- :brow:

Not sure. I only have a superficial understanding of his work on this topic. — BitconnectCarlos

I'd be open to discussing it if we have a primary text to look at. Some of @Hanover's early posts in this thread reminded me of Buber.

I wouldn't suggest it is bullshit unless they argued that I should accept it. There seems to be no rational way to argue that when it comes to scripture. — Janus

Religious argument and religious interaction is the most interesting kind. This is because religion is primordially identical to culture. Before the pluralism of secular states there was no difference at all. Religio-cultural encounter is the most interesting kind because it involves the interaction of totalizing forms. Chinese Confucianism meets European Christianity meets Indian Hinduism. That sort of thing is the epitome of human encounter, precisely because you have such maximally full and developed expressions of human life coming into contact with one another.

And I'm sorry, but if you think religion or culture or sacred texts are not amenable to argument and rational interpenetration, then your ignorance of history is massive. On a quantitative scale that sort of argument dwarfs all other kinds.

But the tension still exists. — schopenhauer1

I'm not convinced that there is any possible world in which no tension exists between the classification of information and the free flow of information. Do you have an idea about how to create a system where no piece of information that should be public would ever be classified? I should think errors are inevitable even before corruption enters the picture.

Yes, so if the true "Good" in this situation is purely for knowledge's sake, meaning understanding more about the actual ontology of the universe rather than our externally limited view, then it would seem that this reason is instrumental. The question is, what kinds of instrumental values would override the Good of pure understanding? — schopenhauer1

Well, the other question is whether the government is interested in the good of pure understanding at all. I was saying that our government would probably never fund Star Trek. Our government doesn't aim at that good.

I see that Down The Rabbit Hole said it’s justified when it's for the sake of national security — schopenhauer1

Yes, I think that's a good consideration.

Notice the tension here. You first say that "the people" get to decide — schopenhauer1

Oh, I certainly did not say that. I said, "the people decide who gets to make that decision [about knowledge-access] by electing them." The people don't get to decide what information to declassify, but they do get do decide who makes that decision, namely the persons they elect. I don't see that as a bad form of government, especially if we agree that some information should be classified.

The problem is that authority is not evidence unless it can itself be backed up with evidence. And by evidence I mean anything that an unbiased person would be forced to admit given they can understand it. — Janus

The forum is full of loose ends you have left hanging. Here is a pertinent one:

Do you think witness testimony should be admissable in trials? Or, because it might be based on one person's perceptual experiences, should witness reports and unrecorded confessions be thrown out as lacking in epistemic warrant? — Count Timothy von Icarus

If you were right that testimony cannot count as evidence then our whole legal system is kaput. And again, everyone who holds to some authority possesses motives of credibility. There is no magic bullet here. No magic rule like, "Religious stuff doesn't count," or, "Arguments from authority possess no justification," or, "Whatever I think is whatever an unbiased person would think." You have to actually do the real work of arguing a position. You can't just foreclose the whole game from the get-go.

It makes no sense to deny the philosophical import of divine writ. Why would you deny a writing from God himself?

What you mean to say is one shouldn't justify one's belief in a document based upon their false belief it is from God. — Hanover

That's the whole game. Everyone agrees that one should not utilize falsehoods in justifications. Yet the atheist begs the question when they assume that any "theological claim" (whatever that's supposed to mean) is a falsehood. That's why the atheist argues in bad faith: they demand that their atheist presuppositions be taken as true even when their interlocutor disagrees.

So if an atheist is to philosophically engage a believer on the topic of religion (or faith), then they are not philosophically permitted to simply presuppose that religion is irrational. They are not permitted to define the religious act in terms of irrationality. That imposition and begging of the question is precisely what is unphilosophical. Instead they must argue for the conclusion that religion is irrational, using premises that are acceptable to their interlocutor. That this has not occurred in this thread demonstrates the problem and the unseriousness of this form of atheism.

using scripture, revelation or other religious authority in an argument — Banno

These sorts of criteria are not ultimately coherent. Philosophy is not adverse to arguments from authority, so why would it be adverse to arguments from religious authority? And again, what exactly is "religious" supposed to mean? Historically the reified notion of a "religion" does not even exist until the Enlightenment.

