I just got an unexpected free moment, so I’m going to jot down a post on a topic I feel is of great importance. A unique post was recently written by Evil Bender, one of my favorite atheist bloggers. In it, he states “humans, in short, cannot escape metaphor as a means of understanding.” I think this is true, depending on how one defines “metaphor”. I think of this kind of metaphor as “worldview”, a framework by which we interpret ideas.
Though I feel it’s very self-evident, it’s important to note that “facts” are always analyzed through the interpretive lens of a worldview. There is no such thing as an unbiased position on a fact, one can’t live in an analytical Switzerland. Thomas Kuhn’s work even implies that a priori worldview assumptions must be made before one can even know where and how to look for facts.
All this being said, the questions arise, how does one compare worldviews, and how are they chosen? Is either process rational, or will critical discussions and explorations on the topic always end fruitlessly?
Karl Popper’s “myth of the framework” idea is helpful to note here. Basically, he claims that people with entirely different worldviews, or sets of fact interpretations, can have meaningful dialogue if said dialogue is embarked upon in the the spirit of good faith rational criticism. Kuhn, on the other hand, wrote about the incommensurability of various worldviews. His work implies that people take up the banner of various worldviews for entirely irrational reasons (the verdict is out on whether he believed that implication).
I find it fascinating that atheists see these problems clearly when speaking of religion, but they typically refuse to see them when discussion turns to their own worldviews. They often speak in ways that imply an atheistic worldview is the clear default.
Presuppositionalism, typically spoken of as a style of defending religious beliefs based on the acceptance of scripture axiomatically, is, I think, probably the only coherent way to discuss theism and atheism. There is, ultimately, a large circularity inherent in any worldview, because all theories must gain authority from some axiomatic source. The comment discussion in my post Who Made God between myself and Arturo is a good example. Arturo felt I didn’t understand that the discussion was about an argument about arguments, because in his worldview, it is possible to use inferential deduction to show that it is necessary that inferential deduction is not necessary. This is axiomatic on his part, and no amount of my attempts to show the self-refuting nature of this idea would ever likely breach his worldview, because that one idea makes many other ideas he holds possible and justified. I don’t blame him at all, and in fact, I think the worldview built on this foundation is quite sophisticated. My own theistic worldview also requires axioms, and I readily admit it.
So then, back to the question of choosing and comparing worldviews. I currently think that a worldview is more or less justified depending on it’s degree of correspondence with reality. I think reality can be defined by both empirical and inferential evidence. I believe that critical rationalism is one of the best tools for determining correspondence, or what Popper called the “verisimilitude of truth”. I also think, though, that one’s worldview axiom must be highly systematic from that start, because arriving at justifiably actable knowledge via Popper’s critical rationalist system of essentially random (creative-imagination-based) hypothesis generation followed by attempts at falsification would require an almost infinitely long time period.
For anyone interested in determining their worldview’s correspondence to reality, I suggest the following (obviously biased) questions:
- does my worldview deny the orderliness and reasonably accurate measurability of the empirical world?
- does my worldview deny an objective source of morality and logic that exists independently of humanity?
- does my worldview deny immateriality (ideas, meanings, morality, value, etc.)
If your worldview does any of these things, I think it’s time to go shopping.
March 18, 2007 at 5:28 pm
Interesting discussion. Still I think that when you say “does my worldview deny an objective source of morality and logic that exists independently of humanity?” you seem to be trying to refute a position almost no one holds.
I’m no moral relativist (that is, I deny that the rightness of an action is entirely dependent upon the culture from which it arises), but I almost always read formulations like the one you make used to try to justify a chain of logic that runs from evolution > atheism > relativism > nihilism. If that isn’t your intent, then I have no gripe with that as a moral question–though I do question it’s value. What is an “independent source of logic” and what would it look like?
As for a morality independent of humanity, I would ask if such a morality should be applied to all living creatures. I can’t imagine what morality would be like for other moral beings, without knowing the lives they live. Morality requires actors, and actors require context.
In a related note, you’re absolutely correct that worldviews require assumptions. Empiricism is a pretty basic one, and it is impossible to logically justify it without appealing to it. Cause-and-effect can be initially proposed only axiomatically, and then justified. But to refuse it as axiom makes further investigation meaningless.
I’d propose, for contrast, the following questions about a worldview:
1) does it make meaningful predictions about the world, predictions which can be shown to be correct or incorrect?
