[MD] still going?

Thu Feb 25 15:11:01 PST 2016

Oughta change this thread to Religions -Still Going?

On Sunday, February 14, 2016, david <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com
<javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','dmbuchanan at hotmail.com');>> wrote:

> 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."
>
> .
>
>
> dmb says:
>
> I don't think the problem belongs to any particular kind of theism or type
> of Christianity. And I don't think the other guy's view puts any
> restrictions on us either. As I see, the problem is that we're dealing with
> people who pretend to be thinking seriously but have already committed
> themselves to certain final answers.

> Jc:

That sword cuts two ways, Dave.  Doesn't"commited to final answers" apply
equally to the anti-theistic as well?

Dmb:

>
>  If a person has prior commitments like that, their thinking process will
> be in the service of that prior view. The problem is that it restricts and
> restrains what they able to appreciate and remember. Such prior commitments
> amplify the confirmation bias that effects us all so that criticisms are,
> in effect, filtered out and the information that seems to confirm their
> beliefs gets seared into their memories.

>

Jc:

Hmmm.  I see what you mean.  It does explain a great deal.

Dmb:

>
>
> Even further, religious faith (and political ideologies) are totalitarian
> in the sense that every part of reality must be made to fit within their
> worldview. And everything that does not fit is explained away, dismissed
> and/or immediately forgotten. That's what fanatics seem so impervious to
> evidence and reason.
>
>

Jc:  Well I certainly agree that you are an expert on fanatics.

>
>
> dmb says:
>
> It would be foolish to exclude religion as a topic or issue for discussion
> because it's a major feature of human culture and because idealism in
> general, and especially Royce's idealism, is a religious view. Again, the
> problem is that such religious people are coming to the discussion with a
> large set of prior commitments about what's true and what's real. Coming to
> the table with a prior faith almost always brings a strong bias that
> hinders and frustrates a productive exchange of ideas. It creates blind
> spots in the mind, so to speak.
>
> John continues to insist that James and Royce were equally religious and
> that my protests to the contrary are symptoms of fear, prejudice, or even
> post traumatic stress induced by a bad experience with theism.

>
>
> Jc:  I have no idea what drives it, your anti-theism but I do note it.

Whether James and Royce were equally religious... I can't say.  I do think
that dismissal of Royce on those grounds is intellectually feeble.  But I
will ask an expert.

>
> This is mere slander, of course, but even worse is that it defies what the
> Stanford Encyclopedia and James himself have to say on the topic. It's like
> he just doesn't care what's true and what's not true. He wants to make it
> fit no matter what it takes. That's what happens when you are already
> committed to some faith before you even start to think. It warps everything
> so that real conversations are almost impossible.
>
>
> Take it easy.
>
> Dave
>
>
>
A real conversation.  That sounds good.  I am willing to give it a try,
again.  Let me first investigate your claims and I will get back to you.

John C.

>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > > 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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play within boundaries.
Infinite players
play *with* boundaries."