But isn’t this approach failing to take into account that the witnessing selves are part of the semiotic construction of a witnessed reality?. . . — apokrisis

I will have to think about this post more, ideally when my head clears of Covid. I don't know that I disagree with any of it, but I also am not convinced that Hanover was making a semiotic argument in the way that you indicate. The argument that he gave seems to me to be invalid, and we could try to generalize it as something like this:

1. If a faculty is not infallible then it is not reliable.
2. X is not infallible.
3. Therefore, X is not reliable.

...Where 'X' is something like the senses or the mind, and (2) is justified by things like dreams and hallucinations.

I think this is just an invalid argument. Something can be reliable without being infallible. The person wielding the argument could press for (1) if they like, and there is admittedly a paradox at play in that neither (1) nor its opposite can be demonstrably proven, but I think we have good non-demonstrative reasons for believing that a faculty need not be infallible in order to be reliable.

If solipsism is the only logical conclusion of recognizing some amount of difference between the object and the perception and naive realism is the only practical solution to avoid that slippery slope, then I choose solipsism because at least it is logical. — Hanover

Okay, and it is no coincidence that you are choosing solipsism, here. Your presuppositions point you in this very direction.

That is, the system you use to prove that things are as they appear proves that things aren't as they appear. — Hanover

Where have I or anyone else here attempted to prove this so-called "naive realism"? The answer is simple: we haven't. Yet the strawman proves eternal.

What we learn is that there is no fully satisfactory answer, which is obvious, as if there were, this would be a physics class and not a philosophy class where there are no answers. — Hanover

The recurrent problem is that your position attempts to draw some kind of substantial conclusion from the fact that there is "no fully satisfactory answer," and this conclusion is logically invalid. There is no problem with pointing to someone's answer and arguing that it is not fully satisfactory. The problem arises when you say, "Your answer is not fully satisfactory, and therefore my opposed position is correct." The invalid inference is the problem, and it is what I have seen from folks like you and Michael in this thread.

Looked at from a different angle, a system which is not fully satisfactory is better than a system which results in performative self-contradictions.

The alternative, which is to just say WYSIWYG suffers from another host of problems. — Hanover

These are more false dichotomies. "My position is pretty bad, but the only alternative is what-you-see-is-what-you-get, therefore we have to accept my position." To claim that the only two options are the infallibility of the senses and the inability of the senses to penetrate reality is to posit a false dichotomy.

This is a recurrence of a kind of Cartesian dichotomy between perfect reliability and certitude, and zero reliability and certitude. The two extremes are not the only possibilities (and I don't mean to indicate that Descartes was himself unaware of this).

Exactly. Unspoken necessary presuppositions. — creativesoul

Right, and we can run these arguments directly if we like:

The point of this is that it is empirically proven that an internal, subjective experience can be evoked by direct brain stimulation. This means that you cannot conclude anything about the constitution of the stimulus from the experience. The smell you smell is the product of stimuli upon the brain, so the perception is entirely the creation of the brain. — Hanover

Given that the "empirical proving" is itself an experience, according to Hanover we cannot conclude anything from this experience. His conclusion is self-defeating.

More concretely, suppose a scientist observes that they can evoke some form of experience via brain stimulation. Hanover thinks this proves that experience is untrustworthy, and yet the scientist's observation is nothing other than an experience. So why isn't their experience untrustworthy? *crickets*

Hanover is making exceptions for himself in an ad hoc manner. He wants to invalidate experience, except for all the experiences that he doesn't want to invalidate, namely the ones associated with empirical tests. Hanover and Michael are both thinking about science in a muddled way, as if it were distinct from human experience. This is on par with the way that our culture treats science as an omniscient and inscrutable god, such that the word 'Science' may as well always be reverentially capitalized.

This whole approach should be suspect from the start, for arguments for hard skepticism cannot be domesticated in the service of scientific knowledge. When your monster chainsaw cuts down everything in sight, there is no use pretending that you are sitting safely on the high limb of Science. Science is the very first victim of the idea that all human experience is untrustworthy.

It strikes me as a performative contradiction, given the fact those purportedly holding the first claim as true have been incessantly making claims about the constitution of the stimulus. — creativesoul

Yep, I think this is surely correct as well. Similar to what I said earlier:

When "science" undermines realism it undermines itself, and those who do not notice this live in an alternate reality where their perceptions are good enough when it comes to "science" and untrustworthy otherwise.* There is never a clear answer as to where the "science" ends and the "otherwise" begins. — Leontiskos

To place the idea in an image: someone in Michael's group might claim that, via the scientific findings of a microscope, they have proved that the human eye does not perceive reality. But without the legitimacy of the human eye the findings of a microscope have no value, for the microscope presupposes the human eye. More subtle iterations of this fallacy are percolating throughout this thread.

Talking Heads right? You might like McWhorter's book. A pretty good antidote the Kendi's, Crenshaw's and DiAngelo's of the world. — AmadeusD

Yes, and I might end up reading his book, but I'm guessing it will be a variant on things I already believe. I don't think an approach like Kendi's et al. has anything to recommend it. I thought McWhorter's analysis of Kendi's vantage point was insightful.

Did you enjoy McWhorter's book?

Yep - Michael is begging the question and then falsely appealing to "the science." This has been going on for a long time now.