What philosophy is adverse to is forcing claims upon one's interlocutor, including claims of authority. So it is not philosophical or reasonable for a Christian to appeal to a religious authority that his interlocutor does not accept, just as in this thread it is not philosophical or reasonable for atheists to beg the question of atheism even when their interlocutor disagrees. The only real principle that supports your claim is the very one you continually transgress. You don't get to exclude an entire class of claims by fiat and pretend that your so doing is philosophical.

Similarly, when two astrologers argue with one another they are still doing philosophy even if you think their premises are false. You don't get to wave your wand and magically determine that no one who is discussing astrology is engaged in philosophy. A good portion of us think your Wittgenstenian premises are hopelessly confused, but we don't have the audacity to claim that anyone who relies on Wittgenstein is not doing philosophy.

Sure, but how would the "will of the people" be discerned if they never even knew about it? It's a bit of a conundrum. — schopenhauer1

It's a conundrum but I don't see it as insuperable. There is a tension between sensitive or classified information and the right to information, but there are ways in which the balance can shift. Basically, as long as the elected leaders have democratic values then they will see transparency as an important part of governance. In democracies a shift in that balance is often occasioned by a whistleblower.

But what's interesting about some of your posts is that they remind me of Star Trek, where exploration and knowledge is the actual goal and therefore the tax-funded exploration initiatives naturally have an epistemic responsibility to the taxpayers. That's a really interesting model given that way that scientific research has become bound up with the funding provided by nation states, but I tend to see that as a corruption of science precisely because the governments do not have the same goals as the Star Trek explorers. Granted, I think it would be great if our governments were more concerned with speculative knowledge.

And I tend to agree with the conception of positive rights here. For example, we can talk about the "right to an education." Why should someone not be deprived of a basic public education? Is it just so they have a chance to function within society and gain resources (though that’s a good reason)? Or is there something about knowledge itself that is simply valuable- something that is just good to know? — schopenhauer1

It's not that I think children lack a "right" to knowledge or education. These are goods proper to the human being. The difficulty is that rights are correlative with duties, and I think it is primarily the parents who bear the duty for providing these liberal and speculative goods. As you say, the government may have an interest in improving citizens' "function within society" but I'm not sure modern governments have an interest in what Aristotle would call contemplative goods (i.e. goods of knowledge or understanding that are not instrumental unto some ulterior end).

Indeed, good questions. Notice that your questions involve parent-child relationships. The idea of a "white lie" comes to mind here. But should adults be deprived of important knowledge in the same way children are? Who gets to make that decision? As stated, it can't be the "will of the people" in this case. — schopenhauer1

In a democratic Republic like the United States I think the people decide who gets to make that decision by electing them. In that sense the will of the people does inform the decision.

Is the President-citizen relationship similar to the parent-child relationship insofar as the former is empowered to decide what sort of information the latter is capable of receiving? I think the two relationships are similar in that way. I think the whole idea of classified information depends on that empowerment.

True. So, do you think this would justify holding back disclosure information, given the potential consequences of ontological shock? — schopenhauer1

I think so. It is a variable that certainly can't be discounted. You say:

Of course, the scenario I describe is a classic case of self-interest versus the greater good. The companies and governments working on recovered craft might want the information securely hidden, while keeping such an extraordinary discovery from the public would deprive people of rightful knowledge about the actual nature of the universe and the science behind it. — schopenhauer1

Is self-interest vs. the greater good the correct polarity? If there were a "pro and con" list for releasing the information, what would that list look like? I do agree that the government has an interest and even a kind of defeasible obligation to tell its citizens the truth, but I don't think that obligation is... well... indefeasible. :nerd:

