[MD] still going?

Thu Feb 11 11:00:13 PST 2016

As David argued to Adrie

snip

"It's no accident that those interested in re-animating that kind of
idealism are motivated by some kind of theism because a revival of this
idealism sort of entails a revival of the possibility of faith. It's easy
to imagine the desire to rescue one's faith, the desire to make it
intellectually respectable once again and even to sympathize with that
desire. But I really don't think it can be done, which is probably why it
always seems a little desperate or disingenuous. I think it's a dead end,
at least for the foreseeable future......"

Adrie.
Sorry for the late response, David,one of the relatives of my wife suffered
a stroke in Turkey whilst on a holliday there, and i also had to go to the
hospital myself for some mri's and foto's of my knee.But this as an aside.

It gave me some time to think about your point of view.
I think you are correct on this field.Allow me to give an example.
Given the 'gospel 'wich is clearly present in Royce's work,Auxier's field
of interest,and John's field of interest possibly and probably as well John
as
Randall would like to restrict and restrain our interferences to the
theological field of Catholisism, thereby avoiding any possible question
about monotheism
polytheism,Islam , thora or whatever availiable.Needless to say that this
also would restrict and restrain us only to their(Royce,Auxier,John, the
pope?)'s field of expertise,an expertise that is apparently shaped and
polished so to speak, to induce  a theistic revival in filosophy again.

This is not strange nor indecent, but of course if one takes the other
questions in consideration( monotheism/polyth/islam etc, etc...)then you
are quit wright
that it is nearly an impossibilty to have the debate as long as the other
debates remain unsolved;If we cannot define our variables a priori, and the
John/Royce/Auxier train only wants to restrain us in the catholic corner.
Made me think about the variables ahead of us if we should try.....Hmm
It crosses my mind how Dr Mc Watt carefully defined 'Time' before arguing
about it in his inquiry into the metaphysiks of Quality guide.So carefull
!;-

However this does not mean that it offends me or disturbs me;as John
suggests, it only offends me to go back to the luggage left behind when the
Mayflower moored in the America's , or the Halve Maen or the Pilgrim
fathers.
This is the wrong luggage.It became a product only , not a message or a
set of insights., and given the amount of impact it has and had on big
populations i have to side with Pirsig as he says its a form of mass
hysterics.
I think i will be an atheist for life...

But quit pro quo for what John is proposing , as apparently some unseen
quality is is emerging in his postings,consistency is back and he made
major improvements on the field of philosophy and writing about it.
So i  will not advocate to boot out Royce as John is not really demandig to
get rid of Ol' William.

Should we , as Irina suggested, keep our religion,out of this debate?;Or is
religion to interwoven and twined with idealism or many forms of philosphy
in general to leave it aside?.

The last remark should be interesting for John to resolve....but regardless
of his lead, i will not take his word for it without delivered content;-(no
pun intended).

Adrie

2016-02-08 1:57 GMT+01:00 John Carl <ridgecoyote at gmail.com>:

