- This has already been explained to you.

Explosion is related, but I didn't mention it or need to mention it for the purpose at hand. — TonesInDeepFreeze

(Your contention that argument 2 cannot ever exist without argument 1 is magical, ad hoc thinking. There is nothing serious about it.)

Yes. — Michael

I am going to limit myself to serious interlocutors.

- All I've asked is for you to give me an example of a realist who holds to your strange version of realism. You have failed to do that for many posts now.

Notice that antirealism is defined as being the position that believes that all truths are knowable. As realism rejects antirealism (and vice versa), in follows that realism asserts that some truths are unknowable. — Michael

This is evidence of your sophistry. You want antirealism to "wear the pants."

We've talked about the equivalence of P -> Q to ~P v Q, but it's often more intuitive I think to use another equivalence ~(P & ~Q), and to read this as "no P without Q" . — Srap Tasmaner

We have a whole thread on this idea:

A→B means not(A without B). — bongo fury

...This is why I would prefer "No A without B." — Leontiskos

- So you think it is literally impossible to give argument 2 without implying argument 1?

This is dumb beyond belief.

- I don't know of any realists who believe in unknowable truths. Apparently you don't either.

The problem with IEP is that it conflates "global skepticism" with the idea that "it is possible that all of our referential beliefs about the world are false." If we were to ask what "possible" means, we would receive a similar non-answer to the one you gave about "sufficiently."

- This shouldn't be so hard.

Argument 1:

1. If "I am a man and I am not a man" is true then "I am a man" is true.
2. If "I am a man" is true then "I am a man or I am rich" is true.
3. If "I am a man and I am not a man" is true then "I am not a man" is true.
4. If "I am a man or I am rich" is true and if "I am not a man" is true then "I am rich" is true. — Michael

Argument 2:

I am a man and I am not a man.
Therefore, I am rich.

Two different arguments.

You want to claim that argument 2 is an enthymeme of argument 1. But it need not be. And the question at hand is whether argument 2 is valid independent of argument 1.

It's one argument: — Michael

No, they are two different arguments. One involves inferential reasoning and the other does not.

1. If "I am a man and I am not a man" is true then "I am a man" is true.
2. If "I am a man" is true then "I am a man or I am rich" is true.
3. If "I am a man and I am not a man" is true then "I am not a man" is true.
4. If "I am a man or I am rich" is true and if "I am not a man" is true then "I am rich" is true. — Michael

I am a man and I am not a man.
Therefore, I am rich.

These are two different arguments, and the validity of the first does not ensure the validity of the second.

- Maybe you should try to find a realist who lines up with your (mis)representation.

Have you tried to define what you mean by realism somewhere in this thread? — Leontiskos

- Seems like you're arguing against strawmen again. You impute some strange doctrine to realists, and when asked what realists hold this strange doctrine, you go silent.

- The difference between an argument from the definition of validity and an argument from explosion has been explained multiple times throughout this thread. Tones himself recognized it. You continue to conflate the two.

("I can give a valid argument moving from A to B," is not the same as, "The argument that was given is valid.")

<A thesis which is unconfirmable/unjustifiable is not a real thesis>

Realists and anti-realists agree with this proposition. You are manufacturing a disagreement.

The realist argues that "the cat is in the box" can be true even if it's not possible for someone to look in the box and see the cat. — Michael

What realist says that? I don't know of any.

In these conversations you always conflate different senses of mind-independence. You erect a false dichotomy where, if truth is not mind-dependent then truth is wholly mind-independent, such that <A thesis which is unconfirmable/unjustifiable is a real thesis>. You are misrepresenting realism. Have you tried to define what you mean by realism somewhere in this thread?

That doesn't help. Your argument rides on the vagueness of that word.

Consider:

This proposition is true:

1. We do not have evidence that there is no teapot orbiting the Sun

If realism is correct then this proposition is true:

2. It is possible that there is a teapot orbiting the Sun and that we cannot have evidence that there is a teapot orbiting the Sun

My suggestion is that if we cannot have evidence that there is no teapot orbiting the Sun then (1) does not sufficiently justify the claim that there is no teapot orbiting the Sun. — substitution

You might say that there is a difference between physical possibility and metaphysical possibility, but I think the same point holds with each.

