GK Chesterton on Arguing with Learned Hand, eigenstate and Popperian

_{Barry Arrington

September 14, 2015

Intelligent Design}

Share: Facebook; Twitter; LinkedIn; Flipboard; Print; Email

If you argue with a madman, it is extremely probable that you will get the worst of it; for in many ways his mind moves all the quicker for not being delayed by the things that go with good judgment. He is not hampered by a sense of humor or by charity, or by the dumb certainties of experience. He is the more logical for losing certain sane affections. Indeed, the common phrase for insanity is in this respect a misleading one. The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason.

G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

Comments

Seversky and Popperian are suggesting that I have no argument to counter LH and eigenstate. That is correct. I do not, any more than I would have an argument that the red pen in my hand is not a flower pot. For how long have we been saying that you resort to insults because you cannot actually defend the idea that you have infallible access to objective reality? At the end of the day, it's faith, not reason. That works well enough when the question is whether your pen is a flower pot, but you extend your belief in your own infallibility much more broadly than that. How broadly? Who can say? You seem sullenly reluctant to examine your own assumptions. Insults are easier than thinking. Chesterton was a man of ideas who resorted on occasion to insults. Emulating his insults does not make you a man of ideas, any more than making fart jokes makes a man Martin Luther. If you want to emulate Chesterton, have ideas.Learned Hand_{September 17, 2015
September
09
Sep
17
17
2015
08:46 PM
8
08
46
PM
PDT}

I am curious though. If Seversky and Popperian believe that LH's assertion that he cannot be sure that he is not Mount Everest is a rational argument, do they agree with that argument or do they have a counter-argument?Barry Arrington_{September 15, 2015
September
09
Sep
15
15
2015
07:08 AM
7
07
08
AM
PDT}

Learned Hand says he is not sure he is not Mount Everest. eigenstate says under certain circumstances torturing an infant for pleasure would be morally obligatory. Seversky says that naming this madness for what it is is a “nice way of getting out of having to answer their arguments.” To which I say, insane denial is not an argument that it is possible to answer. Robert L. Kocher:
It is a fact of life that you cannot win an argument with someone who is not sane. Sane bystanders may come to agree with your presentation, but you have no way of convincing someone who is not sane of anything. . . suppose that I say that the red pen I happen to have in my hand at this moment is a red pen. Further suppose that someone else says it is not a red pen, but is instead a flower pot, or a suitcase or a TV set. As a practical matter, I am unable to refute the assertion that what I am holding in my hand is not a flower pot. That does not mean that I’m incorrect when I say that it is a red pen. Nor does it mean that I am intellectually weaker than the other person who is arguing that it is not a red pen. Nor does it mean that his assertion that it is not a red pen is correct. It means that I have no stronger argument than the red pen being in my hand. There is no stronger argument possible than the simple fact of the red pen being in my hand. No stronger refutation of the other person’s arguments is possible. At some point there must be agreement on what constitutes basic reality.
What if there is no such agreement?
The resolution of differing assertions, if there is to be one, will not be on the basis of intellectual reasoning or investigation, but on the basis of resolving a severe mental disorder. . . . If there is intractable disinclination, no resolution is possible.
Popperian suggests that it is I who is irrational, for I want to arbitrarily end criticism. LH’s and eigenstate’s insane denial is not good faith criticism. It is ostentatious irrationality masquerading as intellectualism. Kocher again:
Mental disorder and psychotic levels of denial have come to have a certified validity because of their irrefutability–even to the point of being misinterpreted as being a powerful form of intellectuality. . .

It has become common for people who routinely engage in chronic psychotic levels of denial to consider themselves as being mental powerhouses, and to be considered by others as being mental powerhouses, because no one can break through their irrationality. This is often supported by a self-referencing congratulatory inner voice which says, “(guffaw) He REALLY didn’t have an answer for that one!” And they are correct. He didn’t have an answer. . .

But, observable basic reality does not make a dent in countering the psychotic arguments underwriting the chaotic consequences which are occurring. No matter how airtight the refutation, the talk continues. No matter how inane the talk, the issue is still considered unresolved. Capacity to continue speaking has become looked upon as a form of refutation of absolute real-world evidence.
Seversky and Popperian are suggesting that I have no argument to counter LH and eigenstate. That is correct. I do not, any more than I would have an argument that the red pen in my hand is not a flower pot. To suggest that I am therefore unable to refute LH and eigenstate is to validate their insane denial, which, of course, is what Seversky and Popperian mean to do, because they have used the technique often enough themselves.Barry Arrington_{September 15, 2015
September
09
Sep
15
15
2015
06:46 AM
6
06
46
AM
PDT}

Ponting out the irrationality of arbitrarily ending criticism, and therefore reason, is crazy?Popperian_{September 14, 2015
September
09
Sep
14
14
2015
08:41 PM
8
08
41
PM
PDT}

My answer to Chesterton's nonsense is that declaring an opponent to be a madman is a nice way of getting out of having to answer his arguments.Seversky_{September 14, 2015
September
09
Sep
14
14
2015
07:39 PM
7
07
39
PM
PDT}

LH, Let me assure you I do not insult you gratuitously. That would be wrong. I make simple observations. Like when you say you are not sure you are not Mount Everest, I point out the simple fact that that statement is literally insane. You might think it is an insult. It is not. Again, it is merely an observation. The purpose of my observation is to shame you into better conduct. It is not working yet, but in a triumph of hope over experience I keep trying.Barry Arrington_{September 14, 2015
September
09
Sep
14
14
2015
03:15 PM
3
03
15
PM
PDT}

Learned Hand, Both eigenstate and I have been waiting for your answer to this question:
LH, We will let you tell us authoritatively and conclusively what your opinion is today: Here is the proposition: A=A is infallibly true and not dubitable as an analytic proposition. Is that proposition true or false?
Barry Arrington_{September 14, 2015
September
09
Sep
14
14
2015
03:12 PM
3
03
12
PM
PDT}

I’m sure Learned Hand, Eigenstate and Popperian feel the same way. And they will declare you are wrong and arrogant, and you will declare that they are insanely wrong, and the arguments will get nowhere. At least the entertainment is cheaper than buying tickets to the Superbowl. I think the major difference is that we have ideas that we defend and improve through argument and discussion. BA is presumably capable of this, but not very interested in it. Insulting people is more fun, and much easier than exposing his own ideas (such as they are) to examination.Learned Hand_{September 14, 2015
September
09
Sep
14
14
2015
03:02 PM
3
03
02
PM
PDT}

Bob:
I’m sure Learned Hand, Eigenstate and Popperian feel the same way.
Then they would be wrong. I am not the one who says he is not sure he is not Mount Everest (Learned Hand) or that under certain circumstances torturing an infant for pleasure would be morally obligatory (eigenstate). If I have said anything that is certifiably insane on the order of those two statements, they are free to point it out. Barry Arrington_{September 14, 2015
September
09
Sep
14
14
2015
11:01 AM
11
11
01
AM
PDT}

I'm sure Learned Hand, Eigenstate and Popperian feel the same way. And they will declare you are wrong and arrogant, and you will declare that they are insanely wrong, and the arguments will get nowhere. At least the entertainment is cheaper than buying tickets to the Superbowl.Bob O'H_{September 14, 2015
September
09
Sep
14
14
2015
10:53 AM
10
10
53
AM
PDT}

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Leave a Reply