Brent Meeker wrote:
>daddycaylor.domain.name.hidden wrote:
>> Bruno wrote:
>>
>>> I think everyone has religious faith...
>>
>>
>> Amen, Bruno, and Ben also! This is of course a searing statement, which
>> goes back to why the word "theology" is taboo. As it's commonly said,
>> the two topics to stay away from in conversation are religion and
politics.
>>
>> But, without using the word religion, we can safely say that we all have
>> some basic belief that we hold to in order to make the decisions of our
>> practical living, whether they are every-day decisions like holding a
>> grudge against someone (or not), or bigger decisions about our course in
>> life such as getting married (or not) etc. The modern (and leading up
>> to the modern) reductionist philosophy has split these particulars apart
>> from our musings about universals, so that people typically no longer
>> see any connection between them. (Talk about going in the opposite
>> direction from "Everything"!) In a way it is rather convenient because
>> we can live out "personal" lives the way we want to. But the reality is
>> that in being set totally free from universals, we become enslaved. The
>> ultimate destination of rationalism in a totally closed system is
>> something like pan-critical rationalism, where we end up in a swirl of
>> confusion. Even then, we really are having faith that somehow the
>> "system" is set up such that things will work out OK. If we didn't,
>> then what are we left with? In order to have freedom we need at least
>> some constraints. For example, take the axiomatic system. This applies
>> also to the "Mathematics: Is it really..." thread. So there needs to be
>> a faith that something is fixed, even if we don't yet know, or perhaps
>> believe that we can never truly know, what is it. This something is
>> what is called truth.
>>
>> Tom
>
>So if we have fixed faith in reason we're condemned to a swirl of
confusion? It
>seems to me that universals are purely an invention of rationalism. What
about
>tempering faith in reason with a little empiricism?
>
>Brent Meeker
>
I should make clear what I was getting at with my "mental nihilism" as John
Mikes called it off-list (when I ended up concluding that I should just shut
up and die, just joking). I wasn't talking about fixing our faith in reason.
I was talking about fixing our faith in rationalism in a closed system.
Reason is (my own hack of a definition) just our ability to go from one
proposition to another using logic. Rationalism in a closed system is a huge
assumption about how the whole universe is set up, on the par with religion (sorry
I couldn't help it). It's rationalism in a closed system that ends up in
nihilism. If you believe in rationalism in a closed system, then empiricism
alone doesn't solve the problem.
Yes, we need to have faith in both truth and reason (our ability to seek the
truth and actually get somewhere).
Tom Caylor
attached mail follows:
daddycaylor.domain.name.hidden wrote:
> Bruno wrote:
>
>> I think everyone has religious faith...
>
>
> Amen, Bruno, and Ben also! This is of course a searing statement, which
> goes back to why the word "theology" is taboo. As it's commonly said,
> the two topics to stay away from in conversation are religion and politics.
>
> But, without using the word religion, we can safely say that we all have
> some basic belief that we hold to in order to make the decisions of our
> practical living, whether they are every-day decisions like holding a
> grudge against someone (or not), or bigger decisions about our course in
> life such as getting married (or not) etc. The modern (and leading up
> to the modern) reductionist philosophy has split these particulars apart
> from our musings about universals, so that people typically no longer
> see any connection between them. (Talk about going in the opposite
> direction from "Everything"!) In a way it is rather convenient because
> we can live out "personal" lives the way we want to. But the reality is
> that in being set totally free from universals, we become enslaved. The
> ultimate destination of rationalism in a totally closed system is
> something like pan-critical rationalism, where we end up in a swirl of
> confusion. Even then, we really are having faith that somehow the
> "system" is set up such that things will work out OK. If we didn't,
> then what are we left with? In order to have freedom we need at least
> some constraints. For example, take the axiomatic system. This applies
> also to the "Mathematics: Is it really..." thread. So there needs to be
> a faith that something is fixed, even if we don't yet know, or perhaps
> believe that we can never truly know, what is it. This something is
> what is called truth.
>
> Tom
So if we have fixed faith in reason we're condemned to a swirl of confusion? It
seems to me that universals are purely an invention of rationalism. What about
tempering faith in reason with a little empiricism?
Brent Meeker
Received on Thu Feb 02 2006 - 03:07:56 PST