It's pointless arguing against convinced unbelief. It's the mirror image of the conviction that it denies. So it amounts to holding an anti-religious attitude with religious conviction. 'Beasts are driven to the pasture by blows', said Heraclitus. — Wayfarer

Pass me the whip then please X-)

But when it comes to 'what is the point of survival, really' - which is another way of asking the question, 'what does life really mean' - science doesn't have anything to say. — Wayfarer

We don't need science to tell us that we want to survive, and more, we want to live and even more still, that we want to flourish.

Because the fact that drinking the milk will eliminate the discomfort of hunger is not an a priori given, but must be taken on faith. If the child did not have this faith, they would refuse the mother's breast, and would not drink the milk. — Agustino

You assume the child trusts that it's good, not merely that he instinctively desires it. If you gave him a bottle of bleach he'd suck it. The trust, therefore, in his mother derives first from the instinct to suckle.

Yes, this unremarkable, mundane and uncontroversial kind of faith is the same as religious faith. The only difference is the object or person of that faith. — Agustino

They're the same but different??

In what sense are they different in practice, apart from the faith being directed towards a different person/object? — Agustino

A baby's trust in its mother is not the same as one who has faith in some religious ideal. The ideals tell you that they're good, and you ought to trust them, the baby trusting its mother is blind.

Want to live, need to flourish? That's what I'd get on board with, :)

We don't need science to tell us that we want to survive, and more, we want to live and even more still, that we want to flourish. — Janus

You should tell that to the anti-natalists and nihilists, not me.

Yes, but the point is that we know this directly without having to believe anything about a "higher" meaning of life. People say life has no inherent value; but this is bullshit based on vainly attempting to look at life from a 'sublimed' purely dispassionate viewpoint. Life, as such, and how much more so flourishing, obviously has inherent value to human beings; the question as to whether it has value "in itself" is meaningless.

Yes, but the point is that we know this directly without having to believe anything about a "higher" meaning of life. — Janus

I don't see any philosophical insight in that. I think there is a generalised problem of the human condition, the malaise which philosophy has set out to cure, which has been lost sight of. In some ways it is like a religious instinct, but it differs because it seeks reasons, considers perspectives, and doesn't simply recite articles of faith.

So as I said to BitterCrank, if you find life is good, without reference to such ideas, then good on you.
But without there being a sense of 'higher' and 'lower', how is the moral compass to be directed? What is the basis of moral principles? The principles we've inherited in this culture - respect for persons, rule of law, civil rights, private ownership, 'do unto others' - were all thrashed out over centuries of conflict and resolution, and laid down on principles that were originally religious in nature, because they provide a validation of what really is good, irrespective of your or my opinion of it. I think we're still living on the momentum of that, but it is rapidly diminishing. Or seems so to me.

I don't see any philosophical insight in that. — Wayfarer

Well, I can't help that, since it's due to your particular set of presuppositions. I do understand very well where you are coming from, though, since I have previously come from a more or less similar place myself.

Yeah, don’t know what happened..... ;-)

My ideas have evolved. I have discarded what I understand to be incoherent; namely the idea that there is any valid spiritual authority and that it can be imposed from above.

This is not to deny that many people cannot do without spiritual authority; to those are told the noble lies.

On the other hand, I have not rejected as much as you might imagine.

My feeling is that it’s because you see it as ‘something imposed from above’ or always a matter of authority, that is behind a lot of what you say. I see it as an order that I must recognise - that after all is the meaning of ‘dharma’ - but it’s up to myself to respond to it.

I see Dharma or Dao or 'the Truth that sets us free' as a natural order, which is also a social order. The Golden Rule reflects the reality of conscience, and social reasonableness. We don't need to concern ourselves with an afterlife, but with how to authentically live and die well.

Well, if you think naturalism is the answer, then fair enough. As it happens, I don't.

You assume the child trusts that it's good, not merely that he instinctively desires it. — Buxtebuddha

That's the same thing worded differently. That he instinctively desires one thing is just the same as he trusts that it's good.

A baby's trust in its mother is not the same as one who has faith in some religious ideal. The ideals tell you that they're good, and you ought to trust them, the baby trusting its mother is blind. — Buxtebuddha

The ideals invite you to trust them, just like your mother invites you to trust her that the milk she gives you is good. You trust the one, but not the other. Why? Because in the meantime, you've learned to distrust.

An Idea, perhaps?