2) is it generalizable? (if not, it is merely a preference)
3) is it internally consistent?
We can’t, as you note, get around the problem of axioms, but we can use caution in choosing our axioms, even if it is only in retrospect. And we should be prepared to reject them if they appear unsustainable, especially if they lead to internal inconsistency.
March 19, 2007 at 8:44 am
“Arturo felt I didn’t understand that the discussion was about an argument about arguments, because in his worldview, This is axiomatic on his part, and no amount of my attempts to show the self-refuting nature of this idea would ever likely breach his worldview, because that one idea makes many other ideas he holds possible and justified.”
Just a quick comment: you still have not understood what I mean then. Since I don’t know how to simplify it any further you may want to look at the use-mention distinction in analytic philosophy. At any rate you got this wrong (showing me that you may also need to look at the definition of formal proof).
…it is possible to use inferential deduction to show that it is necessary that inferential deduction is not necessary.”
What I really said was that it was possible to use formal deduction to show that inferential deduction is not necessary. There is no contradiction here just like there is not contradiction in using PA to show that the Godel sentence can be constructed (even though it is not provable in PA). But then again, I reccommend you read a little bit of good logic literature (Maybe Quine: “Methods of Logic” for a good introduction)
On to another note: the only axiomatic parts of my system are the following:
A v ~A ; A=A, ~(A & ~A)
If you are a relativist in that sense then you can deny these principles, just don’t pretend that anyone can understand what you are saying: as it will always be possible to show that you are not actually saying what you are saying but the opposite. So when you say you are a theist you are also saying you are an atheist (A & ~A) or when you say that you are yourself you are also saying you are someone else (~A=A). [ A v ~A is superflous because it can be derived from the other two]
March 19, 2007 at 8:32 pm
Poppies,
I was reading through my Kant and lo and behold found the following clear and concise definition of the question that you misunderstood in our last discussion and now claim in this one was misunderstood because of my axiomatic dogmatism.
“The question was not whether the concept of cause was right, useful, and even indispensable for our knowledge of nature for this Hume had never doubted; but whether that concept could be thought by reason a priori [formally], and consequently whether it possessed an inner truth independent of all experience, implying a wider application than merely to the objects of experience.” (Immanuel Kant. Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics)
March 20, 2007 at 4:40 pm
Arturo, thanks for your continued comments. Any responses I give to your comments will probably have to be few and far between these days, but I will say the following in my current free moment.
It may be clarifying to note that I’m labeling your formal deduction as “inferential deduction” when you use it as a practical justification, and not just as a formal proof. I feel like you’re greatly misunderstanding the thrust of the problem, and you feel the same about me. I have a sinking feeling we’ll probably never reach a satisfactory conclusion, and I formerly felt that we would be wasting our time to continue, but perhaps we can come to better clarity if you would kindly answer the following questions:
- Do you think it’s accurate to say Hume believes only empirical experience can provide meaningful justifications for practical beliefs? Why or why not?
- How do you define practical?
- Do you believe in actual, physical infinites? Why or why not?
March 21, 2007 at 10:02 am
Poppies
(1) Yes. Empirical evidence can provide justification for a practical beliefs– but it is impossible for empirical evidence to formally justify formal claims or claims relating to cause and necessity.
(2) Practical=df useful…like Newton’s theory of gravity
(3) You would have to define what you mean by actual, physical and infinity (Aleph Null, Aleph One…what level of infinity are we referring to here?)
March 21, 2007 at 6:50 pm
Regarding (1) and (2): Would you therefore say that the belief that inferential deduction cannot show necessity isn’t useful? If this is not an accurate statement of your beliefs, I think I need a bit more precision from you in your definition of practicality.
Regarding (3): For simplicity, let’s define accordingly: actual=existing outside of the human mind, physical=part of the material world, infinity=quantified absolute infinity.
March 22, 2007 at 10:29 am
(1) In response to your question it depends. I thnk that the proof that inferential deduction cannot show necessity is useful when we are talking about necessity and the limits of inference but not useful in other senses: like changing a tire…unless we are 24/7 philosophers in which case we could relate changing a tire to this proof.
(2) I don’t think we can say anything about things that exist outside of the human mind. I am a Kantian in this sense: reality corresponds to our mind our mind cannot correspond to reality. So then I would say that I don’t know whether or not actual physical infinities can exist or not. I don’t think anyone has the tools to make that judgment.
