Do you not put forward Descartes as the poster child for "instrumental reason"? — Paine
In contrast to contemporary philosophers, most 17th century philosophers held that reality comes in degrees—that some things that exist are more or less real than other things that exist. At least part of what dictates a being’s reality, according to these philosophers, is the extent to which its existence is dependent on other things: the less dependent a thing is on other things for its existence, the more real it is. — IEP
Prior to that it was accepted that reason was embedded in the fabric of the cosmos, whereas for modern philosophy it becomes subjectivized and relativized. — Wayfarer
A criminal, when punished, may look upon his punishment as a restriction of his freedom. Really the punishment is not foreign constraint to which he is subjected, but the manifestation of his own act: and if he recognizes this, he comports himself as a free man. In short, man is most independent when he knows himself to be determined by the absolute idea throughout. It was this phase of mind and conduct which Spinoza called Amor intellectualis Dei. — Logic, Hegel, section 158
For me we cannot know about God or prove it. That doesn't mean there is no Possibility of god. So i choose to be an agnostic and i believe that is the most convenient position a philosopher could hold — Abhiram
For me, the best argument against god isn't that there isn't enough evidence, but that regardless of whether or not there is evidence, the very idea of god is abhorrent. This is why I consider self-declared agnostics to be closet theists. — Joshs
As philosopher we are free to take out position about anything. For me we cannot know about God or prove it. That doesn't mean there is no Possibility of god. So i choose to be an agnostic and i believe that is the most convenient position a philosopher could hold — Abhiram
For me, the best argument against god isn't that there isn't enough evidence, but that regardless of whether or not there is evidence, the very idea of god is abhorrent. This is why I consider self-declared agnostics to be closet theists.
— Joshs
One of the more intriguing responses I've read here in a while.
But is this an argument or more of reaction? Which very idea of god is abhorrent? — Tom Storm
I have in mind the platonic idea of god as an absolute substance, content, form, quality. A sun around which all objects revolve. An unfalsifiable, unchangeable criterion for the true, the real and the good. This idea is abhorrent to me because it is conformist, restrictive and violent in its sanction of blameful
moralisms. — Joshs
Is it truly the idea of God that is abhorrent, Platonic or otherwise? Or, is it what we have done to that via the corruptible vehicle of so called religion? I.e., the former, an absolute criterion for the true and real; the latter conformist, restrictive and violent in its sanction of blameful moralisms — ENOAH
So... if a philosopher arrives at a hypothesis of the Absolute Being of all beings; and derived therefrom, a corresponding morality; a strict deontology, she is no less offensivel than an adherent to a religion who subscribes to an Absolute God and a corresponding morality? It's not strictly the idea of God that is abhorrent, but adherence to any Absolute because of the threat such adherence brings to morality? — ENOAH
Good question. I have in mind the platonic idea of god as an absolute substance, content, form, quality. A sun around which all objects revolve. An unfalsifiable, unchangeable criterion for the true, the real and the good. This idea is abhorrent to me because it is conformist, restrictive and violent in its sanction of blameful
moralisms. — Joshs
The question for me, however, is whether or not 'claims about g/G (e.g. theism, deism) are demonstrably true'. AFAIK, such claims are not demonstrably true; therefore, I am an atheist.For me atheism isn't about proof that there are no gods. It's whether I believe in gods or or not. I don't believe, so i am an atheist. — Tom Storm
The question for me, however, is whether or not 'claims about g/G (e.g. theism, deism) are demonstrably true'. AFAIK, such claims are not demonstrably true; therefore, I am an atheist. — 180 Proof
Same here, despite a decade or so of Catholic Catechism, altar boy service & bible study, I couldn't shake the (naive?) question: why believe in this religion, or this god, rather than any of the others? I suspect I'd outgrown 'magical thinking' in elementary school a few years before I'd explicitly realized in high school that I did not believe in 'Christian myths'. Most of the arguments, as you say, Tom, came years later.But my initial impulse was not based on arguments as such. — Tom Storm
If you believe in an absolute criterion of the true and the real, and the rest of the world fails to be properly guided by your absolute, you won’t consider your blameful condemnation and rejection of that world to be unjustly moralistic, conformist and restrictive. If, on the other hand, you don’t believe in absolutes, you are in a much better position to avoid moralistic condemnation and rejection of others to begin with. — Joshs
. My absolute criterion is not killing kids, if the rest of the world fails to be properly guided by that, is my condemnation and rejection unjustly moralistic, or just? — Lionino
If you are utilitarian, there is no such thing as a (correct) absolute, there is only whatever will bring the greatest welfare. Maybe killing a kid to save thousands is good — some primitive societies believed so.
Your post seems to assume utilitarianism — Lionino
The assumption that people act only on self-interested motives was sometimes defended on the basis of the hedonist psychology of Jeremy Bentham, the father of utilitarianism, which held that everyone ultimately "really" desires only a subjective psychological quantity (called "pleasure" by Bentham) and that this "quantity" was a purely subjective matter. As John Dewey put it long ago,
"When happiness is conceived of as an aggregate of states of feeling, these are regarded as homogenous in quality, different from one another only in intensity and duration. Their qualitative differences are not intrinsic, but are due to the different objects with which they are associated (as pleasures of hearing, or vision). Hence they disappear when the pleasure is taken by itself as an end."
This disappearance of the qualitative differences is (as far as importance to the agent's "happiness" is concerned), of course, just what makes it possible for the utilitarian to speak of "summing pleasures, "maximizing" them, and so on. But if Dewey's alternative view is right (as I believe), and if
“agreeableness is precisely the agreeableness or congruence of some objective condition with some impulse, habit, or tendency of the agent,"
then
"of course, pure pleasure is a myth. Any pleasure is qualitatively unique, being precisely the harmony of one set of conditions with its appropriate activity. The pleasure of eating is one thing; the pleasure of hearing music, another; the pleasure of an amiable act, another; the pleasure of drunkenness or of anger is still another."
Dewey continues,
"Hence the possibility of absolutely different moral values attaching to pleasures, according to the type or aspect of character which they express. But if the good is only a sum of pleasures, any pleasure, so far as it goes, is as good as any other-the pleasure of malignity as good as the pleasure of kindness, simply as pleasure.”
The problem with utilitarianism is its need to universalize the concept of pleasure. As Hilary Putnam writes of Dewey’s critique of utilitarianism: — Joshs
But this misses the point, which is that for those who actually believe in God, it has real consequences. Whereas to believe that it's simply a 'puzzle-solver is a meaningless hypothetical. — Wayfarer
It is clear from this how potent a wise person is and how much more effective he is than an ignorant person who is driven by lust alone. For apart from the fact that an ignorant person is agitated in many ways by external causes and never has true contentment of spirit, he also lives, we might say, ignorant of himself and of God and of things, and as soon as he ceases to be acted on, at the same time he also ceases to be. — ibid. part 5 proposition 42
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