Lacewing wrote: ↑Mon Feb 14, 2022 5:48 pm
Your 'critical tools' are skewed to suit you. I've clearly provided a great deal of explanation for why I think and say what I do about all sorts of things. You don't accept it. That's your limitation and lack of understanding.
It does not bother me that you say thus-and-such, or any particular thing, about what I express to you (really more
in relation to you), and the reason I stick with this thread and the conversation generally is of course what I am trying to define and then express. The way I see things this activity, what I am attempting, is a way out of the nihilism trap. While I cannot say that I am out of that trap, I can say that I believe I have some access to 1) the fact that it is essential to do so for spiritual survival, and 2) that an outline has been provided.
In relation to what you wrote here -- again you are welcome to make any assertion you wish to but you must also be able to demonstrate, here in the presence of your peers, that what you are asserting is really true -- you say "Your 'critical tools' are skewed to suit you". But this begs the question: What are the
proper critical tools? You imply that we can access critical tools -- ones that are not 'skewed' as you say. And you structure arguments, or you try to, which require certain defined principles. So I assume that when you employ critical tools that you believe that your tools are the right ones? Or how shall I think about those you use?
I do not agree with you that the critical tools that I work with (or recognize as proper, or admire and emulate) are skewed tools. But it is not impossible for me to understand that people can, and do, use principled declarations as a cover, let's say, for egotistical and of course sophistic ends. But really the important thing is to define 'critical tools'. But that means delving into the techniques of good reasoning and, of course, non-contradiction.
You contradict yourself all the time and do not see that you do it!
Have you really "provided a great deal of explanation for why I think and say what I do" in a necessarily convincing manner? No, I would say that you have not. But why would I focus on your thought-errors particularly? Well, I explain time and again : the reasoning you employ, and the will that stands behind the reasoning and animates it, is deeply connected to *nihilistic currents* that can be and need to be, exposed to the light of day. That is the reason why we engage in these conversations: to make clarifying statements.
So as I say I have no personal issue with you (you seem to react personally though) and I am more interested in *the larger ideas* and the encompassing situation.
Seriously ... can you not function without 'absolute' principles?
I cannot, and you cannot, operate
coherently without defined, absolute principles. The issue, the question, has to do with either clarifying them and highlighting them, or obscuring and muddying them.
Are you not able to utilize and feel certainty about something in a particular moment, and then shift when/as needed for another moment? How rigid you must be!
The operative word here is *feel*. Philosophical definitions depend on and are built not on feelings but on sound ideas. And sound ideas are based on a structure of defined principles. There is no way around this Lacewing! though it is obvious that you struggle, epically, in this area. You seem not to be able to see with clarity that what you *feel* about something does not determine if it is true. How what is true is arrived at comes about through other processes.
What you are describing -- though I am chary to put it in such direct terms -- is a classically feminine way of reasoning. What does it resolve to? I cannot say exactly but I do not think that 'feeling' is the proper foundation for philosophical assertion.
But let's cut to the chase. What you are opposed to, in essence, is the
strict structure that necessarily operates in Christian philosophy and religion. These are the foundational rules that have been established by those invested with authority, and authority gained from deep consideration and also experience. Certainly if I were to use the term *revealed religion* it would provoke a crisis in you because, it seems, you cannot abide the notion of something absolute, something defined and certain.
So as I propose it is more interesting to examine why this is, and how it has come about. And as I say -- I think it is true -- we are in an age in which masses of people are in rebellion to a set of structured rules. Those rules have been defined in theological argument and as such they are the Authority that is resisted tooth-and-nail. But it is one thing to, say, resist some improper or constraining legalistic assertion or rule, and quite another to undermine Authority altogether.
It is functioning all the time for everyone to various degrees. I'm simply acknowledging it.
Now with this I certainly agree. I would say that people generally are been mis-trained in the use of reason. Their reasoning skills and their processes have been corrupted. Usually by *desire*. That is, what they wish to be true or desire to be true. And this is where *feeling* enters in. A child wants what a child wants and cannot reason the issue through. And children use extremely opportunistic and feeling-based arguments in efforts to defeat the necessary reasoned arguments of those who they feel constrain their freedom.
I also acknowledge what you acknowledge and I am trying to establish a base through which a
counter-proposal is defined.
Further, you must pretend that it's impossible to function without your beliefs and knowledge, because if you admit that such is not necessary to be effective and truthful, then you have to admit that you don't really 'know' anything, and have never really 'known' anything, and so you've been wrong about your adamant declarations, and you've been a fool.
I am glad that I did not write this sentence because if I did I would have to assume responsibility for defending it. It is filled with so many errors and contradictions that this would be impossible, and I'd feel embarrassed . . .
It is not possible to function without a knowledge-base. But if you deny that knowing is possible, you have at that point, effectively, jettisoned yourself from the conversation as well as from reasonable argument. If this really is your position, you have undermined yourself right at the very start.
It is absolutely necessary to have solid knowledge, and knowledge backed by reasoning that you can enunciate clearly, in order to be
truthful, and thus also to be
effective. So again the issue is defining the principles and the proper ground.
...then you have to admit that you don't really 'know' anything, and have never really 'known' anything, and so you've been wrong about your adamant declarations, and you've been a fool.
If I translate this it makes more sense.
You are saying that you cannot know anything, and that you do not know anything, and that knowledge is not attainable. You know nothing now and you've never known anything, and you are therefore wrong about your most *adamant declarations*! Thus, because this is so, you have (according to your own reasoning) been a fool and are now carrying on like one.
In order to get out of this trap you are going to have to go back to the beginning and rework and reestablish your *first principles*. Otherwise, effectively, you're screwed . . .
This is a tough juncture.
What is being denied is that you own it. There are MANY truths to work with!
This brings you back into the same confused circle, a somewhat vicious circle, that results in
unreason. [Nonsense, absurdity].
While I understand that your issue seems to be with Authority and Structures of Authority, I think some part of your error is to have personalized those authorities. If a truth is defined as a truth it is true not because of the person who holds the truth, but because it is true in a transcendental sense. The reference is to ideas that are not owned nor are they invented. They
exist.