You’re suggesting that people with a God-shaped hole in their hearts may be desperate enough to gulp down some authentic looking Kool-Aid? — praxis

Nailed it. :eyes:

keeping such an extraordinary discovery from the public would be depriving people of rightful knowledge to the actual ontology of the universe, and the science thereof. — schopenhauer1

People have a right to know the truth regarding something as existentially relevant as other intelligent life in the universe, full stop. If governments have known this and were hiding it, it is a kind of immoral act, whereby people's ontological perspective was not properly informed. People have a right to knowledge of their place in the universe, and the hiding of truth for any purpose would be an incredible act of deception. — schopenhauer1

I'm not really convinced that we have a natural right to any piece of knowledge based merely on its existential or ontological import. I think we might have a positive right to such knowledge, and within a pure democracy that positive right would derive from the will of the people.

But if you want to dial up the notion of "ontological shock" in the context of natural rights to knowledge, then I wonder if the parent-child relationship is more apt. For example, what is the morality involved in telling your child that Santa Claus does not exist? Or that they were adopted? Or that humans do not come from storks? Or that NHIs are real in the way that the OP describes?

The parent has a responsibility to the entire welfare of their child, including its developmental stages. Therefore they have a responsibility to balance the goods of knowledge against the dangers of inappropriate appropriations of that knowledge. In the Orthodox tradition Satan orchestrated the Fall precisely by giving Adam and Eve the knowledge of Good and Evil too early and too quickly. That knowledge was always their inheritance, but to receive one's inheritance in an untimely way can be fatal.

There is a UAP Taskforce in the US House right now regarding it. These are real Congressional panels. A hearing (under oath) was supposed to take place today but was postponed.

...

Here's some source material so you know I am not bullshitting — schopenhauer1

Very interesting! I am not inclined to doubt any of that.

(Edited my previous post a bit)

I would ask how the fiduciary duties of democratically elected officials impinge on these epistemic questions. In some cases there would be an obligation to inform one's constituents. I'm not quite sure what those cases would be.

Getting away from the hypothetical, hasn't Trump leaked or nodded towards some of that classified information? My sense is that there would be a lot of obscurity at each level of the epistemic question of NHI's, such that there would be a significant risk of creating more confusion and disarray if the evidence isn't watertight.* This is especially true in the era of deepfakes. It would basically blow the top off the discussions we have been having on faith and belief on the grounds of another's testimony. :lol:

* Edit: Think about it this way: there is a significant power differential between the rulers of nation states and the common man. For this reason there is a level of distrust and suspicion on the part of the common man, in large part because he knows that he does not know how much more powerful these rulers are than himself, and he nevertheless knows that they are immensely more powerful. That same dynamic would obtain between humans and NHIs, but probably to a much greater degree. Honestly, we who believe in spiritual intelligences (angels, demons, etc.) have been reckoning with these ideas for thousands of years. Cf. Galatians 1:8

- I have also heard that Three-Body Problem is interesting, although I have not seen that one. As with so much of Villeneuve's work, Arrival is great. The plot is closely related to the way you answered that question, but with a few important twists. I won't spoil it for you since I think you would probably enjoy the film.

Good questions. Let's say it's something along the lines of what you're suggesting. — schopenhauer1

Have you seen Villeneuve's film Arrival?

It’s a strange idea that people are entirely rational. — praxis

That looks like a false dichotomy. "Everyone is entirely blind or else everyone has 20/20 vision."

You don’t think that blind trust or faith has any value? — praxis

If someone is starving and they decide to eat a mushroom, knowing that it might be poisonous, then I can see how the act has value and reason. I wouldn't describe it as, "Blind trust," or, "Blind faith."

The question then for me for Janus would be — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think those are good questions too. I have asked some of them myself. Most recently we saw Janus effectively claim that the racist is not illogical, even if he lacks evidence for his claims.

