A brief comment on presuppositionalism

An old friend of mine wrote me and told me about finding something negative (I'm not linking) about me via a web search for atheism. Hint: it involves Frank Walton.

I was reminded in looking at Frank's site of how pathetic he really is, which led to me remembering when I actually used to waste time arguing with people like him, the Triabloguers and other presuppositionalists. They waste such time by doing something simple: conflating strict reductionist physicalism/materialism with atheism.

When one begins with the fundamental presupposition that God has spoken in the Scriptures in Christ’s Law-word, you are left with the only worldview that can consistently allow for immaterial, universal, and abstract things like laws of science, laws of logic, and abstract concepts.

Funny, I thought there were numerous metaphysical ways to describe universals, properties and relations besides "Jesus"...

As has been pointed out before, the absurd burden of proof which these guys place on themselves requires them to show how every other explanation in metaphysics is logically inconsistent. Quite a tall order, given that brilliant philosophers have spent centuries thinking about these things. Instead, they use a simple straw man wherein atheists must be strict materialists who cannot embrace nominalism or conceptualism or any other theory of universals.

In addition, they hold that internal critiques are all that can be done "across worldviews" because of different presuppositions, but then proceed to contradict that by saying that certain basic beliefs are not justified within other worldviews (i.e., that logic is self-evident and incorrigible, that morality is about causing harm, &c.)

Comment on "Extraordinary Claims Demand Extraordinary Evidence"

We've heard the phrase before that evidence ought to be inversely proportional to the ordinariness of a claim: the more ordinary, the less evidence we require for tentative belief; the less ordinary, the more evidence we require for belief. This seems a wise maxim to hold, no matter the area of espistemology. Many theists, though, toss this maxim out the window when discussing the paucity of evidence they rely upon (Scripture) to justify belief in the most extraordinary of all claims (miracles).

I just left the following comment at an old haunt of mine:

If something occurs that is outside of not only my own personal experience, but the cumulative experience of science, especially since science exists to test boundaries and conditions to see what the laws of nature are and when/if they change, much skepticism should be brought to bear on the claim.

I would say it is a good deal simpler than you are making it here, and perhaps this could be seen more clearly if we remove the context from "miracle" to "violation" of the laws of nature. Suppose that I, scientist X, am working under conditions that no one has worked under before: say, a particle accelerator of potential 20 TeV. If I see something under those conditions that "appears" to violate the laws of physics, the same amount of scrutiny should be brought to bear on my claim as any other claim that a violation has occurred, be it of divine origin or not. And the purpose of the doubt here is to actually find out the truth: the verification principle in the philosophy of science. If the claim is true, and if the violation is natural, then the conditions and test may be repeated and ought to produce the same "violation": at which time, and once fully described, it no longer is a violation, but another law of nature!

On the other hand, suppose that we aren't discovering new laws of nature by creating conditions and tests which are extraordinary, but rather we're in the realm of the mundane. In these conditions, a supposed violation would probably draw just as much scrutiny from you (a believer) as from me (an unbeliever). If I claim that I have a dragon in my shed (to use Sagan as you did in your post), for instance, you would be naturally skeptical and would require more evidence than my "say-so" about it. But if I claim to have a lawn mower in my shed, you won't even blink.

Ditto with religion: the issue is not whether or not a God logically could violate the laws of nature, but whether the evidence we have (the say-so of anonymous persons 2000 years ago) is enough to convince us that violations did happen.

Santa & God

It's inevitable: comparisons between Santa & God.

I've heard theists make a psychological profile of atheists before: they have bad father figures, they never got over the disillusionment of finding out Santa isn't real...this cartoon plays on that a bit:

If you can't make out the caption very easily, it reads:

Dear Children
One Day You Will Learn Everything About Santa Claus.
On That Day Remember Everything The Adults Have Told You About Jesus.

Much to the theists' chagrin, there are an awful lot of parallels between God and Santa, when one thinks of it. Seasame Street Atheism or no, the very same "childlike faith" we are required to have to sustain belief in God is similar with respect to belief in Santa. The unquestioning submission to authority and tradition are similar between children and adults compared to people and the Church/church doctrine...in ways, dissimilar in others.

God does these magical acts on very rare occassions, of which we have no hard evidence at all, that are supposed to justify our belief in him throughout the thousands of years after these events occurred. Santa just gets his magic thing on once a year, spending only 34 microseconds at each stop. Hopefully, Santa will get a little more green and reduce his reindeer's methane emissions using kangaroo enzymes; then he ought to ask people to shop online this Xmas to help lower CO₂ emissions.

Statistical Note of Interest

This post is solely an observation of facts, using the benchmark of a well-known theistic group blog that I think serves well as a comparison to this group blog. Don't go over-analyzing my motives or what this is supposed to mean, please.

That said...Debunking Christianity is set to overtake Triablogue in site traffic, according to data from sitemeter for both sites:

Triablogue Sitemeter traffic prediction


Debunking Christianity Sitemeter traffic prediction:

In comparing stats, you want to use the largest data set possible to minimize your error and maximize your confidence interval approach: thus, use the data from the entire previous month. Based on that data, the Triablogue gets 1 more visit per hour, 35 more per day, 243 more per week and 1,053 more per month than DC. Of note is that DC has been around since January 2006, while the Triablogue has archives going back to April of '04.

