Philosophy Now Forum

Posted: **Tue Apr 25, 2023 5:31 pm**

dogma: a principle or set of principles laid
down by an authority as incontrovertibly true...

Dogmatism: the tendency to lay down principles as
incontrovertibly true, without consideration of evidence,
or the opinions of others....

I have been accused of being ''dogmatic".. given my life story
that charge has little value... I was raised in being a moderate
democrat.. in 1980, I was radicalized by the election of Raygun...
I had lived in California several years at that point, and I saw
first hand the severe damage he did to California... I could
see the damage he would do to the U.S as president..
which he did, worse than I thought was possible...

In many ways, we still haven't recovered from one of the
five worst presidents in American history...

so, in being radicalized, I wasn't sure what direction I wanted to take,
I studied both communism and anarchism, as possible responses
to Raygun...I choose to become an anarchist.. after about a year of
study...I was an anarchist for about a dozen years or so...
I lived the life of an anarchist.. I didn't have a drivers license,
I didn't have a bank account, I didn't file my taxes...I didn't have
a place to live...I slept in a small back room at work...
and that is my understanding of a ''way of life", if you choose
a belief system, then you should also use that belief system
as a ''way of life" and I did...

in the early 90's I began to rethink my belief system...
I realized that anarchism wasn't going to happen anytime soon,
roughly 200 years from now when the technology will make
anarchism possible...so, I began to rethink my belief system,
and about that time, I met the woman who later became my
wife.. I had a choice to make, remain an anarchist, which
did not approve of, or change.. and I changed... at that
point, I became a radical democrat...extremely on the left...
where I have been, roughly, since 1993 or so....
and today, I am rethinking my prior faith in democracy..
( as we don't have a democracy anymore because our democracy
has been bought and sold by special interests)

so I am rethinking my beliefs, once more...that is
my history with political beliefs, I have had dozens
or more philosophical beliefs... and as I age, my
personal beliefs have changed, as they do as one ages...
what was true at 25 or 35 or 45 or even 55, is no longer true
at 64... my personal beliefs have changed as my own environment
has changed.. as they should change...
for me, age has blunted my radical nature.. as it should..
I am not quite as radical as I once was...

so, when I am accused of being "dogmatic" I laugh... as my
environment has changed, I have changed my beliefs...

when faced with the point about "dogmatism" one must
ask, what is the "authority" that I have, that I follow
through regardless of reality? Marx? Lenin? Kropotkin?
nah, I don't follow any of them... I think Marx was
wrong in several ways as was Lenin...not much ''authority''
to follow if I have, for the most part, rejected...

to be "dogmatic" one has to have some sort of authority to follow,
and I don't have one.. my own intellectual history is littered with
rejections of various thinkers.... I have adapted my own thought
to the reality of what is going on in my life.... I have changed my
own thoughts to match the environment I am in...
and that is called "dogmatic" which leads me to believe that
those who have called me "dogmatic" actually have no idea
what dogmatic actually means... and Liberals in general
are not locked into specific "dogmatic" beliefs....
you say, yes, liberals are ''dogmatic" that leads us to
the question of which authority we have accepted..

the principal part of dogmatism is to follow some authority,
to which I ask, what authority do liberals follow?

Kropotkin

Posted: **Tue Apr 25, 2023 5:45 pm**

Dogmatism:

-the tendency to lay down principles as incontrovertibly true, without consideration of evidence or the opinions of others.

-the expression of an opinion or belief as if it were a fact

-stating your opinions in a strong way and not accepting anyone else's opinions

https://www.google.com/search?client=fi ... sm+meaning

You can be dogmatic for a day or for 50 years. The fact that you change over time does mean that you are not dogmatic.

Posted: **Tue Apr 25, 2023 6:54 pm**

Peter Kropotkin wrote: ↑Tue Apr 25, 2023 5:31 pm the principal part of dogmatism is to follow some authority,
to which I ask, what authority do liberals follow?

Peter, you are confused about the meaning of dogmatic. You don't have to follow an authority to be dogmatic. You can speak and write dogmatically. Which you tend to do.

Also, you present us, again, with the changes in your beliefs. As if these show us that you cannot be dogmatic. But that's neither here nor there. One can be dogmatic with beliefs X and then change your mind and be dogmatic about your beliefs Y and then later be dogmatic as a Z believer.

(ah, I see Phyllo pointed this second part out also)

And this part is very strange....

I have adapted my own thought
to the reality of what is going on in my life.... I have changed my
own thoughts to match the environment I am in...

In and of itself it makes perfect sense. It is great that your thoughts are affected by your life and environment.