That is an issue related to my thread ("Beyond the Pale"), namely that the skeptical philosophies people espouse on TPF are entirely inconsistent with their behavior in real life. At bottom this has to do with cases of expedience. Skepticism is useful for supporting liberalism and especially libertarianism ("Do not impose your obligations on me!"), whereas social justice moral positions are useful for supporting social cohesion and one's passions. But if you are consistent you can't pay obeisance to skepticism and then get all worked up about racism.

It looks like the crux of this thread is the issue of first principles of knowledge. This is a live issue for anyone who believes that knowledge exists and that it requires reasons or grounds. It is also something that tends to be neglected on TPF, which is strongly influenced by Analytic philosophy.

So anyone who believes that knowledge exists and that it requires reasons or grounds will have an interest in wrestling with these issues. That includes most everyone, although @Janus and @J are interesting cases. Janus seems to think that some knowledge does not require reasons or grounds, and therefore he has a premade category into which to shoehorn difficult cases, such as first principles or "intuitions" (a terribly vague term). Still, he must reckon with the idea that his "public knowledge" is derived from "private" "intuitions." Then for @J, who regularly flirts with different forms of skepticism, it is not clear that he believes knowledge really exists. Thus for these two people there is less at stake, and there is less interest in wrestling with these issues. It's not as clear that their worldview has skin in the game when it comes to first principles of knowledge.

The foil here would be someone like Bob Ross, who both clearly believes that knowledge exists and that it requires reasons or grounds. When Bob Ross criticizes an account of first principles, he is left with a vacuum. He is moved to provide an alternative account. When J criticizes an account of first principles, he is confirming his a priori skeptical stance. He is not left with a vacuum and is not moved to provide an alternative account. Thus the motivations at play are significantly different in different cases.

I’ll let AI take care of the uninteresting questions. — praxis

Is it against the forum rules to substitute AI responses for your own?

I addressed the strange idea of "blind trust" earlier, specifically <here> and <here>.

"The question, therefore, is whether man, horse, and other names of natural classes, correspond with anything which all men, or all horses, really have in common, independently of our thought, or whether these classes are constituted simply by a likeness in the way in which our minds are affected by individual objects which have in themselves no resemblance or relationship whatsoever."

Peirce thought this was a false dichotomy. Act follows on being. The way things interact with us reveal something determinant about their being. They cause us to think "this" and not anything else. That's enough to ground realism. — Count Timothy von Icarus

:up:

Forming a coherent question is half the battle.

So, while I agree that the equivocal overlap in usage can create the sense of synonymy, it’s usually more perspicuous to keep them distinct. — J

I don't see that the issue is 'cause' vs. 'reason'. In many traditions they are used synonymously. I wouldn't agree with @Count Timothy von Icarus's claim that all action is "determined by prior actuality." That looks like a tidy definition of determinism, which I don't think he accepts. See my post <here> on the PSR in Thomism. The idea is that even contingent events have proper explanations.

Truth aptness is just about whether P can be true or false. — frank

Yes, I know. My questions remain.

The above statement is not truth apt because it doesn't make any sense. — frank

So things which do not make sense are not truth apt. Is that the only time you would ever claim that something is not truth apt?

Trust can be earned or given blindly. — praxis

Can it?

In other words:

1. Power accompanies trust
2. Power corrupts
3. Religion involves more trust than non-religion
4. Therefore, at least insofar as trust is concerned, religion is more corrupted or corruptible than non-religion

This is a coherent argument. My issue is with the premise that dynamics of trust are necessarily corrupt, due to power. I have no qualms with the conclusion that religion is more corruptible on account of trust, but I simply don't see that where there is trust there is corruption. Trust is one of the most important and beneficial dynamics in human life. It is not straightforwardly connected with corruption.

Religion, as with all high things, results in the best and the worst ("corruptio optimi pessima"). If we strike trust from the record we handicap ourselves in both directions, and some may prefer that.

Martin Buber writes of two types of faith — BitconnectCarlos

I have read Buber on this in part. I tend to think he makes too much of the difference, but it would be worth discussing. Is the text publicly available?