Also note that the stats will change over even the course of the day, so don't fuss at me for poor subtraction if you aren't using the stats from the pics above.

Possibly of more interest is that the readership of the tblog has been pretty stagnant over the past year, and the upward trend of DC's readership may indicate that within 2 months, we will have higher stats across the board:

DC (year)
tblog (year)
As I said, these are anecdotally amusing to me, not indicative of any deeper meaning. Thanks to all the readers of DC for your support and comments: theists and nonbelievers.

The PoE and "God's Glory"

I'll first quote a generic Calvinist so readers can see the variants of theodicy amongst sects of Christians:

Rather, pain and suffering are a means by which his redemptive wisdom, mercy, and justice are manifested to his rational creatures for the benefit of the elect...It doesn't. Rather, it enriches the life of the redeemed...

I'll bullet list some questions, and you can answer Y/N to the numbers that correspond, such that my own "simplistic" misunderstandings can be corrected:

• So evil --> mercy isn't to God's glory then, but to our experience of God's glory?
• So the consequences of the Fall are not God's fault because of compatibilism -- that God co-suffered the consequences in the form of Jesus?

1. How can God be blameless in ordaining the Fall?

2. How can God blame us for the consequences of the Fall?

The greater good defense is only designed to answer the first question, not the second.

An answer to the second question depends on your version of action theory; in this case, compatibilism.

The greater good defense is one plank of a broader theodicy.

It seems

In addition, even if he regards the Christian faith as incoherent, that in no way absolves him from discharging his own burden of proof.

I'm still unsure as to how or when I supposedly did this.

It will hardly do for him to say, "Sure, I'm incoherent—but you're incoherent too!"

Where and when did I say or show incoherence, or commit tu quoque?

Another place on this same Calvinist website asserts:

ii) I do regard natural evil as a manifestation of divine judgment. But this ordinarily goes back to the Fall. It isn’t directly punitive with respect to any particular victim. But it is a general manifestation of divine judgment.

Dave Amstrong is a prolific Catholic apologist, and his writings on the PoE are as extensive as any other topic he's addressed:

Christian Replies to the Argument From Evil (Free Will Defense): Is God Malevolent, Weak, or Non-Existent Because of the Existence of Evil and Suffering?
http://ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ124.HTM

Alvin Plantinga's Decisive Refutation of the Atheist Use of the Problem of Evil as a Disproof of God's Existence, Goodness, or Omnipotence (+ Discussion)
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2006/10/alvin-plantingas-decisive-refutation.html
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/davearmstrong/116071794487746081/#116977

Critique of Agnostic Ed Babinski's Post: "The Problem of Evil, Alvin Plantinga and Victor Reppert" (the "Emotional" Argument From Evil) (Dave Armstrong vs. Ed Babinski)
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2006/10/critique-of-agnostic-ed-babinskis-post.html

Serious Christian Treatments of the Problem of Evil and Breezy Atheist Dismissals of Them Sans Rational Argument (+ Discussion) (Dave Armstrong vs. John W. Loftus)
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2006/10/serious-christian-treatments-of.html
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/davearmstrong/116042118212142615/#116612

Some Christian Replies to the Problem of Evil as Set Forth by Atheists (+ Discussion) (Dave Armstrong vs. "drunken tune" and John W. Loftus)
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2006/10/some-christian-replies-to-problem-of.html
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/davearmstrong/116046273013664968/#116725

Dialogue #2 With an Atheist on the Problem of Evil (+ Discussion) (Dave Armstrong vs. "drunken tune")
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2006/10/dialogue-2-with-atheist-on-problem-of.html
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/davearmstrong/116060670288633022/#116870

Dialogue #3 With an Atheist on the Problem of Evil (Dave Armstrong vs. John W. Loftus)
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2006/10/dialogue-3-with-atheist-on-problem-of.html

Can God be Blamed for the Nazi Holocaust? Reflections on the "Problem of Evil" and Human Free Will
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2006/06/can-god-be-blamed-for-nazi-holocaust.html

Dialogue With an Atheist on the "Problem of Good" and the Nature of Meaningfulness in Atheism (+ Part Two) (The Flip Side of the Problem of Evil Argument Against Christianity)
(Dave Armstrong vs. Mike Hardie)
http://web.archive.org/web/20020810223936/ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ518.HTM +
http://web.archive.org/web/20011119015359/http://ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ519.HTM

Reasons for Suffering and Encouragement and Hope in the Midst of It: A Biblical Compendium
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2006/03/reasons-for-suffering-encouragement.html

Comfort and Peace From Scripture
http://ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ188.HTM

Dave's major argument is that Plantinga's free will theodicy "solves" the logical PoE. He has directed most of his posts towards establishing this, and I think he's done as much as anyone can do. I'm not saying (of course) that I think his effort correlates to success in solving this problem, but he has done a great job of attempting to solve it, at least.

Here's my rebuttal, and here are other posts on the topics of PoE.
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Exposing one of the World's Biggest Frauds

Who? Benny Hinn. [HT: Triablogue]

PS: I just bought Marjoe (I paid $16) and you should too. Amazon
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principe nuovo

Steve Hays has responded to my challenge regarding the problem of presuppositionalism and proof-burdens, as well as external evaluation of the veracity of presuppositions themselves, in a post cleverly titled Machiavelli Rises from the Grave. Like Machiavelli, I agree that a new prince, or principe nuovo, has a much tougher job than a prince who is descended from the royal line. The way this ties in is that the TAG is a sort of "new prince", and presuppositionalism (PS) is just the king's kid. While the TAG has to support its premises with argument, we see no such necessity with common, everyday PS.

