I really don't get where you're coming from.

You say: [...]

Now you say: [...]

Seems straight up contradictory. — boethius

I'm looking for more than just one thing here. There's literally a bulleted list of them in the OP. I'm interested primarily the first, but also in the second. You seemed upset that I was asking people to read closely just for the second. I clarified that close reading is more needed for the first, which I care more about than the second.

What's the purpose of this discussion about the discussion? If my feedback is useful -- to a point you'll add a disambiguation in your text, based on the point I bring up -- then why not want more of it? — boethius

I'm just replying to the things that you say here. My first response to you was short and to the point, saying I'm not meaning to associate with Ayn Rand but to use a more general sense of the word "objectivism", and that I would think about adding a disambiguation to avoid that confusion:

I am aware of Ayn Rand but not drawing anything from her philosophy specifically. There are a lot of different kinds of lower-case “objectivisms” in philosophy, like moral objectivism, which just hold that something or another is objective. I’m just using it in that general sense.

Maybe I should add a little bit of explanation for each of the terms of that I am for, like I had for each of the terms I used for the things I’m against in previous essays. “Objectivism” isn’t the only one that has some ambiguity; “liberalism” definitely does too, and probably the others as well. — Pfhorrest

And then you replied to just the first part of that, ignoring the second, and said a bunch of other stuff too, and I've just been replying to you since.

Though it's not an important point as I don't mind if people makeup their own terminology, but the more social conventions used (relative a given community the discussion is taking place in) the faster you can be understood. — boethius

I think you misunderstood what I was saying. I'm saying that the conventions are not consistent, and I am trying to use the least-ambiguous ones possible, but necessarily have to add clarification about what exactly I mean since there isn't one absolutely unambiguous word for the thing that I mean.

I added a couple examples right after writing the previous post, which you might have missed:

A difficulty I face here is that, when putting forth new ideas, even if they are combinations of existing ideas, I have to either make up new words to name them, or use words that have some existing sense that is appropriate, even if it might have other connotations I don't want in narrower contexts.

My position that every question, both about reality and about morality, has answers that are not subjective, mind-dependent, relative, etc, I call "objectivism", because "objective" is generally contrasted with subjective/mind-dependent/relative/etc, and doesn't have the problems of other possibilities like "realism" (which when applied to moral questions would imply a reduction of morality to reality, conflation of ought with is) or "absolutism" (as already explained).

My position that opinions, beliefs, intentions, etc, don't need to be justified from the ground up before we're warranted to hold them, but instead must only be absent reasons to discard them, I call "liberalism", because it means we're free to hold those opinions, and when it comes to intentions, that is the usual literal sense of the word, meaning you don't have to preemptively justify your intentions, you can just do what you want, unless there's some reason not to. I know there are political connotations of that word in some contexts, but what better word is there for the position that I advocate? In epistemology specifically, I could (and do) say "critical rationalism", but this is a more general principle of which critical rationalism is a specific instance.

My position that every opinion should be subject to questioning I call "criticism", even though that obviously has a number of other uses, because other alternatives like "skepticism" or "rationalism" often have connotations that I specifically argue against (namely, the justificationist connotations that my position called "liberalism" are opposed to).

You see the problem here? — Pfhorrest

My point is that your OP is an unreasonable demand if you want to do something other than collect people's cursory impressions, but actually want to argue with people the substance.

If you want to debate the substance, just post the essays and defend your ideas against criticism. Most likely the lineage commentary would come about as a side-affect in any-case. — boethius

I'm not asking people to read carefully for the lineage stuff, but for the clarity of the ideas presented. And I do eventually want to debate the ideas, when they are ones that are actually my own original ideas, or little-known ones, which is why I'm asking what ideas are new to people.

What I don't want is for every attempt to talk about anything to be immediately interrupted by a repetition of some argument that has been going on for 2000 years. If I'm saying something that's old to you and has already been argued to death, I've probably also heard whatever argument you're about to make in response, I'll probably address it later, and I don't want to derail the whole conversation getting into that right away.

Yeah, hes a testy little fellow. Doesn't like to have just a nice little conversation — christian2017

I'm not upset about anything, I just don't follow what you're talking about, and how it relates to this conversation.

As you may suspect, I'm not going to invest the time to carefully read your essays only to try to trace the lineage of each of the ideas presented. — boethius

As I said, I am not just trying to trace lineages, or even primarily looking for that. The very first thing I ask for is:

Is it clear what my views are, and my reasons for holding them?

If someone is not giving a charitable read but just taking a quick glance and making a knee-jerk reaction based on isolated words they skimmed, that doesn't actually tell me if the words I actually wrote, assembled the way I wrote them, as a whole, are clear.

For example, you apparently saw the word "objectivism", and wondered if I meant Randianism, when I say right there when I first use it (in this essay) what I mean by it, and it's clearly not Randianism.

And if you're interested to make you writing robust, you are well served by looking into both the positives, false negatives, false positives as well as the positively negative, to then not only (perhaps) learn from those thinkers mentioned but also to be able to report back where you stand with relation to those thinkers. — boethius

I have been. If you'd actually followed any of the other threads so far, you'd see I've been making lots of subtle changes to try to clear up misconceptions that have been revealed. I even made a small change based on you already today, and have planned for a larger one to do later, that I already told you about, twice.