My suggestion is that if we cannot have evidence that we are brains in a vat then (1) does not sufficiently justify the claim that we are not brains in a vat. — Michael

What do you mean by "sufficiently"?

If there are unknowable truths then there are unjustifiable truths, and if there are unjustifiable truths then a proposition not being justified is not a good reason to reject it. — Michael

Or, "...then a proposition not being justified is not a good reason to reject it." There is an equivocation here on 'reject'. If 'reject' means falsify, then this strikes me as uncontroversial. If 'reject' means "abstain from affirming," then the consequent is false but it does not in fact follow from your premises. — Leontiskos

This is not a valid argument:

If there are unknowable truths then there are unjustifiable truths, and if there are unjustifiable truths then a proposition not being justified is not a good reason to reject it. — Michael

I gave reasons above.

I'm not.

I'm trying to explain this: — Michael

I know, and your argument is invalid. I explained why. We can agree with Nagel's quote, and yet your argument remains invalid. You are conflating the possibility of skepticism with skepticism.

Which means science is only in the same position as philosophy. — Srap Tasmaner

This seems straightforward to me. There are no hard and fast distinctions between science and philosophy or science and metaphysics.

As regards its modus operandi, then, all analysis is metaphysical analysis; and, since analysis is what gives its scientific character to science, science and metaphysics are inextricably united, and stand or fall together.
~R.G. Collingwood, Essay on Metaphysics — Pantagruel

The problem with realism is that it entails this kind of global skepticism. If there are unknowable truths then there are unjustifiable truths, and if there are unjustifiable truths then a proposition not being justified is not a good reason to reject it. — Michael

This is not right. You are trying to claim that it follows from your premises that there are truths which are both known and unjustifiable, and this does not follow.

Or in other words: one accepts or rejects truth-claims on the basis of justification, not irrespective of justification. One has good reason to dismiss a truth-claim if it lacks justification; and the absence of justification is never, in itself, a good reason to deem a proposition false.

Edit: Or, "...then a proposition not being justified is not a good reason to reject it." There is an equivocation here on 'reject'. If 'reject' means falsify, then this strikes me as uncontroversial. If 'reject' means "abstain from affirming," then the consequent is false but it does not in fact follow from your premises.

Alright I will do you one better. According to both Torah law and rabbinic law, a seminal emission places one in a state of ritual impurity. Yet Jewish men are required to procreate. Thus, one can knowingly and voluntarily enter into a state of impurity yet it be a good, obligatory act. — BitconnectCarlos

Sure. I think my last post addresses this topic, which is nuanced. commented on the different viewpoints at some length.

We could clear away the nuance with a simple question: is Jesus thought to have performed the requisite ritual cleansing after raising the girl from the dead? Your answers seem to indicate that you would hold that he did.

Then we're in agreement here. :up: — BitconnectCarlos

:up:

"When you enter a town and are welcomed, eat what is offered to you." — BitconnectCarlos

This is a more interesting verse. Your argument is worthwhile, and possible. The commentaries I looked at see it as ambiguous with regard to kosher. It could be that, but there are alternative interpretations, namely the avoidance of being fussy when receiving hospitality, and ignoring the additional food laws imposed by the "traditions of the elders."

For myself, I wouldn't want to place such a substantive conclusion on such small shoulders. I would want more evidence.

In short, government bureaucracy will fight any administration by simply making it hell for the ordinary citizens in order for the citizens in response to get angry at the administration. — ssu

"The bureaucracy will fight back." Yep. So what? The bureaucracy needs to be trimmed. Of course it will fight back. The national debt is not even a partisan issue, it's an economic issue.

So, by the time the general electorate votes, they have already had their options picked by a group that tends to have different policy priorities. — Count Timothy von Icarus

There is something to be said for the argument that the U.S. is more oligarchy than democracy:

What, then, is our own condition? This question is more complex than it appears. We can begin by noting that we do not now have democracy. We certainly do not now have democracy in Aristotle’s sense of rule by the demos or the mass of the poor. We do not even have democracy in the sense of rule by all the people as a whole. Or at least we do not have direct rule by the people. What we have instead is something we are pleased to call ‘representative democracy,’ or rule by the people through representatives elected by the people.

What sort of regime is a representative democracy? Now there is, according to Aristotle, a simple rule for determining what sort of regime you have got: ask who is in control. This does not mean asking which individuals are in control. Nor does it mean asking which party is in control. It means, to follow the earlier discussion about the parts of the city, asking which part is in control, namely the parts of the rich or the poor or the virtuous.

