I referred to metaphysics. This is about the lack of fixity our ideas have at the basic level. — Constance
Ideas' meanings are derived from the contexts in which they are found. But contexts are determinative or finite. "The world" possesses in its meaning "that which is not contextual" I am arguing. — Constance
...This is the metaphysical ground of ethics, where ethics, and therefore religion, acquires its foundation. — Constance
The narrative account in question refers to the religious narrative that is the stuff that sermons are made out of, and all the bad metaphysics. Not about narrative as such. — Constance
The assertion "Philosophy wants to know what things are at the most basic level of inquiry" is attributing wants to things that are incapable of forming/having them. I'd charge anthropomorphism; however, humans are not the only creatures capable of wanting things.
Philosophy is something that is practiced. Practices are not the sort of things that 'want to know' anything. Practitioners are.
— creativesoul
"Attributing wants to things"? A bit left fieldish. — Constance
We move through life never questioning these engagements in a culture, and as a result, we never realize our "true" nature. — Astrophel
You are close when you say "It may refer to the fact that no one chooses the socioeconomic circumstances they are born into." Right. But when one does choose, she is already IN a lifestyle, a language, a body of meaningful institutions. This is one's throwness. — Astrophel
If you're attempting to equate ethics with "being thrown into disease, and countless miseries, as well as the joys, blisses, and the countless delights" then I'll have to walk. That makes no sense whatsoever.
— creativesoul
Just ask, what IS ethics? This is not to ask Kant's question, or MIll's, but it is a question of ontology; not what should one do, but what is the very nature of the ethical and therefore religious imposition. So, if you take no interest in such a thing, then you probably should, as you say, walk. — Constance
Nah. It did not begin by thinking about thinking practices as subject matters in their own right. — creativesoul
How do you know without knowing what "the basic level" includes? — creativesoul
Assertion, not argument. — creativesoul
As if all religion is existentially dependent upon a fairly recent philosophical practice we've named metaphysics? — creativesoul
Bullshit.
The narrative in question was all narrative. — creativesoul
They don't get to choose so it makes no sense whatsoever to say otherwise... — creativesoul
Who needs goalposts anyway?
Ethics is not equivalent to spinoffs and extrapolations from/of Heiddy's thought. — creativesoul
Philosophy wants to know what things are at the most basic level of inquiry, and the narrative account is the first thing to go. — Astrophel
How do you know without knowing what "the basic level" includes?
— creativesoul
One discovers the basic level through inquiry. — Constance
Religion is about metaphysics...
— Astrophel
Nah. It did not begin by thinking about thinking practices as subject matters in their own right. — creativesoul
Nah. It did not begin by thinking about thinking practices as subject matters in their own right.
— creativesoul
But metaphysics is not about thinking practices. — Constance
...religion is about the dimension of our existence called value. Religion is about metavalue, metaethics, metaaesthetics. — Constance
Metaethics is discovered IN the analysis of mundane ethics. — Constance
Religion is about metavalue, metaethics, metaaesthetics. — Constance
"States of people's minds" suggests that you are either a relativist or a subjectivist. Or have I misunderstood? I do agree, however, that the binary classification between objective and subjective is most unhelpful when applied to ethics. — Ludwig V
There is something of a battle going on at the moment between belief and knowledge as the appropriate category. The (mistaken) idea that the difference between belief and knowledge means that saying one believes in God implies some sort of uncertainty, so people who strongly believe in God want to claim to know, while people who don't believe in God (or don't believe that belief in God can be rationally justified) cannot possibly concede that. It's very confusing. — Ludwig V
I always resist labels. They are supposed to be shorthand for complex views, but in practice they enable people to pigeon-hole where they have arguments prepared. It saves thought, which is almost always a bad thing. The objective/subjective distinction is another example of the same kind.As best i can bring myself to adopt a label, its emotivism. — AmadeusD
That seems paradoxical. But if one believes on faith, especially in the case of religious belief, one may well believe that what one believes cannot be known, on the assumption that knowledge requires evidence and proof.There is nothing coherent about claiming a belief and not knowledge unless you also claim the thing cannot be known — AmadeusD
I would say that a belief must be capable of being true and most people think that religious doctrines are true or false. — Ludwig V
You may not be able to apply a certain framework to the claim, but I "believe" there's a Yule log in my fridge, it's because I have sufficient reason to believe so. That is, on the personal level, knowledge. — AmadeusD
Our minds do not—contrary to many views currently popular—create truth. Rather, they conform 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 "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.”
