In a meaningless world, does truth always have value over delusion?

_{Salvador Cordova

July 6, 2013

Atheism, Philosophy, Religion}

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I care about truth if there is a God. But why should I care about truth if there is no God? In fact if there is no God, maybe I shouldn’t care about truth because it would be too sad to know…I’d rather live out my life with the illusion of happily ever after in that case.

Two thousand years ago, someone echoed those sentiments:

What do I gain if, humanly speaking, I fought with beasts at Ephesus? If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”

Paul of Tarsus
1 Cor 15:32

There was an exchange between KeithS and I in another thread, and he fired off this comment:

Your comment epitomizes one of the biggest problems with Pascal’s Wager. It doesn’t ask the question “What is most likely to be true?” It only asks, “How can I get the best payoff?”

That’s anathema to anyone who truly cares about truth.

Holy Rollers, Pascal’s Wager;Comment 100

To which I responded:

But why should I care about truth if there is no God? In fact if there is no God, maybe I shouldn’t care about truth because it would be too sad to know…I’d rather live out my life with the illusion of happily ever after in that case.

Why, logically speaking should an atheist care about truth in a meaningless universe? Perhaps the logical answer is no answer. If you say, truth has a better payoff, well, then you’ve just put payoffs ahead of truth! Right back where you started.

Further KeithS wrote:

Because the value of truth doesn’t depend on the existence of God.

To which I responded:

Value means PAYOFF! What is the payoff if there is no God?

I recall Dawkins in a debate with Lennox was asked about how humans can live their lives in a meaningless world. Dawkins said, “we create our own meaning”. Other atheists have repeated that statement such KeithS:

Life is full of meaning even without God. We create our own meanings, whether you realize it or not.

Holy Rollers, Pascal’s wager; Comment 59

to which I responded:

[the phrase] “we create our own meaning” is pretty much to me “we concoct our own unproven falsehoods to make us feel better”.
…
this whole “we create our own meaning” is worse than the religious ideas you are criticizing. You “know” there is no meaning, but you’ll pretend there is anyway. Reminds me of Coyne who “knows” there is no free will but he’ll pretend there is anyway.

And that is what continues to puzzle me about the atheistic variety of Darwinists (not Christian Darwinists). They seem to find much purpose in life in proving life has no purpose!

[posted by scordova to assist News desk with content and commentary until 7/7/13]