But, notice that your posts are not environment specific. You generalize at at least the national level.
If it is important to adjust your thinking according to environment, then the way you post does not make sense, since your posts never restrict they unqualified assertions and generalizations to any particular life or particular location. They apply everywhere, it seems, in the nation. And they are not just about you, they supposedly apply in general.

Of course, many people here do this. I think that can be fine. It just doesn't fit with what you are saying.

You take pride in the fact that your opinions have changed over time. Change it seems is good in and of itself. When in fact it can be a problem. Perhaps your earlier beliefs were more correct. It is as if the mere fact of change is good and places you on higher moral ground than those who haven't changed. Well perhaps their beliefs with their specific lives and environments.

I have also changed my beliefs over my lifetime, been humbled many a time in many different ways. But note the beliefs you had at each stage were global beliefs. Anarchism is not restricted to Boise. An anarchist view is not just a way for PK to live in some town. It is a set of beliefs about how things should be in general. Same with a radical democrat's views. One area in which you are dogmatic is about conservatives. Not about the conservatives on your town council and how your views guide you in relating to them. But all of them, everywhere, in the oversimplified version you present here. The cartoon version, where change is good, retaining is bad. Conservatives conserve, hence you are better than them.

Try that kind of philosophy in, say, how you relate to your body'. Generally change and retaining, especially what one decides is good, is pretty much necessary for life. Of course people can be wrong about changes and what one keeps.

But in your dogmatic presentation, per definition, conservatives are bad because they want to conserve some things.

Posted: **Tue Apr 25, 2023 6:59 pm**

phyllo wrote: ↑Tue Apr 25, 2023 5:45 pm Dogmatism:

-the tendency to lay down principles as incontrovertibly true, without consideration of evidence or the opinions of others.

-the expression of an opinion or belief as if it were a fact

-stating your opinions in a strong way and not accepting anyone else's opinions

https://www.google.com/search?client=fi ... sm+meaning

You can be dogmatic for a day or for 50 years. The fact that you change over time does mean that you are not dogmatic.

K: ahhh, poor Kropotkin, he won't take my opinion as fact, thus
he must be "dogmatic"... or perhaps this.. on August 12, 1972,
I was dogmatic... thus I am always going to be "dogmatic" regardless
of whatever happened after that... change is the very antithesis
of "dogmatism".. to be dogmatic is to hold a theory as fact regardless of
any facts or evidence to the contrary...does this sound like
a liberal or does this sound like a conservative?

Let us take one such theory... that god exists... the
evidence is clear, there is no god based on the evidence/facts...
on what ''authority" do I hold this theory? the facts themselves,
the evidence that there is no evidence or facts supporting
the theory that there is a god...the faithful hold onto this
''faith'' even in the face of no facts or evidence proving
their point... it is a sign of being a "true believer" to
have faith despite facts or evidence to the contrary...
one of the motto of the believer is "faith before reason"

I have asked believers for over 40 years to provide any kind
of evidence or facts proving their point, and at no point have
anyone shown me any type of evidence or facts proving god exists..

and the same goes true for the believers of the faith
in conservatism...and what is the authority they live in?
tradition or god as being the guarantee of their faith...
it worked for my father and his father and his father,
so it will work for me... not taking into account the fact
that over the last 50 years, we have had massive changes
in our society, socially, politically, economically, philosophically...

I am 64 and the world I live in today is massively different from
the one I grew up in...and that is just a fact.. and so, I must
respond to this new world with different thoughts and beliefs
and emotions....I cannot react to the world as it existed
50 years ago, I must react as it is today... and to do so,
I must change and adapt to the new environment and new world
we live in today...

so to be "dogmatic" is to be a dinosaur.. and I know what
happens to dinosaurs.. so I change and adapt.. that is not
being "dogmatic", that is being pragmatic... my beliefs
of today, do not match my beliefs of my youth or even
10 years ago...and of course, in the eyes of many, that
must mean I am being ''dogmatic"......

Kropotkin

Posted: **Tue Apr 25, 2023 7:02 pm**

Is the question about liberals meant to imply that they don't follow any leaders, or is it a question of genuine curiosity?

Posted: **Tue Apr 25, 2023 7:08 pm**

Peter Kropotkin wrote: ↑Tue Apr 25, 2023 6:59 pm so to be "dogmatic" is to be a dinosaur.. and I know what
happens to dinosaurs.. so I change and adapt.. that is not
being "dogmatic", that is being pragmatic... my beliefs
of today, do not match my beliefs of my youth or even
10 years ago...and of course, in the eyes of many, that
must mean I am being ''dogmatic"......