Then I would say that trust is the most abused aspect of life, and that religion is part of life.

It’s painfully obvious that faith is the most abused aspect of religion, isn’t it? — praxis

Tell me what you mean by 'X' and I'll tell you what I think about 'Y'.

Well I don't want to say that interpretations of mystical or religious experience cannot be correct, but I would say that there is no way of determining whether or not they are correct. — Janus

I know Janus isn't a big fan of formal logic, but he seems committed to saying that the following claim is possible:

<This religious experience interpretation is correct, and there is no way of determining whether this religious experience interpretation is correct>

<C(r) ^ ~D(r)>

The contrary claim is as follows:

<If we are able to say that this religious experience interpretation is correct, then there must be some way of determining that this religious experience interpretation is correct>

<S(C(r)) → D(r)>

But a conjunction is a double-assertion, and therefore the first conjunct, i.e. C(r), is being asserted or said. Ergo: Anyone who says <C(r) ^ ~D(r)> is also saying C(r), and therefore <(C(r) ^ ~D(r)) → S(C(r))>

This means that (1) and (2) cannot both be true:

1. <C(r) ^ ~D(r)>
2. <S(C(r)) → D(r)>

(2) seems sure whereas (1) seems dubious. That is the problem with @Janus's approach to these issues. It flies in the face of the psychological PSR. Specifically, one is not rationally permitted to claim that something is correct if they have no grounds for claiming that something is correct.

Janus sees himself as doing a kindness to religion when he says things like that, and maybe there is a sense in which there is a subjective or short-term kindness, but it looks as if this "kindness" involves straightforward irrationality.

(The only available response seems to be doubling down on (1), "There are some things which are correct and yet can never, even in principle, be determined to be correct." That's a wild claim.)

P's truth aptness isn't determined by whether we know a way to verify P. — frank

Why not? And is "truth-apt" the same as "correct"? @Janus said it could be correct, not that it could be truth-apt.

Well I don't want to say that interpretations of mystical or religious experience cannot be correct, but I would say that there is no way of determining whether or not they are correct. — Janus

Yes, this is a good distinction. I stand by my hunch that those who firmly oppose such interpretations go further than you, and claim that they could not be correct. This moots the question about how we could determine whether they are. — J

More candidly: If there is no way of determining whether something is correct then how could it be said to be correct?

I’m anti-religious and view faith as non-rational, though there are clearly many instances of irrational religious faith. — praxis

The problem with these conversations is that if you can't say what X is, then you are not allowed to say that X is Y. So if you can't say what faith is, then you are not allowed to say that faith is rational or irrational or non-rational. And if you can't say what religion is, then you are not allowed to say that religion is rational or irrational or non-rational. None of the anti-religious in this thread have actually ventured to say what faith is,* and that's an enormous philosophical problem for those who are making claims about faith.

For example, suppose someone says that cars are bad. I ask what they mean by 'car'. Now if they refuse to answer, then their statement is meaningless, and that is the state of this thread. But suppose they answer, "A long-distance transport vehicle with four wheels and an internal combustion engine." I respond, "Are there any electric vehicles that are cars?" They adapt their claim, "Cars are neither good nor bad, but there are many instances of bad cars."

Now if they want to do philosophy they have to specify what makes a car good or bad, and why some cars are bad, and whether this has to do with cars per se or some extraneous factor. So they might say, "Everything which pollutes is bad; Internal combustion engines pollute; Therefore, cars with internal combustion engines are bad." That's what the anti-religious are required to do if they want to engage in philosophy.

* In the sense of a definition

See Tom’s last post above. — praxis

He's changed his view. My point was that there are people who see faith as irrational, such as Tom (before he changed his view) and Bertrand Russell. I suppose if Tom Storm and Bertrand Russell were the only two people who ever thought faith was irrational, then there is no longer anyone who thinks that. :wink:

I’m anti-religious and view faith as non-rational, though there are clearly many instances of irrational religious faith. — praxis

Okay.