And I usually have read most of the other thinkers mentioned. I have a degree in philosophy. And I am trying to report back where I stand with relation to them, where necessary and appropriate. That's the other large part of these review threads: asking for where people think it's necessary or appropriate, besides where I've already done it. That's what you keep calling "tracing lineages", so you obviously know I'm aiming to do that.

For instance, you know And Rand is fairly popular in libertarian circles; simply positioning yourself clearly (moreover if you want to retain the word objectivist) will make things much clearer and easier for anyone wanting to engage with your material. — boethius

I already said, three times now, that I do plan on adding a bit of disambiguation about the word "objectivism", and I will mention Rand in it, precisely because you brought it up. That was useful feedback of the kind I'm looking for, and I think I already said thanks for that, but if not, thanks for that.

Other authors you may want to look into is, obviously, Kant.

Kant's transcendental idealism is constructed precisely to be able to manage an absolutist (or objective if you insist) view of truth from a position of limited knowledge. Which seems a similar view as to what you are trying to build. — boethius

I have read Kant. He is a major influence on me. He is possibly my favorite philosopher. I still disagree with him in many respects.

While dealing with the problem of things relating to situations... — boethius

I'm not going to respond to this at length here, but the short of it is that yes, you need some general principles with which to make particular judgements, and that's in large part what I hold philosophy to be all about, and I will go into much greater detail about that later. I only brought that up to point out that "absolutism" is an ambiguous word. So is "objectivism", but it has more overlap with what I mean than "absolutism", so I picked that one.

As a Kantian, my main motivation in reading your work carefully would be to defend Kantianism against your attacks on transcendentalism.

...

Since you seem very insistent you're against transcendentalism, it would be useful, if your purpose is to clarify your ideas for critical scrutiny, to simply state a position clearly relative to the most famous transcendentalist (and of course relative your interpretation of Kant's transcendentalism, of which many are readily available). — boethius

The transcendentalism I am against is what Kant called "transcendental realism", which he is also against; that plus the moral analogue thereof. The very start of my essay Against Transcendentalism says:

I am against something that I will call "transcendentalism" for lack of a better term. "Transcendent" in general means "going beyond", and the word has many different senses in philosophy and other fields, but the sense that I'm using here is as the antonym for "phenomenal" or "experiential", so this sense of "transcendent" means "beyond experience" or "beyond appearances". Half of the kind of transcendentalism that I am against is what Immanuel Kant called "transcendental realism", which he also opposed, in contrast to what he called "empirical realism"...

Of course, you don't need to use the usual philology references, it just makes it longer to understand for someone familiar with philosophical material. Making your own terminology is fine, though may actually take more time in debates than the initial investment of the most understandable terminology. — boethius

All kinds of words used throughout philosophy are used in a bunch of different ways by different writers in different places and times (I say that right in my text, as you can see quoted above). The best that we can do is try to use one in a way that's as unambiguous as possible and then say specifically what exactly we mean by it when we use it. Which I do.

A difficulty I face here is that, when putting forth new ideas, even if they are combinations of existing ideas, I have to either make up new words to name them, or use words that have some existing sense that is appropriate, even if it might have other connotations I don't want in narrower contexts.

My position that every question, both about reality and about morality, has answers that are not subjective, mind-dependent, relative, etc, I call "objectivism", because "objective" is generally contrasted with subjective/mind-dependent/relative/etc, and doesn't have the problems of other possibilities like "realism" (which when applied to moral questions would imply a reduction of morality to reality, conflation of ought with is) or "absolutism" (as already explained).

My position that opinions, beliefs, intentions, etc, don't need to be justified from the ground up before we're warranted to hold them, but instead must only be absent reasons to discard them, I call "liberalism", because it means we're free to hold those opinions, and when it comes to intentions, that is the usual literal sense of the word, meaning you don't have to preemptively justify your intentions, you can just do what you want, unless there's some reason not to. I know there are political connotations of that word in some contexts, but what better word is there for the position that I advocate? In epistemology specifically, I could (and do) say "critical rationalism", but this is a more general principle of which critical rationalism is a specific instance.

My position that every opinion should be subject to questioning I call "criticism", even though that obviously has a number of other uses, because other alternatives like "skepticism" or "rationalism" often have connotations that I specifically argue against (namely, the justificationist connotations that my position called "liberalism" are opposed to).

You see the problem here? Would you rather I just made up words in some invented Elvish language or something?

However, since you asking for where the ideas may originate from I'd recommend you at least feign interest in the subject matter of your own OP, rather than just insist people read everything very, very carefully whenever you hear something other than praise. — boethius

I don't think I've heard any praise at all yet. (Apologies to anyone who did, if I forgot you already). Most of what I've heard is people objecting to things I didn't say, or wondering about things I already answered in the text. The appropriate response to either of which is to read more carefully. How can you possibly have a productive conversation with someone who doesn't hear the things you do say, and does hear things you didn't say?

And what do you mean by "feign interest in the subject matter of [my] own OP"? I clearly am interested in my own writing, which is the subject of the OP. And in the things I'm writing about. And in other people who have written things about what I'm writing about, many of whom I have already read. What more are you asking for?

