[MD] Intuitive Reasoning?

[Case]

>Case said:
> However, intuition and insight are frequently wrong and
> in the absence of any conceivable test are best kept private.

[Ham]
I take your point, Case.  And it's an important one, in that objective
knowledge must have universal validity to be practically useful.  However, I
submit that the value of truth lies in its capacity to be believed.

[Case]
Truth has neither capacity nor necessity to be believed.


[Ham]
As a 'valuist', 

[Case]
Do valuists clip coupons?

[Ham]
I would argue that what we believe has more value to the individual than
what can be verified on the intellectual grounds of logic and universal
testing.  
I think that realization of the 'Greater Self' stressed in Buddhism and
Eastern mysticism generally supports this view, as does Judeo-Christian
religion.

[Case]
How do unsupportable beliefs support each other?

[Ham]
I was raised a Protestant and am not aware of any edict by which revelation
must be "tested against the written Word".  Even if one has this belief, is
the written Word an "empirical or logical test" of credibility?  If not,
then it would have to be subordinated further to scientific evidence or some
other universal standard of truth.

[Case]
Among evangelical Christians the requirement of scriptural support for
revelation is common place. I would refer you to Hank Hanagraff, Lee
Strobel, Tim LaHay, John MacArthur etc.

But it can be traced to the Reformer's insistence on Sola Scriptura.

[Ham]
The apostle Paul, a man well educated in theology, after comparing the two
kinds of knowledge he had received -- reasoned, theological biblical
understanding, and revelation and intimacy with the Spirit of God --
confessed that he counted his first rational education as dung (Phil.
3:1-10) when compared with the value of knowing [ginosko] God (having
intimacy and revelation knowledge from God).

[Case]
I have compared your powers of reasoning to Paul's in the past.

[Ham]
The only command in the Bible to reason is found in Isaiah 1:18: "`Come now,
and let us reason together,' saith the Lord; 'Though your sins are like
scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson,
they shall be as wool.'."  Note that reason is only encouraged if done
together with God, and it involves the use of imagery, a right brain
function not normally considered part of the reasoning process.

[Case]
The Jews valued wisdom over reason that is true but the rabbis were so
obnoxious in their quibbling that Jesus called them liars and hypocrites.

[Ham]
Truth, like morality, is relative to the conditions that affect it.  Logical
positivism holds that subjective truth has no validity.  

[Case]
I prefer to think that the positivists were saying that subjectivity is not
meaningful unless is can be objectified. This does not make subjectivity
invalid only irrelevant.

[Ham]
If all we are concerned about is the utility of a principle and its
conformity to a system of knowledge, then we can dispense with subjectivity
and call Truth that which "works".  But a philosophy founded on Value or
Quality -- and, yes, I'm talking about the MoQ as well as Essentialism --
must defer to subjective (pre-intellectual) perception in evaluating
essential truth.

[Case]
The utility or conformity of any belief is assessed by each individual
subjectively this can NOT be dispensed with. But a system of beliefs or a
"philosophy" survives because it is objectified and held collectively.


[Ham]
So that, rather than jump to reason and universal validation as the final
"proof" for a given proposition, I maintain that unless we can accommodate
subjective value in our appraisal of what is true, we are restricting
knowledge to facts about objective phenomena, and this cannot be the "whole
truth".  I know this is a controversial point, and expect to be rebuked in
follow-up posts.  However, if physical reality is an intellectual construct
based on perceived values, is it not more rational to say that the "proof is
in the Value" rather than in the appearance?

[Case]
I kind of agree with you, partially, in a strange kind of way and it is
frankly creeping me out. Individually, we accept or reject ideas based on
our subjective feelings and our individual application of reason. But the
only people who cling to views that have no supporting facts or logic are
the religious and the mad.