---

The point of this is that it is empirically proven that an internal, subjective experience can be evoked by direct brain stimulation. This means that you cannot conclude anything about the constitution of the stimulus from the experience. The smell you smell is the product of stimuli upon the brain, so the perception is entirely the creation of the brain. — Hanover

This poor argument is at the bottom of so much confusion on TPF. I have often considered devoting a thread to it. It is the basic modern error of thinking that Cartesian anti-Pyrrhonism represents the only kind of knowledge.* The modern skeptic will characteristically identify some absurd possibility, note that it cannot be apodictically ruled out, and then conclude that we have no reason to believe it is not the case. This is sophistry. To give an example, we could cash it out this way:

1. If one does not know with perfect certainty whether they are dreaming, then they have no evidence for believing that reality exists.
2. We do not know with perfect certainty whether we are dreaming.
3. Therefore, we have no evidence for believing that reality exists.

The error relating to (1) is always the same, and the corrective is to note that there are different kinds of knowledge and evidence. Knowledge and evidence are not an all-or-nothing affair. Aristotle pointed out 2500 years ago that the one who is intent on applying a criterion of mathematical certainty to every subject is fundamentally confused about the nature of knowledge.

This is of course related to Lionino's thread on Cartesian dualism:

This whole thing is reminiscent of the Cartesian move that, "We of course have good reason to believe that X, but do we also have the fullness of certitude?" What standard of proof is being imposed, here? Are we trying to jump over the fence or over the moon? — Leontiskos

One approach to this modern form of skepticism is Pragmatism, but I think there is a simpler answer. The simpler answer is that one does not require perfect certainty in order to have knowledge. I do not need to have perfect certainty that I am not dreaming—whatever that is supposed to mean—in order to have good evidence for believing that reality exists.

* Burnyeat shows that Descartes was self-consciously interested in an inflated version of Pyrrhonism, which we might now call modern skepticism.

Here is the translation for the hard of hearing: Christians believe in God. They do not worship a "God the Father" who has a human past. The Christian concept of God is strictly incompatible with the Mormon view that God was somehow a former human and that all good Mormons will become gods and inherit their own planet. For Christianity this is not a minor mistake; it is a category error that destroys one of the most basic and most fundamental presuppositions of Christianity.

As to who gets to call themselves a Christian, as the whole topic is based in nonsense, who cares?! — tim wood

No one cares whether Mormons call themselves Christian. The question is whether they are Christian. The question is whether Christianity means anything at all. The pluralistic counter-arguments are simply vacuous.

I have an acquaintance who knows absolutely nothing about any religions. He was raised atheist and does not care at all. He also has a very strong opinion that all religions are the same. This results in the silly claim, "I know nothing about religion, but I have a strong opinion that all religions are the same." Of course his opinion is not worth a dime, but he is nevertheless welcome to hold it. This thread is just a redux, "I know nothing about Christianity, but I have a strong opinion that we cannot say that Mormons are not Christians." Three cheers for uneducated opinions. :clap:

That one does not care about a question does not show that the question is nonsense or unimportant. It merely shows that it is outside their scope of interest. And to opine on things that one has no knowledge of or interest in is to claim to know what they obviously do not know, and when people claim to know what they do not know the well of quality discourse is poisoned.

Why don't you tell me what you think they said constitutes the essence of Christianity? — flannel jesus

Where to start? As far as I'm concerned Mormons do not even believe in God. They think that "God the Father" was once a mortal human who, through Mormon doctrine, eventually became "God," or became god of the planet Earth. Mormons think they too will be able to become a god like "God the Father" became a god, with their own planet. When monotheists look at this sort of thing the obvious conclusion is that Mormons do not believe in God at all.* Or at the very least, "Mormons believe in God" requires a remarkable degree of equivocation.

This is a good example of the fact that any resemblance between Mormonism and Christianity is only superficial. Those in this thread who are claiming that there are no substantial differences between Mormonism and Christianity, despite the unanimous testimony of knowledgeable Christians and scholars, have no idea what they are talking about. It beggars belief that folks in this thread are claiming that those who distinguish Christianity from Mormonism only do so on an ad hoc basis. The content and claims in this thread are falling below even what one might expect from Reddit.

(I have Covid and am trying not to post on more complicated topics, but this topic is easy enough.)

* Note too that this falls short of classical polytheism, which generally posits an ontological distinction between gods and humans.

Mormons aren't Christian, neither are Kardecists. — Lionino

The number of Americans who see such claims as contestable speaks volumes about the American approach to religion. :sad:

But if you follow the pluralistic argumentation closely, the proper conclusion is that no one can say anything substantial at all when it comes to religion or the supernatural (and Tim Wood projects this mindset back into the 4th century). So it's not, "Mormons are Christian," but rather, "You said something substantial about the Mormon religious status, and you're not allowed to do that," or, "If someone says that they are something, then they are. You aren't allowed to contradict them." Luckily, this approach is open even to those who know nothing about Mormonism or Christianity.

The difficulty is that your thesis is so far beyond the pale.