That's the same thing worded differently. That he instinctively desires one thing is just the same as he trusts that it's good. — Agustino

My point has been that mere belief in x or y being good does not make x or y good. As I said, the baby trusts that a bottle of bleach is good to suckle, before realizing, no, no that's no good.

The ideals invite you to trust them, just like your mother invites you to trust her that the milk she gives you is good. You trust the one, but not the other. Why? Because in the meantime, you've learned to distrust. — Agustino

This perhaps depends upon what one's first experience is. Not every child's first experience is set up for the trusting of something that is in fact good. The mangled-born Spartan baby born is thrown on a hillside after his cries were ignored. He never got to receive the good post-trust. He is born, and then dies.

I don't think science has all the answers, if that's what you mean; but you already know that. On the other hand concerning ourselves with an imaginary supernatural really amounts to concerning ourselves with nothing, as I see it.

The religious or spiritual life consists in feeling, NOW, in THIS life.

So, what you're saying is that whilst science doesn't have all the answers, talking about what is beyond science really amounts to saying nothing - which is basically the attitude of positivism.

We may define a metaphysical sentence as a sentence which purports to express a genuine proposition, but does, in fact, express neither a tautology nor an empirical hypothesis. And as tautologies and empirical hypotheses form the entire class of significant propositions, we are justified in concluding that all metaphysical assertions are nonsensical. — A J Ayer, Language Truth and Logic

Your issue is that you don't have a philosophical lexicon for the discussion of what is beyond the scope of naturalism, even though you recognise naturalism's limits. You will acknowledge that the 'experience of the sacred' is indeed real, and carries intrinsic authority - but only in a subjective or first-person sense. Nothing can be said about it which is of value to philosophy. So you're constantly criticising anything I venture in the area of Platonist metaphysics, as it appears to you as a transgression of what philosophy ought to concern itself with, which for you is strictly secular. Otherwise it represents 'an appeal to authority' which you see as 'imposed from above', which you equate with 'the imaginary supernatural'.

By the way, on the background to Wittgenstein's oft-quoted aphorism, 'That of which we cannot speak....' I read that as basically being in the tradition of apophatic philosophy. The fact that it was then (mis)appropriated by the Vienna Circle as an argument against the transcendent or the mystical, was a misinterpretation of Wittgenstein's intent, as explained in this article on The Folly of Logical Positivism.

No, there is plenty we can talk about which is beyond the scope of science. You mentioned Wittgenstein; well, he was totally against any notion of reducing philosophy to science.

So, I am familiar enough with lexicons of meaning beyond the ambit of science; I just don't agree that there is any sensible lexicon that deals with purportedly supernatural entities. Kant made this point, Wittgenstein made this point. The difference between Wittgenstein and the positivists that are usually associated with the Vienna School, is that he did not believe that philosophy is reducible to empirical propositions.

"That of which we cannot speak" is meant to be taken seriously; and Wittgenstein adhered to his principle and didn't attempt to speak about those things, such as ethics, aesthetics and religion that cannot be discoursed in propositional language.

If anyone lacks a lexicon I would say it is you, because you do not seem to have actually read the modern philosophers and perhaps not even the medieval and ancient philosophers, but instead seem to rely on Wiki quotes and book reviews to get a sense of what they are all talking about. This inevitably leads to a distorted picture, I would say.

You will acknowledge that the 'experience of the sacred' is indeed real, and carries intrinsic authority - but only in a subjective or first-person sense. — Wayfarer

This is untrue. I don't believe "experiences of the sacred" carry any authority whatsoever, beyond their power of affectivity and conviction, and this is an 'inner' matter, not an imposition of something purportedly "higher". I also believe that power is not merely subjective, but it doesn't tell us anything we can sensibly argue about. We all have it within us to respond to the good, the beautiful, and the numinous, but this fact tells us nothing about anything metaphysical. Such experiences cannot coherently be objectified in the kinds of ways you seem to want to objectify them: in terms of "realms" or "higher authority" or "transcendent being".

It’s simply your mindset against anything you deem ‘supernatural’, which includes an awful lot.

We all have it within us to respond to the good, the beautiful and the numinous, but this fact tells us nothing about anything metaphysical. — Janus

Do they have any place in philosophy at all, then, or they simply passed over in silence?

