Ok. I think your view is the more popular, the other competing account is that he’s mostly an idiot. I find him difficult to watch because of his anxious style which you can even hear in his terribly strangulated voice. I feel for him. But, hey, I might be wrong. I’m just reporting how he appears to me. Whatever the case, he’s like a guru for a lot of disenfranchised boys.

Peterson always strikes me as a man having a breakdown in slow motion, reciting philosophical ideas and psychological theories as a kind or catechism of reassurance.

The problem with such a claim is that it slips into an extreme relativism. For why would truth be better the falsehood? It wouldn't. Truth would only be better in cases where we feel it is better, and so our feelings ultimately dictate truth claims. If it falsehood feels better then, at least for that moment, it is better. If our feelings change, the good simply changes.

This simply doesn't seem to pass the sniff test. We all make bad decisions in our lives. It seems silly to say these were good right up until we regret them. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I am open to relativism, so this concern doesn't really bite for me. I suspect that human notions of truth are contingent upon our language, social practices, and historical context. We can talk about intersubjective agreements (consensus) around issues like killing and theft, but I am suspicious and doubtful there is some concrete 'good' that our behavior might correspond to. Intersubjectivity I believe allows people to see issues categorically as being good or bad, true or false, when really what they are seeing is a shared subjectivity, a truth manufactured by agreement.

Likewise, was starting to use heroin good for heroin addicts until they began to regret it? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Interesting you raise this one. The answer might be yes to this. I work in the area of addiction and mental health, so I would often hold a different view to others on this. Hence how we might view any given issue is down to contingent factors. I would say that heroin, while it may harm health, is also one of the reasons why people are able to survive trauma. Heroin (and other drugs) becomes the reason people can cope and endure. So it isn't as simple as saying it is bad. If heroin were legal it would cause less harm than alcohol, for instance. Many of its harms are a product of its illegality. But this is a digression.

I think the point is somewhat sharper than this. I've been interested in the role emotion and aesthetics play in our sense making and values. People tend to see themselves as creatures of rational decision making but...

The arbiter of validation is not the raw, independently existing facts of the world, but affectivity, in the sense that empirical truth and falsity is a function of whether and to what extent events are construed as consistent with our anticipations, which defines our purposes and values, and our knowing of this relative success or failure is synonymous with feelings such as anxiety, confusion and satisfaction. — Joshs

This is something I'll mull over. Notice that in this account the truth isn't just about what's objectively real. It's also about how we feel about and intuit events. If something matches our expectations and values, we accept it as true. And our feelings, such as apprehension or satisfaction, signify whether things are in line with what we believe. I think this circle of interpretation is helpful to consider in the ceaseless debates about gods or politics.

What it says about existentialism I can't tell you as I find Sartre unreadable.

I think the criteria of successful construing of the universe is the inverse of the direct realist slogan that the ‘facts don't care about our feelings'. The arbiter of validation is not the raw, independently existing facts of the world, but affectivity, in the sense that empirical truth and falsity is a function of whether and to what extent events are construed as consistent with our anticipations, which defines our purposes and values, and our knowing of this relative success or failure is synonymous with feelings such as anxiety, confusion and satisfaction. Validational evidence is just another way of describing the affectively felt assimilative coherence of the construed flow of events and therefore it is synonymous with feeling valence. Validated construing is neither a matter of forcing events into pre-determined cognitive slots, nor a matter of shaping our models of the world in conformity with the presumed independent facts of that world via the method of falsification. Rather, it is a matter of making and remaking a world; building, inhabiting, and being changed by our interactive relations with our constructed environment. It is our feelings which tell us whether we get it right or wrong, and by what criteria. — Joshs

:up: I find this frame particularly rich and interesting.

Peterson loves Nietzsche because Nietzsche is an atheist who can be used to support Peterson’s thesis that atheism leads to a series of blood baths, and catastrophes via the death of God. Theists seem to l like Nietzsche perhaps because he says things like if you believe in grammar, you’re still a theist.

:up:

Very poor. Relies on conjecture and tendentious arguments. — Wayfarer

Really? Kastrup's arguments, of have I missed something?