Here is a statement from a highly-regarded Catholic philosopher, Joseph Pieper, with whom I have only passing familiarity:
Our minds do not—contrary to many views currently popular—create truth. Rather, they conform 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 "lost the awareness of the close bond that links the knowing of truth to the condition of purity.” — Wayfarer
I'm happy to agree that religious beliefs, on the whole, are not empirical - although Christ's Resurrection is often claimed (isn't it?) to be a historical (empirical) fact. But the idea that believing them requires certain qualities of character looks like an empirical claim to me.The difficult point about religious doctrines, in particular, is that they generally demand certainly qualities of character. — Wayfarer
I think what we call reality (human thought and perspectives) are contingent artefacts (products of social construction and language) which more or less work pragmatically, and none of our experiences are 'true' in any transcendent sense. Truth is not about accurately representing reality but rather about what works within a particular context or discourse. — Tom Storm
I'm not aware of any specific arguments that everybody needs a radical transformation of character in order to know anything. — Ludwig V
According to Hadot’s position as developed in What is Ancient Philosophy?, philosophical discourse must in particular be situated within a wider conception of philosophy that sees philosophy as necessarily involving a kind of existential choice or commitment to a specific way of living one’s entire life. According to Hadot, one became an ancient Platonist, Aristotelian, or Stoic in a manner more comparable to the twenty-first century understanding of religious conversion, rather than the way an undergraduate or graduate student chooses to accept and promote, for example, the theoretical perspectives of Nietzsche, Badiou, Davidson, or Quine. …
For Hadot…the means for the philosophical student to achieve the “complete reversal of our usual ways of looking at things” epitomized by the Sage were a series of spiritual exercises. These exercises encompassed all of those practices still associated with philosophical teaching and study: reading, listening, dialogue, inquiry, and research. However, they also included practices deliberately aimed at addressing the student’s larger way of life, and demanding daily or continuous repetition: practices of attention (prosoche), meditations (meletai), memorizations of dogmata, self-mastery (enkrateia), the therapy of the passions, the remembrance of good things, the accomplishment of duties, and the cultivation of indifference towards indifferent things (PWL 84). …Hadot’s use of the adjective “spiritual” (or sometimes “existential”) indeed aims to capture how these practices, like devotional practices in the religious traditions are aimed at generating and reactivating a constant way of living and perceiving in prokopta, despite the distractions, temptations, and difficulties of life. For this reason, they call upon far more than “reason alone.” — IEP
Well, the first half of that is debatable, but let's save that for another time. — Ludwig V
On top of that, I think that they will not be able to explain what experiences might convince them. Certainly, I can't and I've never seen anyone try. — Ludwig V
What evidence or experience would convince you that (e.g.) "the God of Abraham" at least one personal God/dess (of any religious tradition) exists?
— 180 Proof
Some poeple would say if God came down from the heavens and announced himself. But many would just conclude that they went insane. And wouldn't they be justified in thinking so? Everything that they experienced so far comes in contradiction with that one event, it is one event against the constant regularity of their past.
For me to be convinced, it is very simple, the evidence that there is a god would have to overall significantly outweigh {the evidence for any alternative for god in each issue where god has explanatory power} and {the evidence that there is not a god} together.
But if God came down from heavens to announce himself, not only would that have to be an experience like no other — not just seeing lights in the sky or hearing voices like Saul —, but this newfound knowledge would have to not contradict my past experiences but in fact explain many gaps in them. — Lionino
There has been considerable debate about where the burden of proof lies. — Ludwig V
— Do you believe in a green donkey (it had copper poisoning) orbiting behind Jupiter in such a way that it is tidally locked with respect to Earth, that is, it is always behind Jupiter and we could never see it with a telescope?
— No...
— Well, do you have eViDeNcE it is not there though?
— I guess not.