Another word you use is pragmatism. Again, reading and positioning yourself relative to pragmatists such as Locke and Dewey would be a useful exercise. Since pragmatism is something you seem definitely for and not against, this may also be fruitful ground to develop your position further. — boethius

I have studied Locke, and Dewey, and James, and Peirce. Though Locke long predates the latter three, who were the first pragmatists, so I'm not sure why you're including him as a pragmatist. In any case, I am heavily influenced by them, Peirce more so than the others.

I did say in response to your first response in this thread:

Maybe I should add a little bit of explanation for each of the terms of that I am for, like I had for each of the terms I used for the things I’m against in previous essays. “Objectivism” isn’t the only one that has some ambiguity; “liberalism” definitely does too, and probably the others as well. — Pfhorrest

I just haven't had time to do that yet this morning.

Also you maybe missed an edit I made right after posting that one bit, where I said "I did notice when writing this that I do use the word "absolute" as a synonym for "objective" at a few places in this essay though, so I've fixed that now. Thanks for indirectly bringing that to my attention."

I did read your essay, but not carefully as you're only desiring feedback on where the ideas come from, or then to identify them as new, according to your OP, and am happy to help.

A careful reading would also require reading all the previous essays where you define your terms, as you mention above. Again, I'd be happy to look into carefully if that's what your post was about. What I wouldn't be happy about is making some effort and then having the response "ah, am only looking for grammar feedback at the moment". — boethius

I am looking first and foremost to know if my positions are being communicated clearly, which does depend on reading the text carefully, including everything that it's built upon. If you are willing to do that, I would appreciate it. A cursory reading that seems not to understand, but only because it was a cursory reading and not through unclear writing on my part, just gives me false negatives.

Tide goes in, tide goes out. Never a miscommunication. You can’t explain that. You can’t explain why the tide goes in.

The water, the tide... it comes in and it goes out. It always goes in, then it goes out. You can’t explain that. You can’t explain it.

If you don't want that association, empirical is the more normal philosophical word for drawing conclusions from what we normal would call an "objective view of reality". — boethius

Empiricism is the descriptive face of what I more generally call "phenomenalism", not "objectivism". The descriptive face of "objectivism" would be "realism". You can be an anti-empirical realist (like supernaturalists), or an anti-realist empiricist (like subjective idealists).

I do define what I mean by these things in the essay:

In being against nihilism, I say to hold that there is some opinion or another that is actually correct in a sense beyond merely someone subjectively agreeing with it, a position that I call "objectivism". [...] And in being against transcendentalism, I say to reject any opinion that is not amenable to questioning because it is beyond any possible experience that could test it one way or another, a position that I call "phenomenalism". [...] This commensurablist approach to reality may be called "critical empirical realism", as realism is the descriptive face of objectivism, empiricism is the descriptive face of phenomenalism, and [...]

"Nihilism" and "transcendentalism" being defined in detail in the previous essays on those topics, to include relativism, idealism, egotism and solipsism within "nihilism", and supernaturalism, the moral analogue thereof, and two senses of "materialism" within "transcendentalism".

unless you are advancing that there are in fact objective procedures to resolve moral questions, which you don't seem to be doing — boethius

...did you actually read the essay? I am definitely doing that.

With regards to opinions about morality, commensurablism boils down to forming initial opinions on the basis that something, loosely speaking, feels good (and not bad), and then rejecting that and finding some other opinion to replace it with if someone should come across some circumstance wherein it doesn't feel good in some way. And, if two contrary things both feel good or bad in different ways or to different people or under different circumstances, commensurablism means taking into account all the different ways that things feel to different people in different circumstances, and coming up with something new that feels good (and not bad) to everyone in every way in every circumstance, at least those that we've considered so far. In the limit, if we could consider absolutely every way that absolutely everything felt to absolutely everyone in absolutely every circumstance, whatever still felt good across all of that would be the objective good. In short, the objective good is the limit of what still seems good upon further and further investigation. We can't ever reach that limit, but that is the direction in which to improve our opinions about morality, toward more and more correct ones. Figuring out what what can still be said to feel good when more and more of that is accounted for may be increasingly difficult, but that is the task at hand if we care at all about the good. This commensurablist approach to morality may be called "liberal hedonic moralism", as moralism is the prescriptive face of objectivism, hedonism is the prescriptive face of phenomenalism, and what I would call a critical-liberal methodology is more commonly called just "liberal" as applied to theories of justice.

Though maybe your weird understanding of the word "objective" is throwing you off of that.

You seem to want to use the word "absolute" to mean what I'm using "objective" to mean, and while you're not alone in that (there is a lot of confused terminology in this area), "absolute" is also used often in contrast to what is sometimes called "situational" ethical models, where the "absolutist" says that certain kinds of actions are always right or wrong, while the "situationist" say that whether an action is right or wrong depends on the context of the situation, but for any particular action in any particular situation there is still an objective (universal, mind-independent, non-relativist) answer to whether that is right or wrong. I am not an absolutist in that sense, and don't want to be mistaken for one, so since there are other words besides "absolute" for the thing that I do support, like "objective", I prefer to use those.

I did notice when writing this that I do use the word "absolute" as a synonym for "objective" at a few places in this essay though, so I've fixed that now. Thanks for indirectly bringing that to my attention.

As for the word critical, essentially every philosophy will claim to pass critical scrutiny, so it's not really describing any particular philosophy as such, just the critical thinking method generally of considering the positions available; which for philosophical debate, such as in this forum, is usually a shared premise. The question of course is what positions do pass critical scrutiny. — boethius

Yes, I'm not talking about whether a philosophy itself passes critical scrutiny, but about whether that philosophy says to apply critical scrutiny to things. As I said:

In being against fideism, I say to hold every opinion open to questioning, a position that I call "criticism".