Beginning in the 17th century there emerged a historical school which argued for a low Christology based on Enlightenment/naturalist presuppositions. In my opinion it is already intellectually dishonest to approach history with an anti-supernatural dogma, for in that case the conclusion that Jesus was not divine is a fallacious petitio principii rather than a substantial conclusion. Thus I would call such people "faux historians." Nevertheless, there is at least precedent for such an approach, and therefore it is not beyond the pale in a cultural or scholarly way.*

But the proponents of a low Christology have always had to contend with Nicea I, given that it obviously represents a high Christology. Thus progression theses were developed, such as the Hellenization thesis, which sought to make the high Christology of 325 consistent with the supposed low Christology of Christ’s life, three centuries earlier.

What you are doing is actually unheard of, and I have never seen anything like it. In one way or another, you are trying to deny that Nicea I represents a high Christology. Not even the faux historians are willing to engage in the mental gymnastics required to support such a bizarre thesis. Nicea I is simply a data point of high Christology. It is in no way up for grabs by proponents of a low Christology, and no one disagrees on this! Such a thesis would be the flat-earthism of historical theology, and the argumentation which claims that if the Christians at Nicea had wanted to make affirmations and predications then they would have used “fact-language” instead of “belief language,” is on par with the argumentation for a flat Earth. I don't usually engage flat-Earthers, and so I find myself in an odd spot.

* This approach is now crumbling, first because Enlightenment presuppositions are becoming more delineated and contextualizable, and second because the natural interpretive context of Second-Temple Judaism has replaced the artificial Enlightenment context, thus upending the Enlightenment conclusions. For those who are interested, three days ago Larry Chapp interviewed Brant Pitre on a closely related topic, “Jesus and divine Christology.”

Ok. You tell me something about God. And you tell me how the Patristic Fathers would have responded to someone asking how tall God was, or fat, or skinny. or bald, or smart. The problem with facts is that they come with accidents, and the Fathers were in my opinion smart enough to recognize that if on the basis of some fact you were compelled to say what God is, then you have also said what He isn't, and I'm thinking they were smart enough not to go there. So it's not a question of worrying about beliefs, but instead about what you may be forced to say about facts. Apparently you are unable to distinguish between belief and knowledge, and suppose that they couldn't either. But don't feel alone; I have lots of neighbors who cannot either. — tim wood

This is the sort of non-argument I would expect from a flat-Earther. Like it or not, there is predication about Jesus occurring in the Nicene Creed, and it is obviously supernatural predication:

I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages. God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father; through him all things were made. For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven, and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate, he suffered death and was buried, and rose again on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead and his kingdom will have no end. — Beginning of Nicene Creed

"Ah, but they didn't really affirm any of that because in the 17th century an (ultimately unsupportable) distinction between facts and mere beliefs emerged," is not a real argument. It doesn't even come close to a real argument.

You may be confused about the Christian balance of apophaticism and cataphaticism, but this is beside the historical fact that Nicea I affirmed and predicated of Jesus a high Christology. Dismissing the historical realities on the basis of quasi-theological hunches will not do. If you want to promote a low Christology you should follow in the footsteps of your forebears and avoid Nicea I at all costs, rather than pretend that it supports your conclusion! Your strange anachronistic claims about "beliefs" end up being little more than unfalsifiable arguments.

On the contrary, English is my native language. Your approach to this topic is about what I would expect from the average American middle-schooler, but I think you are older than that, no? Making a strong distinction between a belief and an affirmation and then anachronistically projecting that distinction back in time such that creedal professions of Christian faith do not involve predication is a confusion that American youngsters are prey to, but the slightest historical knowledge of the Nicene Creed and its history would clear up such confusion (such as, for example, passing knowledge of the prolonged debates over the appropriateness of predicating homoousious of Jesus at Nicea I).

The idea that one professes the Nicene Creed without involving themselves in affirmations and predications is deeply confused, and I am not quite sure where to begin with such an idea. I can only ask you to engage the points and arguments that have already been given, rather than sidestepping them.

You did indeed say that. Not quite oops! but nearly. Could you give me the reference? — Ludwig V

See my post <here> and the reference Simpson gives to the Politics.

Almost all of these churches have very simple definitions for what counts as a Christian, and by the vast majority of those simple definitions, Mormons meet the standard. These organisations start clarifying extra hoops to jump through only when you mention Mormons. — flannel jesus

I don't think this is right at all. It is not a coincidence or a conspiracy that Christians do not find Mormons to be Christian. The way that Mormons conceive of God, Christ, the afterlife, and original sin all differ drastically from historical Christianity. And that doesn't even touch the absurd rabbit hole of Joseph Smith and the birth of Mormonism.

It's not at all like science, because this is about what words mean, not about empirical observations. No empirical observations can tell you what the word "Christian" means. It's definitional. — flannel jesus

If we have to ignore 99% of what Christian leaders and scholars throughout history have said on what constitutes the essence of Christianity, then we are engaged in post hoc rationalization. Anyone who is truly interested in understanding a religion will attend to the leaders, doctrines, and history of that religion.

Ask the majority of Christians, "how can I know if something is a Christian?" They'll tell you one, two, or three criteria, if someone fits those criteria they're a Christian. Almost without fail, Mormons pass any intuitive criteria for being a Christian. — flannel jesus

I think this is entirely false. Or else, if your method is finding the most ignorant person in the room and hoping they help your case, then your method is deeply flawed. Those who are knowledgeable of what Christians have historically believed and practiced, and what Mormons believe and practice, do not conflate Christianity and Mormonism.

