

Nothing that has been done on earth against ‘the noble’, ‘the mighty’, ‘the masters’ and ‘the rulers’, is worth mentioning compared with what the Jewshave done against them: the Jews, that priestly people, which in the last resort was able to gain satisfaction fromits enemies and conquerors only through a radical revaluation of their values, that is, through an act of the most deliberate revenge[durch einen Aktder geistigsten Rache]. — Nietzsche

On the other hand, the few times that some text is found against the anti-Semites, when and why does he do it?

Franz Overbeck, who was a commentator and close friend of Nietzsche until his last days, explains it very well:

Nietzsche was an emotional enemy of anti-Semitism as he lived it... This does not prevent him, when he speaks sincerely, from leaving all anti-Semitism far behind in severity in his judgments of the Jews. His anti-Christianity is basically based on anti-Semitism. — Franz Overbeck

because they think of groups of people’s as being the same. — I like sushi

I strongly disagree. Nobles and servants, Aryans and Jews, French and German... are not the equals. Nietzsche's thought is extremely aristocratic. He is against any idea of equality: Christianity, socialism, anarchism, democracy and so on.

For example, if the Jewish people had any greatness in the remote past, it was when they placed themselves above all others: as Yahweh's chosen people. As soon as they began to spiritualize their language and preach love, the greatness was over.

He praises the Jews and takes digs at them, he does the same for ‘Europeans’. — I like sushi

Of course, but the sharp criticism against the Jews is at the heart of his writings, while praises are generally ambiguous and circumstantial.

I don't need any quotes, unless we have a disagreement. I'm not always sure with Nietzsche and on some points quotes are welcome.

How does this jive with the historical account presented in the quotation in the initial post, and with your initial reply to that post? — Cabbage Farmer

My sentence referred to someone's Darwinian interpretation of the distinction between Nietzsche's "two races": the servants and the lords. I tried to explain that Nietzsche did not understand the will to power in terms of the survival of the fittest. Noble men are strong in excellence not in ability for survival.

The rest of your commentary includes too many questions. Could we limit ourselves to one?

Your comment does not clarify the author of the phrase about culture we were commenting on -either by Nietzsche or yours-, nor Nietzsche's position on the "Jewish question". You seem to be trying to open up another front, but I'm not clear what it is.

We were talking about Nietzsche. — I like sushi

But I was referring to a phrase of yours, not Nietzsche's. If the phrase you were quoting is Nietzsche's, you should show the quote. So the misunderstanding would be undone.

Nietzsche actually has high praise for the Jews it was his sister who gave him a bad name — I like sushi

In the last phase of his life, Nietzsche abhorred German anti-Semites who seemed to him to be stupid and like sheep. But he never rectified the many times he accused Jewish race and culture of being mainly responsible for the decline of the Western world. This is a theory that appears in almost all of his mature writings. Would you like us to look for quotes? I'd like to see the ones you have.

Note that Nietzsche's crudeness and violence has been whitewashed by his current followers, who try to be more politically correct than their exalted idol. It is true that Elizabeth Föster-Nietzsche covered up her brother's anti-German writings, but Nietzsche's followers have done a wash in the opposite direction.
Nietzsche was what he was. Great and obnoxious in equal parts.

In Notes from Underground the main character - who is not Dostoyevsky, it is kind of a crazy existentialist — BitconnectCarlos

No. He was parodying Chernishevsky, a positivist. (See my previous comment). He was not crazy. Dostoevsky himself speaks of him as a kind and quiet man.

He's able to flush out different ideologies/viewpoints through certain characters in a thoroughly honest sense. — BitconnectCarlos

This is the usual myth about Dostoevsky propagated by Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin -a Soviet disident critic- and himself. In reality Dostoevsky declares himself to be careful in arranging the things in his novels in order to put a voice above all other: Jesus Crhist's voice, of course.

The Man of the Underground is the Chernishevsky's caricature. It is not respectful with the true Chernishevsky's ideas. Dostoevsky's made the Man of the Undergroud said things that Chernishevsky never said. His contradictions were the contradictions that Dostoevsky believed to be those of positivism and atheism. Some of them were his own contradictions.

Honesty, my foot! Dostoevsky was a fanatic. Intelligent, but fanatical.

I did not get Dostoevsky's idea of science from Notes from the Underground alone, but from his Diary of a Writer and from the controversy with A. D. Gradovsky as well.