Fairly clearly, it is not the part of the virtuous that is in control in modern states. A virtuous individual might come to power now and then, but this is incidental. It is not what the system is designed to produce. Even in the case of the occasional virtuous person, he does not so much rule as the party does, for the party rules through him. It is also fairly clear that it is not the poor either who are ruling. They are, for the most part, busy at their jobs and have no time or money, not to mention influence, to run successfully, or at all, for office. The only answer left is that it is the rich who are ruling. Evidence that this conclusion is correct is not difficult to find. For those have control who get elected. Those get elected who have access to the money needed for an election campaign as well as to the friends needed to help out with the campaigning. But only the rich, or those in the pay of the rich, have access to that kind of money and to those sort of friends.

There is a passage in the Politics where Aristotle gives a description of a regime that neatly fits a modern representative democracy. The passage is part of his discussion of the ways oligarchies are destroyed, one of which ways is through the rivalry of demagogues among the oligarchs themselves. Oligarchic demagoguery, says Aristotle, exists when some of the oligarchs play the demagogue to other oligarchs. But it can also exist, he continues,

“when those in the oligarchy are demagogues to the crowd, as the regime guardians were in Larissa, for instance, because it was the crowd that elected them. The same is true of all oligarchies where those who provide the rules are not those who elect to office, but the offices are filled from high property qualifications or from political clubs, and those possessed of heavy arms or the populace do the electing.” (Politics 1305b28-33)

Aristotle is doubtless thinking here of cases where, through such demagoguery on the part of oligarchs, oligarchies cease to be oligarchies and become democracies or tyrannies. But he may also be thinking of cases where one oligarchy takes the place of another. For change from oligarchy to oligarchy is one of the ways in which a regime can suffer revolution (1301b10-13). At all events, it is not hard to read this passage as Aristotle’s description of a modern election. He speaks of “political clubs,” that is, as the context makes clear, of certain clubs of oligarchs, from whom the elected come; of the populace that does the electing from these clubs; and of the demagoguery on the part of the oligarchs to get elected. What Aristotle here calls a ‘club of oligarchs’ we call a ‘political party’; what he here calls ‘demagoguery’ we call an ‘election campaign’; what he here calls a ‘change of regime,’ we call a ‘change of party.’

There are other similarities. It is evident from Aristotle’s discussion that it is not the whole oligarchic club that gets elected to office but only certain members of it. These members will manifestly be as much or more beholden to the club than to the people who elected them, and will manifestly be expected, by their fellows in the same club, to use office to benefit the club. Otherwise the club would turn against them. The same is true of modern political parties, where members elected to office represent the party no less, if not more, than they represent the people. For representation is at one remove. The elected party member represents the people by representing the party that represents, or claims to represent, the people. If this claim is true, then the elected member represents the party and the people. If it is false, he represents the party and not the people. Either way he represents the party.

Election is also a classic feature of oligarchy. It is certainly a feature of oligarchy in modern conditions. Only those with some prominence stand a chance of getting elected, and those with prominence are those with privilege of some kind, such as wealth, family, number of friends, and so forth (which are all marks of oligarchy for Aristotle; see 1291b28-30, 1293a30-31). This is all the more the case where one has to campaign to get elected. Election campaigns require much money, both to get one’s demagogic message across to the people, and to give oneself leisure from work to be able to go out campaigning.

In principle, of course, anyone can run for office. In practice only the rich can. In principle too anyone can win an election. In practice only members of the main party can. Such differences between democratic theory and oligarchic practice Aristotle calls ‘sophistries’ or ‘sophisms’ (bk. 6[4], chap. 13). They are ways in which the regime deceives people by appearing to be one thing while really being another. Other sophistries include the fact that while all the people can vote, nothing is done to ensure that they all do vote. In fact, the opposite is usually done. When party workers, for instance, talk of “getting out the vote,” they mean getting out the vote only of those they think can be relied on to be supporters of their own party. They have no desire to get out another party’s vote, nor even to increase the number of voters simply, so as to ensure that the result reflects as much as possible the opinion of the people as a whole. Their interest is in victory, not in getting a full expression of the people’s views. If only members of their own party come out to vote they will not be upset. The universal right to vote is often more for show than for reality.[11]