In PS, one can either have an individually-directed claim, "you cannot account for X", or a generally-directed claim, "atheism cannot account for X", and in neither case is there some sort of burden of proof on the PS to make a real argument. Instead, the PS stands back, folds his arms, and waits for the defender to either have insufficient metaphysical arguments or incoherent ones to critique. End of story.

Steve accused me of trickery in referring to conceptual realism:

i) Does nsfl subscribe to Cocchiarella’s solution? Of is this just one of those blocking maneuvers recommended by Witmer to silence the presuppositionalist if you can’t answer him?

To which I replied:

I find both his forms of conceptual realism (intensional/natural) completely consistent with physicalism as an ontology. As I was reading them (sections 6 and 7, respectively), I found he had put into words what I tried to describe long ago on this blog, when you brought up "pure" conceptualism, in which these abstractions don't exist apart from our minds at all. Therefore, your accusation is refuted by the evidence that I resorted to conceptualism in the past as an explanation of abstract explananda within physicalism.

Steve completely misunderstood this:

“Refuted” by what evidence? Yours or Cocchiarella’s? At the time, I was responding to your formulation, not his—since his formulation wasn’t on the table back then.

I'm referring to the accusation that I'm "employing a trick" via Prof. Witmer's advice by "falling back" to conceptual realism. I'm not claiming his worldview is refuted by my position.

The following exchange is from the newest thread, Steve's words in italics, mine blockquoted:

My purpose was to defend my own presupposition that physicalism is not incompatible with logic. Would you concede that conceptual realism is the solution? Do you admit that there is nothing absurd or incoherent in holding to physicalism and to one of Cocchiarella's forumulations for the explanandum of logic?
Presuppositionalism claims that all alternative worldviews are inherently and intrinsically self-defeating. Can you show this for someone who subscribes to physicalism and to conceptual intensional realism?

No, I wouldn’t concede any such thing.

1.He says that “as a socio-biological theory of the human capacity for language and though, conceptualism must presuppose some form of natural realism as the causal ground of that capacity.”

But this is circular reasoning. He first classifies conceptualism as a “socio-biological” theory, then says it must presuppose some form of natural realism. That may be a valid inference, given the classification, but he does nothing to justify his naturalistic classification in the first place.

So are you saying that humans can have language and thought without any natural grounding? Human thought and language do not supervene upon natural processes: chemistry, physics, matter...? Is he supposed to instead presuppose the existence of the immaterial spirit, and deny that thought or language (as we know them) supervene upon the physical? And if he did that, and said, "Conceptualism is a spiritual theory, which presupposes some form of supernaturalism..." is that not the same circular issue?

2.He then says “As universals that can be realized indifferent places at the same time and that might have no instances at all in the world, natural properties and relations are not in the world the way that concrete objects are, nor can they be considered to have an ‘objectual’ nature in any sense as well…the unsaturated mode of being of natural properties and relations…[is] somehow analogous to the mode of being of concepts. Thus, just as predicable concepts do not exist independently of the human capacity for language and concept-formation, so too natural properties and relations[s] do not exist independently of the causal structure of the world.

Several basic problems:

a) He admits the existence of unexemplified universals: “might have no instances at all in the world.”

How is that possible if the world is all there is?

Are you claiming that "unicorn-ness" and "Lochness monsterism" must be instantiated?

b) He then attempts to find a nook for them by claiming that the “unsaturated” mode of being of natural properties an relations is “somehow analogous” to the mode of being of concepts.

But this is an argument from analogy minus the argument? How does he unpack the “somehow”? He doesn’t. Just his sheer dictum.

c) Moreover, even if there were an analogy, it’s only as good as the analogue which supplies the point of reference. He claims that predicable concepts don’t exist independently of human concept-formation.

But that, again, is a raw assertion rather than a reasoned argument. Why should I accept the claim which undergirds the analogy?

So he fails on both counts. He (i) gives us an argument from analogy minus the argument. And he also (ii) fails to argue for the underlying analogue.

3. He then says:

“abstract objects…according to conceptual Platonism, ‘exist’ in a realm that transcends space, time and causality, and therefore that ‘preexist’ the evolution of consciousness…In conceptual intensional realism, on the other hand, the dependence is not merely epistemological but ontological as well.”

But if abstract universals are causally dependent on the evolution of consciousness, then this will collapse back into the “ontology of conceptual idealism,” which is what he was trying to avoid—and for good reason.

They are ontologically dependent upon the substance of matter, which is the substance upon which consciousness supervenes.

Why do you think he is avoiding conceptual idealism? He is a Christian, a Catholic priest.

a) If abstract universals like the laws of logic are causally dependent on the evolution of consciousness, then they lose their necessity and universality. They become descriptive rather than prescriptive or proscriptive. They can no longer distinguish logical reasoning from illogical reasoning, for they take human consciousness as their point of reference and point of departure.

b) Likewise, if abstract universals such as mathematical truths are causally dependent on the evolution of consciousness, then the universe did not exemplify any mathematical properties or relations prior to the evolution of consciousness.