Interesting that the ‘systems and abstract deductions’ is what he refers to as science. Science could just as easily be ‘the evidence of his senses’, depending on how you approach it. — Possibility

At the time when Dostoevsky wrote Notes from the Underground (1864) - and for the rest of his life too - he opposed Nikolay Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky, a "radical" intellectual. Chernyshevsky is also radical in his positivism. He identifies reason and science. Therefore, Dostoevsky thinks he is criticizing science when in fact he is attacking Chernishevsky's positivism.

Both of them carelessly handle a concept of science that sometimes includes philosophy, logic or morality with pretensions of absolute objectivity. Therefore, Dostoevsky may think that some facts contradict "science" or "logic".

The context was Nietzsche? — I like sushi

No. The context was your own comment.

I haven’t said anything about ‘science’ in particular. — Possibility

Speaking of Dostoevsky, the "abstract system" that claims to have an exact answer for "everything in this world" is science. What abstract systems that create the illusion of knowledge were you referring to?

The only info I could find on D's anti-semitism was from a letter where he responded to a Jew who accused him of anti-semitism: — BitconnectCarlos

"The crowd of triumphant Jews and kikes that has thrown itself on Russia (...) to suck the lifeblood of the liberated but hopelessly indebted peasantry"

"How disgusting that the Kutais Jews are acquitted. They are beyond doubt guilty." [Referring to a group of Jews falsely accused of murdering a child in order to drink his blood. It is also featured in "The Brothers Karamazov"].

"Jews “are coming, they have filled all of Europe, everything selfish, everything inimical to humanity, all of mankind’s evil passions are for them—how could they not triumph, to the world’s ruination!"

"But the Jews refused the correction [of the Old Testament] and remained in all their former narrowness and inflexibility, and therefore instead of pan humanness have turned into the enemies of humanity, denying everyone except themselves, and now really remain the bearers of the Antichrist and, of course, will be triumphant for a while."

(Quotes taken from Joseph Frank's Dostoevsky. A Writer in His Time, Princeton University Press, 2010)

Dostoevsky was an intelligent man. He should have been aware that his hate to Jews was fueling the frequent pogroms in Russia. If we have any moral sense we will condemn the pogroms and those that encouraged them. There were many other decent Russian that were not of his opinions on this subject. And the same can be said from his hate to Polish, democracy or socialism and his political servility.

My question remains: How can you enjoy with the repulsive passages of a great writer?

Pierre Simon Laplace one replied, to the question of god's role in his science, "I had no need for that hypothesis" and that is the essence of the attitude of science towards religion - not anti-religious but simply non-religious. — TheMadFool

If science is neutral with respect to religion, it is not understood why they have crashed so often in history.
Science would be neutral with respect to an extremely abstract, subjective and spiritual belief that had nothing to do with the really existing religions. This is not the case with Dostoevsky. His religion involved fundamental questions of fact.

if so then science is circling back towards religion - scientists are on a path that will take them back to the priests they abandoned long ago. — TheMadFool

I don't know of any scientist who links quantum mechanics with religion. There are pseudoscientists, New Age mystics and theologians who try.
To say that there is an open path where quantum mechanics and religion can go together has no basis. It's important not to create confusion.

Anyway, Dostoevsky was not opposed to social Darwinism. He made a parody of a peculiar Russian Darwinist. He was against any attempt to link religion and science because he thought that science had perverse results in morality.

With systems and abstract deductions comes a sense of order and the illusion that we understand exactly how to deal with the world. — Possibility

It is one thing to defend science and another to believe that science explains everything and that there is no more rationality than science. This is a position that is rarely found among philosophers and is very common among forum scientists.

Dostoyevsky the writer transcends Dostoyevsky the thinker. — SophistiCat

Also in the paragraphs where he accuses the Jews for their demonic power of hatred towards the Russians in particular and Humanity in general? Do you enjoy these paragraphs? Also in the poems in which he manifests a doglike submission to the divine presence of the Tsar?

I'm not talking about analytically separating ideology from aesthetics in his books. I'm talking about synthetic enjoyment of an aberrant ideology finely expressed. Can aesthetic pleasure silence moral outrage?

Philosophy doesn't take sides or if I were to be more accurate, philosophers are as happy to fight for religion as they are to fight against it. — TheMadFool

I would like to know on what data you base this statement. My experience is the opposite. At the beginning of the 19th century theodicy was omnipotent. If an applicant for a professorship declared himself an atheist, he was barred from admission, and if a professor declared himself an atheist, he was expelled. At the beginning of the 21st century, theodicy is a non-existent or secondary subject in almost all faculties of philosophy. In Europe at least. Generally, religious philosophy is hidden in other subjects such as the history of religions or metaphysics (which is also in decline).