So you are a Mormon, then?

Did you know many protestants say Catholics aren't Christian? — flannel jesus

Did you know that's false? Unless by "many" you mean "a small minority." We can't just redefine words whenever it suits our purposes.

These fuckers really love gate keeping the word. — flannel jesus

:roll:

The problems with Mormonism and the mendacity of Mormon apologetics go deep, and should definitely be opposed. But that is a separate matter. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see the vast divergences between Mormonism and Christianity. For example, South Park mocks both, but as it turns out they still require separate episodes.

I mean, maybe if you're a Christian it makes sense for you to take that seriously, but I'm not beholden to any particular churches dogma and thus I'm not obliged to apply some arbitrary rule to decide Mormons, who are Christian by any obvious metric other than popularity among other Christians, are somehow not Christian. — flannel jesus

This is literally on par with saying that 99% of scientific professionals hold that such-and-such is pseudoscience, but, "I'm not obliged to apply some arbitrary rule to decide that such-and-such, which is science by any obvious metric other than popularity among scientists, is somehow not scientific."

This is very bad reasoning. It's not a minor argument to argue on the basis of what the vast, vast majority of experts in some field believe. The criteria and studies that go into such consensuses are anything but arbitrary or dismissible.

- When I talk about what a religious group believes, such as Catholicism or Mormonism, I am talking about what the bona fide representatives and scholars of that group believe (i.e. the leaders and their aids).

I can't say I have spent a lot of time in Unitarian Universalist Churches, but I wouldn't be surprised if a large percentage of UU leaders would be untroubled by such a claim by a Mormon. — wonderer1

Egads. Mormons would constitute 0.61% of Christians and UU would constitute 1% of Mormons. You are talking about tiny outliers here. And the simple reason why neither group is generally considered Christian is because they are not Trinitarians.

I made a claim about 99% of Christians and in response you effectively said, "Well, if UU can be called Christian then .006% of Christians might call Mormons Christian." This literally does not affect my claim or argument whatsoever.

(This thread explains why I rarely engage religious topics on TPF.)

At the least they thought to couch their creed explicitly in terms of belief and not of mere fact. Which only a little thought will show and demonstrate their wisdom. With beliefs you don't have to worry too much about predicates or predication, which are fatal if applied to any idea of God. — tim wood

Er, but the councils that produced the creeds were painstakingly concerned with predicates and predication, as was the Emperor himself. None of the history surrounding the conflicts of religion around the time of Constantine would make any sense at all on your view. For example, the martyrs who died for their beliefs were not dying for "beliefs you don't have to worry too much about."

As to being the first, it's merely a matter of recognizing that a belief and knowledge of a fact are different things, though possibly sharing some overlap. — tim wood

"Fact" as you are using it dates from about the 17th century. The belief-fact distinction is extremely anachronistic when applied to the 4th century. Neither does the Greek pistis indicate something that is not being affirmed.

so what do you mean? — flannel jesus

We can make it very practical:

• Flannel Jesus: Hello, I am already a Christian and I would like to join your Christian community.
• Church leader: Oh, okay. Which denomination do you hail from?
• Flannel Jesus: Latter-day Saints.

Now the only Church leader who will say, "Oh okay, I agree that you are already Christian and require no baptism or initiation before joining our community," would be a Mormon leader. So you can go on claiming that Mormons are Christians, so long as it is admitted that 99% of Christians disagree with you.

Affirmation as a fact.. I can affirm all kinds of things - and what would that mean? To affirm them as facts, then, would make them different, in all contexts where the difference would matter. — tim wood

I think that is an odd distinction in the first place, but it is certainly anachronistic to use "facts" in such a manner, contrasting it with the "beliefs" of 4th-century Christians. Unless I am mistaken, you are the first one in the thread to make use of the term "facts" in this manner.

Edit: If you are saying that Christians never affirmed that Jesus is God, they only believed it, I would say that this is both anachronistic and incorrect. A creedal profession involves such affirmations, and therefore an argument from creeds does not support this interpretation.

if that's NOT the litmus test, then you don't mean the words you said — flannel jesus

I don't mean your strawman, but that goes without saying.

You, and others, seem to feel that affirmation of the supernatural as a fact is a sine qua non of Christianity (which in fact is not and never was true - the creed is, "We believe..."). — tim wood

That is an odd line. The Nicene Creed affirms exactly what Lionino says, namely that Jesus is the Son of God, consubstantial with the Father. The Apostles' Creed is not much different. It's hard to see how any of this avoids being "supernatural."

...Or are you under the impression that belief and affirmation are altogether distinct?

That is decidedly untrue. All I have to do is find one non-mormon who thinks mormonism is a christian religion, and it's untrue. That's a pretty easy bar to pass. — flannel jesus

If that's the litmus test you would apply then it's clear you're not taking the question seriously in the first place.