In that case, the universe is evolving in relation to human evolution. The existence and structure of physical universe is, to that degree, causally dependent on human evolution.

c) Likewise, if mathematical abstracta are causally dependent on the evolution of human consciousness, then there can be no such thing as an actual infinite in math. You are thereby committed to finitism in math. But that is prey to a number of familiar criticisms.

Continuing with my own thoughts:

One could argue against this necessity in a few different ways, since as Walker points out, these transcendentals are "objective, prescriptive and metaphysically ultimate". I am thinking that Scripture cannot meet this requirement, nor special revelation generally…When Xians argue that the Scriptures provide for us an OPMU for morality, how does this fare through Walker's filter?… I would argue that this consideration presents a substantial challenge to the claim that OPMU morality can be based upon divine revelation via Scripture. It seems that the criteria cannot be met in an attitude-independent fashion, given the errant supposed copies we have of an OPMU moral law.

Morgan simply confuses the order of knowing with the order of being. Moral “transcendentals” can be objective, prescriptive and metaphysically ultimate” even though our mode of epistemic access is not ontological objective or metaphysically ultimate.

And if our mode of epistemic access is neither ontological[ly] objective nor metaphysically ultimate, then from what position can you argue for their truth in these two areas? It seems like I could say that there is some phenomenon, X, that is OPMU. However, if I cannot access it epistemically in any OPMU fashion, then where is the argument that you can establish X as OPMU? Is it not necessary to have a complete and thorough knowledge of X in order to argue X is OPMU?

How do you know X?

How do you know X is OPMU?

What’s a transcendental argument? How do you mount such an argument? Good questions.

Although TAG is an indirect argument inasmuch as you are arguing for the existence of God by arguing from certain undeniable phenomena, the argument(s) for the identity of these phenomena as well as their theistic dependence will take the form of direct argumentation.

James Anderson has also disassembled the Van Tilian version of TAG into several subarguments.

http://www.proginosko.com/docs/IfKnowledgeThenGod.pdf

And these could be developed in more detail.

Interlocuter has responded to some of Anderson's arguments, which are good ones.

Oddly enough, Paul Manata has admitted that the "development" of the TAG from the PS position is not only premature for such an ability (to use it as an indirect argument for God), but he has admitted that it is only an assertion.

He points out that:
i) If X, then God
ii) X
iii) Therefore God

Supporting premise (i) is the problem, of course. Prof. Witmer talked about this a bit on Unchained Radio with Gene Cook.
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More Intellectually Honest and Consistent than Thou

CalvinDude responded (in a piece titled "Holier than Thou") to my post on the pitiful state of the Religious Right and Christian America. [Note that he fails the basic etiquette test on blog commenting by refusing to link to my article -- tsk tsk] I have blockquoted his comments:

The funny thing is…nsfl still has never given me what the basis of his morality is (well aside from “empathy”–but if I don’t empathize with him then why should his morality trump mine?).

That's funny. First, I didn't know I needed to give you, specifically, my "account" of morality. Second, I agree with the ancient Greek philosophers (esp the Stoics) what the virtues are. Therefore, I can apply the yardstick of the virtues to make things simple. Third, I have explicated at length my grounding of morality in the values of survival and minimization of harm -- see here.

The simplest way to break it down is this:
1) Human beings exist
2) They will either co-exist peacefully in societies or compete violently in anarchist states
3) It is better for human beings to co-exist peacefully in societies than compete violently in anarchist states.
4) In order to bring about (3), morality is necessary

I ground morality in survival and peacefulness. I do not like pain and suffering. I do not want to suffer and experience pain. Therefore, (3) is the logical choice. Due to the symmetry of society, we must be moral to others if we want them to be moral to us -- if we want to survive and live as painlessly as possible, we must symmetrically apply that ethos to our neighbors in society. That leads to Confucius rule: "Do unto others"

My presupposition is, then, that I want to avoid pain and violence, and so (3) leads to morality. I developed the "value" of avoiding pain and violence a little in another exchange with Manata.

So nsfl spends lots of time criticizing believers for being hypocrites (he even links to a site that shows a whole twelve of them!) yet he hasn’t established why hypocrisy is wrong in the first place.

This is an easy and obvious one: internal critique of Christian beliefs.

He criticizes people for not obeying the Scriptures while A) he does not obey Scriptures, B) he doesn’t believe Scriptures, and C) he has no reason from his worldview to criticize us for not obeying Scriptures. (By the way, I think if you’re looking for a definition, part A about would be the definition for hypocrisy…).

Again, internal incoherence. Aside from that, I agree with some of the principles and morals of Jesus' teachings. They line up with my own moral intuitions and conclusions.

But the totally ironic part is that nsfl doesn’t even believe what Haggard did was immoral in the first plac; it was only what he said that was immoral. Yes, nsfl thinks he’s immoral for denouncing homosexuality while practicing it, but Haggard was not immoral for actually behaving that way.

Christians believe it immoral to do both. I believe it immoral to advocate discrimination against persons who do some thing X when you yourself do X. Basic rank hypocrisy.

Furthermore, nsfl somehow presumes that if Haggard is immoral then all believers must be immoral too (the fallacy of composition); thus, because one of our “leaders” is a hypocrite (and I note that he wasn’t my leader anyway) then we are hypocrites too.

Where did I say that? My charges were against those with "moral superiority complexes" who do "nothing to alleviate human pain and suffering" instead choosing to "send money to Haggard and Dobson". If you fall into this category, then I call you a hypocrite based upon the teachings of your own Jesus, based on what he called a hypocrite, and what he commanded his followers to do.