Side note: it seems to me that if we talk about laws, we must talk about a lawgiver, although you seem to disagree with this. — NotAristotle

Side note response - Isn't this just an argument from Muslim and Christian apologetics 101? For one thing this is an anthropomorphism fallacy - by attributing human-like characteristics (such as legislating laws) to the concept of the 'laws of nature'. Laws of nature are descriptive, not prescriptive, and do not imply a conscious lawgiver. The word 'laws' is a distraction. 'Natural regularities' might be a better term.

It also sounds like a fallacy from incredulity - 'I can't understand why there are regularities in nature, so I'll attribute them to a magic man (lawgiver).' This overlooks the possibility of naturalistic explanations and assumes that one's personal incredulity constitutes evidence for the existence of a lawgiver.

I don't think Greene will provide you with succour, just stating that he is there waiting for you. Note also that Shūsaku Endō the Japanese (and Catholic) novelist was often described as the Japanese Graham Greene. If Catholicism and personal ethics is important to you Greene's The Power and the Glory may be of interest.

Spirituality is still tangled with religion to me. I can't explain or understand it without any connection with religious creeds. — javi2541997

More accurately you appear haunted by the religion of your upbringing and culture. It's not as if you are concerned about the spiritual truths found in Islam or Jainism. Seems to me that the position you are in is fairly common - how to be good without religious interpreters telling you what is good. Graham Greene (for instance) wrote entire books about the complex relationship between Catholicism, faith, morality and individual conscience.

Seems an odd quote, as the later Wittgenstein never preached religion, but the article from which it was taken was originally published by the British Wittgenstein Association. — Wayfarer

Wittgenstein was an prodigious eccentric who took up and abandoned projects, who knows why he thought the way he did?

There are a few ways to interpret (or make use of) this quote. One is to side with Richard Rorty and maintain that ethics are contingent. The end. But we can use the word transcendental also to refer to the symbolic and metaphorical. We might find some comfort in referring to their transcendental value in a poetic sense. Human beings do inhabit an imaginative, conceptual world where we push around abstracts (e.g., beauty, truth, goodness) in the hope of managing our environment. Our imaginations are key to our identity.

it is clear that ethics cannot be expressed. Ethics is transcendental.”

Either way, how does it help us to promote the notion of ethics as transcendental?

There is a "transcedent" Good, but it isn't a sort of spirit realm sitting to the side of the realm of the senses. The question of knowing what is truly good is not absolute then, particularly in later Platonists. One can know and be led by the good to relative degrees, and be more or less self-determining. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Thank you for you considered response. While I am mildly interested in why humans find notions of transcendence to be a useful frame, it doesn't work for me.

Now, what all of this has to do with the Forms and their supposedly greater reality than our sense experience is that it’s by virtue of its pursuit of knowledge of what’s really good, that the rational part of the soul distinguishes itself from the soul’s appetites and anger and so forth. The Form of the Good is the embodiment of what’s really good. So pursuing knowledge of the Form of the Good is what enables the rational part of the soul to govern us, and thus makes us fully present, fully real, as ourselves. In this way, the Form of the Good is a precondition of our being fully real, as ourselves.

I find this framing purposeless. It appears that we are treating 'good' as something concrete, when it is merely an adjective applied conditionally. How would one make the case that a concept such as good is anything more than a sign we apply to things we approve of (a construction of our practices, language and norms) and that this approval is perspectival?

Isn't Wittgenstein's answer that it can only be shown, not argued about? — Wayfarer

Can it even be shown?

The man who can't actualize what he thinks is truly good is limited in some way, as is the man who acts out of ignorance about what is truly good. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Does anyone know what is truly good? I'm assuming you also are putting your hopes on transcendence and Platonic realms?

I don't think morality is an objective matter. What's that Wittgenstein aphorism? 'Ethics is transcendental'. It comes from something deeper than that. The Christian teaching is that conscience is an innate faculty which discerns what is right, and I'm sure there's something in that. — Wayfarer

Transcendental ethics would posit that moral truths are not contingent upon individual beliefs, cultural norms, or empirical facts, but rather have a universal and objective reality that transcends human understanding. Any way we can demonstrate that this is the case?

Well, anyway, my modus vivendi after four decades remains:
striving to overcome my suffering by reducing the suffering of others — 180 Proof

Ha! Yes, we've explored this a bit over the years. Your ideas are arrived at philosophically, mine are not. I've also adopted a presupposition along the lines of 'we should not cause suffering and we should minimise it'. But I hold this belief intuitively, perhaps because it pleases me aesthetically. If I had to provide rational justification, I would probably say that I dislike suffering, I don't like seeing people suffer, so if I am in a position to not cause suffering or minimise it, I try to do so. I find this satisfying but I am not a zealot about it.