— ThEn you can't discard the pOsSiBiLity of a green donkey behind Jupiter! — Lionino
I agree that everything is contingent. The Buddha’s dying words were supposed to have been something like ‘all compound things are subject to decay’. But your sentiment is ultimately a form of relativism or scepticism, I would think. The difficulty is, that to even attempt to name or indicate something beyond the contingent or constructed, brings it within the scope of a ‘community of discourse’ which is once again one of social construction and language — Wayfarer
“[t]he world is inseparable from the subject, but from a subject who is nothing but a project of the world; and the subject is inseparable from the world, but from a world that it itself projects”
It would have been helpful if you had mention Hadot in the first place. Philosophy as a way of life is a recognizable topic within philosophy. I've never been convinced by any proposals I've seen. So I fall back on Socrates. As you point out, for him the search was the philosophical way. I think that many of us do that. Some people give up, but it is hard to know whether that's because they have found their answers or because they have despaired of finding any. Some people don't seem to be bothered by the question at all.On the contrary, I think classical philosophy has always demanded something of that approach. I’m thinking for example of Pierre Hadot’s ‘Philosophy as a Way of Life’. — Wayfarer
Well, light-bulb moments do occur in secular contexts. The term metanoiais quite rare, but seems to be used in quite ordinary contexts, and ancient Greece didn't discuss religious conversion in this sense, so far as I'm aware. However, metanoia isn't mentioned in any Ancient Greek philosophical work, or so Liddell & Scott tell me. I can't help feeling that both Plato and Aristotle would have insisted on rational persuasion as the only sound basis for philosophy. It is mentioned in Acts and Hebrews, but I assume that's the religious meaning.According to Hadot, one became an ancient Platonist, Aristotelian, or Stoic in a manner more comparable to the twenty-first century understanding of religious conversion, — IEP
Well, you can't expect to name or indicate something without a social context and a language. I think language does quite well in dealing with the world. I doubt it would survive if it did not.The difficulty is, that to even attempt to name or indicate something beyond the contingent or constructed, brings it within the scope of a ‘community of discourse’ which is once again one of social construction and language. — Wayfarer
H'm. I doubt that would stand up to even the mildest philosophical scrutiny and suspect that it would carry with it great moral dangers. But if it makes them happy and they do no harm, who's to complain?But I recall an instruction I read once, that the student (‘prokopta’, or ‘preceptor’) can become aware of certain kinds of evidential experience in their quality of life as a consequence of right realisation, although for obvious reasons that is not necessarily something ascertainable in the third person. — Wayfarer
Well, I'm not fond of degrees of belief. But there are certainly ways we can qualify our commitment to what we believe. I don't think it is impossible to accept a logical law hesitantly or doubtfully. I read somewhere that Van Til's presupposition is not that God exists, but that the Bible is true.It follows from wanting to adopt degrees of belief (which Manuel did), except for hinge propositions such as logical laws and such (the existence of God is no such proposition non-presups would agree). — Lionino
Yes, I can. There is no evidence that it is possible that there's a green donkey behind Jupiter.ThEn you can't discard the pOsSiBiLity of a green donkey behind Jupiter! — Lionino
I think that some religious people will be quite happy to engage in debate with you on the basis that you need reasons to believe. But I suppose that does mean accepting the burden of proof. I would be absurd for an atheist to accept the burden of proof, because proving that something doesn't exist is much, much harder than proving that it does.The debate happens when people concede to theists the definition of 'atheist' "explicitly stating the non-existence of God", instead of the normal "not believing because there is no reason to believe": — Lionino
I'm more or less with you on this, though I'm doubtful about what "beyond the contingent" means. But why do you classify that as relativism?It isn’t robust relativism that leads to skepticism, but Idealism and empiricism, by not realizing that the practices of meaning we find ourselves enmeshed within are already real and true, already of the world, absent of any need to valid them on the basis of conformity to anything outside of these already world-enmeshed practices , ‘beyond the contingent’. — Joshs
Yes, I think that's about right. Foundationalism seem to provide endless questions, rather than a secure foundation.Our understanding doesn’t evolve by more and more closely approximating some foundational content but by using our past world-engaged practices to construct more intricately relational forms of understanding. — Joshs
It isn’t robust relativism that leads to skepticism, but Idealism and empiricism, by not realizing that the practices of meaning we find ourselves enmeshed within are already real and true, already of the world, absent of any need to valid them on the basis of conformity to anything outside of these already world-enmeshed practices , ‘beyond the contingent’. — Joshs
There is, monks, an unborn — unbecome — unmade — unfabricated. If there were not that unborn — unbecome — unmade — unfabricated, there would not be the case that escape from the born — become — made — fabricated would be discerned. But precisely because there is an unborn — unbecome — unmade — unfabricated, escape from the born — become — made — fabricated is discerned. — Nibbāna Sutta
It would have been helpful if you had mention Hadot in the first place. — Ludwig V
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