No. No one thinks you're being dogmatic because over time you have changed your mind.
We think you are dogmatic because of how you are dogmatic about your current beliefs. Perhaps you were dogmatic with whatever phase you were in, perhaps not.
Either way, it doesn't matter in relation to being dogmatic. You can be.....well, hell, we both said it clearly.

Dogmatic is not dependant on time. Some of the most dogmatic anti-smokers are ex-smokers.

Veritas is hilariously dogmatic and he was a Christian and isn't anymore.

Changing your mind over time is no protection against or counterevidence against one being dogmatic.

This of St. Paul. He changed, but man that was one dogmatic son of a bitch.

The ironic thing is that when you stopped being an anarchist, you became more conservative. It sounds like you want to conserve the anti-pedophile values. It seems like you believe in work and payment for work. I get the sense there are other facets of what might be a somewhat bourgious life that could be called traditional. IOW you are more conservative than the young man sleeping in a back room at work, waiting for the nation state and laws and government to dissolve. So clearly some things that have been around are good. There's no discrete category conservative counterpoised against a discrete category liberal or leftie. There's overlap, each wanting to change some things and keep others. With overlap and individual cases spread out all over the place with individual differences.

There are conservatives who were once liberal. Radical lefties who went into Wall St. And so on.

Posted: **Wed Apr 26, 2023 2:20 am**

Another way to look at the term dogma:

dog·ma (dôg′mə, dŏg′-)
n. pl. dog·mas or dog·ma·ta (-mə-tə)

1. A doctrine or a corpus of doctrines relating to matters such as morality and faith, set forth in an authoritative manner by a religion.

2. A principle or statement of ideas, or a group of such principles or statements, especially when considered to be authoritative or accepted uncritically: "Much education consists in the instilling of unfounded dogmas in place of a spirit of inquiry" (Bertrand Russell).

[Latin, from Greek, opinion, belief, from dokein, to seem, think; see dek- in Indo-European roots.]

[Latin from Greek: opinion, belief, from dokein to seem good]

There is as much to be gained by formalizing our own dogmas, than in attacking defined, rationally based values.

If one for example can define no solid base for one’s values, and if one says and believes that to arrive at value-solidities is not possible, one is lost. One is then the victim of mutability and the non-substantial.

One must be able to say that something appears (seems) to be true. And that seeming becomes the base of ones thinking, believing and acting in this world.

Posted: **Wed Apr 26, 2023 2:37 am**

Let us take one such theory...that god exists...the evidence is clear, there is no god based on the evidence/facts...on what ''authority" do I hold this theory? the facts themselves, the evidence that there is no evidence or facts supporting the theory that there is a god...the faithful hold onto this
''faith'' even in the face of no facts or evidence proving their point... it is a sign of being a "true believer" to have faith despite facts or evidence to the contrary...one of the motto of the believer is "faith before reason"

God is, in intellectual theology, a necessary predicate. And god is not arrived at — the necessary predicate is not arrived at — through analytical processes: the assembly of disassembled, isolated facts.

Analysis is acidity. It breaks things apart. Or down into bits.

[Medieval Latin, from Greek analusis, a dissolving, from analūein, to undo : ana-, throughout; see ana- + lūein, to loosen; see leu- in Indo-European roots.]

God is defined through intellectual synthesis, not harsh analysis.

The problem is the analytical mind will not, cannot, arrive at an understanding of god.

I do not here propose to say what ‘god’ is. That would be like defining Existence: that there is a manifest world and that I am (somehow) in it. Acting in it, contemplating it.

Peter Kropotkin would need to see his ‘mental processes’ from a point outside of his mental processes. Can he? He cannot!

And there you have a way to grasp conditionality. To have been so conditioned, so processed and determined, that — literally — no other intellectual or perceptual position is conceivable as being possible.

Its a boat we are all in, to one degree or another.

it is a sign of being a "true believer" to have faith despite facts or evidence to the contrary...one of the motto of the believer is "faith before reason"

Well, the fact seems to be: life and existence is incomprehensible. The mind boggles in the face of our existing. So in this sense, or in the face of that, our reason shows itself incapable.

So in this sense those who can, or who do, achieve faith simply because reason can’t get you or anyone to an existential platform where Existence is grasped, gives some indication of why they say that faith is a step that can then lead to an experience (grasp) that then leads to reasoned explication.

Just sayin’ …

Posted: **Wed Apr 26, 2023 3:40 am**

So, this is what you do?

Yep, I'm part of a team and we do our best!

Sometimes, it ain't enough is it?