Where again, "fideism" is defined in more detail in the earlier essay on that subject. (Which is linked from this essay when first mentioned).

Although you aren't asking for criticism of your content, I would recommend thinking hard about how to know a position is extreme without relation to the status quo, and, second, if there is any reason to believe some truths are not extreme relative the alternatives, either because it is a legitimate binary question and only two extremes available or then the truth simply happens to lie on some global maxima of a topological space of possibilities. — boethius

I never say that positions at or near one end of a particular spectrum can't be the case, just that they likely aren't, in which case the process of narrowing in on them looks like Hegelian "spiral-shaped" progress. The narrowing-in is a process of whittling away extremes in any case: like in most of science, we progress by refining the upper and lower bounds of possibility, narrowing the range where the truth might still lie.

FiveThirtyEight's interactive Super Tuesday model suggests that if Texas can be won for Bernie and everything else goes as predicted, there might still be hope left.

Are you a Libertarian as in of the philosophy of Libertarianism and/or the political party? — christian2017

Not as in the American political party, and not in the sense most Americans think of it, but yes most broadly speaking I am libertarian, a libertarian socialist specifically. Why do you ask?

You lost your innocense? — christian2017

Huh?

Are you good at profiling people? — christian2017

Uh, maybe, kinda, but what does that have to do with anything?

You said in the above to form a new opinion based on what everyone sees. I would argue to see what other people sees, a huge part of you must die. — christian2017

Can you elaborate?

Are you familiar with the comedy series on television called "Psych"? — christian2017

Not really. What does that have to do with anything?

The good news you can refind yourself without looking, just simply be kind to people — christian2017

Can you elaborate? Also what does that have to do with anything?

Some people lose their innocense from being put through too much stress. — christian2017

I agree, I think, but what does that have to do with anything?

After skimming the article and looking at the diagram, my summary of your philosphy is just to be rational and approach things methodically and also ignore alot of the triteness of alot of other "philosophers". — christian2017

That is an accurate gloss. I’m basically elaborating on what it means to be properly rational.

You call your philosophy "critical objectivism". Are you aware And Rand called her philosophy objectivism? Is it just a coincidence? If not, why do you not mention how your philosophy relates to Randianism?

If indeed, your goal is to credit previous thinkers when convenient and not make a confused jumble of terminology, it seems to me the first thing to clarify is what you are retaining from previous "objectivists" and where you differ. — boethius

I am aware of Ayn Rand but not drawing anything from her philosophy specifically. There are a lot of different kinds of lower-case “objectivisms” in philosophy, like moral objectivism, which just hold that something or another is objective. I’m just using it in that general sense.

Maybe I should add a little bit of explanation for each of the terms of that I am for, like I had for each of the terms I used for the things I’m against in previous essays. “Objectivism” isn’t the only one that has some ambiguity; “liberalism” definitely does too, and probably the others as well.

FiveThirtyEight is now showing 63% odds for "no one" (read: Biden), 21% for Biden himself, and 16% for Bernie. I am very saddened by this. Trump victory is basically guaranteed at this point.

Median household income is around 50k. 100k is around the mean. Personal incomes are about half those household figures since the average household is about two people.

So $100k is definitely well above the usual kind of average (about twice the median). My point though is that only $8k in savings is tiny for that kind of income. I had saved that much after about five years of making leas than a quarter of that income, and now have several times that after about seven years (since I last went flat broke) of making around half of that. And I live in a very expensive area, although I live way below market rates for that area.

I actually argue that states are functionally no different than religions, as both appeal to faith as in taking someone’s word for it. Why do what the law says? Because the law says so. That’s no reason, so even “secular” state authority is in practice just like religion. A truly irreligious moral system would have to function more like science, with a decentralized “authority”, such as it were, about what is good or moral, akin to science’s decentralized “authority” about what is true or real.

Who nevertheless has much lower income yet much much higher savings, hence the question, presuming this hypothetical person lives somewhere less overpriced than my hometown.

100k USD income, a decent pension scheme, 8000 USD in savings — Benkei

How is your hypothetical income so high and savings so low? What are you hypothetically blowing all your hypothetical money on?

Not if you think that every belief needs to be criticized. That is, the quote I have quoted. That is an utterly unrealistic demand. — Coben

I think you must think that that means something very different from what I mean, but I have no idea what it is you think it means. It just means "don't take anything as beyond question". "Question everything", eventually, when you can get around to it, or when it's called for. It doesn't mean "reject anything until you have finished thoroughly questioning it and found conclusive answers" -- that would be justificationism.

Scientists are justificationists in general — Coben

Scientists are critical rationalists in general. Falsificationism is the mainstream philosophy of science, and that is just critical rationalism applied to empirical knowledge. Both falsificationism and critical rationalism generally are products of Karl Popper.

But my second principle, "liberalism", says not to do that: you are free (hence "liberalism") to think whatever you like, until you find reason not to. — Pfhorrest

A sentence that does not go with the sentence I won't quote again but have four times. IT DOES NOT FIT WITH THAT SENTENCE. — Coben

Here we're getting at what you misunderstand about that sentence you keep harping on. That sentence says to reject fideism: to not take anything as beyond question. Liberalism is not the same thing as fideism, though I could see why you would be confused. I have a picture I use to illustrate:



(The bulk of what's labelled "cynicism" there is justificationism, though there are also other things that I think fall within "cynicism").