March 24, 2007 at 1:38 am
Hi Arturo,
So, about (1): Based solely on your last few responses, I’m going to define beliefs I understand you to hold as w, x, y and z for ease of typing:
w. inferential deduction cannot show practical necessity
x. w can be proven formally
y. the belief that inference and necessity is limited to the world of the formal can be understood as useful, which is the same as saying these concepts are “practical” beliefs
z. only empirical experience can provide a meaningful proof for a practical belief
Given y and z, one would expect you to use some sort of empirical experience to justify w, yet x, which is your justification for w, doesn’t fit any definition of empiricism I’ve come across. This is the crux of the dissonance I see in your beliefs and why I think there’s an axiomatic nature to w. It’s quite possible I’m missing something.
As for (2), Kantian epistemology has also always seemed dissonant to me. The way I understand the Kantian relationship between reality and mind is such that there’s a certainty that data of noumenal reality is processed by the mind to create phenomenal reality. This sounds like a causal link existing outside of the mind, though, the certainty of the possibility of which I understand to be denied by Kant.
March 24, 2007 at 7:54 pm
Poppies,
z is wrong. There are no meaningful “proofs” in the formal sense for practical beliefs.
In Kantian epistemology knowledge comes at the end of a categorization stage. Causal links only exist between perceptions– and indeed this must be so since causality is one of the categories– there is no mention that I know of of any relationship outside of the mind: that is the entire point.
March 24, 2007 at 11:19 pm
I didn’t mean proof in the formal sense, I apologize for the confusion; I probably should have represented what I understand as your belief by substituting “justification”. This being the case, can you understand why I would see some dissonance?
I’m uncertain about the wisdom of further exploring Kantian epistemology, but I should clarify: from what I’ve understood in my readings, though he doesn’t explicitly draw attention to the fact, Kant depicts phenomenal reality as being dependent on noumenal reality (I’ve never read him describing phenomenal reality as arising any other way; perhaps you know of an example). This sounds like causality outside of the mind to me, and as you’ve said, he also claims that causal links only exist between perceptions.
March 26, 2007 at 7:46 pm
Poppies,
Your statement, even changing proof for justification in z that “given y and z one would expect to use some sort of empirical experience to justify w yet x which is your justification for w doesn’t fit any definition of empiricism” is still wrong. Of course x does not fit the bill for empiricism because x states “w can be proven formally” and all formal proofs in this sense are a priori. But w does not have to be justified empirically, it is a statement about justifications– a metastatement if you will whose range is purely formal and therefore needs only formal justifications (which it has).
From what I understand from Kant, he holds that we can know nothing whatsoever about nuomenal reality– he does not completely divorce the phenomenal from the nuomenal but he does divorce phenomenal knowledge from nuomenal knowledge.
March 26, 2007 at 8:18 pm
You can’t have it both ways; either w is practical/useful and can be invoked when talking about practical necessity and the limits of inference in the real world, or it’s range is purely formal and cannot provide fodder for a discussion of how reality “really” is. I have no problem with formal metastatements that limit necessity, and I think Hume is a genius for clarifying the situation, but when one tries to use that to undermine practical necessity, I cry shenanigans.
The KCA is an argument that can be formalized, but it is, at heart, practical. If it’s goal were to prove something formally, it would fail miserably. The argument claims parallelism to actual reality, and should be judged accordingly. For instance, one way to falsify it would be to find an actual infinite.
March 26, 2007 at 9:09 pm
The thing is that there is no parallelism between formal arguments and actual reality. The most that KCA can establish is that (1) It seems as if everything that begins has a cause (2) It seems that there are no actual infinites… (3) It seems as if the universe has a cause. “Seems” doesn’t exactly take us very far does it?
March 27, 2007 at 4:22 pm
Arturo, despite the fact that you and I have have almost completely polar worldviews, I have to admire your general consistency.
To say there is NO parellelism between formality and reality is a rather huge leap of faith. In such a view, a real object can exist and not exist simultaneously and in the same sense, rottweilers can be cats, granite at room temperature can be soft. To truly hold such a view, one must be utterly shocked and at a loss regarding how orderly our world appears, even in a phenomenal sense.
“Seems” takes us quite far, actually. My car seems to reliably function the way I expect it to, food seems to impart in me nutrients to keep me alive, my memories seem to be a reliable source of recollecting prior experiences. Everyone interacts with the world as it “seems”, keeping Ceteris Paribus as an unspoken acknowledgement.