It is the way it is!

How happy re ya all, the team?

On a scale of 0 to 10, I'd say a 2.

You don't say! That's sad!

I know.

I bet you do!

Funny how life is, no?

True and yours is funnier than mine!

I'll take that as a compliment.

Haha. There, there's another one!

Gotta go! Later ...

Au revoir!

Posted: **Wed Apr 26, 2023 9:31 am**

Dogmatism regains faith, may you not be logical. Analysis does consist in dissolving, might you understand the meaning of semantics. If you were going to be analytical could you show an understanding of analytics? Is it conditional or analytical? Come on people, if you are going to be analytical in your thinking, then you should have written analytically. Implications are like syllogisms, they prove what you write. What you seek, so shall you find. Just use reliable resources for your information. That is my opinion,I could be wrong.

Posted: **Wed Apr 26, 2023 9:37 am**

The above post was made using predictive text from an old Nokia flip phone

Posted: **Wed Apr 26, 2023 10:57 am**

BTW this thread seems to be a response to what was posted in the 'Possible Solutions to Our Current Problems' thread :

PK :
part of the current strife and violence
within the world today comes from the rightwing dogmatism
that says, the only values worth having are my values/beliefs...

Me:
The same can be said about left-wing dogmatism.
PK:
please share with us the "left-wing dogmatism"
you are referring to?

So I posted this study:

New research provides evidence that left-wing authoritarian attitudes exist in the United States. The preliminary findings, published in the scientific journal Political Psychology, suggest liberals could be just as likely to be authoritarians as conservatives.

“Political ideology in general is one of the most important and predictive variables in human psychology,” said study author Lucian Gideon Conway, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Montana.

“I became interested in left-wing authoritarianism in particular because some people have said it isn’t a very real or likely phenomenon — and yet I know people I would describe as left-wing authoritarians. So I was curious to figure that out.”

Conway and his colleagues developed a measure of left-wing authoritarianism, which was adapted from the right-wing authoritarianism scale developed by psychologist Bob Altemeyer.

The RWA scale asks participants how much they agree with statements such as: “It’s always better to trust the judgment of the proper authorities in government and religion than to listen to the noisy rabble-rousers in our society who are trying to create doubts in people’s minds” and “Our country desperately needs a mighty leader who will do what has to be done to destroy the radical new ways and sinfulness that are ruining us.”

The new LWA scale, on the other hand, asks questions such as: “It’s always better to trust the judgment of the proper authorities in science with respect to issues like global warming and evolution than to listen to the noisy rabble-rousers in our society who are trying to create doubts in people’s minds” and “Our country desperately needs a mighty and liberal leader who will do what has to be done to destroy the radical traditional ways of doing things that are ruining us..”

Both scales were tested on a group of 475 undergraduates at the University of Montana and a group of 305 U.S. adults who were recruited online from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk.

The researchers found that left-wing authoritarianism was associated with liberal views, dogmatism, and prejudice among both samples of participants, suggesting it is a valid concept.

“Our data suggest that average Americans on the political left are just as likely to be dogmatic authoritarians as those on the political right. And those left-wing authoritarians can be just as prejudiced, dogmatic, and extremist as right-wing authoritarians,” Conway told PsyPost.

However, the research does have some limitations.

“Our two studies should be viewed as just an opening foray in what we hope to be a lot more research on the topic,” Conway explained. “We aren’t claiming definitively that left-wingers are just as likely as right-wingers to be authoritarian in all (or even most) contexts, or that left-wing authoritarians are just the same as right-wing authoritarians in every regard (in fact, I’m pretty sure they aren’t, and we’re doing some work on that).”

“There are good reasons to think authoritarianism aligns more with right-wing than left-wing ideology, and we are interested in those reasons, too. The point is, it is a further question to better define the similarities and differences in right-wing and left-wing authoritarianism.”

“Also, our data only cover a few topic areas that are relevant, and only very specific samples (college undergraduates, MTurk workers) of Americans. Thus, we certainly don’t claim these data to be all inclusive for all people at all times — but every search has to start somewhere, however small.”

“I would like to encourage anyone interested in this topic to get involved — there are a lot of proverbial low-hanging fruit and we have already developed and published a viable LWA questionnaire for people to use,” Conway added. “It’s an exciting area to be involved in!”

The study, “Finding the Loch Ness Monster: Left-Wing Authoritarianism in the United States“, was co-authored by Shannon C. Houck, Laura Janelle Gornick and Meredith A. Repke.

https://www.psypost.org/2018/01/study-l ... ight-50674

Which PK completely ignored.