If anyone lacks a lexicon I would say it is you, because you do not seem to have actually read the modern philosophers and perhaps not even the medieval and ancient philosophers, but instead seem to rely on Wiki quotes and book reviews to get a sense of what they are all talking about. This inevitably leads to a distorted picture, I would say. — Janus

I don’t claim to be an authority in philosophy. What I do is refer to such materials in support of a general approach or perspective, which I believe that overall I present quite coherently.

That is always said with the apparent conviction that none of the religious literature of the Judeo-Christian tradition actually constitutes evidence. I mean, it is simply swept off the table with the gesture of it 'not being empirical science', as though it is thereby settled that nothing in it ever happened, that the whole corpus is simply the superstitious accretions of the pre-scientific mentality. Never mind that it is read out at weddings and funerals, and that billions of people still live by it; there's no 'evidence'. — Wayfarer

The problem for me Wayfarer, as someone who argued for years about the evidence in support of the Judeo-Christian tradition, is that although there is evidence, my contention now is that it's very weak testimonial evidence. The question, at least for me, is what conclusions can one reasonably draw from the available testimonial evidence. The main question is, does the evidence point to the existence of the Judeo-Christian God; and I don't see how one can reasonably conclude based on the available evidence the such a God exists.

When I wrote my thread on NDEs, in terms of consciousness surviving the body, I believe I gave a mountain of testimonial evidence in terms of numbers, variety, consistency, and objective verification of the testimonial evidence, but there is nothing like this in terms of the evidence that supports the God of the Bible. I'm mainly talking about first-hand accounts, not hearsay accounts, which most of the NT accounts, especially for the resurrection, are hearsay. For example, that 500 witnesses saw Christ after his death - pure hearsay.

So when you say evidence, I'm not sure what evidence you're referring too, and what conclusions can be reasonable drawn from this evidence.

but instead seem to rely on Wiki quotes and book reviews to get a sense of what they are all talking about. This inevitably leads to a distorted picture, I would say. — Janus

Yeah, this is an important point. Many times I've first read Wiki and other secondary sources before diving into a philosopher, and it turns out that by reading them I got a completely different impression than by reading the secondary sources. One such philosopher was Spinoza, or why not, even Wittgenstein. Sometimes I do wonder how come the Wiki is so far off the actual philosopher.

Such experiences cannot coherently be objectified in the kinds of ways you seem to want to objectify them: in terms of "realms" or "higher authority" or "transcendent being". — Janus

So, Wayfarer, of what use is metaphysics? Because it seems to me that one can read and become acquainted with many many metaphysical theories, and still not "feel" any differently about his or her life.

It’s simply your mindset against anything you deem ‘supernatural’, which includes an awful lot. — Wayfarer

It's up to you if you want to encapsulate it like that rather than respond to points made.

Do they have any place in philosophy at all, then, or they simply passed over in silence? — Wayfarer

I believe that philosophy should be descriptive, as with Wittgenstein and phenomenology. The fact that we have it within us to respond to the good, the beautiful and the numinous is obviously of great significance to any philosophy that wants to describe and understand the human condition. When it comes to metaphysics, though, we are left with speculation that exercises our capacities of imagination and logic. The logic part is very important for speculative metaphysics; and I believe Spinoza is the greatest exponent here. But we have to realize with Kant and Wittgenstein that our speculations are just that; they don't give us any firm knowledge of reality comparable to how science can. We have nothing independent of our imaginations and logic (the logic is the part that checks for consistency) to test our speculations against. Mystical experience cannot provide such a testing ground, because mystical experiences tell us nothing solid about metaphysics, about reality and lest of all about any purported "higher reality".

I don’t claim to be an authority in philosophy. What I do is refer to such materials in support of a general approach or perspective, which I believe that overall I present quite coherently. — Wayfarer

I don't claim to be any authority in philosophy either. We don't have to be in order to come on here and share our ideas, and critique our own and others' ideas. I always try to avoid offering any opinion on aspects of philosophy that I have not studied adequately, though I might ask questions if I am interested to learn more.

[In respect of the Biblical tradition] I'm not sure what evidence you're referring too, and what conclusions can be reasonable drawn from this evidence. — Sam26

Simply the fact that it exists, along with the commentarial tradition that grew up around it over the centuries. You can be agnostic (as I am) but still not assume that it's all simply historical delusion and myth. Many people put it all in the same category as computer games or fantasy novels; that is one of the manifestations of the cultural nihilism that we're discussing elsewhere. (And a lot of people are unknowingly nihilist.)