March 27, 2007 at 9:31 pm
Poppies,
It is all about consistency. =) Now, to address some of the straw men that you have graciously constructed on my behalf. The fault is perhaps mine: there is no provable parallelism between formality and reality– all such apparent parallelism is strictly accidental, if that. On a strict Kantian view we cannot even speak about the nuomenal world in which case there really is no parallelism that may be spoken of. This has nothing to do with rottweilers and cats– for indeed the concept of a rottweiler cannot be the concept of a cat nor the concept of granite permit that it be soft at room temperature. What we must do and what analytic philosophy was created to do was to distinguish between objects and concepts. I have what I believe is a pretty standard view: formalism applies to concepts and of objects we know absolutely nothing. Does this mean that objects can do anything they want? No. It means we know nothing of them (if we can even refer to them as “them”
How does tis relate to KCA? Well it means that no amount of proof will ever show the existence of any “thing.” At most it will show us the existence of some concept– but we should be clear here. This concept will not even be a phenomenal concept, it will be a strictly formal “artificial” concept. Seems does not take us far because everything can be made out to seem like anything else– it is not a striclty defined category, and call me a slave to logic, but I like my categories to be well defined.
March 28, 2007 at 8:21 pm
I see so much incoherency in what you’re describing. Perhaps you can help me to understand where I’m seeing things wrongly by clarifying the following:
- How could the improbably large amount of order and predictability we experience in reality be described as accidental?
- If our knowledge is truly limited to the phenomenal, how would we ever come to talk about the noumenal? It’s like a blind man discovering colors…
- What is the basis of your belief in the non-interchangeability of phenomenal concepts? If causality, non-contradiction, and the like belong to the realm of the formal, there’s no reason to assume that conceptual states are static.
- If we know absolutely nothing of concepts or objects, isn’t it contradictory to then claim that we know they can’t “do anything they want”?
March 28, 2007 at 10:26 pm
Poppies,
I’ll be glad to make this clearer for you.
(1) A cursory reading of Kant would tell you that order, predictability…etc are properties of the phenomenal world…how the nuomenal world is organized is outside of the scope of our knowledge. Does this seem clear enough or do you want me to break it down further?
(2) We don’t ever come to talk about the nuomenal. That is the point.
(3) Phenomenal concepts are non-interchangeable for the same reason that the concept of 1 is not interchangeable with the concept of 2– we have defined them that way. Concepts (Phenomena) are static in themselves but connected through the categories (causality, non-contradiction, identity…etc)
(4) We know nothing of objects. I never said we know nothing of concepts. Concepts can’t do anything they want because we have defined them a certain way.
March 30, 2007 at 11:01 pm
Regarding (1): I’m quite clear on Kant’s view. What I’m not clear on is how the view is tenable since his descriptions of how the phenomenal always arises from the noumenal in a dependent relationship requires order and predictability; you have yet to explain how this could be non-contradictory.
Regarding (2): I think you misunderstand the thrust of my point. If we were truly relegated to the phenomenal, we’d never even conceive of the noumenal even to say we can know nothing of it.
Regarding (3): If the static nature of concepts depends on our defining them, who’s to say we can’t just define them differently tomorrow, thus making them not static at all? If you deny this possibility, are you saying that concepts have essential identities unto themselves? If so, they are limited due to their objective nature, and not due to any definition on our part. Our definitions are merely descriptive.
Regarding (4): I misunderstood your sentence construction. Nonetheless, my statement to (3) speaks to this.
March 31, 2007 at 11:53 am
Poppies,
(1) As far as I can tell Kant never held that the phenomenal had a dependent relationship to the nuomenal. He actually made it quite clear that we could know nothing about the nuomenal, meaning to say, we can know nothing about its relationships, its form, its organizational principles…etc
(2) Saying that we can know nothing of the nuomenal is not knowing something abut the nuomenal. Unless you take ‘nothing’ to be ’something’ in which case you seem to be committing a primitive fallacy.
(3) Well we could define them differently tommorrow– I should have been clearer, the static nature of concepts depends on the organizational principles present in our minds. It is not really a conscious act.
April 5, 2007 at 9:24 pm
(1) Kant didn’t realize the implications of his claims, and it seems you don’t, either. Take in these quotes in which I have capitalized the terms which imply causality outside of the mind:
“But the transcendental object, which is the FOUNDATION of the phenomenon which we call matter, is a mere nescio quid, the nature of which we could not understand, even though someone were found able to tell us.”
“Its application to an object, and the transcendental ground of this unity of subjective and objective, lie too deeply concealed for us, who cognize ourselves only through the internal sense, consequently as phenomena, to be able to discover in our existence anything but phenomena, the non-sensuous CAUSE of which we at the same time earnestly desire to penetrate to.”
(2) If we can truly know nothing of the noumenal, “noumena” and “nothing” are quite similar if not equal; if, however, noumena are described as the foundation for phenomena (as seen above), then “something” is being posited, and one can’t build a house in mid-air.
(3) I understand you now, we’re on the same page here. Not that I agree with the foundations of your conception, but I can now see that it’s consistent.
April 5, 2007 at 10:19 pm
I really like this blog. The conversations you start are fascinating.
“They often speak in ways that imply an atheistic worldview is the clear default.”
On this in particular, I think the reasoning is simply that to be atheist in a pure sense is to have a lack of faith, a lack of set belief. In this view atheism is natural, and faith is added on top by socialization.
Of course, one could start wondering about whether or not there is an innate impulse towards a higher being or purpose. But would that be properly described as faith? (It wouldn’t be described as atheism, certainly).
Your word-view question set is interesting:
The first one could be reframed to ask whether one’s worldview denies some aspect of empirical reality. That one might target creationists and such.
The second and third are questionable. What is an object source of morality outside of humanity?
Any number of strict materialists find a great deal of respect in philosophical, psychological, and neurological circles. There are a number of philosophers who think that the mental is the result of the physical, and hence everything is material. They question whether or not anything immaterial can even exist. Daniel Dennet is a really great example (and a good read. If you want a strong counterpoint, try David Chalmers).
Even if one’s world-view doesn’t match up, is it time to go shopping, or check to see if one’s interpretation of said world-view is correct?
Great Post.
April 9, 2007 at 2:49 pm
Poppies,
I am sorry, where exactly does (1) say anything at all about causation. When I read that I understand: we can have no knowledge of the nuomenal. Knowledge of causal relations is knowledge. We can have no knowledge of nuomenal causal relations.
In the second quote you simple highlight CAUSE but here ’cause’ is not being used to refer to causality, it is simply referring to a desire.– it can easily be rephrased. I think that you have started plucking for straws. I can surely get my copy of the Critique and highlight all the times that Kant uses the word ’cause.’ Does that tell me anything at all about what he is saying or in what context ’cause’ has been used? No.
If we can know nothing of either pecan pies or apples then pecan pies or apples must be quite similar if not equal… I don’t see how that argument is going to work.
In response to (3)… that means that we have had a productive conversation. Thank you for taking it this far with me. I will continue posting on your blog as long as you continue bringing up interesting points and good topics.
Arturo
April 9, 2007 at 4:10 pm
Thanks for continuing to respond, Arturo.
Regarding (1), we’ll just have to agree to disagree. I think most unbiased readers would see that Kant is confidently putting forth a dependent relationship between the noumenal and the phenomenal, despite his contrary claims that there can be no dependable understanding of dependent relationships outside of the mind.
As for (2), you’ve radically misunderstood my point; I’m simply saying that you can’t say we can know nothing about the noumenal yet use it in important foundational roles in the phenomenal world.
As for (3). yay, we’ve come to one productive end, at least.
April 9, 2007 at 9:45 pm
One final point on the topic: you have yet to point out where that dependent relationship has been explicitly stated. The quotes you gave in the previous post said nothing of the sort for the very reasons that I have given. But you are right, it is probably best that we agree to disagree.
April 10, 2007 at 6:51 pm
My final point is just to reiterate that an unbiased reader would clearly see in the quotes I provided, which are just a small sampling of the available supporting statements, the point I’m making: Kant says matter has a dependent relationship on the noumenal, and that phenomena is caused by noumena. Nonetheless, Arturo, I’ve enjoyed our discussion, and I appreciate your thoughts.
April 10, 2007 at 8:52 pm
Its too bad that unbiased reader is not here. I will translate the latin phrase he uses in a final attempt to show you that the quote you choice does not go as far as you want it to.
“But the transcendental object, which is the foundation of the phenomenon which we call matter, is a mere something that we cannot define, the nature of which we could not understand, even though someone were found able to tell us.”