Comments

KN,
And under that interpretation, I completely agree...
But if you agree with that interpretation, then you agree that we might be wrong, which in turn means that we cannot be absolutely certain that we are right. Right? So unless I have misinterpreted your comment, you are withdrawing this claim:
So, yes, I am asserting that there is certainty about the seemings of things.
keiths_{July 17, 2013
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I agree that it doesn’t make logical sense, but my point is that we can’t be absolutely certain of that unless our logic itself is absolutely certain and unimpeachable.
I can find a variety of senses for this assertion. The most charitable one I can find (and I do strive to be charitable in my interpretations) would be
it doesn't make any sense, given the way we currently know how to use words and think with them, that one could be mistaken about one's apprehension of the immediately given, but there's no guarantee that some future context will not be found in which it does make sense to say that.
And under that interpretation, I completely agree -- with the further proviso that we would not be able to understand people for whom that did make sense.
Yes, and this is worth emphasizing. Even if the cogito were absolutely certain — and I don’t think it is — it wouldn’t establish other beliefs as absolutely certain.
Hurray! Agreement!Kantian Naturalist_{July 17, 2013
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Phinehas,
Wait a second. Are you using your cognitive system to conclude that it is impossible to verify the reliability of a cognitive system from the inside?
Yes, and I am not absolutely certain of my conclusion, of course!
LOL! It must feel very satisfying to suppose that you’ve wrapped your stubby little intellectual arms all the way around God and are interlocking your fingers on the other side. I really don’t know what you’ve managed to apprehend, but I’m pretty sure it isn’t any God remotely worthy of the name.
My argument doesn't depend on wrapping my arms "all the way round God". It only depends on a little bit of logic. Do you have a counterargument? Or are you going to claim that no one, anywhere, at any time, can ever say anything about the concept of God?keiths_{July 17, 2013
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Let me make my point more forcefully. It’s impossible to verify the reliability of a cognitive system from the inside. Why? Because you have to use the cognitive system itself in order to verify its reliability.
Wait a second. Are you using your cognitive system to conclude that it is impossible to verify the reliability of a cognitive system from the inside? If so, then you are not using it very well.
This even applies to God himself. From the inside, God may think that he’s omniscient and omnipotent. He seems to know everything about reality, and he seems to be able to do anything that is logically possible. But how can he know these things with absolute certainty? What if there is a higher-level God, or demon, who is deceiving him into thinking that he’s the master of the universe when he really isn’t? How, for that matter, can God be sure that he isn’t a brain in a vat? He can’t. Defining him as omniscient doesn’t help. Like everyone else, he can only try to determine, from the inside, whether his cognitive apparatus is reliable. He can never be absolutely sure that he isn’t being fooled, or fooling himself.
LOL! It must feel very satisfying to suppose that you've wrapped your stubby little intellectual arms all the way around God and are interlocking your fingers on the other side. I really don't know what you've managed to apprehend, but I'm pretty sure it isn't any God remotely worthy of the name. "I'm not God. I just built the box He fits into." OK.Phinehas_{July 17, 2013
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keiths to KN:
You are essentially arguing that
My fallible mind can be absolutely certain of some things, because my fallible mind tells me that I can be absolutely certain of them.
As a professional philosopher, I think you can see the fallacy.
KN:
Well, sure, when you put it that way, my view looks pretty stupid! :) Fortunately for me, that’s not my view.
:)
Maybe I’m just too brain-fried to figure this out, but I just can’t imagine any contexts under which it would make sense to say, “It seemed to me as if it seemed to me that the sun was yellow, but that’s not how it really seemed to me.”
I agree that it doesn't make logical sense, but my point is that we can't be absolutely certain of that unless our logic itself is absolutely certain and unimpeachable.
So, yes, I am asserting that there is certainty about the seemings of things.
But that certainty comes from your fallible mind. So it seems that you really are making the argument I attributed to you!
What I would deny, however, is that this certainty is interesting or important.
Yes, and this is worth emphasizing. Even if the cogito were absolutely certain -- and I don't think it is -- it wouldn't establish other beliefs as absolutely certain.keiths_{July 17, 2013
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KF,
...so soon as he posts, he is relying on the relevant laws of thought...
Agreed.
...he is in fact rejecting the laws: these laws by their very form will either hold in all cases or fail...
I am not rejecting them, as I have said probably a dozen times by now. Plus you are making a silly logical error. You are claiming that "I am not absolutely certain of X" is equivalent to "I think X holds in some cases but not all". That is as absurd as claiming an equivalence between "I am not absolutely certain that Doris is my mother" and "I think Doris is my mother in some cases, but not all."keiths_{July 17, 2013
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In re: 626:
My fallible mind can be absolutely certain of some things, because my fallible mind tells me that I can be absolutely certain of them.