So, Wayfarer, of what use is metaphysics? Because it seems to me that one can read and become acquainted with many many metaphysical theories, and still not "feel" any differently about his or her life. — Agustino

Metaphysics doesn't serve any purpose. Aristotle says this somewhere, but I can't find the reference, but the point is, it doesn't have a utilitarian or instrumental value. They are ideas that are contemplated for their own sake, purely because we as rational beings are able to contemplate them, and are fortunate to be able to do so.

As regards 'feeling differently' - I feel as though I did undergo a genuine Platonist epiphany a long time ago. Epiphanies are very elusive, they generally come and go in an instant. You could compare them to being out at night, and there's a lightning flash, and it reveals something amazing - just for long enough to see that it's there, and something about its nature - and then it falls dark again, but you still have a memory of what you saw.

In my case, it was the insight into the non-material reality of number. My very first post on philosophy forum was about this very idea. But when you try to explain it, you get funny looks.

There's a passage on Augustine and intelligible objects which I hark back to frequently, which strikes me as being of profound importance (although it gets the same response, most of the time):

In his Confessions, Augustine reports that his inability to conceive of anything incorporeal was "the most important and virtually the only cause" of his errors. The argument from De Libero Arbitrio shows how Augustine managed, with the aid of Platonist direction and argument, to overcome this cognitive limitation. By focussing on objects perceptible to the mind alone and by observing their nature, in particular their eternity and immutability, Augustine came to see that certain things that clearly exist, namely, the objects of the intelligible realm, cannot be corporeal. Then he cries out in the midst of his vision of the Divine Nature, "Is truth nothing just because it is not diffused through space, either finite or infinite?" he is acknowledging that it is the discovery of intelligible truth that first frees him to comprehend incorporeal reality.

Now, in that phrase above, I would not say of the 'intelligible things' that they 'clearly exist', but that they are real. They're real in a noetic or intelligible manner, but in a different mode to the reality of phenomenal objects. Whereas hardly anyone seems to get that there could be any other level or domain of being, than the phenomenal domain. You know the expression 'out there somewhere'? That is usually said of anything we might be considering the reality of - that it's 'out there somewhere', which denotes that it's real or that it exists. And for most of us, 'what exists' and 'what is real' are the same. We have an instinctive world-picture in which we picture ourselves as intelligent subjects in the world described by the natural sciences; and because it's instinctive, we're for the large part unaware of it; it's simply reality to us, it is 'what everyone thinks'. So seeing through that, or realising that it is literally just an attitude or mental construction - that does change you. Realising that 'what exists' - the phenomenal domain known to science - is only one slice or aspect or domain of reality, is indeed 'a realisation'. It's not simply understanding a verbal description. There's another Platonistic term, namely, metanoia, which nowadays is (unfortunately) translated as 'conversion', but it means something more profound than that. It's like a noetic transformation, a different way of understanding the nature of existence. And, sure, that does completely change how you 'feel' about life.

But, all that said, metaphysics is still only a verbal or discursive exercise. I think that is why, when Aquinas had his late life crisis/epiphany, he declared 'compared with what I have seen, all I have written seems as straw', and he stopped writing altogether (I once thought a great Comparative Religion essay question would be: 'Nāgārjuna starts here. Comment.) So, like a ladder, once metaphysics has served its purpose it can be discarded. But most people discard it before they climb it, or even know what it is, and there's a profound difference between going beyond metaphysics, and falling short of it.

But we have to realize with Kant and Wittgenstein that our speculations are just that; they don't give us any firm knowledge of reality comparable to how science can. — Janus

With all due respect, here I think is where you are mistaken. Because science can only give us certain knowledge of either those things that we are capable of treating in objective terms, along with what can be mathematically proven; of the domain of phenomena. But that is not all there is to reality.

That article in Philosophy Now clarifies this in respect of Wittgenstein. It explains how Wittgenstein underwent something of a conversion experience during WW1 after having found a copy of Tolstoy's The Gospels in Brief just before going into service.

Hence the key paragraph 6.522 in the Tractatus:

“There are indeed things that cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical.”

In other words, there is a categorically different kind of truth from that which we can state in empirically or logically verifiable propositions. These different truths fall on the other side of the demarcation line of the principle of verification.