Anyway, Mormons aren't Christian, the only ones who think so are Mormons. — Lionino

I hope you don't expect people on a philosophy forum to just accept your word for it without coherent arguments. — flannel jesus

It is true that only Mormons think Mormons are Christian, and this is a strong argument given that Mormons are a significant minority.*

In Christianity membership is usually defined by baptism, and therefore one can determine whether someone is seen to be a Christian by considering whether they require baptism upon converting. The majority of Christians are made up of Catholics and Orthodox, and neither group recognizes Mormon baptism as valid or Christian. Protestantism consists of many different groups, but they all seem to agree that Mormons are not Christians.

* Mormons would account for only 0.61% of Christians as of 2024, according to Wikipedia and a main source of the Wikipedia article.

I think that's the long and short of it: an anti-racist dogma comes up against an empirical argument. — Leontiskos

I was recently recommended a podcast hosted by Glenn Loury and John McWhorter. So last night I listened to my first episode, which focused on the notion of "racial equity." It was interesting without going beyond the realm of easy listening, but the tag clip at the beginning of the video highlights the beginning of McWhorter's argument in favor of equality, namely that blacks are not intellectually inferior (timestamp). What's interesting is that he intentionally avoids appealing to the dogma, and it cannot be overstated how odd this move is in the American landscape. McWhorter substantiates this, "We're going to get into trouble for even discussing [the empirical case for equality], but anyone who thinks we can't discuss it is being religious and not logical."

Aristotle gave an empirical case for inequality qua ruling, and I don't see how serious-minded individuals can oppose Aristotle's arguments without making their own empirical case for equality. Although he is not opposing Aristotle, there is a parallel sense in which McWhorter is one of those serious-minded individuals, and his arguments are perfectly reasonable.

Ah, okay. I didn't realize that the jpeg was from a different article or website. My bad.

Recently, I was warned about posting a piece of news from a mainstream journal, because it violates "discrimination guidelines". — Lionino

The article seems unobjectionable to me. In my opinion TPF has an ideological lean, especially when it comes to politics. Conservatives must tread with care in a progressive environment, especially if they wish to enter into political argument. The problems posed by immigration is one of those topics that is largely off-limits as far as progressives are concerned. That said, I think TPF is more open-minded than most progressive spaces.

If all Greeks turn out to have x, y, and z characteristics, so be it. But they will not be willing to assume that they do on such fragile grounds as the fact that they all speak Greek or live in Greece. There is no rational connection between speaking Greek or living in Greece and being fit to rule. — Ludwig V

Aristotle says that Greeks are fit to rule because they have x, y, and z characteristics. He does not say that Greeks are fit to rule because they are Greek. — Leontiskos

I don't know, being that Aristotle was a zoologist (maybe first and foremost), I think he was talking about what later we would know as genetics, so Greeks would have immutably what makes them suited to ruling. — Lionino

Well genetics are not immutable, but here is the crux of the matter:

Aristotle says that Greeks are fit to rule because they have x, y, and z characteristics. He does not say that Greeks are fit to rule because they are Greek.

Now "anti-racists" have a difficult time even with saying that Greeks are fit to rule because they have x, y, and z characteristics, and this is because the "anti-racist" holds to a dogma which says that no race or people has any characteristic which makes it better, in any way, than any other race or people. I think that's the long and short of it: an anti-racist dogma comes up against an empirical argument. I would say that, in principle, the dogma loses every time, and that the best arguments against racism are not dogmatic, a priori arguments. We can go further and say that when anti-racism becomes dogmatic it carries itself over into irrationality, even though it is politically incorrect to say so. I don't oppose morality, but this is one of the many examples of a moralistic position falling into irrationality.

I think that is a bit unspecific. — Lionino

Perhaps, but less unspecific than the original objection, which was my aim.

it would then be puzzling why Aristotle said that Greeks are suited to rule the world and thus the strong savages to the North as well as the effeminate intellectuals to the South to be ruled, as we can't change our race — immutable. — Lionino

Greeks are not immutably rulers. They need not have had the characteristics that made them good rulers, and they need not maintain those characteristics into the future. If there were something immutable or "biological" about Greeks being good rulers then none of this would be true.

How can another man's actions change the karmic situation of a person when dealing with his conscious. — Gregory

Aren't they denying personhood in humans in line with savage beliefs of old? — Gregory

To be free is to be the only one making the decision. — Gregory

It would be hard to overemphasize the foolishness of these ideas. The logical conclusion of the classically liberal notion of freedom is the idea that the actions of others cannot significantly influence another person or their situation. Someone who holds to such a rarefied version of liberty of course does not know what to make of any authentically communal event, including the act of making satisfaction for a group or community (Shoah, anyone?). But they also don't know what to make of the dependence of children on their parents; the duties of community, including family, town, and country; or even something as simple as fetal alcohol syndrome, murder, or the various other ways that individuals are drastically influenced by the actions of others. They don't know what to make of culture, or tradition, or even pregnancy. They struggle with the notion of giving advice or mentoring; they are bewildered by the notion of justified coercive force when it comes to, say, imprisonment. In short, they don't know what to make of reality, and they live in a fantasy land where freedom is whole and complete in each individual.

- I would suggest starting with a dictionary and then looking up 'atonement' and 'propitiation.' Maybe after that you will want to find a confessional source for what this or that group of Christians actually believe. It's hard to believe that you would write a thread without taking such steps.

Propitiation to my mind is a denial of free will. — Gregory

Propitiation is a denial of free will? I would love to hear an argument for such a claim. Whose free will is infringed? The one appeasing or the one appeased? lol...