Here is a useful distinction:

Some contemporary Thomists, like Gilson, insist it is against the spirit of Thomas to appeal to any general principle of sufficient reason. The reason they give is the danger of confusing it with the rationalist Principle of Sufficient Reason first explicitly introduced into modern philosophy by Leibniz, the great rationalist. But the Principle [as I understand it] is quite different from the Leibnizian rationalist one. The latter interprets the sufficient reason as some reason from which we can deduce by rational necessity the existence of the effect. It looks forward: given an adequate cause we can deduce the effect as flowing necessarily from it. It follows, of course, that no efficient cause can be free, and that God creates the world out of necessity, not freely, i.e., that to be rational God must create the best possible world. Our Thomistic interpretation is quite different. It does not try to deduce anything; it looks backward, i.e., given this effect, it needs such and such a cause to explain it. The cause must be adequate to produce it, be able to explain it once this is there. But in no way does this require that the cause has to produce it; in a word, our world needs an infinite Creator to explain it. But this in no way implies that such a Creator had to create it. It is not, like that of Leibniz, a deductive principle, deducing the effect from the cause, but as St. Thomas expresses it [sic!], like most other metaphysical explanations, it is a "reductive explanation," tracing a given effect back to its sufficient reason in an adequate cause. — W. Norris Clarke

But saying that just because there were some unheeded liberal voices against colonial expansion across North America, into India, into almost all of Africa, into China (attempted but partly repelled), and the Middle East, or say, opening Japan to trade with artillery fire, etc., that this isn't "real liberalism" would be a bit like saying collectivization wasn't "real communism" because a handful of communists opposed it. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Strong points. :up:
It looks like we would have to engage in "extreme cherry picking" to try to construe the effects as unrelated to liberalism. On that view "liberalism" tends to shrink into nothing at all, with no efficacy or effects or dynasty.

"Belief without evidence" and "We only speak of faith when we wish to substitute emotion for evidence" seem like pretty standard claims of irrationality.

If you don't see faith as irrational that's great, but anti-religious folks tend to view faith as irrational.

I don’t think anyone would say it’s inherently irrational. — praxis

See for example and the claims that began this part of the thread.

- :100:
You are enunciating the actual idea (as opposed to the common strawman). Good to see that happening. :up:

- Generally love would be seen as non-rational, not irrational; independent of reason but not contrary to reason.

Yes, good stuff. :up:

When claims that Wittgenstein and the "time-honored view" both dismiss the question at a bedrock level, it seems that he is plainly mistaken. Or else he has a very strange notion of the "time-honored view," one which begs to be revealed. The Aristotelian tradition is the elephant standing quietly in the room when it is pronounced that no spade has broken beneath the surface. Your quotes from primary sources are helpful in revealing gardeners who do more with their spades.

- Okay thanks, that helps me make better sense of the OP.

Dogs don't know things? A bit harsh on the pup? — Banno

Harsh? Is that supposed to be an argument? Try reading again:

[The dog] has not the idea or the concept of the thing he knows, that is, from which he receives sensory impressions; his knowledge remains immersed in the subjectivity of his own feelings — Jacques Maritain, The Cultural Impact of Empiricism

Yes, very good. That was an impressive connection. :up:

And the sensory analogue is salutary. What @Janus wrestles with with intuition is more clearly seen and understood in the case of sense data or sense knowledge (i.e. sense knowledge is truth-apt without being publicly shared or discursive).

I should read more Maritain. He would be a good interlocutor for TPF.

Human knowledge is shared. Which is why private intellectus on its own is inadequate. — Banno

This applies again:

I'm not sure that qualifies as an answer, even generously. — J

The basic starting point here is that human knowledge is both public/shared and private. The idea that because some human knowledge is shared therefore there is no private aspect or part of human knowledge is simply non sequitur. You're not even entertaining the problem that is being discussed.