Well, sure, when you put it that way, my view looks pretty stupid! :) Fortunately for me, that's not my view. Rather, my view is that
the difference between how things are and how things seem to be
makes perfect sense, but that
the difference between how things really seem and how things merely seem to seem
does not. And from what I can tell, fallibilism about reports of my sensory-states require the latter. And that does strike me as being your position. I think that's a bit daft, because I don't see how there's any 'slippage' between my reports of my sensations and the sensations themselves, as there clearly is between my beliefs about objects and the objects themselves. Maybe I'm just too brain-fried to figure this out, but I just can't imagine any contexts under which it would make sense to say, "It seemed to me as if it seemed to me that the sun was yellow, but that's not how it really seemed to me." So, yes, I am asserting that there is certainty about the seemings of things. What I would deny, however, is that this certainty is interesting or important. Instead, I'll steal a line from my newest favorite philosopher, C. I. Lewis: although apprehensions of the given are indeed certain, they nevertheless fail to count as "knowledge," because a pragmatist epistemology holds that:
knowledge in general shall possess a signification of something beyond the cognitive experience itself or that it should stand in contrast with some possible kind of error or mistake. Apprehension of the given, by itself, will meet neither of these requirements. An Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation, p. 183.
In other words, knowledge only makes sense when doubt also makes sense; and both doubt and knowledge require going beyond what is contained entirely within an episode of sensory consciousness. So apprehensions of the given, as Lewis calls them, are certain because they are not known. Nevertheless they play an essential role in the semantics of empirical judgments. (There are echoes here of Wittgenstein's response to Moore: if I know something, then I am certain of it; if I am certain of it, then I do not know it.)Kantian Naturalist_{July 17, 2013
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Lizzie,
I have to say, I’m with KN on this:
Whereas I am taking the view that the very question, “is our logic correct?” is a meaningless question.
As I tried to say earlier, I don’t think the LNC is a true statement about the world, but rather that to violate it would be to be incoherent, at least when talking about the classical world.
To ask whether our logic is correct is meaningless only if you take logic to be a free-floating set of rules that can neither be right nor wrong. Of course that is not true, except possibly in some arcane branches of mathematical logic. For most of us, logic is a tool for making inferences about the world. Some rules of inference are better than others, because some rules are truth-preserving, whereas others are not. I gave an example to KN earlier in the thread:
For example, suppose I make the following fallacious inference: 1. If X is a bird, then X has wings. 2. A bat has wings. 3. Therefore a bat is a bird. The average person immediately recognizes that inference as fallacious not because it violates the rules of logic, but because the conclusion is absurd. Having recognized the conclusion as absurd, he then goes back and looks for the logical error. Also, remember that the rules of logic were not handed down from On High. They were written by humans who were attempting to codify the process of inference. (Boole’s magnum opus was titled The Laws of Thought, after all.) They would write a candidate rule and then test it against experience to see if it worked. This has to be true. If candidate rules weren’t tested against reality, then there would have been no reason to favor one (good) system of logic over another (bad) one. We would have ended up with bogus systems of logic that weren’t truth-preserving.
We could define a logic in which the bird/bat inference was allowed. However, it wouldn't be a very useful logic, and I would assert that it would in fact be incorrect, in the sense that it would produce false conclusions from true premises.keiths_{July 17, 2013
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F/N: It seems KS continues, refusing to see that there is evidence in front of him that he cannot be mistaken about, that he is aware. Much follows from that. he also seems to be insisting on failing to see that so soon as he posts, he is relying on the relevant laws of thought, and that by failing to accept the clear manner in which such correlates of the simple existence of identity show themselves self evident, he is in fact rejecting the laws: these laws by their very form will either hold in all cases or fail, and they cannot fail once we have a world partition pivoting on any identifiable entity [the self aware self, the bright red ball on yon table, etc], they are direct correlates of that simple fact of reality. But the point is that the result is that that which KS and ilk want to accept they will pass and use the laws happily. But where they are unwilling to go, suddenly they will swivel around hyperskeptically and refuse to go there on grounds of potential -- not actual -- fallibility, and refusal to address actual cases where things are incorrigibly or undeniably true, are self evident. The opening for misleading oneself and others should be blatant. KFkairosfocus_{July 17, 2013
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PS: The onlooker will understand why I would suggest that it would be safer to be judged in a court or the like serious circumstances by twelve taken at random from the phone book [providing the problem has not spread too far], than a dozen faculty that behave in the way we have seen in recent days. Plato's warning in The Laws Bk X, speaks true:
Ath. . . . [[The avant garde philosophers and poets, c. 360 BC] say that fire and water, and earth and air [[i.e the classical "material" elements of the cosmos], all exist by nature and chance, and none of them by art, and that as to the bodies which come next in order-earth, and sun, and moon, and stars-they have been created by means of these absolutely inanimate existences. The elements are severally moved by chance and some inherent force according to certain affinities among them-of hot with cold, or of dry with moist, or of soft with hard, and according to all the other accidental admixtures of opposites which have been formed by necessity. After this fashion and in this manner the whole heaven has been created, and all that is in the heaven, as well as animals and all plants, and all the seasons come from these elements, not by the action of mind, as they say, or of any God, or from art, but as I was saying, by nature and chance only. [[In short, evolutionary materialism premised on chance plus necessity acting without intelligent guidance on primordial matter is hardly a new or a primarily "scientific" view! Notice also, the trichotomy of causal factors: (a) chance/accident, (b) mechanical necessity of nature, (c) art or intelligent design and direction.] . . . . [[Thus, they hold that t]he Gods exist not by nature, but by art, and by the laws of states, which are different in different places, according to the agreement of those who make them; and that the honourable is one thing by nature and another thing by law, and that the principles of justice have no existence at all in nature, but that mankind are always disputing about them and altering them; and that the alterations which are made by art and by law have no basis in nature, but are of authority for the moment and at the time at which they are made.- [[Relativism, too, is not new; complete with its radical amorality rooted in a worldview that has no foundational IS that can ground OUGHT.] These, my friends, are the sayings of wise men, poets and prose writers, which find a way into the minds of youth. They are told by them that the highest right is might [[ Evolutionary materialism leads to the promotion of amorality], and in this way the young fall into impieties, under the idea that the Gods are not such as the law bids them imagine; and hence arise factions [[Evolutionary materialism-motivated amorality "naturally" leads to continual contentions and power struggles; cf. dramatisation here], these philosophers inviting them to lead a true life according to nature, that is, to live in real dominion over others [[such amoral factions, if they gain power, "naturally" tend towards ruthless tyranny], and not in legal subjection to them.
kairosfocus_{July 17, 2013
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KF, You sound like Chicken Little. No one is sawing off any branches or denying the LOI or the LNC. I'm simply saying that we can't be absolutely certain of those things. Despite your hysterical protests, that leads to no absurdities at all.keiths_{July 17, 2013
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Keiths
In essence, your argument is: 1. I am absolutely certain that this is a thought.
No Vividvividbleau_{July 17, 2013
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vividbleau, I'll respond to you this time because I think others in recent comments have been making mistakes similar to yours. In essence, your argument is: 1. I am absolutely certain that this is a thought. 2. I am absolutely certain that it is present. 3. I am absolutely certain that thoughts are cognitive activity. 4. Therefore, I can be absolutely certain that "cognitive activity is present." I happen to agree with your argument, which is just a slightly refined version of Descartes', except for the "absolutely certain" parts. You are effectively arguing, as is KN, that
My fallible mind can be absolutely certain of some things, because my fallible mind tells me that I can be absolutely certain of them.
That seems irrational to me.keiths_{July 17, 2013
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EL: Truth is that which says of what is, that it is, and of what is not, that it is not. That is, it accurately reports reality. In that sense, to say that a thing A cannot both be and not be in the same sense, time and other circumstances, is true, indeed it can only be denied at the price of absurdity, of which we have seen far too much. Recall, such is an immediate corollary of a distinct thing we for convenience label A, being there, leading to a world partition. But if one clings to absurdity and saws off the branch on which he must sit and is sitting, after warning, we can only wince. KFkairosfocus_{July 17, 2013
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F/N: It seems that KS is determined to substitute dismissal for substance. Sad, but as predicted. He is impervious to the fact that a rock cannot be deceived that it is conscious, as it has no awareness to be misled. Nor, that once he is aware, and even fearful that he be misled, that first fact of awareness is something that cannot be false. Thus, we have the world partition, { I | not-I } and once a partition exists, LOI, LNC and LEM come with it. Similarly, we can behold a red ball on yon table and see that the same obtains. Indeed, in expostulating on how certain he is that I and others are in error, he wishes not to face the resulting undeniability of the very simple proposition, error exists. He does not see that every distinct symbol he posts poses another world partition, and so his haste to dismiss such self evident truths lands him in precisely the morass of absurdities that is predicted of attempts to deny same. But if a man is content to saw off the branch on which he must sit, all we can do is point out the folly involved; never mind that it declares itself wisdom and loudly trumpets that those who dare correct on points are liars, as human fallibility