On atonment, is not it crystal clear that someone cannot receive merits from someone else. How can another man's actions change the karmic situation of a person when dealing with his conscious. Again, this seems to be obvious to me. A person's moral state and repercussions are entirely in their own hands, no? Nevertheless the largest religion in the world believes otherwise. Again, what am i missing?? — Gregory

When it comes to vicarious satisfaction or atonement I would probably want to chip at the idea of monadic individualism. Things like reverencing and remembering ancestors, religious worship, and even things like Pure Land Buddhism all balk at this idea of monadic individualism. I am thinking specifically of "religious worship" of ancient times, where a polytheistic distribution of lands to certain gods obtained, and a people or geography was itself bound to a god (and then in turn to a king or ruler).

The idea that God allowed the forgiveness of guilt, the healing of man from within, to cost him the death of his Son has come to seem quite alien to us today. That the Lord “has borne our diseases and taken upon himself sorrows,” that “he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities,” and that “with his wounds we are healed” (Is 53:4–6) no longer seems plausible to us today. Militating against this, on one side, is the trivialization of evil in which we take refuge, despite the fact that at the very same time we treat the horrors of human history, especially of the most recent human history, as an irrefutable pretext for denying the existence of a good God and slandering his creature man. But the understanding of the great mystery of expiation is also blocked by our individualistic image of man. We can no longer grasp substitution because we think that every man is ensconced in himself alone. The fact that all individual beings are deeply interwoven and that all are encompassed in turn by the being of the One, the Incarnate Son, is something we are no longer capable of seeing. When we come to speak of Christ’s Crucifixion, we will have to take up these issues again. — Jesus of Nazareth, by Joseph Ratzinger, p. 159

For Aquinas' view, see his reply to objection 1 at ST III.48.2.

And maybe I am not your classical naturalist. If you take structuralism seriously, matter isn’t really very material when you get down to it. Even Aristotle’s prime matter or Anaximander’s Apeiron are a little too substantial. Plato’s Khôra isn’t right either but has something to recommend it. Somehow the material principle must be reduced to the purist notion of a potential. As in perhaps a Peircean vagueness or quantum foam. — apokrisis

Sure, and I don't really know enough about Peirce to engage these things. I tend to read Aristotle through Aquinas, although I recognize that in many ways Aristotle was the better philosopher.

Chance and necessity as the opposing limits defining the actuality we find sandwiched between these two limiting extremes.

Logos and flux would be another twist on the same thought. — apokrisis

Okay, but Logos also seems to be something different from both chance and necessity. Nevertheless, theism tends to be averse to the notion of fundamental flux, and this is at least one data point where classical theism clashes with a Peircean (and also an Aristotelian) model.

Well Peirce lived in a very theistic times. There was plenty of social pressure, and advantage, to frame things in that light. — apokrisis

But it is interesting that Peirce was not opposed to Medieval thought in the same way that modern science traditionally has been. For example, he read thinkers who his contemporaries were largely ignorant of, like Aquinas and especially Scotus. For this reason theistic semioticians like John Deely relate to Peirce in an entirely different way than they relate to scientists bound by modern thought.

And I don’t think a semiotic metaphysics in general could come across as clearly opposing an immanent kind of idealism or divine principle as - as I argued - it shouldn’t either stand for anything like an orthodox material account of Nature. It is poised in some metaphysical space of it own that sees both classical materialism and classical idealism as suffering from misplaced concretism and not tuned into the subtleties of Aristotelean hylomorphism as an argument. — apokrisis

Right, and it does not seem to be as agonistic and reactionary as many of the forces at work in modern science.

Well evolution is a pretty robust logical concept. How would you even prevent it happening in the sense that given a variety of possibilities, the most effective - in what ever sense that means - is going to win out.

Why else is physics so tied to the principle of least action? The path integral says every quantum event is a sum over a whole universe of possibilities. That’s a pretty dramatic application of Darwinian competition in its physicalist sense. — apokrisis

As I understand it, there are competing models that do not make such a strong use of the Darwinian principle of randomness or random mutation.

But considering the idea that the most effective possibility will win out, are we saying that what is known in a prior way to be most effective will in fact win out, or is "most effective" being defined as whatever ends up winning out? It is that dallying with necessitarianism which strikes me as odd, especially as a keystone for interpreting increasingly large swaths of reality. Teleology is becoming more and more acceptable, and yet the telos seems to always be up for grabs. Mechanistic science avoided the whole problem by turning a blind eye, but once teleology is admitted the idea of an ordering Intellect or Mover becomes more plausible.

To say that slaves are essential different from masters due to the kind of creature they are. One could justify saying "this person has a slavish soul" by saying "this person has bad habits that could change", which would be a psychological rather than a biological category. But Aristotle justifies it by tying it to their essence as creatures: their whole teleology is to be bound to a master who directs them in physical labor. — Moliere

Aristotle recognizes that the differences between the master and slave are generated by contingent factors. They are not somehow predetermined or immutable or necessary.