> Adrie and dave,
>
>
> > It is true altogether that we cannot prove that god does not exist, hence
> > he 'does 'exist or to say the least, fallibilism as a postulate (if
> > accepted) allows
> > the creator to stay on top of the pyramid.
>
> Jc:  I understand your fear, but I wonder what place "fear" has in
> rational inquiry?  Perhaps Christianity and Islam have bred such
> virulent forms of fundamentalist social dominance tactics that any
> conception of God must be branded as 'evil' immediately and the
> subject never raised again.  At least it seems that is the gist of the
> arguments you offer against "sunday-school teacher"  Randy, and me.
>
> I almost understand, such a prejudicial stance, but if we're talking
> about the actual fact of the historical record then we have to be more
> honest, intellectually, and if you throw out Royce, you sure have to
> throw out James, who was certainly more of a church-goer than Josiah
> was.
>
> But honestly, is all that really the point?  Royce laid out the proper
> sphere of religion and philosophy in his Religious Aspect of
> Philosophy, and right off the bat he makes it clear that these are TWO
> DIFFERING REALMS.  Just as Pirsig made it clear that religion is
> social and philosophy is intellectual, Royce makes it clear that
> Philosophy cannot be constrained or beholden to ANY unexamined
> preconceptions or prejudice.
>
> I would remind you all, that being Anti-God is just as pernicious a
> prejudice as being pro-God.  In fact.  This can be most plainly
> observed in the ontology of Ayn Rand, where she explicitly makes moves
> for no other reason than to exclude God.  and as we all know,
> unconscious metaphysics tend to be bad metaphysics.
>
>
>
>
> > But in this instance,one has to accept,--fallibilism as true, and
> > fallibilism as a
> > postulated guarantee not only that we are wrong to deny the creator'
> > story,..
> > but also that we live with the wrong a priori's.
> >
>
> Jc:  Ok, but "wrong" does actually imply the ontological status of
> "right", therefore the assertion of wrong, fundamentally, helps us
> escape that modern skepticism which begets nothing but nominalism in
> academic Pragmatism.
>
>
> Ad:
>
> > It did not take me much time to find that Royce, indeed is using
> fallibilism
> > to maintain the theistic stance.
> > It took me less then 10 minutes to keep Auxier against the light to find
> out
> > he gives bible classes in his free time.But using this as an argument
> > against
> > John's apparant will to devote him would make this case moot.
> >
>
>
> Jc:  I consciously choose a Theistic interpretation to my life.  It
> helps me feel happy.  What can you do?  We all got our weird little
> quirks.  I think the problem has been the exclusive nature of theistic
> interpreters and this has gotten us all a bad name.  You hear any of
> that "god" talk and right away you think narrow, moralistic,
> holier-than-thou and all that baggage that has gotten dragged into the
> dialogue with and about modern Christianity. I hear ya.  I don't
> blame ya.  that stuff sickens us all.  All I can do is assure you that
> there are some of us who appreciate the mythic structure of the bible,
> and observe and influence the communities that collect themselves
> around those writings.  We don't mean anything absolute about it, but
> as simply another painting hanging in the gallery, we like it.
>
> Sorry if that offends you.
>
> I will tell you an interesting story that I fully believe.  It's by
> another of my favorite authoris, M. Scott Peck. In it, he tells of his
> encounters with various people who come to him for help, as a
> psychotherapist and Psychologist.  Many troubled people he as seen,
> and one thing he has remarked upon over the years is that many times a
> good christian has come to his office and stayed for the treatment and
> found help, who has become converted, in the end, to atheism.  Also,
> many atheists have come to him, talked out their troubles, and come
> over time to a conclusion that there must be some sort of god out
> there, and a more deeply connected spiritual life.  So what's going
> on?  Atheists are converted to Theism and Theists are converted to
> Atheism, by the same process.  How can that be?  Isn't one of these
> more right than the other?
>
> Well all I can say is, we need to learn to accept where we are and
> where each other is as well, without all this judgement and criticism
> and I know Randall Auxier well enough to assert he would say the same.
>
> Ad:
>
> > My personal perspective on fallibilism in general is derived from logic,
> if
> > fallibilism is true,then fallibilism itself is probably wrong.
>
> Jc:
>
> Oh, you think you're clever, doncha.
>
> Well... you are. but within limits.  "probably" is "merely" a
> pejorative term.  Change it to "fallibilism 'could' be wrong" and I'd
> hum that tune right along with ya and harmonize with a mighty
> resounding DUH.
>
> Ad:
>
> > However this does not mean that fallibilism is not a genuine and solid
> > analytical knife, if handled in skilled hands.Roye apparently understood
> > true/untrue false/correct as 'wrong' and 'mistaken' but if this is the
> > case, then the denotation is fighting with the connotation, and ths?e
> game
> > becomes a mindfuck.I find it rather strange that he attempted to repaint