Critical rationalism is what I have labelled "critical liberalism" there. All rationalism falls within what I have labelled "criticism": not taking anything to be beyond question, not accepting fideism. But not all rationalism rejects "liberalism"; only justificationist, or otherwise "cynical" (as I call it) rationalism, does that. What is usually called critical rationalism is just rationalism that is not "cynical", so not justificationist; it is only rationalist inasmuch as it is "critical", but not going so far as to be "cynical".

Likewise fideism is a kind of "liberalism", but not all "liberalism" is fideistic; "liberalism" that still holds everything open to question, critically, is just non-"cynical". Not everything non-"cynical" is fideistic, and not everything non-fideistic is "cynical"; but everything non-"cynical" is "liberal", and everything non-fideistic is "critical", or rational, and the "criticism"/rationalism that is not "cynical", or the "liberalism" that is not fideistic, is critical rationalism / "critcal liberalism".

(Quotes around things that are my own slightly unusual terminology).

The point is that if you refuse to believe anything until it's sufficiently grounded, but at some point you can just say "this is sufficient enough" and stop looking for further grounding for that, then at any point you could do that, and you've completely thrown out the principle of refusing to believe things until they're sufficiently grounded. You're admitting that there are some things that just don't need justification, than can just be taken on faith, for no reason; or else, if you stick to the principle, you never admit any belief in anything. Justificationism either leads you to reject all beliefs or accept arbitrary beliefs, and is therefore useless as a form of rationalism.

You will have to stop (to make dinner, to live) before resolving its own criteria. Only radical skeptic justificationists do not recognize that we find ourselves in the middle of life and already having beliefs. — Coben

The difference is that critical rationalism has built into it that that is the right way to proceed. The justificationist at least nominally says "don't believe anything at all until it's justified from the ground up". Of course they can't actually live like that, so they don't, but that's just a reason to reject justificationism: you can't actually get started on believing anything if you actually do what it says you should try to do. Critical rationalism on the other hands says you don't have to justify everything from the ground up before you're warranted to believe it. You're warranted to believe anything you want, unless you've found something that demands you reject it.

It might be better if I introduce a bit of my own philosophy here, which I've been trying not to do. I think that what's called "critical rationalism" is actually a combination of two principle, which I call "criticism" and "liberalism". "Criticism" is the rejection of fideism: the rejection of unquestionable beliefs. Criticism just says "consider everything open for question, always uncertain". That is the "rationalism" part of critical rationalism. That by itself is compatible with justificationism: you could question everything, and demand conclusive answers before you let yourself believe anything, rejecting all beliefs that can't be conclusively justified yet.

But my second principle, "liberalism", says not to do that: you are free (hence "liberalism") to think whatever you like, until you find reason not to. That by itself would be compatible with fideism, e.g. a religious person would say "so I'm free to believe in God then, thanks!" But that, obviously, would be to abandon rationalism: just "believe what you want lol no rules". So it has to be combined with criticism. "Critical rationalism" is rationalism inasmuch as it is critical (as all rationalism is), without the further demand that it be justificationist.

If your river of beliefs can start from a spring or the rain, how do you know that the water flowing past you now isn't immediately spring water or rain water? Conversely, if you think you're at the headwaters, how do you know that there isn't further upstream you can still go?

Not every unending process is an infinite regress. Critical rationalism is more like an infinite progress. The problem with justificationism is that it says “before you believe that you need a reason”, but then before you believe that reason you need another reason, going back and back (regressing) forever (infinitely). The process of criticism never ends either, but it’s not demanding that you finish that infinite process before you can believe anything. It lets you believe whatever right off the bat, but then says to never stop trying to refine those beliefs to better and better ones.

Like I said about the infinite sea. There is no bottom, so to try to stay above water by standing on something that stands on something ... that stands on the bottom will just lead you to reaching down forever until you drown. But looking for more and more buoyant things to float on doesn’t have that problem; you’ll still never find a perfectly buoyant thing that will definitely keep you afloat forever, but at least you can make do with whatever you’ve found so far instead of sinking straight to the bottom looking in vain for something solid to stand on.

check to see if there is any problem with it. Then you have new belief that you evaluated well that there is no problem — Coben

I think this is where you're losing the point. Criticizing your beliefs isn't some kind of final permanent thing. You look to see if there are any problems; if you don't see any, you can keep it. But maybe later you will see some that you missed before, and then you should reject it. You're never certain. Certainty is impossible. That's the point. You're only ever narrowing in on the range of possibilities as you find problems, never settling on any one possibility with certainty.

Can a parent make a child want what the parent wants the child to want?

Not directly on the spot, of course, but certainly through extensive conditioning over time, yes.

Willpower is basically reflexive parenting. Present you is partially conditioned by past you. Future you is partially conditioned by present you. If you want to want something other than you want, you can take actions to condition future you to want that thing that present you wants to want but doesn't. That wanting to want something is your will, and the effectiveness of that self-conditioning is the freedom of your will; freedom from the other influences that would condition you otherwise, your own self-conditioning prevailing over those other influences.