I'm guessing you're bound to a democratic/egalitarian argument where everyone is supposed to be equal, and any empirical inequalities must therefore be minor and superficial. But practically speaking this is a very difficult position to maintain, both because the empirical observations do not support it, and because when the democratic citizen votes they are required to discern good leaders from bad leaders. If there is no essential difference between one candidate and another, then why vote at all? And is it realistic to deny that there are at least two classes of adults: those who could make good leaders and those who could not?

I think what most trips up the modern democratic mind is that Aristotle holds that the natural slave prefers to be ruled by a natural master, in much the same way that the natural infantryman prefers to be ruled by a natural general. We have a notion that there are no natural slaves and that everyone is therefore fit to rule, and the consequences of this are nigh-comical. In that case, maybe the U.S. has received the presidential candidates it deserves.

For Aristotle the doctrine is eminently practical, and so to ignore the pragmatic reality on the ground while appealing to purely theoretical notions of "biological essences" is beside the point. What would a world with no natural slaves actually look like, and do we live in that world or not?

Lionino, I think our conversation went astray — Bob Ross

Yep, this seems right to me.

I don't see how, in that case, you could argue that (1) there is not intent to harm nor (2) that the intent is direct. — Bob Ross

Sure, I think that's a fair point.

I was meaning a causal means, like pulling a lever. Technically the gun, or my fist (in case of punching), is the means and the effect is the bullet harming the aggressor. — Bob Ross

Sure, but it is helpful to remember that causality does not track intention. To take a clearer example than the baseball bat, suppose someone applies a rear naked choke in self defense, and suppose that this does harm the aggressor but the defender is not aware of the harm involved. Have they used harm as a means?

An action is a volition of will; and as such cannot be analyzes independently of the per se intention behind it. — Bob Ross

Yes, I think that's exactly right.

The solution, I think, is to reject 3: I realized that my theory is eudaimonic and not hedonic, and so I am not committed to the idea that harming someone, in-itself, is bad for them. — Bob Ross

The OP raises subtle questions that probably cannot be solved in a single day or in a single thread. For a consequentialist the topic is fairly straightforward, but for a non-consequentialist it is more complicated. This is because most non-consequentialists recognize that consequences cannot simply be ignored. Harm in itself tends to be a consequence, and it is not obvious when the level of harm becomes morally relevant and when it does not. For Thomists it is the tricky question of when and how a circumstance can enter into the object of a moral act, and corrupt it.

Likewise, I find nothing wrong, now that I have liberated myself from 3, with deploying a principle of forfeiture whereby one can harm someone for the sake of preventing them from doing something wrong — Bob Ross

To press the complications, this would seem to be a case of deterrence, which is not the same as self-defense. This can be approached by noting that preventing precedes a bad act, whereas forfeiture follows after a bad act. At best we would say that a right is forfeited on account of some evil and manifest intent, and that use of force prevents the carrying out of that intent. Still, this more accurately describes the police officer than the private citizen who is merely concerned with self-defense. Self-preservation and prevention of wrongdoing are not the same thing, even though in some cases they interleave. Aquinas' article on blows is somewhat on point.

For me the heart of this thread is the question of the moral status of harm simpliciter. Supposing we have a duty to not harm or minimize harm, in what does this precisely consist? — Leontiskos

A preliminary takeaway is that harm does not necessarily invalidate an act, and yet it can invalidate an act. Specifically, if there is not a proper relation between the volitional act and the harm that ensues, then the harm will presumably invalidate the act. Still, to assess acts primarily in terms of harm is a preoccupation of democratic liberalism and consequentialism, and this way of assessing acts seems to be mistaken.

Can you justify this claim? Where do justifications bottom out? I'm probing the probing here. — unenlightened

The OP actually sets out two competing justifications for self-defense: double effect and forfeiture. In <this post> you gestured towards a forfeiture doctrine:

I might talk about a 'necessary mutuality' of moral behaviour, such that the thief forfeits his right to possess his own property — unenlightened

This makes it sound like we strip thieves of all property, which is not the case, and yet it seems to me that forfeiture justifications have a difficult time drawing that line. Nevertheless, this claim introduces two difficulties: punishment vs. defense and public vs. private. Classically these things are distinguished from one another. Defense is not necessarily punishment and punishment is not necessarily defense; and not everything that is available to a public authority is available to a private citizen.

Here is SEP's perspective:

On a standard view, the moral wrongness of killing and injuring is grounded in persons’ having stringent moral rights against such treatment. If defensive harming is at least sometimes morally permissible, it needs to be explained how the use of force can be consistent with these rights. Two broad types of justification are common in the literature.

The first holds that a person’s right against harm, though weighty, is not absolute and may be permissibly infringed if necessary to achieve a sufficiently important good. This is known as a lesser-evil justification.

...

[Second justification...] Instead, the permission to kill Attacker is explained by his lack of a right not to be killed in the circumstances. This is known as a liability justification for harming. — Self-Defense | SEP

I thought the claim to have acted in self defence was the way one justified an act of harm. — unenlightened

In that case the OP is a probing of the justification: How does the justification work? Does the justification stand? A justification needs to be more than a simple claim or assertion. In a similar way, the OP could be construed as a devil's advocate argument for pacifism.

...if the principle of self defence cannot stand alone... — unenlightened

What do you take the "principle of self-defense" to be? It's not so clear what such a thing is supposed to be.

But the facts forced him to change his mind.

...