The oligarchic character of contemporary politics is also evident from the way in which parties use their power to control the process of registering as a candidate for election. These procedures are sometimes labyrinthine, and it is hard for anyone but a member of the officially recognized parties to get registered. There is also the fixing of electoral boundaries, indulged in by the dominant parties, to ensure that only members of one party and not also those of another stand much chance of getting elected within a certain electoral district or constituency. Oligarchic too is the way parties allow anyone to join the party, and even to pay a fee for the privilege, but only allow the very rich, or those who contribute large sums, to have ready access to the leaders of the party and to get from them what they want. The oligarchic clubs are oligarchic all the way up. The more you pay and the more friends you have, the more influence you can exert on what the club does, especially when the club controls the most powerful offices. And it is the club that rules, and not just those members of the club who hold office. The members who hold office need the other members both to get into office and to stay there (for they need the party to keep supporting their candidacy at succeeding elections). Hence they are in the club’s debt when they get into office and must pay back these debts by using office to dispense rewards. They are obliged to be demagogues to their own party as well as to the people at large.

There is another oligarchic sophism that needs noting, though it is seldom noted as such. While securing oligarchic denomination it masquerades as the exact opposite. — Peter L. P. Simpson, “Freedom and Representation,” in Vices, Virtues, and Consequences, pp. 204-7

- You're a sophist. That's all.

The Apocalypse of Peter or Revelation of Peter is a non-canonical gospel. — Fooloso4

We're talking about Acts, darling.

The "following" of a rule versus it's being merely "present" can be illustrated by the following example:
A->B
B^C
Therefore, C.
In this example, the rule A-> B does not do any work — NotAristotle

This issue is directly parallel to the earlier discussion about the nature of validity:

A: "If the premises are inconsistent then the argument is valid."
B: "Validity has to do with the conclusion following from the premises, and inconsistency is not evidence that the conclusion follows from the premises."

If one cannot recognize that something can follow from something else in different ways, then they will not be able to recognize the difference between a material conditional and a disjunction; and this is similar to the way that if one cannot recognize the essence of validity, then they will not be able to exclude or even recognize degenerative cases.

I don't think this line is correct, but here is a short video which stays close to your OP:

Do you consider Peter's revelation a lie/a Pauline invention then? — BitconnectCarlos

Yes, a good question. Fooloso is not aware of Peter's revelation, nor does he know where it takes place (he says it is in the gospels). Yet he continues to hold forth.

Yes. But when Jesus says "it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person" he would seem to be saying that even if e.g. a Jew were to eat pig or shellfish he would not be defiled in clear contradiction to the Levitical laws. Then again maybe my analysis is superficial/I'm misinterpreting him. — BitconnectCarlos

Okay, but the context here is handwashing:

Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, "Why do your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat." — Matthew 15:1-2

(Note too that the Pharisees recognize that what is at stake is the "tradition of the elders." Jesus' response begins by distinguishing the commandment of God from the tradition of the elders.)

The pericope that concerns you even ends, "These are what defile a man; but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man" (Matthew 15:20).

So this is at best a preliminary set-up for a change to kosher, not a direct attack on kosher. It is explicitly about tradition and handwashing.

Entering a state of ritual impurity is not the same thing as breaking the law. We will all be in states of ritual impurity at one point or another. Sometimes it's beyond our control/just nature taking its course. — BitconnectCarlos

Sure, but it's not beyond his control here, is it? And the implication of the text is that no ritual impurity has affected Jesus.

(That is, I don't think you can say that it is not against the Law to touch a dead body, even if the Law does not mandate that no one is ever permitted to touch a dead body, or that there is no recourse for someone who does. It's perfectly easy to argue that the way Jesus touches the dead body is contrary to the Law. At stake here are spirit/letter distinctions.)

the idea of authority in Plato for instance, why he elevates the authority of reason — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, and I always think Peterson would benefit from reading Plato. He is something like a wayward Platonist, and his open-mindedness often causes him to embrace anti-Platonic ideas which are contrary to his basic disposition, ideas which he then slowly ends up expelling. This failure to take Platonism seriously is most clearly present in his conversations with John Vervaeke. But from Peterson's perspective, he is more Platonic and spiritual than most of his natural interlocutors, so it presents a blind spot. I really hope he sits down with D. C. Schindler someday.