So, modern philosophy, following the impartial agnostic principle, allows us to argue for both sides of the science/religion divide - — Gnomon

Philosophy is opposed to religion in a fundamental sense: autonomy. Whatever philosophical method is defended, it must be based on the free examination of arguments on the basis of autonomous reason. There it clashes head-on with religiosity, which always puts divine norms above human ones. Every attempt to rationally demonstrate the religious faith has failed. That is why priests do not look kindly upon a rebellious philosophy that pretends to be based on itself. And if they don't take measures, it's because they no longer have the power they had in the 19th century.

I just got fed up by discussing or reading books by Christian philosophers who, as soon as they are cornered, wield the ineffable experience of faith. The most seemingly rational and prestigious like Paul Ricoeur For example.

At heart they are not very different from Dostoevsky: if reason says the opposite of faith, they choose faith. But they do not dare to say it as blatantly as he did.

The agnostic principle is not that anything goes, but that one must attack with reason what is not valid. That is, religion. That's how Thomas Huxley understood it. That fear of the "anti-religious" didn't go with him. When he had to denounce irrationality, he did so.

The problem is different for me: How can a rational man enjoy the writings of a fanatical believer in God and the Czar, such as Dostoevsky? Can aesthetic pleasure be separated from ideological fanaticism?

I don't find a simple answer.

Well, if reason = logic is bad there must be a sense in which this is true. If so, what could be a better substitute within this sense? — TheMadFool

See:

It's the æsthetic principle, as the philosophers call it, the ethical principle with which they identify it, 'the seeking for God,' as I call it more simply. — Dostoevsky, Ibid.

Reason has never had the power to define good and evil, or even to distinguish between good and evil, even approximately; on the contrary, it has always mixed them up in a disgraceful and pitiful way; science has even given the solution by the fist. This is particularly characteristic of the half-truths of science, the most terrible scourge of humanity, unknown till this century, and worse than plague, famine, or war — Dostoevsky, Ibid.

.

"Worse than a plague." You can see here the religious conservatives' hatred of science and reason. Science is the devil, without nuance. Don't forget that Dostoevsky was a fanatical believer.
Obviously Dostoevsky never justifies the reason for his hatred in objective terms. His main argument was that reason and science keep man away from Jesus Christ and promote selfishness and violence.

I find it difficult to understand how this religious fanaticism can be attractive to some who claim to be agnostics, such as Albert Camus or some French postmodernist (Kristeva, Todorov). Of course they share the contempt for science and positivism. However, one can expect more equanimity from philosophers. This is not the case. Passion and dogmatism create the illusion of strength.

Well, as I wrote in another thread, what could possibly be better than logic or even reason itself? — TheMadFool

"Better" in what sense? Epistemological, moral...?

Dostoevsky's epistemology is very weak. His political theology is a disaster. His ( relatively ) better chances are in ethics.

In a way then Doestoevsky is painfully wrong in claiming that logic does something like "distort the truth intentionally" and that to "deny the "evidence" of his senses only to justify his logic" is bad. — TheMadFool

Yes, Dostoevsky is wrong. The senses do not contradict logic, but some abuses of logic do. In opposing Chernyshevsky's narrow positivism he identifies reason or science with this kind of positivism. Notes from the Underground is dedicated to attacking Chernyshevsky's utilitarianism in the name of a "divine utilitarianism". He summarizes utilitarianism in two propositions:
Men always do what they think is best for them.
Reason can show what is best for every man.

Then Dostoevsky shows a man who, in the name of freedom and passion, chooses what is not better for himself or for others.
He extrapolates this case to every man.
And he concludes that reason=logic is not only wrong but bad.

This is the summary of Notes from the Underground.

What comes next is the justification that only belief in Jesus Christ can make men good. This is what I called "divine utilitarianism".

With respect to human beings, does a non-reflective consciousness always require that a reflective consciousness accompany it? — charles ferraro

No. Pre-reflective consciousness is the "natural" state of human beings.

How about with respect to non-human beings? — charles ferraro

Sartre's work is an anthropology. It's difficult to extrapolate it to animals. I don't know any part of his work that's dedicated to that.

I am not sure if there is a consciousness of time pre-reflexive and that happens in the development of the personal project. What is reflexive is the concept of doubt. — David Mo

I rectify: what is present to the pre-reflexive consciousness is temporality, not time. The past and the future are two aspects of being-for-itself. Past is the determinations from which I free. Future is the possibility towards I project. Everything in the very act of existence. But this is not an objective time, but a lived temporality.