It is all the more impressive that such an epistemic method worked despite the deeper intuitions of one of the most brilliant ever thinkers. — apokrisis

Yes, very true! I suppose my point is that someone who does not share Einstein's intuition will not feel any force from his claim. Such intuitions are often defended by a vague appeal to "the science," which is what I think is happening in Michael's case. Then when one probes the supposed inferences they find that there is nothing more than an intuition. My background theism causes me to desire to remain open to the possibility that color may have some non-arbitrary meaning, and this provides me with an additional motive to question the validity of the inferences. That is the minor point I was trying to make at the outset.

Again, a pragmatist asks only what use is this belief? Does the belief have observable consequences? If not, it is not even a theory capable of being wrong. So it is up to the theist to deduce the consequences of their theory such that they stand counterfactually opposed to some clear alternative and so measureable on that explicit basis. — apokrisis

Sure, and I haven't really considered these questions vis-a-vis pragmatism. I also haven't worked out where Peirce's pragmatism ends and James' begins. At the same time, I don't know whether intuitions such as Einstein's are pragmatic in this sense. The same would go for John Henry Newman's "illative sense," which is a kind of broad and fundamental inductive or abductive belief. Not all beliefs are equally pragmatic, or equally able to be suspended.

Even the null hypothesis would do as that alternative – the statistical case that there is some effect to be discussed rather than just some random noise in the data. So what difference does your version of a God make in this natural world? What difference would His absence make? What effect are you making claims for in a suitably counterfactual fashion? Where is then the evidence in terms of at least some statistical reason for a pause for thought? — apokrisis

I think there are many different kinds of arguments for God's existence, especially when God is taken to be transcendent and is thought to be able to manifest in very different ways. I don't really know enough about you to know what kind of argument would resonate with you, or whether I am capable of making it.

Of course the theist might take refuge in transcendence. But why would any rigorous epistemology go along with that? Once isn't a pragmatist because one dislikes truth. — apokrisis

And why would any rigorous theology go along with the idea that God is reducible to an epistemic object? This is where the incommensurable paradigms begin to collide, and I don't know that there are neat and tidy answers to be had.

For example, is an epistemology less rigorous if it admits of beings which transcend humans, and in particular the capacities of the human mind?

When one metaphysics endlessly has to retreat in the face of scientific advance, and the other metaphysics instead keeps looking scientifically sounder by the day, I would say history is indeed passing its judgement on the beliefs of humans. — apokrisis

Yes, I agree.

Am I operating in that paradigm? As a pragmatist, I would say not. — apokrisis

I don't know, but you began with a god-of-the-gaps inquiry and it seemed that you were unfamiliar with the relativizing of the would-be brute-fact structure. We see a similar dynamic when Aristotle is content to appeal to brute facts where Plato will desire a higher and more unified metaphysical explanation.

But my point there was that the naturalist is generally able to talk to the fundamentalist without in any way prescinding from a naturalistic paradigm, for the fundamentalist has a tendency to confront naturalism on its own terms. Think for example of intelligent design theorists, who hold that there are demonstrable and unfillable gaps. But I am more of a classical theist, and the classical theist won't generally address naturalism on its own terms. What this means is that the fundamentalist's evidence for God can straightforwardly square off against the naturalist's evidence of absence, because they disagree primarily on the particular evidence and not on the general inferences. But evidence of absence for the fundamentalist's God need not count as evidence of absence for the classical theist's God. This does have to do with transcendence, but the transcendence is not ad hoc and in fact predates the fundamentalist's approach by a large stretch of time.

If you can show me the effect in some controlled fashion – show it isn't just nature being random – then I would say, well let's start investigating that as a class of cause. — apokrisis

And would you say that effects that cannot be controlled can still count as evidence?

So Peirce of course had to presume something as a starting point. He "believed" nature is essentially tychic. Rooted in true spontaneity. — apokrisis

Interesting.

The Big Bang is the tale of infinite dimensional possibility being broken by its own dimensional symmetry breaking. Absolute spontaneity reducing itself to a Planckian residue of just three spatial directions organised by exactly those global and local symmetries that could not in the end be completely cancelled out of existence.

The Big Bang starts at the point where nearly all free possibility was wiped out. And that then resulted in a hot seed of dimensional structure – a fleck of energetic order – which took off towards its own form of self-cancellation or temporal inversion in expanding and cooling its way to its own Heat Death. — apokrisis

Okay - I think I followed this part best. :grin:

So as a cosmology that provides a metaphysical alternative to transcendent theism, it is pretty detailed. It relies on mathematical strength arguments about Lorentz boosts and Lie groups. It demands all the mathematical machinery of general relativity and quantum field theory. It raises a whole set of factual issues about "the missing critical mass" or "quantum weirdness". — apokrisis

So then what is the counterfactual case for Tychism? For the idea that Logos is a byproduct of chance rather than a fundamental reality?

As I read the Wikipedia article on Tychism I find that much of it seems to be in sync with theism and not opposed to it. According to that article it is primarily meant to target deterministic, necessitarian, mechanistic accounts. But I should say that many of the ideas in the culture strike me as leaning too heavily on extrapolated forms of Darwinian theory. In many ways Darwin has become our keystone to interpreting the world, and think this may be due more to a vacuum than to careful thinking or observation.