I thought about morality and values as a code of conduct too. I even considered religious values, or the belief in believing in X, as a waste of time because those people were brainwashed by dogmas. Nonetheless, thanks to reading Kazantzakis or Kierkegaard, I came up with a different approach. At least, my aim is to understand these values differently. What I fully have as basic premises are: 1. I am deeply concerned about my spirituality, and I think I shall act ethically, (2) but I do not know what a sin is, how to define 'spirit' or 'ethics'; and why I feel rotten when I lied to a person (for example). Therefore, (3) although spirituality depends on religious beliefs, I tend to be in midterm. I want to act ethically as much as possible, but I don't want to be trapped in religious dogmas. — javi2541997

I'm not sure I understand your thinking. You seem to be identifying as a nihilist, yet you also seem to be advocating for some fixed idea of morality and spirituality. Perhaps a part of you still believes in God's judgement? Wouldn't it be better not to worry about any of it and just get on with life?

Do you feel the same? — javi2541997

No. I am not spiritual or religious. I'm not always sure what 'spiritual' even means. I ususally understand it as an emotional relationship (connection) humans can have with people, place, memory, beauty, art, the transcendent - pretty much anything.

Morality and values to me are like a code of conduct that we go along with to varying levels of commitment. I have emotional reactions to behaviours and values which are the product of culture, upbringing and probably evolution (our strength is as a social species after all).

I read Kazantzakis and while I found his ideas dramatic (existential authenticity versus societal/religious expectations), they had no impact on me personally.

But I understand that many of us (perhaps you too) grew up in religious cultures which inculcate ways of relating to the world where the spiritual and religious (and even, sometimes, the mystical) jostle for interpretative supremacy. I grew up in a religious tradition (Baptist) but for whatever reason I'm fairly certain I never had a single day of belief in god or anything transcendent. I've never found it necessary to my sense making. That said, I have known a number of very decent religious folk from Aboriginal, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim and Sikh faiths.

I don't believe that anyone has access to objective morality - whatever people imagine they are basing their morality upon, they must either interpret god's will or intention (good luck with that) or construct an ethical system based upon theories/values which themselves would seem to be arrived at contingently.

People arguing with me that Jesus is like Spiderman or Harry Potter are just not familiar with the research that has been done on this subject.

So yes, among people who actually know what they are talking about, it's universally accepted that Jesus at least existed and was crucified. — Brendan Golledge

Sure. But I don't think anyone is arguing that Jesus is just like Spiderman. That's a misrepresentation. The point made earlier was that when Christians say that New Testament must be true because reference is made to real geography in the stories, this is unconvincing. The aforementioned superhero comics are set in New York. Myths are often set in real locations. It is not good evidence - nevertheless Christians regularly make this argument.

There seems to be agreement that there may have been a preacher or two who inspired the stories and myths. But we have no reliable information about what took place and what the teachings might have been. The mythicists hold a more extreme position which can't be demonstrated.

Describes John Hick as a ‘well-meaning syncretist thinker, not a perennialist’. — Wayfarer

Interesting. I never much liked syncretism (homogenisation, cultural appropriation, etc) but then I'm not a theist, so who cares?

Hart's pluralism is therefore "localized" (↪Leontiskos). — Leontiskos

I heard Hart say that he dislikes perennialism and sees himself more as a syncretist. For what that;'s worth.

Exactly. The question is a simple one. How do we demonstrate that the subjective experience described points to anything transcendent? If it's just an inference we are making because we have heard some stories or some books say a thing, then this is inadequate.

These are the 3 stages you will go through during and after death

Wakeful state
Dream state
Dreamless state

Then comes the unconditoned state, which isn't even a state, but it goes beyond all the 3 stages above

You will return to who you were before you were born, bare consciousness. This consciousness is present behind even rocks and trees — Sirius

How do we demonstrate that certain psychological or mental states, which may happen during meditation or during drug use, are anything more than a subjective experience of brain states?

Although in Hick this normativity is very thin and subtle, on my view true relativism includes no such normative form. — Leontiskos

Thanks. Yes, that's a wise assessment.