Posted: **Wed Apr 26, 2023 11:56 am**

puto wrote: ↑Wed Apr 26, 2023 9:31 am Dogmatism regains faith, may you not be logical. Analysis does consist in dissolving, might you understand the meaning of semantics. If you were going to be analytical could you show an understanding of analytics? Is it conditional or analytical? Come on people, if you are going to be analytical in your thinking, then you should have written analytically. Implications are like syllogisms, they prove what you write. What you seek, so shall you find. Just use reliable resources for your information. That is my opinion,I could be wrong.

Amen to that, brother. May synthetic angels lift you in metaphor to the semiotics of your striving. May all your premises overflow.

Posted: **Mon May 01, 2023 9:34 pm**

Peter Kropotkin wrote: ↑Tue Apr 25, 2023 5:31 pm dogma: a principle or set of principles laid
down by an authority as incontrovertibly true...

Dogmatism: the tendency to lay down principles as
incontrovertibly true, without consideration of evidence,
or the opinions of others....

I have been accused of being ''dogmatic".. given my life story
that charge has little value... I was raised in being a moderate
democrat.. in 1980, I was radicalized by the election of Raygun...
I had lived in California several years at that point, and I saw
first hand the severe damage he did to California... I could
see the damage he would do to the U.S as president..
which he did, worse than I thought was possible...

In many ways, we still haven't recovered from one of the
five worst presidents in American history...

so, in being radicalized, I wasn't sure what direction I wanted to take,
I studied both communism and anarchism, as possible responses
to Raygun...I choose to become an anarchist.. after about a year of
study...I was an anarchist for about a dozen years or so...
I lived the life of an anarchist.. I didn't have a drivers license,
I didn't have a bank account, I didn't file my taxes...I didn't have
a place to live...I slept in a small back room at work...
and that is my understanding of a ''way of life", if you choose
a belief system, then you should also use that belief system
as a ''way of life" and I did...

in the early 90's I began to rethink my belief system...
I realized that anarchism wasn't going to happen anytime soon,
roughly 200 years from now when the technology will make
anarchism possible...so, I began to rethink my belief system,
and about that time, I met the woman who later became my
wife.. I had a choice to make, remain an anarchist, which
did not approve of, or change.. and I changed... at that
point, I became a radical democrat...extremely on the left...
where I have been, roughly, since 1993 or so....
and today, I am rethinking my prior faith in democracy..
( as we don't have a democracy anymore because our democracy
has been bought and sold by special interests)

so I am rethinking my beliefs, once more...that is
my history with political beliefs, I have had dozens
or more philosophical beliefs... and as I age, my
personal beliefs have changed, as they do as one ages...
what was true at 25 or 35 or 45 or even 55, is no longer true
at 64... my personal beliefs have changed as my own environment
has changed.. as they should change...
for me, age has blunted my radical nature.. as it should..
I am not quite as radical as I once was...

so, when I am accused of being "dogmatic" I laugh... as my
environment has changed, I have changed my beliefs...

when faced with the point about "dogmatism" one must
ask, what is the "authority" that I have, that I follow
through regardless of reality? Marx? Lenin? Kropotkin?
nah, I don't follow any of them... I think Marx was
wrong in several ways as was Lenin...not much ''authority''
to follow if I have, for the most part, rejected...

to be "dogmatic" one has to have some sort of authority to follow,
and I don't have one.. my own intellectual history is littered with
rejections of various thinkers.... I have adapted my own thought
to the reality of what is going on in my life.... I have changed my
own thoughts to match the environment I am in...
and that is called "dogmatic" which leads me to believe that
those who have called me "dogmatic" actually have no idea
what dogmatic actually means... and Liberals in general
are not locked into specific "dogmatic" beliefs....
you say, yes, liberals are ''dogmatic" that leads us to
the question of which authority we have accepted..

the principal part of dogmatism is to follow some authority,
to which I ask, what authority do liberals follow?

Kropotkin

In my opinion, dogmatism is the closed position where it is no longer necessary to re-evaluate an idea. That idea is already complete.

It doesn't seem relevant to me that, at some point, you jump from one absolutely correct idea to another absolutely correct idea.

I would consider you equally fundamentalist if that were your behavior.

That all the time you change your dogma does not excuse you from being dogmatic.

The skeptical position is the antithesis of dogmatism. In this case, one holds an idea because that seems to be the most likely to correspond to reality.

Posted: **Tue May 02, 2023 3:41 am**

Dogmatists have worked hard to bring some nuance to their philosophy but, time and again, their critics have demonstrated the futility of that enterprise.

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