What puzzles me is that mercy is so often represented as a kind of get-out-of-jail-free card that is handed out more or less at random to those who don't deserve it. How is this a good thing? — Ludwig V
Note that i haven't said that the discovery of universal metaphysical truths via intellectual intuition is obviously impossible, but that it is obviously impossible to demonstrate that what has been purportedly discovered is truly a discovery and not simply an imagining. — Janus
I'm gloomily contemplating the idea that one of the underlying cultural problems around all of this was, in fact, created by Christian culture itself, in that the way it developed inadvertently demolished the idea of the 'scala natura' and the idea of higher truth, that being deemed elitist and in contradiction of the universal salvation offered to all who would believe. — Wayfarer
So long as it remains notional, it is impotent. It requires an engagement beyond the word-processing department, so to speak. — Wayfarer
The link below says that Whitehead viewed natural laws as "emergent patterns"*1. And they are indeed emergent in the sense of our understanding of them. For example, Newton's view of Gravity has been significantly modified by Einstein. But the cosmic Law of Attraction didn't change, only our scientific & mathematical models.So, the Bang must have had the potential for purpose. — Gnomon
That would only seem to hold if you take the so-called laws of nature to be fixed and immutable from the beginning. Peirce didn't think that, and as far as I remember from studying Whitehead quite long ago, nor did he. — Janus
If the punishment prescribed for various crimes is disproportionate, then it is unjust punishment. Mercy doesn't come in to it.This begins to explain the power of mercy, I think. An impartial, unmerciful judge would treat all of us justly -- and what a terrible fate that would be! — J
Very neat. But you are over-simplifying. Injustice sometimes means being given less than you deserve (e.g. damages) But sometimes it means being given more than you deserve (e.g. punishment).Here's another way to think about it: Justice = being given what you deserve. Injustice = being given less than you deserve. Mercy = being given more than you deserve. — J
Perhaps "definition" is the wrong word here. I just meant that people disagree about what a good life for human beings is. But those disagreements are taking place in a context where some things are agreed, or not contested. For example, there would need to be broad agreement on which creatures are human beings.Disagree with each other over what? The definition of a word? — goremand
This begins to explain the power of mercy, I think. An impartial, unmerciful judge would treat all of us justly -- and what a terrible fate that would be!
— J
If the punishment prescribed for various crimes is disproportionate, then it is unjust punishment. Mercy doesn't come in to it. — Ludwig V
Here's another way to think about it: Justice = being given what you deserve. Injustice = being given less than you deserve. Mercy = being given more than you deserve.
— J
Very neat. But you are over-simplifying. — Ludwig V
A fair distinction. The individual who claims to have made such a discovery may be in the position of indeed having done so, but being faced with the impossibility of ever demonstrating it. (I still don't think anything here is obvious, but no matter. :smile: ) — J
Well, yes. But then philosophy is in direct competition with religion - or, maybe, religion is a species of philosophy for those who don't grasp the point, or importance, of reason.
What people don't seem to face up to that even asking that question presupposes a complex conceptual structure which needs to be in place to enable potential answers to be articulated and evaluated.
I also have serious difficulty that our problem is in any way articulated as a list of options on a menu, from which we choose. Who writes the menu? Perhaps we live as we must and the only question is how far we can mitigate the down-sides that turn up in every item on on the menu. — Ludwig V
Then, from Gods perspective it might be good when people suffer. And since his opinion is the only one that matters, — goremand
So, you don't think it is obviously impossible to demonstrate that a speculative metaphysical claim (purportedly) based on reliable intuition is just that rather than something merely imagined? If you believe that, one might ask then why such has not already been demonstrated such that no impartial person could reasonably question its veracity. — Janus
That two option analysis seems to be a slam-dunk for critics of Judeo-Christian-Islamic theology. But, since our world is pretty good --- stop and smell the roses --- but not yet perfect, and it does include suffering of sentient beings, I have considered a third option. What if this world was not created as an instant Paradise, but as an experiment in Cosmic Creation*1, similar to Whitehead's evolutionary Process*2?Either God would have liked to create a perfect world free of suffering but was unable to do so, or didn't realize what he had done in creating the world, or else such a god simply does not exist in which case there is no "problem of Suffering". — Janus
What if this world was not created as an instant Paradise, but as an experiment in Cosmic Creation*1, similar to Whitehead's evolutionary Process — Gnomon
A fascinating and difficult issue. If philosophy is understood as an ideal form of rationalism, then I do think it "stops at the door" of spiritual or religious forms of life. But you're pointing out that it doesn't have to be understood that way. Philosophy might be a doorway to a higher, non- or super-rational truth. But on this construal, it raises the problem of elitism, just as you say. Or, if "elitism" is a bit worn-out as a term, we could say "privileged access." — J
It certainly offends most Christian ears that access to the highest and most God-like realities is limited to a few who have walked the difficult path of philosophical knowledge. But this possibility is surely there as far back as the Gospels -- only it's not the intellectual or rational path that is difficult, but the ethical one. When Jesus (in one of his rare moments of humor) tells the rich young man who's done everything right that there's "just one more thing" he has to do -- give all his riches to the poor and join the Jesus followers -- he's making it clear that the kind of "salvation" the young man wants is not for everyone, but only for those who are really willing to go all the way in their lives, not their thoughts. That can't be very many, then or now. — J
Our minds do not—contrary to many views currently popular—create truth. Rather, they must be conformed to the truth of things given in creation. And such conformity is possible only as the moral virtues become deeply embedded in our character, a slow and halting process. We have, he writes on one occasion, “lost the awareness of the close bond that links the knowing of truth to the condition of purity.” That is, in order to know the truth we must become persons of a certain sort. The full transformation of character that we need will, in fact, finally require the virtues of faith, hope, and love. And this transformation will not necessarily—perhaps not often—be experienced by us as easy or painless. Hence the transformation of self that we must—by God’s grace—undergo “perhaps resembles passing through something akin to dying.” — Obituary for Josef Pieper, Thomistic Philosopher
We've reached the end of our conversation, because it has circled back to the point where you are saying the opposite of what I said earlier which was that it is only human opinions which matter. — Janus
That's a really good question. The only answer I can offer to support a claim that such demonstration has not only been impossible in the past, just as it is now, but that it inevitably will be so in the future, would be that when it comes to introspected intuitions we always will be working with the same data, that is the human mind, that we have always been working with.
In science we may be working with previously unknown data, newly discovered phenomena, and I think this has clearly happened in the history of science. But when it comes to the purely speculative metaphysical ideas, unless we admit science into the equation and don't rely solely on intuitions (which has certainly happened in some metaphysical quarters) there would seem to be no new data to work with. — Janus
. . . there would seem to be no new data to work with. . . . Metaphysical ideas seem to be, to repeat loosely something I remember reading somewhere that Hegel said: "the same old stew reheated". I would add to that and say "the same old ancient stew reheated". — Janus
That’s why in classical and ancient thought, the line between philosophy and religion was so often porous: philosophy led you to the threshold, but what lay beyond it required something other than reason alone — Wayfarer
But despite earnest efforts I never made much headway with the 'path of seeing' - more like fragmentary glimpses briefly illumined by lightning, so to speak (although leaving an enduring trace). — Wayfarer
We have, he writes on one occasion, “lost the awareness of the close bond that links the knowing of truth to the condition of purity.” That is, in order to know the truth we must become persons of a certain sort. — Obituary for Josef Pieper, Thomistic Philosopher
Our intuitions are not universal and unchanging. They are influenced by experience, exposure to ideas (from science, but also from history, philosophy, religion), socioeconomic conditions, moral attitudes... That's not to say that there is some fixed asymptote towards which our collective metaphysical intuitions are inevitably converging. They may well diverge, swing and meander this way and that forevermore. — SophistiCat
Are questions considered to be data? It looks to me like the questions that philosophy poses keep changing, era to era and tradition to tradition. And yes, the data that philosophers then appeal to in order to answer those questions tend to be more or less the same -- with a big exception for current advances in cognitive science. — J
That said, I have some sympathy for those, like Wittgenstein, who want to use (a version of) philosophy to free us from metaphysical fly-bottles. — J
I'm not crazy about the "purity" theme, but this certainly sets out the problem concisely: What sort of person must I be, or become, in order to pass across that threshold? We all know the usual suspects: "I must become intellectually accomplished (good at philosophy)." "I must become ethically good." "I must make a certain profession of belief in an avatar." "There is no threshold; shut up and calculate."
In part it's a self-reflexive problem: If we knew how to choose among those standard answers, we would presumably also be demonstrating, in so choosing, why our answer is true or wise. Can that be done without going in circles? — J
Can that be done without going in circles? — J
I cannot imagine any argument that God's opinion matters more than human opinion or even that anyone could know God's opinion could be convincing, or that revelation could be demonstrated to be more than a human production or even that God actually can be rationally, logically, empirically or some other way, demonstrated to exist. — Janus
That said, I have some sympathy for those, like Wittgenstein, who want to use (a version of) philosophy to free us from metaphysical fly-bottles.