And anyhow I think historically, it's hardly chiefly feminism that has allowed for incompetence at the top. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Not incompetence at the top, but a subversion of hierarchy qua hierarchy. For many feminists, hierarchy = patriarchy = bad.

However, I will add that much criticism of Peterson, "how dare anyone assert that hard work and discipline might be good," is entirely off base. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Peterson is a fighter, but he's not a dogmatist, and his posture will differ considerably depending on who he is talking with.

The definition of human flourishing that makes Boethius or St. Maximus torture/mutilation and death (or most of the Apostles') "worthwhile" and even "choiceworthy" needs to be dramatically different. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Granted, but the Christianists exist, and in fairly large numbers. Even mainline Protestants and Anglicans often tend in that direction. They therefore present an odd tertium quid between secularism and Christianity that must be reckoned with.

So I suppose my objection is more to the narrower range of cases where "Christianity" is advanced as a sort of set of principles for temporal success, as generally defined by secular culture. — Count Timothy von Icarus

As I understand it, Peterson's most recent book (Those Who Wrestle with God) is effectively an attack on morality as a set of hypothetical imperatives, or a liberal value-neutral political philosophy, but from a psychological angle. That's a good and standard example of the way that "Christianism" need not be secularism redux. These thinkers end up offering partial repudiations of the secular status quo. But the fact that their thought has so much of modernity mixed up in it is largely what makes it potent to the modern ear. In a related vein is a very good recent piece in First Things, "The End of the Age of Hitler." I thought about posting it in Baden's thread on methodological naturalism given that it is a kind of moral parallel to the fact that a metaphysical vacuum is ineluctably filled.

I get mixed up this, but I think the disjunction (not-P or Q) can still be true even if P does not imply Q. — NotAristotle

You could say that, but you would end up having to admit that "P does not imply Q" cannot be formalized in any way whatsoever, at least in propositional logic. See the thread that I have been referencing for this topic.

Whether or not the two expressions are semantically equivalent in a meta-logical sense depends on how one is using them. But I think your intuition is correct and defensible, namely that they are not semantically equivalent in a meta-logical sense. Trouble is, you can never prove that at the level of the object language.

But since A -> ~A uses symbols it's more appropriate to call this a formal construction of material implication, which we can write the truth-tables out for and easily conclude it's valid, but unsound, as ↪unenlightened said. — Moliere

I opined on some of this earlier in the thread*, but I think you are talking about the argument of the OP, not merely the sentence (A→~A).

* It depends on what we mean by "valid" and it depends on the argument for why it is or is not valid.

I think there's a difference and I've committed to indications for the difference -- in the recent posts substitution has been the criteria I've been using. — Moliere

There is no difference in terms of substitution.

(The thread already linked goes into these questions in detail. <This post> would be one example of that.)

When I say "If I touch the stove then my hand will burn" I'm not talking in terms of material implication or disjunction at all, but a causal relationship between action and event. — Moliere

You are talking in terms of the first premise of a modus ponens, and that is what the material conditional is in many logics. If there is a difference between modus ponens and disjunctive syllogism, then there is a difference between A→B and ¬A∨B. You can of course say that there is no difference and that "informal logic" and formal logic are infinitely separated, but I think that is to put the cart before the horse. Something which has nothing to do with human reasoning is not logic, and so I would say that if someone is talking about something which is wholly separate from human reasoning then they are not talking about logic (and besides that, they are not paying any attention to the historical development and motivations behind formal logics).

1. Right, I mean P entails Q. The logical equivalence (not-P or Q) is an implication of the conditional, not having the same meaning as the conditional. — NotAristotle

It has the same meaning in truth-functional terms, but it does not have the same meaning qua modus ponens (or modus tollens). See, for example:

I suppose it is worth asking whether these are the same two inferences, and whether the first is any more "directional" than the second:

(A→B)
A
∴ B

¬A∨B
A
∴ B — Leontiskos

If Jesus did keep kosher, then presumably statements like Matt.15:11 are early Christian beliefs retrojected back to Jesus. — BitconnectCarlos

That's a good example. The ritual washing of Second Temple Judaism is not mandated by the Torah, and it is likely that the Pharisees held to an especially strict version of that ritual. Jesus is taking the extra-Biblical ritual regarding ritual cleanliness and placing it into the proper key. He is resituating a development. This is a classic case of the way that Jesus will reject certain interpretations or ways of developing the Law.