If we say that Trump voters and Bernie Sanders voters are really just different expressions of the same truth about politics,
— Tom Storm

Only one of the two has expressly stated an intent to undermine the constitution, so it's a false equivalence. Anyway that belongs in another thread. — Wayfarer

Huh? I think it goes directly to Hick's point about multiple expressions stemming from one source. Some of those expressions, like fundamentalism, are destructive (Trump being an appropriate analogue here).

Of course Hick does not seem to be engaged in "rationalization." He is not a religious apologist. It would be more apt to call him a pluralist, or a globalist, or a cosmopolitan. — Leontiskos

It reads like rationalisation to me - an elaborate justification for religions being true, despite their often apparently irreconcilable differences. He's saying all religions may lead to, in fact point to spiritual truth. Surely this is perennialism, perhaps we could say he's an apologist for perennialism. One is either convinced by this kind of argument or not.

...we are forced to admit that there are significant differences between religions and between religious conceptions of God, even to the point where Hick's thesis fails. — Leontiskos

I agree. Question for you. Can we say that Hick is a relativist of a sort? Seems to me there's an overlap between pluralism and relativism.

I won't repeat the excerpt I copied from Hick's essay but I stil say that at least it provides a framework which makes sense of pluralism. — Wayfarer

I've been wondering about this. I like the Hick essay you posted and have read snippets of this venerable old thinker over the years.

To me it seems that Hick is simply explaining away the differences between religions. It reads to me as if he is rationalising and downplaying an issue rather than acknowledging its full implications.

Hick almost adopts the slightly superior air of David Bentley Hart, in as much as he implies that the simple faiths of most of the world's believers are just unsophisticated surrogates for the genuine ultimate reality - the logos; Brahman - whatever.

Unfortunately this genuine transcendent truth seems also to be ineffable, so we are left with a posited and theoretical alternative which can't even be described or assessed. There's only the vague promise that some people may 'experience' it in some way via certain contemplative practices. And this still goes no way to demonstrate that this 'more sophisticated' shall we say perennial tradition version of 'god' is worth considering.

Hick's essay seems like a lengthy rationalisation - since religions are often at odds with each other, there must be some truth they all have in common. It's very important for some believers to find this commonality because otherwise religion no longer involves the Absolute but is relegated to the absolutely contingent. I'm not convinced the case Hick makes can be made so confidently. Would we accept this kind of jump in other areas? If we say that Trump voters and Bernie Sanders voters are really just different expressions of the same truth about politics, I'd see this a largely fruitless simplification.

One complication in all thsi is that peopel have differnt worldviews and value systems so it's hard to get agreement. One person's enlightenment may be another's oppression.

One the problems the West seems to be wrestling with is the quesion of who should be in charge and what counts as expertise. I'm not sure there is anything ahead for us but increasing tribalism and culture war. Unless we can identify some shared narratives and values, we will continue to struggle.

I think universal inclusivity ought to be the norm. — Pantagruel

I still don't understand what you mean by this. Can you provide some examples? Socialism or communitarianism, perhaps?

The John Hick essay is rather good as an overview of a transcategorical understanding of god. Thanks again.

enlightened universal inclusion — Pantagruel

I'm still unclear what this means. I think 'enlightened' may have potential problems for some by association (there are people who seem to dislike the enlightenment project) and it has a bit of an old fashioned Victorian social reformer feel to it.

Do you mean by it that the sphere of who counts as a citizen has widened over time, from white men to white people, to peopel of colour, to gay people to trans people..?

Obviously, traditional political categories and divisions are exploited by elite cadres whose true agendas may have little to do with the partisan values they purport to (or try to pretend to) espouse. — Pantagruel

Perhaps. Although I wouldn't be able to tell you just what these traditional categories are these days. How much more is there to politics than marketing? And most voters seem keen to have their tribalism and prejudices fondled by whoever contrives the most plausible narrative.

What I find interesting is that left and right haven't stood for traditional left and right issues for years. Our Labor party in Australia, for instance, won't get in the way of Murdoch, neoliberalism and cooperate interests or American hegemony.

I wonder if it would be possible to effect a fundamental break from outmoded traditional political categories in aid of an agenda of enlightened universal inclusion? — Pantagruel

I don't know what enlightened universal inclusion means? Got an example?

It's also pretty easy to blame amorphous elites and corporate interests (in a familiar quasi-conspiratorial way) as I often have done, but are the voters not largely to blame for their lethargy, short-term thinking and self-interest?