Where is causality? To say that A is the foundation of B is not to say anything about the cause of A or the cause of B or of A as a cause of B. What Kant means by foundation is hotly debated even now.– I for one prefer to take this one step further. If we cannot know anything about the nuomenal world then why even invoke it? I side with Nietzsche on this matter. I have never said that Kant is the end-all, I have simply tried to show you how invoking causality is always fallacious. Kant is important because he took this one step further, and even at this point you have been unable to produce a definitive quote where Kant says “the nuomena causes the phenomena in this definitive manner” if you have this quote hidden around somewhere I would ask that you produce it.
April 13, 2007 at 10:16 pm
To request a definitive quote is to ask for an example of Kant self-conciously undermining his life’s work and indulging in clear self-contradiction. I can’t provide what you’re asking for, because your evidence standard is too high. I’ve asked before, and I’ll ask again, can you provide a quote where Kant shows the phenomenal arising from anywhere or anything OTHER than the noumenal?
Causality is so central to existence, real existence, that attempting to deny it often involves invoking it.
April 20, 2007 at 1:42 pm
Poppies,
To address your question and to show you why it is ill put:
As far as I know Kant never says anything about where the phenomenal arises from: he gives us the categories which explain how it is organized, but it is never made explicitly clear exactly what the input into the “categories machine” is. Your question assumes that it is a standard belief that the phenomenal is caused by the nuomenal, when in fact, this belief is at best a hasty misinterpretation of Kant and at worst has nothing at all to do with Kant, his philosophy, or the later German Idealism that it supposedly spawned.
April 20, 2007 at 4:09 pm
Arturo, do you agree that the phenomenal comes from some sort of input, that phenomenon isn’t just self-existent?
April 20, 2007 at 9:40 pm
Poppies,
If you are asking that question with regards to how I live my life then the answer is yes, but since we are talking about formal philosophy I have to say that the answer is that I don’t know. I don’t know about anything beyond the phenomenal and so I don’t like to speculate about whether there is an input or there is not an input. If I said “no there is no input” then I would be claiming knowledge of the supra-phenomenal for myself which I think is unjustified. So the answer is: there can be no answer.
April 21, 2007 at 6:48 am
Arturo,
I don’t claim that the dependency of the phenomenal on the noumenal is a standard belief, nor that most people ascribe to it: most people blindly follow the historical understandings of Kant’s claims without realizing this major problem. I would side with Nietzsche (in this one very narrow sense) and yourself that it makes no sense to even invoke the noumenal if we can know nothing of it. The fact that Kant does should make one pause to ask why; I believe it’s because he did conceive of this dependency, but didn’t expound on it because it didn’t fit into his framework.
Forgive my departure from the strictly formal, but WHY do you live your life as if the phenomenal is fed off some sort of input?
April 21, 2007 at 9:52 pm
Poppies,
I also side with Nietzsche. About the reasons Kant may have had to mention the nuomenal at all, I think it was just pedagogical. He had to use a word for what people had thought before him, and since much of his first critique is concerned with separating the phenomenal from the nuomenal it almost seems like he is explaining both, when in reality ‘noumenal’ ultimately just stands for ‘beyond the understanding.’
I live my life as if the phenomenal was fed off of some sort of input because as much as I would like to, I simply don’t have time to stop and consider: is this computer screen a phenomenal manifestation of some nuomenal reality or is the nuomenal reality simply the phenomenal manifestation and if so HOW does the manifestation works. There is something intuitive about separating mind and reality: I know that there is nothing true about it, but it makes it easier to communicate with other non-philosophers. A weak reason perhaps, but that is why I like to visit forums like this one– here I can be completely philosophical.
April 22, 2007 at 12:19 am
I think your pedagogical theory is probably pretty correct; in the same way, I think the dependency of which I’ve been speaking is a manifestation of this desire to frame ideas in ways that could more easily be comprehended. I just see it as a fatal compromise, however. Though I find most of Nietzsche’s ideas to be quite egregious, I must admit that in seeing the pointlessness of discussing the noumenal he is more consistent than most philosophers.
Regarding your second paragraph, you really cause me to wonder how you define truth.
Well, Arturo, your refreshing perspective is always welcome at Digital Reason.
April 22, 2007 at 10:56 am
Poppies,
“Regarding your second paragraph, you really cause me to wonder how you define truth.”
I have a technical definition for it (i.e. logical truth) but as for truth itself I simply don’t define it. I do not believe that there is a universal truth or a fact of the matter.