You asked if he disobeys the Law. Along these lines, he sort of does disobey the law with the "talitha cumi" of Mark 5. Hebrews are not allowed to touch a corpse on pain of uncleanness. The uncleanness would "spread" from the corpse to the one who touched it, making them unclean and subject to ritual cleansing. But Jesus does touch the corpse (here and elsewhere). Has he broken the Law? Sort of. But the text is showing us that Jesus is a wellspring of life and purity, and hence "reverses" the flow of death and uncleanness. In modern terms it would be like when we are not supposed to touch someone with Covid-19, and Jesus touches them anyway; nevertheless, instead of Jesus getting sick, the person he touches gets well. His life and power is "infectious" and overwhelms death. This is another manifestation of his conquering of death.

After all, why would Peter need his revelation in Acts where all foods are declared clean if Jesus had originally taught it? — BitconnectCarlos

Hand-washing and kosher are two different things.

As an aside, I had a few people, particularly middle aged Christians, talk up Peterson to me in glowing terms. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I enjoy Peterson and see him as a force for good, but I don't agree with him on everything, and I often find his delivery unhelpful. I grant that he is a bit materialistic, and especially Jungian.

For instance, he opens with a narrative about lobsters. Male lobsters who are big and strong have more "feel good chemicals," in their nervous systems. With more feel good chemicals, lobsters act more assertive and aggressive. By doing this they get to consume more resources and have more sexual partners. Therefore, we should act to boost our feel good chemical levels, that we might consume more and sleep with more women. Such wisdom... — Count Timothy von Icarus

I saw you say that in a different thread. I think you are misreading it. Peterson is not promoting sexual promiscuity or machismo. He explicitly opposes figures like Andrew Tate. See, for example, this clip (as well as the longer interview of which it is a part).

I didn't find that book overly interesting, either, but what he is doing at the beginning is trying to establish the primordial nature of dominance hierarchies (which he will later relabel as "competence hierarchies"). The idea is that hierarchical competence generates self-confidence and health (which at that lobster-level is seen primarily through serotonin). A large part of his point is that, pace Feminism, hierarchical orderings have been around as long as lobsters, and are not going away anytime soon. I see Peterson as correcting important cultural errors, but at a relatively superficial level. "Make your bed, do the right thing, be an effective communicator, do not fall into feminist traps, etc."

But I find the whole topic of "Christianism" interesting (a term that some use for cultural Christianity). Roger Scruton, Jordan Peterson, and even Richard Dawkins to a minor extent hold up Christian culture as an important value, yet without professing Christianity.

Edit: In general, I like the thrust and intention of everything Peterson does, and for everything he does, I think someone else does it much better than him. Nevertheless, he is reaching an audience that these others can never reach.

It's possible that Joseph had children from a prior marriage (nothing is said about this), and also the term for "brother" is used frequently in the NT for people who do not share a biological relationship. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Actually recent scholarship from Christiaan Kappes has shown that the NT is explicit that they are not Jesus' siblings. There have always been very good arguments for that position (even apart from tradition), but Kappes co-authored a book in which he shows that the syngeneusin of texts like Mark 6:4 literally means "relatives of some other womb" (link). In any case, the Magisterial Reformers are all in agreement that Mary was ever-virgin (Luther, Calvin, Zwingli).

There were so many problems with 's post that I just ignored it. I didn't expect that someone claiming that Mary was born of Elizabeth would be persuasively misleading. :grin:

- Thanks. Wonderful passage. I tend to think this idea of "tolerance" is what underlies many of @J's meanderings. He worries about how he could ever be justified in claiming that something is true when he knows that others disagree.

It is also interesting to think about faux agreement, such as virtue signaling, as the other side of the coin of "bourgeois metaphysics." I see this a lot with philosophers who feel pressure to assent to a set of ideas based on appearing fashionable or "in." This informal chat with Dr. Michael Gorman about his introduction to philosophy and metaphysics gets at some of these ideas in a rather simple way, especially the student who worries that their question might be stupid.

- Yep. See also @Count Timothy von Icarus's thread, "The Unity of Dogmatism and Relativism."

- I would certainly think he followed kosher, etc.

- Thank you. Good post. :up: