(This was extracted from another thread. As far as I see it this is the most relevant topic to this entire forum. I will explain why. Many emotive assertions are being made on this forum to characterize philosophical actions, but these assertions are not themselves philosophical. I hope on this thread we can attempt to hash out the dialectical ethics of philosophy. Many people are claiming that polemical activities are somehow a moral violation of philosophy's program, I contend that this is false and that polemics are the very heart of philosophy, to attack them through this emotive framework is to betray philosophy.)


I do not wish to go off on that tangent in this thread. Here, one can take it as an ideal standard for human cognition I am rejecting. — Dfpolis


Wait a second. This is not fair, it is intellectually dishonest. You were the one who introduced "divine knowledge." We have got to get something straight on this Forum. It is not okay to point the finger at those who call out this kind of stuff as somehow derailing the thread, that is not philosophical, it is emotional. Philosophy precisely targets and calls out these kind of loaded terms. (Divine knowledge is part of your central argument). It reminds me of Plantinga with Michael Tooley, Plantinga is allowed to just use a thousand general terms and fantastic concepts, and no one is allowed to call them out? How can this be philosophy? No friend, you don't get to bring this kind of stuff up and then evade your burden of proof. If that's what this Forum is about then it's not a philosophy forum.

Of course, you don't want to explain these fantastic terms, the burden of proof here is too great and you know it, hence you feign to some kind of false nobility. My real problem with it is that it's hypocritical and unphilosophical.

So far as we know based on evidence there is no such thing as "divine knowledge," how then do you introduce this term into philosophy? If it's a mere hypothetical it's a nonsense hypothetical because it doesn't even have a probability, it's a religious assertion.

I'm open to all counter views here, but if the legitimacy of a counter position is only sustained by rejecting the very essence of philosophy's negativity, then we are no longer doing philosophy, we are playing a different game.

Because thinkers identify with their beliefs, which is a huge mistake, this is why they get so emotional and defensive when it comes to refutation. As philosophers we must learn to grow past such immaturity. Real philosophy will always produce psychological pain in one form or another. If it's not producing this you are doing it wrong because philosophy is directly set against man's primitive psychology -- man's psychology is not philosophy, but is thwarted by it. This is painful.