> > the mona lisa so to speak.
> >
>
> Jc:  I think there is more here to unpack, but the super bowl is on,
> and I'm gonna go watch more.  GO BRONCOS.
>
> didn't Lady Gaga do a wonderful job of the national anthem?  I think so.
>
> Love,
>
> John
>
>
>
> > But regardless of these moot-events,David , in your opinion, should i
> take
> > the effort to read and study some work  of Royce,just for the sake of my
> > knowledge of philosophy, or lack of it? Is there value to discover, new
> > insights or things that were left behind to easy?
> >
> > Adrie.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > 2016-02-05 16:41 GMT+01:00 david <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com>:
> >
> >>
> >> Adrie quoted Wikipedia to dispute John's claims:
> >>
> >>
> >> "His publication in 1885 of The Religious Aspect of Philosophy
> >> ...contained a new proof for the existence of God based upon the reality
> >> of
> >> error. All errors are judged to be erroneous in comparison to some total
> >> truth, Royce argued, and we must either hold ourselves infallible or
> >> accept
> >> that even our errors are evidence of a world of truth. Having made it
> >> clear
> >> that idealism depends upon postulates and proceeds hypothetically, Royce
> >> defends the necessity of objective reference of our ideas to a universal
> >> whole within which they belong, for without these postulates, “both
> >> practical life and the commonest results of theory, from the simplest
> >> impressions to the most valuable beliefs, would be for most if not all
> of
> >> us utterly impossible”. (see The Religious Aspect of Philosophy, p.
> 324)"
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> dmb says:
> >>
> >>
> >> Since Royce was offering fallibilism as "a new proof for the existence
> of
> >> God" and "the necessity of objective reference of our ideas", his
> >> fallibilism is very, very different from the fallibilism of Pragmatists
> >> like James and Pirsig. I think it's fair to say that Pirsig is NOT
> >> offering
> >> theism or objectivity. James, Dewey, and Pirsig are quite explicit in
> >> their
> >> rejection of SOM and even James, the most religion-friendly of the
> three,
> >> wrote his Varieties of Religious Experience in order to DISPUTE the
> >> religious claims made by Royce.
> >>
> >>
> >> From the Stanford Encyclopedia:
> >>
> >> "Royce and James had always disagreed deeply concerning the proper
> >> understanding of religious phenomena in human life. When James delivered
> >> the Gifford Lectures in 1901 and 1902, he directed many arguments
> against
> >> Royce's idealism, though he did not there target his friend by name.
> >> James's lectures, published as The Varieties of Religious Experience,
> were
> >> a popular and academic success . Royce believed that James, who had
> never
> >> been regularly affiliated with an established church or religious
> >> community, had in that work placed too much emphasis on the
> extraordinary
> >> religious experiences of extraordinary individuals. Royce's first
> >> education
> >> was into a strongly Protestant world view, he always retained a respect
> >> for
> >> the conventions of organized Christianity, and his writings exhibit a
> >> consistent and deep familiarity with Scripture. He sought a philosophy
> of
> >> religion that could help one understand and explain the phenomena of
> >> ordinary religious faith as experienced by communities of ordinary
> people.
> >> There was a deeper difference between them, as well, and it centered on
> a
> >> metaphysical point. Royce's 1883 insight concerning the Absolute was at
> >> bottom a religious insight. Contrary to the open-ended pluralism and
> >> pragmatism of James, Royce was convinced that the object and source of
> >> religious experience was an actual, infinite, and superhuman being."
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Since Pirsig was suspicious of James for trying to sneak religion in
> >> through the back door into philosophy, imagine what he'd think of
> Royce's
> >> "respect of the conventions of organized Christianity" and his stance
> >> "contrary to the open-ended pluralism and pragmatism of James".
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Like I keep saying, trying to make this Idealistic religious fanatic
> into
> >> a Pirsigian is like trying to pound a square peg into a round hole. Why,
> >> why, why does John keep preaching this nonsense against all evidence and
> >> reason? This covert theism is bullshit and cannot be sustained without a
> >> huge dose of dishonesty, or ignorance, or both.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> It's fine if a person insists on being an Idealist, an Absolutist, or a
> >> advocate of conventional Christianity but it makes no sense to paint
> >> Pirsig
> >> or Pragmatism in these colors. The keys concepts of these two opposed
> >> views
> >> will crash into each other like two trains heading in opposite
> directions.
> >> It's worse than a pointless waste of time because, frankly, it's so
> >> obviously stupid. It makes me sad and angry that John is allowed to
> >> continue raining his bullshit on Pirsig and James.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
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> >
> >
> >
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