Certainty is lacking in secular descriptions of reality too. That's not an excuse to substitute the Bible for science.

A secular system of morality as reliable as the physical sciences is possible. That won't give you the false certainty of religious morals, but false certainty just makes you more likely to be wrong. Critical humility about our own fallible answers, coupled with objectivist trust that there are answers to be found, is the only way to even gradually approach correct answers, to questions about either reality or morality.

I just did, but if you want me to pick you apart line by line:

then you have to criticize each belief

Yes, when you can, and if you don't see anything wrong with a particular belief yet, you can leave it for now and run with what you have. You don't have to prove that every belief you hold is completely immune to all possible criticism before you do anything; that would be justificationism again, and you could never get started at all.

then the belief that you should criticize every belief

Yup, and that's holding up well so far, so keeping that for now.

Also, even if it didn't hold up, I would be free on that account to continue holding that belief anyway, because that would be the rejection of all rationalism.

then the beliefs that led you to think that you should criticize every beleif and so on

That would be the problems with fideism. Criticism is just what's left after fideism is rejected on account of its own problems.

And then criticize each belief you form during the critique session about a particular belief - like 'my belief seems problematic because of X', but then I must critique my belief that it seems problematic because of X AND my belief that X is the case and so on.

If the reason for rejecting belief Y is that is contradicts belief in non-X, then you can either reject Y or reject non-X.

Of course, you should see if there is anything problematic with the belief that Y and non-X contradict, and if there is then you should reject that, and then you're free to keep believing Y and non-X. If there's not anything problematic that you see, then you're back to having to choose between Y and non-X.

And then critical rationalism needs to be criticized, if you believe in it, but can one use a belief to critique a belief. IOW whatever epistemology you have to determine if a belief is ok, this will be the one you will use to check to see if that epistemology itself is ok. Which is fruit of the poisoned tree.

Fruit of the poisoned tree only applies to justificationist reasoning. A critical rationalist doesn't argue for critical rationalism on the grounds of something else -- critical rationalism is against that sort of thing -- it's just what's left after ruling out other self-defeating possibilities, like justificationism and fideism. I'm not saying "We have to believe this because that". I'm saying "We can't believe those because of themselves. This is what's left, so we're still free to believe this."

You are still applying justificationist reasoning. Think outside that box.

The difference between surviving criticism and bring justified from the ground up is that surviving criticism is the default state of any belief, whereas nothing is automatically justified-from-the-ground-up To begin with, all beliefs have survived the (zero) criticism they have been subjected to thus far — including belief in critical rationalism. That doesn’t mean that all beliefs are mandatory, just that all are permissible. Only when you find some reason why a belief doesn’t work must you reject it — but not in favor of any particular other belief, just in favor of some alternative or another. You can do this by showing a belief to be contrary to itself, or showing a contradiction between some set of beliefs in which case you have to pick which ones to throw out to solve that contradiction. You can only ever whittle away at (combinations of) things that aren't possible (together); you never narrow down to the one exact thing that is definitely absolutely certain, only a narrower range of possibilities.

Consider actions for analogy. Should we do nothing until we can justify from the ground up that that thing is the one absolutely certain best thing to do, or should we instead do whatever we want unless there is some good reason not to do that particular thing, and then instead do whatever else isn’t ruled out yet? Obviously the latter, or else we would never do anything at all. Just apply the same principle to belief as to action.

You are thrown into an infinite sea of uncertainty. If you insist on standing upon (something that stands upon something that stands upon...) the nonexistent bottom, you will just drown in your own doubts. Instead learn to float in the uncertainty by clinging to whatever is buoyant enough to bear your weight... until it isn’t, and then find something else to cling to instead.

Coincidentally, my thread last week about my essay Against Cynicism (which is mostly against justificationism) is about this very topic.

Infinite regress. If every belief has to be based on something then that needs to be based on something else that needs to be based on something else and so on forever, unless you stop somewhere or go in a circle in which base you’ve both abandoned rationality and the principle that lead you there in the first place. Better to just abandon that principle but keep rationality, by switching to critical rationalism instead of such justificationism.

Do not try to ground beliefs. That’s impossible. Instead only try to criticize whatever beliefs you should find yourself having. Whatever you can’t yet rule out (on some grounds stronger than just being unable to prove it from the ground up) yet, stick with that for now. Whatever you can rule out, find a temporary replacement for, and then keep going.

Also, a belief is just something you think is true. You don’t have to have absolute certainty for it to be a belief, just be disposed to answer “yes” (even if qualified by “probably” or “I think”) when asked if it’s true.

Yeah that was directed at creativesoul in defense of your side.

I think that there's less of a huge goal based conspiracy of uber wealthy people calling all the shots and more small shots being called over a long time period that have had disasterous results on the overwhelming majority of Americans. — creativesoul

So does Chomsky.

Both of my parents fit that description.

And even if that need isn't established as objective, in practice, people will tend towards this reconciliation naturally. — khaled

I said “treatment as not in need of reconciliation”. If people are trying to reconcile, then they evidently think that each party having their own opinion is not in itself sufficient grounds for them each to hold those different opinions, but that they should figure out between them what opinion they should both agree on, i.e. which one is right. If they think that there is no such thing as right, then the other party disagreeing isn’t a problem, because it’s not like they’re wrong or something, they’re just different.