— J
I do too, and I think the thrust of that project was to show that such questions are to be dissolved rather than resolved. — Janus
It is the state of radical acceptance that I see as being the essence of enlightenment, and not imagined knowings of the answers to the great questions, which have never been, and I think arguably never can be, answered definitively. So "crossing the threshold" for me is a metaphor for a radical shift in our total disposition to life. — Janus
if there is no god and no meaning then needless suffering actually makes sense? It’s what you’d expect to see in a world with no inherent purpose - struggle, chaos and suffering, — Tom Storm
But if creation is about genius design and magnificent order and if God cares for us and wants a relationship with us, then suffering by apparent design does not make much sense. It seems contradictory. — Tom Storm
complaining about the God they don't believe in doing things they don't believe God ought to do. :roll: — Wayfarer
I find myself again at least philosophically more drawn to the Catholic philosophers:
Our minds do not—contrary to many views currently popular—create truth. Rather, they must be conformed to the truth of things given in creation. And such conformity is possible only as the moral virtues become deeply embedded in our character, a slow and halting process. We have, he writes on one occasion, “lost the awareness of the close bond that links the knowing of truth to the condition of purity.” That is, in order to know the truth we must become persons of a certain sort. The full transformation of character that we need will, in fact, finally require the virtues of faith, hope, and love. And this transformation will not necessarily—perhaps not often—be experienced by us as easy or painless. Hence the transformation of self that we must—by God’s grace—undergo “perhaps resembles passing through something akin to dying.”
— Obituary for Josef Pieper, Thomistic Philosopher
Amen to that. — Wayfarer
So yes, if we presume to know how God operates, and presume an all-good God would by definition care for my suffering, and presume I know what “all-good” actually means, and I suffer, then either my presumptions are false OR God doesn’t exist.
And so, if my presumptions about God may be false, it is not logically necessary to conclude God does not exist. Therefore, the conclusion of the problem of evil argument that “God does not exist”, is not necessarily a sound estimation of what actually exists and what suffering actually means. The problem of evil is a logical exercise, but not a sound estimation of God and suffering proving anything either exists or does not exist. — Fire Ologist
complaining about the God they don't believe in doing things they don't believe God ought to do. :roll:
— Wayfarer
Essentially, my whole way of thinking about the problem of evil. :100: — Fire Ologist
Ah, but which ones are the fly-bottles? :wink: Problem is, to ask "Should all metaphysical questions be dissolved rather than (if possible) resolved?" is to ask a very metaphysical question. Witt's answers, whatever their merit, also depend on evident metaphysical premises. — J
Where do we go next, with this insight? Should we conclude that the answers to such questions will never be forthcoming? Or simply never forthcoming within rational philosophy? — J
As to ego as impediment: certainly true in my ethical life. Probably in my intellectual life as well, since like anyone else I enjoy being correct about things, and get seduced by this pleasure into believing that there is no end to the topics about which I could be correct . . . see above. — J
complaining about the God they don't believe in doing things they don't believe God ought to do. :roll:
— Wayfarer
Essentially, my whole way of thinking about the problem of evil. :100:
The argument concludes the premises on which this conclusion was based make no sense, so why would anything concluded based on those premises be able to be held soundly? — Fire Ologist
To ask "Should all metaphysical questions be dissolved rather than (if possible) resolved?" is to ask a very metaphysical question. — J
Would that not be more an epistemological question? Why must we make any metaphysical assumptions at all? — Janus
I also think we don't so much find answers as new ways of looking at and thinking about things. — Janus
Yes, epistemology strictly speaking, but isn't epistemology a sub-inquiry under metaphysics? Is it possible to frame a question about what we can know, without an explicit or assumed metaphysical framework? I don't think so. — J
Whitehead's God was not defined in those "omni" terms, but described in functional roles*1. But then, his Process Philosophy was written prior to the cosmological evidence that our space-time universe had a beginning in philosophical time*2. And that apparent Creation Event would place his Immanent God into a new context : how to explain the "birth" of God/Nature. All answers to the pre-space-time questions are speculative & theoretical, not empirical & scientific. Which includes Multiverse notions. And they are only religious if they become dogmatic.Sure, it's a speculative possibility, and is not inconsistent with a creator God that is either not all-knowing and/ or not all-good, and/ or not all-powerful. Whitehead's God was understood to be evolving along with its creation. I never quite got the need for, or understood the place of, God in Whitehead's system, though. — Janus
Ah, but which ones are the fly-bottles?
Why must we make any metaphysical assumptions at all?
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.