Janus claimed that, "God can only be thought of as a wholly unknowable entity." Think about what that claim entails for a few seconds, Tom. — Leontiskos

Sorry, you'll have to help me. 1) What is the significance of this? 2) How do you see it connecting to the point Janus made?

Rather a dense academic work, but then, it is a philosophy forum! - Who or What is God? — Wayfarer

Thanks. As we discussed elsewhere, a thread on this would be interesting.

If God can only be thought of as a wholly unknowable entity, then how is it that billions and billions of people across the world think they know things about God? The things you are claiming are rather remarkable, and clearly false. — Leontiskos

Surely not an argumentum ad populum? Yes, I would agree that there are countless numbers of people who have had any number of experiences they are wrong about or misinformed about or exaggerate about or lie about. This is not news.

What you are doing is trying to minimize a counterargument by rewriting it as a strawman. For example, you might think of a 17 year old "child" rather than a 4 year-old child. This methodology is bad philosophy. You ought to consider the robust counterargument rather than the emaciated counterargument.
— Leontiskos

Even to a very young pre-rational child the parents are entities the child can see doing things, so the analogy fails, since God cannot be thought but as a wholly unknowable entity. — Janus

Quite. Well for one thing,we know that there are such things as parents and that parents exist physically and do things. We can demonstrate their existance and identify how they came to be parents. We can't say the same about gods in any such capacity. In focusing merely on whther they were not observed doing, the comparison seems to miss the mark.

Ergo: <If the theist can't explain how God did it, then the theist is not justified in claiming that God did it>. — Leontiskos

I generally hold that god has no explanatory power. To say god ‘did it’ seems identical to saying the magic man did it since we have no further information. When theists say (for instance) atheism can’t explain why there’s something and not nothing, but they (the theist) can by inserting ‘god’, What has been explained? I would question why we would need to accept a deity (whatever that means) as a candidate explanation. Thoughts?

They were at least based on real events. I made an argument in my original post about the unplanned coincidences. — Brendan Golledge

The problem being that we don't know what (if any) events described were real. It might be as simple as a man preached and stories were told about him It's probably safe to say that anything supernatural didn't happen. What mechanism do you have to demonstrate which parts of the NT happened and which parts did not?

Apparently, the writers were very familiar with geography too. — Brendan Golledge

So? Spiderman comics are set in New York city - doesn't mean Spiderman is real.

I just don't find the idea that they were entirely fabricated plausible at all. — Brendan Golledge

Ok. So do you accept the numerous miracles of Sathya Sai Baba too - raising the dead, curing cancer, materialising precious metals? At least in Sai Baba's case we can meet eyewitnesses today and talk through those miracles

It is more surprising to me that a dozen men were so totally convinced that Jesus had come back from the dead when nobody else did. If their beliefs were caused by peer pressure — Brendan Golledge

We have no evidence that this happened other than in the 'fan fiction' as some people describe the New Testament. We do not know if any of the disciples described were real people. However we have hundreds of living people who witnesses Sai Baba perform miracles.

I suppose maybe it would be simpler to conclude, "People believe crazy things" and not worry about it more. — Brendan Golledge

Perhaps more accurately we could say humans believe a range of stories and these stores sustain them in many situations - this might even include Buddhists who set themselves alight (self-immolation) and sit totally calm as they burn up.

Can you name a single big event from the New Testament that has extra-biblical corroboration - other than some geography and later the claim that there were followers of an itinerant rabbi who had stories?

:up:

But there is no rational warrant to draw any metaphysical or ontological conclusions therefrom as far as I am concerned. — Janus

Fair enough. It doesn't work for me either, but some folk around here may go for it.

Methodological naturalism is not merely the only game in town, it is the only possible game in town. — Janus

I don't see how we really have any alternative.

Some mystical writings have resonated powerfully with me, but I understand such resonance to be a matter of feeling, not of rationality. — Janus

Which is why I often think that we approach so many of our values and beliefs aesthetically. We recognise a kind of aesthetic, poetic truth and, perhaps, mistake it for something more.

These faiths cannot be rationally argued for, but there are many who don't want to admit that. — Janus

If feels a little like a stalemate. I wonder if there will ever be a breakthrough, some new science, some new philosophy?

I think pandeus is unimaginable. — 180 Proof

Good to hear. I'm certainly unable to imagine it.