The former case is acting like there is sone objective, unbiased truth they’re trying to find together, for without some unbiased criteria to go on there’s no way to reconcile those differences of opinion, nothing in common to appeal to. The later case is acting like there’s not, and that is what relativism is.

Objectivism: the belief that certain things, especially moral truths, exist independently of human knowledge or perception of them. — khaled

Yes. Knowledge is a kind of belief. I am saying that beliefs and perceptions (and their moral analogues) are to be discarded, because they are mind-dependent and therefore inherently biased, and so cannot serve as criteria for coming to agreement on what is objectively correct. I say instead that we should attend directly to the uninterpreted experiences that we have in common.

Just look at what science does and doesn’t do. When it comes to tackling questions about reality, pursuing knowledge, we do not take some census or survey of people's beliefs or perceptions, and either try to figure out how all those could all be held at once without conflict, or else (because that likely will not be possible) just declare that whatever the majority, or some privileged authority, believes or perceives is true. Instead, we appeal to everyone's direct sensations or observations, free from any interpretation into perceptions or beliefs yet, and compare and contrast the empirical experiences of different people in different circumstances to come to a common ground on what experiences there are that need satisfying in order for a belief to be true. Then we devise models, or theories, that purport to satisfy all those experiences, and test them against further experiences, rejecting those that fail to satisfy any of them, and selecting the simplest, most efficient of those that remain as what we tentatively hold to be true. This entire process is carried out in an organized, collaborative, but intrinsically non-authoritarian academic structure.

Likewise when it comes to tackling questions about morality, pursuing justice, I say we should not take some census or survey of people's intentions or desires, and either try to figure out how all those could all be held at once without conflict, or else (because that likely will not be possible) just declare that whatever the majority, or some privileged authority, intends or desires is good. Instead, we should appeal to everyone's direct appetites, free from any interpretation into desires or intentions yet, and compare and contrast the hedonic experiences of different people in different circumstances to come to a common ground on what experiences there are that need satisfying in order for an intention to be good. Then we should devise models, or strategies, that purport to satisfy all those experiences, and test them against further experiences, rejecting those that fail to satisfy any of them, and selecting the simplest, most efficient of those that remain as what we tentatively hold to be good. This entire process should be carried out in an organized, collaborative, but intrinsically non-authoritarian political structure.

(Sorry this is less than lucid, I'm up way too late).

When it comes to the descriptive side of things, what I am going for is exactly the ordinary scientific method. The models I'm talking about, in that context, are the hypotheses or theories of the physical sciences.

When it comes to the prescriptive side of things, I am constructing an analogous method that addresses the question of what ought to be in the same way that the ordinary scientific method addresses the question of what is.

I'm not very familiar with Husserl et al, but from Massimo's quote it sounds like he at least is characterizing them as trying to do something... that honestly I can't even wrap my head around right now, but the analogy that comes to mind is like trying to look at your own eyeball. I'm not trying to do that. I'm just saying "use your eyes". All of science, all of everything, is done by the scientists from a first-person perspective; the things they're studying, they're studying in the third person relative to those things, but within their own first-person view of the world. I can't rightly comprehend right now what Husserl et al might be doing, or what Massimo et al think they're doing, that's different from that. You can't study something else from its first-person perspective; that's nonsense.

Propositions are not words. Propositions are the things that words mean.

You can have "propositional content" in your mind without having any words to mean by it. You can have, as I phrase it, an "attitude toward an idea" (a picture in your mind held to be in a certain relation to the world), which is what a proposition is, without yet having words with which to communicate that to someone else.

I’m a graphic designer for a living. I like logos for themselves, little graphical encapsulations of things. What are user avatars at all if not that same thing, an icon, a little graphic, to represent you? I just like to make mine rather than find them. If you want to call that “branding” when it has nothing to do with any kind of commercial activity, that’s your business.

You disagree with foundationalism, but do you have any other particular system for evaluating the reasonableness of your beliefs, and the beliefs of others? — Relativist

As I already said much earlier in the thread: critical rationalism. Wikipedia about it, and my own essay On Epistemology where I defend it (and a thread on this forum discussing the prior essay Against Cynicism that most of this aspect of my epistemology hinges on).

Do you think belief in God can be rational? If the answer is yes, then Plantinga's Reformed Epistemology may be irrelevant to you. If no, then please describe your basis for thinking that. — Relativist

On a critical rationalist account, if one has not encountered reason to reject a belief, then holding it is rational. You don't have to justify a belief from the ground up, it just has to survive criticism. I think there are reasons to reject belief in God, and holding on to such belief in the face of those reasons (if they really are good reasons, as I think) is irrational. But someone who hasn't faced such reasons yet could still rationally hold such a belief.

Myth of the Given. — Pneumenon

Sellars is arguing against foundationalism, as am I. (In the context you quoted, I was speaking within Plantinga's own foundationalist framework and showing how, even in that framework, not all beliefs are the same).

I'm not trying to promote anything here, I'm just wondering if using an image associated with my philosophy might be more appropriate for my account on a philosophy forum than an image that's not philosophically relevant at all, just what I use everywhere else.

"Book of questions" is more like "book about inquiry" than "book containing a bunch of questions", BTW. I specifically changed it to that way to get away from the connotations of an earlier title that was meant to be "book about wisdom" (as wisdom is the topic of philosophy) but could be misinterpreted as "book containing wisdom" Success at inquiry is what wisdom is all about.

