Plato's Playground
Hm. Can I get this out fluently, I'm not sure.
Labels, use of words generally are handy externals to express, say outwardly, what is known internally.
The words may fail, but the meaning is unaltered. Meaning, the content simply is. You -we -they can call yourself- me- them what you like.
The deeper question is really to do with the meaning beneath the words we employ. And if we agree to their being meaning there below the external aspect of words, then aren't we on our way to a faithfilled universe yet again?
Actually, NPR is running a series of essays they've titled "This I Believe." Maybe yo've heard it? When I hear the various essays they make sense and are compelling. Still I can't help wondering how one manages to draw one's "Credo" into one single brief statement in that way? They invite listeners to contribute their own statements of belief. I'm stymied by the request.
Ah Speechless, you are now treading upon the burning ground of linguistic philosophy. I happen to sear my own flesh there regularly -- it has to do with a research interest I haven't gotten around to blogging about -- but I'll note a couple of points quickly. The philosophy of science for much of the past century was dominated by a school called Positivism, which distinguished between statements whose truth value can be verified, and all others. E.g., you and I can readily agree that a typical horse has four legs, the sun is a bright object in the sky, etc. Other kinds of statements -- such as theological or ethical statements -- are not verifiable in the same way, and are different kinds of statements altogether.
The second point has to do with so-called Speech Act Theory. Utterances don't just convey information, they have more than manifest content. They are social acts, such as questioning, promising, informing, ordering, praising, insulting, etc. (This is called illocutionary force.) Much of disputation is not really about truth, about the underlying, and often obscure and unrecognized, social dynamic of the conversation.
Because of these often unrecognized dimensions of ordinary language, we need to be very careful to be clear about what we are really disagreeing about. It isn't easy. All of this does have a lot to do with labels. . .
Now here's where I get to annoying you... if : Other kinds of statements -- such as theological or ethical statements -- are not verifiable in the same way, and are different kinds of statements altogether. If, as you say, there are statements which are unverifiable, then right there you've got a problem because you'll never be satisfied because you'll never able to prove the non-existence of God. I won't be troubled the same way because proving it doesn't concern me as it does you.
I'm sure you have an answer for this, but it rather pleasing, if the awful irony of this makes you wander off and to soak your head in deep contemplation at the cruel and comic absurdity of such annoying inconsistency in the world.
But don't go off for too long, as I am fond of our conversations. I imagine myself to be for you just an annoying little niggle in that place between your shoulder blades that place where it's hard to reach to scratch.
Speechless---i think you've put the matter upside down. it seems to me that the atheist position is that claims of a deity are not verifiable. indeed, the various claims of a deity are sometimes directly contradictory with each other about the nature of such deity and what the deity wants of humans. human belief is evidence of itself, not of its content.
i don't see an atheist project to prove a negative. i personally reject the notion of a personal god because i see, hear, feel, no direct or even inferential evidence for such.
it is true that some atheists speak dogmatically. again, only evidence of their dogmatism.
dpr, first I hope you know I've got no bone to pick with atheists. And indeed I am as worried, annoyed and perplexed as you and Cervantes about the so called "good Christians" of the right.
And at the same time, I get it, and can't help being a bit amused that the irrational aspect of faith is how unprovable it is. However your statement that I've put the matter upside down. it seems to me that the atheist position is that claims of a deity are not verifiable isn't a concern me in relation to my faith.
Now I'll grant you that as the damned Christians on the right work to enforce their religion legislation & messing with the courts, I'm standing with you and Cervantes against them.
It isn't so much the fact of what's provable that I assert as the comedy of what's unprovable and doesn't concern me. To the extent that it's come clear, I know my faith is, and I know that it is like a shy deer, that will run as soon as you try to corner it.
Hmm. Well, I don't know if people are really interested in getting deeper into this philosophy stuff, but from a positivist point of view, the existence or non-existence of God is verifiable in principle. The point is that people who make theological statements and arguments don't bother with verification. They don't care that their assertions have no evidentiary basis. According to positivist ideas, that makes their discourse meaningless, because the meaning of an assertion is equivalent to the means by which it can be verified.