How this follows is anyone’s guess.

I can't guess either? But there is a separate argument about whether or not the believer's claim to have an indwelling Spirit of God in them is observationally falsified by virtue of their own claims about the result of such a thing, versus the reality of such a thing. (2 Cor 5:17)

Apparently, nsfl seems to think it makes a might good argument against Christianity, as he’s quite able to get his dander up and rip on Christians who would support Haggard but wouldn’t feed a homeless person. (Again, how he got that conclusion is beyond me: I can look at who runs our local soup kitchens and who actually works in them: 95% Christians.)

It's not a "good argument against Christianity" in general, but a rip on these people who claim to have superior morals and donate their time and money to the cause of discrimination and intolerance, rather than charity. You have combined the two pieces that I was keeping separate, and thus mischaracterized my argument. If someone does work in a soup kitchen, they are not the same rank hypocrite as one who only spends their time and money discriminating and promoting intolerance.

But hey, I guess it’s easier to yell “hypocrite” than to actually engage in important philosophical discussions on issues. So, nsfl, you’re a hypocrite. I win. :-)

First, you made a strawman of my argument. Second, since when have I not engaged in those issues? The links above show plenty of "engagement". Third, I actually demonstrated the hypocrisy of a Christian who claims superior morals but does not follow the commands of Jesus with regards to serving and helping others; and only instead acts like a modern day Pharisee. How can you demonstrate internal incoherence (hypocrisy) in my own worldview? What virtue am I not following that I claim that I should?
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The Myth of the Hero

In talking about the existential dilemma the other day, I found myself willing to go read The Myth of Sisyphus, by Camus, when it was suggested by a friend that I see what I can take away from it.

When the images of earth cling too tightly to memory, when the call of happiness becomes too insistent, it happens that melancholy rises in man's heart: this is the rock's victory, this is the rock itself. The boundless grief is too heavy to bear. These are our nights of Gethsemane. But crushing truths perish from being acknowledged. Thus, Oedipus at the outset obeys fate without knowing it. But from the moment he knows, his tragedy begins.

Do we, at the moment of admitting that deterministic physical laws control our universe, willingly embrace tragedy? That is one of the crux issues of the modern existential dilemma.

Yet at the same time, blind and desperate, he realizes that the only bond linking him to the world is the cool hand of a girl. Then a tremendous remark rings out: "Despite so many ordeals, my advanced age and the nobility of my soul make me conclude that all is well." Sophocles' Oedipus, like Dostoevsky's Kirilov, thus gives the recipe for the absurd victory. Ancient wisdom confirms modern heroism.

Let us say that our consciousness is but a subjective experience of physical realities over which we have no real control. But let us say that we do have some capacity to turn our conscious minds towards values, purposes, and goals. Can we be virtuous? Is that enough? The nobility of Oedipus' soul was enough for him. And that is my view of the heroic -- one who encumbers the burden of virtue for virtue's sake alone: to say, "this is my life, and I can use it to cultivate goodness or evil in myself and others, and with all the absurdity and futility of life, I will still cultivate goodness." Not just "despite" the absurdity of the world, but because of it.

There is but one world, however. Happiness and the absurd are two sons of the same earth. They are inseparable. It would be a mistake to say that happiness necessarily springs from the absurd discovery. It happens as well that the feeling of the absurd springs from happiness. "I conclude that all is well," says Oedipus, and that remark is sacred.

Some might argue that happiness is a mental state to which some peoples' chemistry will not allow access. I don't deny this possibility. For those of us who can access this state of mind (and being), though, ought we not? Is it not all that we can do? What if the other finds his rock too heavy to roll? What can I do for him? Nothing, save rolling my own.

It echoes in the wild and limited universe of man. It teaches that all is not, has not been, exhausted. It drives out of this world a god who had come into it with dissatisfaction and a preference for futile sufferings. It makes of fate a human matter, which must be settled among men.

And this is what renders the human a potential hero -- in the way that she may settle with her own fate, in how she deals with it.

All Sisyphus' silent joy is contained therein. His fate belongs to him. His rock is his thing. Likewise, the absurd man, when he contemplates his torment, silences all the idols.

Sisyphus chooses to see the same beauty and scope of being in his newfound purpose -- in rolling the rock for eternity, that he found when he was allowed to return from the underworld and experience life again. I am reminded of how the beauty of the universe I saw as a theist at first was crushed when I no longer believed. Now that beauty is returned to me, because it is contained within me. That beauty is no longer some inaccessible external Entity from which it cannot be extricated or internalized. That beauty is now the self, the human, and the potential hero (and the potential madman).

In the universe suddenly restored to silence, the myriad wondering little voices of the earth rise up. Unconscious, secret calls, invitations from all the faces, they are the necessary reverse and price of victory. there is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the night. The absurd man says yes and his effort will henceforth be unceasing. If there is a personal fate, there is no higher destiny, or at least there is but one which he concludes is inevitable and despicable.

What I did as a theist was define "the highest destiny" to be that which had been given to me by God. What I did not do is recognize that no gift is greater than something earned and learned. It is an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms, to say that I can exist happily and freely, and yet have been put inside of an inescapable and unyielding cosmic plan, in which I was yet a cog, and towards which we traversed I knew not. The highest absurdity.

For the rest, he knows himself to be the master of his days. At that subtle moment when man glances backward over his life, Sisyphus returning toward his rock, in that silent pivoting he contemplates that series of unrelated actions which becomes his fate, created by him, combined under his memory's eye and soon sealed by his death. Thus, convinced of the wholly human origin of all that is human, a blind man eager to see who knows that the night has no end, he is still on the go. The rock is still rolling.

I hope I never lose the eagerness to see, and I hope that the night has an end. I hope I have the courage to continue with that eagerness even should daybreak never give me the merest glimpse. Should the universe in which I live be blind and careless until I die, it is still within my power to see, and to live. I do not have to close my eyes and lay down before my rock has been rolled as far as I can take it.

I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one's burden again.

My own burden at the moment is in maintaining rationalism -- a commitment to reason, and optimism -- a commitment not to only see things as better, but to be better and in so doing, this purpose makes "all well".

But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.

The stone is something. It is not nothing. Rolling the stone is doing something. Finding purpose in the struggle. Something that is not only not added to when we add "plus God" to the equation, but is in fact completely negated of all purpose.

The theists have argued with me that a finite purpose, or a temporal life, is the same thing as nothing. But what they do is equivocate something with nothing. They are confused.

If this life is but a mere shadow, and the rest of eternity a bright light, then finding purpose in this present darkness is futile and absurd. Christians (and other theists) admit as much -- they call themselves "pilgrims" and "aliens" in the world in which they live, and call their "home" and their "citizenship" heaven. What they do is ignore the rock at their feet, and the power they have to move it upward, and stare towards the top of the summit. But the summit is obscured with clouds -- the zenith cannot be seen from the foot of the mountain. It is in the struggle that one can see further, though perhaps never to the top, because it is not a given that the mountain upon which we labor has a finite end.
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Technorati tags: Philosophy, Sisyphus

Feeling Rand-y Today

...No, not that kind of randy. I'm talking about Ayn Rand. No, I'm not an Objectivist. After having an interesting conversation with my colleagues over "The Guiltless Man" yesterday, mostly concerning the inability of religion to control such a person, I was thinking about it again this morning.

Thinking is a beautiful thing. From Ayn Rand's address to the 1974 West Point class:

You have no choice about the necessity to integrate your observations, your experiences, your knowledge into abstract ideas, i.e., into principles. Your only choice is whether these principles are true or false, whether they represent your conscious, rational conviction--or a grab-bag of notions snatched at random, whose sources, validity, context and consequences you do not know, notions which, more often than not, you would drop like a hot potato if you knew.

Of course, it is not truly necessary for persons to integrate all of this into a coherent, rational philosophy. Some people appear to have taken pieces of rational worldviews and mishmashed them in with superstition and folklore, and others (postmodernists) abandon rationalism altogether.

But the principles you accept (consciously or subconsciously) may clash with or contradict one another; they, too, have to be integrated. What integrates them? Philosophy. A philosophic system is an integrated view of existence. As a human being, you have no choice about the fact that you need a philosophy. Your only choice is whether you define your philosophy by a conscious, rational, disciplined process of thought and scrupulously logical deliberation--or let your subconscious accumulate a junk heap of unwarranted conclusions, false generalizations, undefined contradictions, undigested slogans, unidentified wishes, doubts and fears, thrown together by chance, but integrated by your subconscious into a kind of mongrel philosophy and fused into a single, solid weight: self-doubt, like a ball and chain in the place where your mind's wings should have grown.

Most people do not develop a philosophy in the vein of Descartes -- carefully and from the bottom up. Most people adopt from others what feels right and true, and modern Sophists are able to persuade masses of persons into adopting incomprehensible premises as their foundational "truths".

You might say, as many people do, that it is not easy always to act on abstract principles. No, it is not easy. But how much harder is it, to have to act on them without knowing what they are?

Rand seems willing to grant to people something which I cannot -- that they act while thinking, or think before acting. I find no strong evidence that humans behave as rational animals even a fraction of the time.

Your subconscious is like a computer...Who programs it? Your conscious mind...one way or the other, your computer gives you print-outs, daily and hourly, in the form of emotions--which are lightning-like estimates of the things around you, calculated according to your values. If you programmed your computer by conscious thinking, you know the nature of your values and emotions. If you didn't, you don't.

John Loftus has written an interesting article on "control beliefs" as it relates to the interpretation of religion and religious evidence by believers versus unbelievers; or what we could call our presuppositions, in which he challenges the notion that we have the ability to free ourselves of biases and see past our weaknesses in order to objectively "program" our conscious minds. The major point he makes is that the fewer presuppositions, or "control beliefs," that we hold, the less likely we are to be wrong about any given one of them.

Many people, particularly today, claim that man cannot live by logic alone, that there's the emotional element of his nature to consider, and that they rely on the guidance of their emotions...The joke is on him--and on them: man's values and emotions are determined by his fundamental view of life. The ultimate programmer of his subconscious is philosophy--the science which, according to the emotionalists, is impotent to affect or penetrate the murky mysteries of their feelings...You have probably heard the computer operators' eloquent term "gigo"--which means: "Garbage in, garbage out." The same formula applies to the relationship between a man's thinking and his emotions.

Here we have to get into what Rand means by "his fundamental view of life" -- is this not particularly circular? If I value faith, do I become a believer (thus subscribing to some theistic worldview), or if I am a believer, do I value faith? Where do we begin? How many people even try to figure out what their assumptions are, much the less challenge and question them?

A man who is run by emotions is like a man who is run by a computer whose print-outs he cannot read. He does not know whether its programming is true or false, right or wrong, whether it's set to lead him to success or destruction, whether it serves his goals or those of some evil, unknowable power. He is blind on two fronts: blind to the world around him and to his own inner world, unable to grasp reality or his own motives, and he is in chronic terror of both. Emotions are not tools of cognition. The men who are not interested in philosophy need it most urgently: they are most helplessly in its power.

But what Rand ignores is that philosophy can be used as a tool to prop up what men want to believe. Nietzsche showed us that. It is a choice as to how far one develops a philosophy -- it can go so far as to render us nearly nihilistic. If we seriously probe the premises of every position, say for instance in meta-ethics, we will find ourselves much more epistemically skeptical than some people can handle. Therefore, most persons only develop (or adopt from others) enough philosophy to convince themselves that they are rational and "committed to the truth". But how many of us are? How many of us are willing to follow evidence and reason, should it lead us to no hopeful conclusion? What if reason does cannibalize itself, as Nietzsche and others implied?

The men who are not interested in philosophy absorb its principles from the cultural atmosphere around them--from schools, colleges, books, magazines, newspapers, movies, television, etc. Who sets the tone of a culture? A small handful of men: the philosophers. Others follow their lead, either by conviction or by default. For some two hundred years, under the influence of Immanuel Kant, the dominant trend of philosophy has been directed to a single goal: the destruction of man's mind, of his confidence in the power of reason. Today, we are seeing the climax of that trend.

And today, we might say that we are in the "post-postmodern" movement -- many philosophers have strongly argued against the premises of postmodernism (pomo), and have had the time to carefully deconstruct existentialism, Heidegger (probably on of the figures in philosophy with whom Rand identified this sort of negative trend), and some of the previously nebulous arguments of pomo's that science is but "another mythic narrative", aka the Counter-Enlightenment. I would say that the tides have turned, in large part thanks to a commitment to Rationalism, to flesh out the claims of nihilism and pomo over the past decades. Basically, if we cannot sustain rationalism, then pomo itself is self-refuted -- how can a coherent proposition be made: there is no rationalism? It is self-refuting and self-defeating, just like, "there are no truths." (if that description of reality is itself true, then the statement itself must be false, if the statement is false, then it tells us nothing of truth)

When men abandon reason, they find not only that their emotions cannot guide them, but that they can experience no emotions save one: terror. The spread of drug addiction among young people brought up on today's intellectual fashions, demonstrates the unbearable inner state of men who are deprived of their means of cognition and who seek escape from reality--from the terror of their impotence to deal with existence. Observe these young people's dread of independence and their frantic desire to "belong," to attach themselves to some group, clique or gang. Most of them have never heard of philosophy, but they sense that they need some fundamental answers to questions they dare not ask--and they hope that the tribe will tell them how to live. They are ready to be taken over by any witch doctor, guru, or dictator. One of the most dangerous things a man can do is to surrender his moral autonomy to others: like the astronaut in my story, he does not know whether they are human, even though they walk on two feet.

Rand almost seems comically naive. Every generation has viewed their youth as on a destructive path, whether towards immorality or irrationality or both. I would say that in today's culture, one of the few unique things we have today is access to so much knowledge and information that some persons are paralyzed by it [one of the other things that sets apart our current era from others is the explosion of scientific understanding of our universe]. Knowing what to believe, and who to believe, adrift in a sea of arguments and voices can be overwhelming. But that does not mean that we must not believe, else we be wrong, only that we must focus our energies on narrow slices of the big philosophy pie. Few persons that I know go to original sources in philosophy, preferring summaries and reviews of topics and questions in philosophy. There is just too much to read and absorb, and too few days to do it.

Now you may ask: If philosophy can be that evil, why should one study it? Particularly, why should one study the philosophical theories which are blatantly false, make no sense, and bear no relation to real life?

My answer is: In self-protection--and in defense of truth, justice, freedom, and any value you ever held or may ever hold.

And it is for those reasons that I continue to study the Bible, theology, and think about God. I do not claim, as Paul wrote in Phil. 3, "to have apprehended...". I have not arrived at some "self-enlightenment". I somewhat doubt that such a final state can exist, for that would mean it would be nearly impossible to self-doubt or critically analyze the experience. My view of personal enlightenment is more a process and progress in which we analyze and skeptically critique everything. But unlike the pomo, I find no reason to abandon rationalism, as I know nowhere else to be, no other way to live, and no other way to think. I choose to value reason, and build my worldview upon it, and I have seen the efficacy of this played out as personal success and happiness, not despair and hopelessness. In that sense, you might say I pragmatically cling to rationalism.

Some may frame a question about what motive an atheist has in arguing with theists. I do not believe; they do. I think they are wrong, but I think there is no real consequence for their wrongness (in the sense that their faith won't "hurt" them or me). Why do I continue, then, to spend so much time reading, debating, and trying to understand philosophies to which I do not subscribe, and hold to be irrational? Primarily, because their faith affects me. The politics and policies of our current administration have been clearly infused with religion and its lobbying power and money. Secondarily, I do so in defense of my mind, my values, my desire for truth. I skeptically analyze arguments for and against God, and I continue to consider them for their validity and strengths.

There are many things over which I find myself disagreeing with Ayn Rand, but on this, we agree -- philosophy is more than necessary, it is inevitable: the only choice you have is whether you will swallow someone else's premises like a jagged little pill, or whether you will question them, and yourself, and everything.
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Technorati tags: Philosophy, Ayn Rand, Reason, Logic

The Existential Dilemma

After dicussing how death and our view of the afterlife impacts our meaning and perceived value as human beings at the Triablogue, I found the topic resurface yesterday. A short story by Hemingway frames the existential dilemma well:

It was a nothing that he knew too well. It was all a nothing and a man was nothing too. It was only that and light was all it needed and a certain cleanness and order. Some lived in it and never felt it but he knew it was already nada y pues nada y pues nada. Our nada who art in nada, nada be thy name thy kingdom nada thy will be nada in nada as it is in nada. Give us this nada our daily nada and nada us our nada as we nada our nadas and nada us not into nada but deliver us from nada; pues nada. Hail nothing full of nothing, nothing is with thee. He smiled and stood before a bar with a shining steam pressure coffee machine. (A Clean, Well-Lighted Place)

Is man devoid of meaning? If he is not created by some entity with its own external purpose, does man have no purpose? Does the existence of God determine a man's purpose, or does man himself? Is it possible for some external entity to give you meaning and purpose? Listening to Paul Kurtz on Point of Inquiry radio, he spoke about the existential dilemma. From the Stanford Philosophical Encyclopedia,

Another term for the groundlessness of the world of meaning is "nothingness." Heidegger introduced this term to indicate the kind of self- and world-understanding that emerges in anxiety: because my practical identity is constituted by the practices I engage in, when these collapse I "am" not anything. In a manner of speaking I am thus brought face-to-face with my own finitude, my "death" as the possibility in which I am no longer able to be anything. This experience of my own death, or "nothingness," in anxiety can act as a spur to authenticity: I come to see that I "am" not anything but must "make myself be" through my choice. In commiting myself in the face of death — that is, aware of the nothingness of my identity if not supported by me right up to the end — the roles that I have hitherto thoughtlessly engaged in as one does now become something that I myself own up to, become responsible for.

Most of what Paul speaks about in his interview is "the courage to become" -- the courage to become who and what you want. Paul doesn't prescribe some step-by-step, self-help manual-type philosophy for us. What he does do is point out that religions all require the same thing, that you, as the believer/follower, abdicate yourself of your own freedom, and enter into the homogeneous fold. Without uniformity, believers are unable to easily identify themselves and "the others", and so maintaining a strong sense of community and identity almost requires these shared rituals, customs, and peculiar behaviors which are particular to each denomination of each religion. And thus the religion, or, as they would insist, the God of the religion, becomes the believer's purpose [although arguably God is subsumed into the religion and its customs, interpretations, Scriptures, etc.]. But what the believer has done is lose their own personal identity and purpose into this form of collectivism.

Paul points out that being a part of such a worldview, in which every behavior is outlined -- "do this, don't do that, be this, don't be that" is the very antithesis of freedom and individuality. Secular humanism presents an ethical alternative to religions, and allows one to maintain individual identity (rather than collective identity) and to pursue ones goals and hopes freely.

Insofar as views of the afterlife go, does death render life beautiful, or meaningless? Certainly, the value of every day increases exponentially if they are your only days to live. Clearly, the value of 70 years of life is pitiful if a hundred million trillion years of life follow. Just because life is thus made "precious" in value does not mean that death confers "meaning". We all must assign meaning to our own lives. We all must decide what will make our lives "worthwhile". Believers decide that faith is the penultimate goal, and that pleasing God is their summa bonum.

What this seems to boil down to is an argument on the part of theists that if we assign our own purposes and meanings to life, that those values and meanings are functionally deficient. A counterargument to them would run along the lines that they choose to assign meaning to themselves through their faith, and so in that sense, they can't escape the idea of "man-centered meaning/values/purpose". They choose to value God, religion, faith, etc. Their own faith is itself temporal, just as my values and purposes and meanings and goals are. Does that render faith pointless and functionally deficient? Or is faith not just another avenue by which humans assign themselves value?

How do I personally look at life, death, and despair? I'm a sort of Stoic. I'm a determinist who wants to live a good and virtuous life, and tries to deal with the things that I can know and control, and learn to accept the things which I cannot know or control.

I have written a little on quasi-Stoicism before, in the context of Stephen King's novella, Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption.

The quick and easy way to become a Stoic? Simply know the things that are within your power, and the things that are not. Recognize how small you really are in the scheme of things, and do not despair or fret when circumstances do not unfold as you had planned or hoped. Be courageous enough to control those things which you can for good, and courageous enough to accept those things which fate/life/chance hand you unexpectedly. It does not mean you must become emotionless or apathetic, as is commonly misconceived. It means that you allow your mind, via reason, to rule your passions, and recognize the dangers posed by the passions to the execution of our values and goals.

One of the beautiful things about Stoics was the way that they derived value and meaning from the pursuit of virtue, and ataraxia, or inner peace. That is why Seneca, Marcus Aurellius and Epictetus, all at very different stations in life, held a similar outlook upon life's value and meaning. I don't want to get into the distinction between classical Stoicism and its difficulties with reconciling fatalism and freedom, but this should give you a picture of how I view the existential dilemma from a broad perspective.
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Technorati tags: Philosophy, Stoicism, Existential Dilemma