Here it's useful to define some terms. What's the difference between "government" and "state"? I see them as essentially the same thing, although reserving "state" (or even government) for the Federal government isn't unreasonable. — Xtrix

The usual political science definition of a state is a monopoly on the "legitimate" use of force. I put "legitimate" in scare quotes, even though it usually isn't, because I think that begs some questions about what use of force is legitimate or not. I'm fine with that definition if we take "legitimate" as meaning "seen as rightful by the people in general", so a state is a social entity that society thinks deserves a monopoly on the use of force. But I much prefer to say a state is just a monopoly on the use of force, and leave legitimacy aside.

In contrast, a government is just a social institute that... well, does the things you expect a government to do, to facilitate a functioning society, most especially defending people from each other and the society from outside attackers (as if the latter isn't just a subset of the former; the society and the outside attackers are all just people), but other things too possibly... and doesn't have or claim a monopoly on that.

I think of it like the difference between a church and a school. Both of them are, very broadly speaking, there to "tell you what's true", but their approach to that is very different. I elaborate on this analogy extensively in my essay On Politics, Governance, and the Institutes of Justice if you're interested in seeing my whole ideal government and political philosophy.

Make a science out of what?

I see the role of philosophy as grounding sciences, both the usual stack of physical sciences, and also an analogous stack of ethical sciences I propose in my later Note on Ethics (and illustratively allude to at the end of my essay on Metaphilosophy), if that answers your question.

I think no beliefs are properly basic, because foundationalism is false; but, even if we were presuming that some beliefs were properly basic, belief in God prompted by seeing a starry sky and getting a feeling of grandeur is importantly different from belief in trees prompted by seeing trees.

On the other hand, I wonder if it truly is "socialism" at all. [..] I think both the State and Capitalism in many ways remains intact with Bernie. — Xtrix

Oh absolutely, in any sense of "socialism" used by academics or self-identified socialists, which calls for the elimination of capitalism at least (there's debate about the relation to state), Bernie's not really a socialist. Wolff's point seems to be that there isn't unanimous agreement about what "socialist" means, and to most Americans, it means what Bernie is for, so him using that label in that context isn't so atrocious.

I do wonder if Bernie himself is knowingly using it only in such a context, and is aware of the differences between actual socialism and his what-Americans-call socialism.

What is the "left"-most ideology, in other words? [...] I would like to define the "left" as any ideology with the goal of creating a truly democratic society where the government and business are run by communities and workers. In the socialist-anarchist tradition. — Xtrix

I mostly agree. I mean you saw my own political spectrum I posted before. To me, left is in the direction toward greater equality and liberty, and right is the direction toward greater hierarchy and authority. I do think there is such a thing as too far in each of those ways, though; it's just much much farther than anyone would ever consider, because it's obviously unworkable.

Absolute maximal liberty would mean nobody had any claims against anyone... including, say, punching you in the face. Slightly to the right of that would allow for self-enforced claims against some limited things like that. The truly centrist position on that would allow for some kind of institutional enforcement of such reasonable claims, a government, without granting it any monopoly on powers that are denied to other people, so no state. More to the right of that would be a state of some kind, but limited in some ways. The farthest to the right would be an unlimited state.

Absolute maximal equality, at least in an economic sense, would mean not even personal possessions of the kinds that most socialists support; even your toothbrush isn't yours, everything is public property and nobody can be excluded from using anything as they please. Slightly to the right of that would be the kinds of possessions, but not private property, that most socialists support. The truly centrist position on that, I think, would be a system that allows for private property, but prevents capitalism; that stops owning more property from being a way of acquiring more and more property from those who started out owning less. More the right of that would be capitalism of some kind, but limited in some ways. The farthest to the right would be unlimited capitalism.

Bernie is like... 15-20% right of true center, on that scale. But that in turn is almost 25% left of center in the limited-state-and-capitalism framework that has moderate Democrats at its center. And that in turn is almost 50% further left than far left on the parochial scale American media pundits seem to think in, by which those moderate Democrats are "far left".

When I see a rainbow and am prompted to believe the rainbow exists, is this a properly basic belief, that is an elaboration upon the details of the experience that prompted it? — unenlightened

Yes.

I just made some small changes to the last few paragraphs to draw focus away from experiential-vs-non-experiential stuff, but instead uninterpreted-vs-interpreted stuff, and consequently on objectivity-vs-bias, and references "elsewhere in these essays" for more discussion on phenomenalism.

Generally speaking, as far as I understand it, yes. I haven't actually read much of the actual phenomenologists myself. But I do call one of my core principles "phenomenalism", although that principle is the negation of "transcendentalism", not nihilism.

I kind of think I should eliminate this early mention of phenomenalism from this particular essay Against NIhilism, because at this point I'm only trying to establish that we should run with the assumption that there is something objectively correct and then try to find it, rather than just giving up. But I anticipate that nihilists and relativists (especially of the moral variety) will read this and just scream "but how could we possibly find that!? what could that even possibly be like?", so I have to give some kind of what is to come later. But maybe I shouldn't, and just let them ask that and keep reading to find out?

What do you (all) think?

Yes.

I’m just speaking in the way Plantinga does to show that his sensus divinatus is different from ordinary senses in an important way even within his own framework.