Actually, before you can even embark on the project of determining whether God is a decidable proposition, you have to define the term. The problem for theologians is that the definition of God in most traditions contains internal contradictions. Much of theology is concerned with findings ways of obfuscating this unpleasant truth.
Speechless---i certainly know where your politics and tolerance are. as i judge people, make common cause with them or not, on their actions, including their words in discourse, i would be a fool and a scoundrel were i to fail to publicly applaud you for both action and speech. since i'm a fool only occassionally and never a scoundrel, i do so applaud you.
as for the labels cervantes asked about, i tried wickipedia to get some help. humanism---about what i had thought. i am a universalist humanist in that i think ethics should be universal and a deity isn't required for one to live an ethical life. wikipedia was fuzzier on realist. i'd be a realist as opposed to a fictionalist. i think that there is a physical reality outside of me, but in some philosophies i can't prove that.
".......the burning ground of linguistic philosophy. I happen to sear my own flesh there regularly....."------cervantes.
ouch!! and kinky??? tell us about it.
You no, I really am tired of the God thing...Between Ratzinger, the X-ian right, the atheists and the agnostics, I'm plum worn out.
I think I should go soak my head for awhile and give up on talking about any of it.
Life, reality, God, the Universe they all are/is what they are/is.
We'd all be better off gardening together really. We could call ourselves the Tolerants and share a little plot of ground with adjoining houses and a common for the cows and chickens.
Doesn't get at what we believe, but we all could probably agree that from time to time we like to share a meal or go off for a hike in the nearby woods together. Good enough for me.
Well, the thing about linguistic philosophy is, you have to use language to engage in it, which all gets rather circular. Come to think of it, you have to use your brain to think about the mind, and you have to have a philosophy of philosophy and so on. Then you end up in a chronosynclastic infundibulum, the place where all possible opinions are true.
That's how we wound up with deconstructionism and postmodernism and Derrida and all that crap. So, I've basically cut that Gordian Knot a while ago.
"That's how we wound up with deconstructionism and postmodernism and Derrida and all that crap. So, I've basically cut that Gordian Knot a while ago."----cervantes
isn't decon a joke the french intellectuals put over on the naive americans? perhaps revenge for the popularity in france of jerry lewis.
show us the credo.
I've got no problem with deconstructive methods or with the panoply of thinkers described as post-modern. I think the identity politics that developed over the past several decades are basically a good thing and that without imported methodologies they would have had great difficulty establishing a foothold. But as someone who is not particularly gay, female or a member in good standing of an ethnic minority, I have little use for post-modern approaches in the context in which they are currently permissable. While I suspect that I may be part Native American, my ethnic identity is predominantly German, but that was five generations ago and for most of the 20th century an affirmation of German identity has been equated with Nazi eugenics. The fact of the matter, however, is that the basis of identity politics has been derived from theoretical constructs that originated in Germany in German at a time of impending crisis. And that crisis in Western thought brought about what we generally refer to as phenomenology. Deconstruction is a technique derived from French phenomenology which Sartre developed during WWII from a summary by Emanuel Levinas of his work with Husserl and Heidegger. French phenomenology is grounded in Sartre's 'Being and Nothingness' which is derived in large measure from Heidegger's 'Being and Time'. Sartre was writing in occupied France as a member of the French underground. Heidegger was writing in Germany as the Nazi regime was taking shape and becoming established. Husserl's phenomenology was brought north from Austria and it might be construed in some ways as a Jewish revision of Meinong's 'Object Theory', which he found overburdened with medieval scholasticism. Logical positivism, as I understand it, was brought to England by Russell and Wittgenstein who were both students of Meinong. Meinong and Husserl were both students of Franz Brentano in the 1880s. I don't know if this amounts to a credo, but it looks to me that Heidegger is as close as we've got to a Protestant phenomenology. If by virtue of not being Catholic I am Protestant by default and the disposition of my soul, to the extent that I have one, is in the hands of the Reverend Pat Robertson, I think I would prefer running an extended filibuster on the topic of Being and Time rather than allowing Pat to choose whether I deserve Being or Nothingness.
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