Wittgenstein’s intention in asserting this is precisely to protect matters of value from being disparaged or debunked by scientifically-minded people such as the Logical Positivists of the Vienna Circle. He put his view beyond doubt in this sequence of paragraphs:

6.41 The sense of the world must lie outside the world. In the world everything is as it is and happens as it does happen. In it there is no value – and if there were, it would be of no value. If there is value which is of value, it must lie outside of all happening and being-so. For all happening and being-so is accidental. What makes it non-accidental cannot lie in the world, for otherwise this would again be accidental. It must lie outside the world.”

In other words, all worldly actions and events are contingent (‘accidental’), but matters of value are necessarily so, for they are ‘higher’ or too important to be accidental, and so must be outside the world of empirical propositions:

“6.42 Hence also there can be no ethical propositions. Propositions cannot express anything higher.

6.421 It is clear that ethics cannot be expressed. Ethics is transcendental.”

Young philosopher Frank Ramsey, who helped to translate the first English edition of the Tractatus, remarked that to describe ethics as ‘nonsense but important nonsense’ is too much like having one’s cake and eating it. This is surprisingly glib coming from Ramsey, whom we can assume had read Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (as Wittgenstein certainly had), and would know the famous line in its Preface: that Kant had “found it necessary to deny knowledge, in order to make room for faith.” By this Kant meant that he denied an exclusively scientific worldview – a worldview that the Vienna Circle, including A. J. Ayer, had taken for granted. Kant’s purpose was to justify our conceiving of ourselves as rational agents who can through free will freely govern ourselves by the moral law. For Kant, for free moral choice to be possible, our will must not be constrained by the deterministic grip of the laws of nature that apply to the physical world. So our moral choices must be made independently of nature. So for both Kant and Wittgenstein, ethics is definitely transcendental. There are mysteries beyond the reach of human reason – totally beyond it, so that even all theological explanations are necessarily wrong. The most we can hope for is that our words may make our ignorance known to ourselves.

So, sure, we can't attain scientific knowledge of what is a fortiori beyond science. Which is why metaphysics is tentative and very general. But it does concern a domain of knowledge which precedes or underlies the phenomenal domain. Wittgenstein's approach was, as I said, apophatic - 'saying by not saying'. But it's a mistake to think that he too only believed in the reality of the domain of the sciences. Nor did Kant. They were both very scrupulous about the limits of language and logic, but they were also concerned to point out those limits.

Now you can say, therefore, that knowledge of 'what is beyond these limits' depends on faith - I guess that is how it must appear. But if you can actually see those limits, in the sense of understanding the nature and shortcomings of verbal/discursive thought, then to that extent, and in that sense, you see beyond them. That, I think, is the meaning of the gnosis, jñāna or prajñāpāramitā in Greek, Hindu and Buddhist philosophy, respectively.

You've totally misinterpreted what I said. I never said that Wittgenstein denied there was knowledge beyond the sciences. I can't see anything in that article, however lightweight and tendentious I might think it is, that does anything but support what I have been saying. If you think there is, then perhaps you could point it out.

In any case Philosophy Now is not a particularly reliable source, so how can you say what Wittgenstein's approach is when you haven't read his works, or even important secondary works about his philosophy?

Janus: But we have to realize with Kant and Wittgenstein that our speculations are just that; they don't give us any firm knowledge of reality comparable to how science can.

Wayfarer: With all due respect, here I think is where you are mistaken. Because science can only give us certain knowledge of either those things that we are capable of treating in objective terms, along with what can be mathematically proven; of the domain of phenomena. But that is not all there is to reality. — Wayfarer

Kant denies that we can have any other kind of knowledge apart from what he calls synthetic a prioiri knowledge. This is introspective knowledge about the forms he believed our experiences and judgements must take. Wittgenstein said we can only have propositional knowledge about matters of fact. The "more" that you say there is to reality is "that whereof we cannot speak". It can be shown; in our ethical actions, in art, music and literature, and so on; but it cannot be said. That is exactly what I have been saying all along. It puzzles me that you apparently cannot see that.

It is the domain of feeling, not of pure rationality. Of course we can reason, in a practical sense, about what we think we ought to believe on account of our feelings; but that is not pure reason, and I also think it is questionable; I don't accept the imperative, as Kant frames it, it doesn't work.

Mystical experience cannot provide such a testing ground, because mystical experiences tell us nothing solid about metaphysics, about reality and lest of all about any purported "higher reality". — Janus

I think that this is a too pessimistic evaluation of the epistemic force of mystical experiences.