to such minds excludes the possibility that one can be right about some things. As in, surely he has not heard that young children can see they are right and must be so when they hold that || + ||| --> |||||. And by the way, as a circular object cannot have sharp corners, a square circle is not possible, the attributes cannot hold at the same time and circumstances. That is, we can look on and learn from (pardon, such a strong term has been merited) the blatant folly we see here professing to be superior wisdom, and from such cases calibrate our evaluations of the judgements and arguments made by men who refuse to be corrected on what is blatant, when we come to subtler matters, Likewise, we can judge from the bad habits of attacking and even slandering the man on simple matters where the issue is not in doubt, to more subtle cases. In short, onlookers, this is the all too revealing face of Darwinist anti-design champions controlled by evolutionary materialism and fellow traveller ideologies. KF.kairosfocus_{July 17, 2013
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I have to say, I'm with KN on this:
Whereas I am taking the view that the very question, “is our logic correct?” is a meaningless question.
As I tried to say earlier, I don't think the LNC is a true statement about the world, but rather that to violate it would be to be incoherent, at least when talking about the classical world.Elizabeth B Liddle_{July 17, 2013
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William,
You are continuing to argue as if it is true that because a mind is fallible about some or most things, it is fallible about all things. That is a logical fallacy.
No, I am not making that argument. I am asserting something quite different, which is that even if we actually are infallible on certain subjects, we cannot make that determination from the inside. Even an omniscient God, if he exists, has this problem, as I explained to Phinehas earlier in the thread:
Phinehas, Let me make my point more forcefully. It’s impossible to verify the reliability of a cognitive system from the inside. Why? Because you have to use the cognitive system itself in order to verify its reliability. If the system isn’t reliable, you might mistakenly conclude that it is! This even applies to God himself. From the inside, God may think that he’s omniscient and omnipotent. He seems to know everything about reality, and he seems to be able to do anything that is logically possible. But how can he know these things with absolute certainty? What if there is a higher-level God, or demon, who is deceiving him into thinking that he’s the master of the universe when he really isn’t? How, for that matter, can God be sure that he isn’t a brain in a vat? He can’t. Defining him as omniscient doesn’t help. Like everyone else, he can only try to determine, from the inside, whether his cognitive apparatus is reliable. He can never be absolutely sure that he isn’t being fooled, or fooling himself.
keiths_{July 17, 2013
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StephenB
I explain to him that our ability to apprehend our existence does not depend on logic.
Keiths just does not get it. Cognitive activity MUST be present and does not depend on logic. Keiths is either not bright enough to grasp this or is just unwilling to do so in order to save face. Although my position is logical it is not based on logic. I have tried to point this out to Keiths but he has me on ignore which is telling. The best he can do is to continue to throw up all over himself and continues to put forth one incoherent and self refuting argument over and over again. Here
In other words, you used your fallible mind to determine that “it is a metaphysical fact” that cannot be disputed.
Here
How do we you know that your fallible mind isn’t mistaken about this “metaphysical fact”
And here
What magic guarantees that this time, your fallible mind is 100.0%
All in one post he refers to the fallibility of mind which no one is disputing. However how can the mind be fallible if there is no mind or cognitive activity? Keiths is so enamored with his own arguments that he continiues to argue with himself, very strange. He continues to arbitrarily declare that no one can be absolutely certain of anything yet he is not absolutely certain that he is correct in that assertion. Personally I take a minimalist position which is I am absolutely certain that cognitive activity is present. Because it is present "I" am absolutely 100% certain that "I" think "I" think "I" am typing this. Keiths can talk all he wants about fallible minds, sly demons, a deceptive God, a brain in the vat, etc, etc none of which has any relevancy. Cognitive activity is present. Indeed each and every time Keiths responds he is affirming the absolute certainty of the very thing he denies is absolutely certain which is that cognitive activity is present!!!! Of course given the drivel he has spewed he does make a convincing case that in his case cognitive activity may not be present. Vividvividbleau_{July 17, 2013
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My fallible mind can be absolutely certain of some things, because my fallible mind tells me that I can be absolutely certain of them.
You are continuing to argue as if it is true that because a mind is fallible about some or most things, it is fallible about all things. That is a logical fallacy. It does not follow. Your argument takes the perspective that "the mind" is a particle that either has the "characteristic" of "fallibility" or that it does not. That is a false dichotomy generated by an unsupported premise about the nature of mind and "fallibility".William J Murray_{July 17, 2013
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No one is advocating that we throw out the LNC or Royce’s argument.
Unless you are arguing that there could be a case where we should or even could throw out the LNC or RE, you are engaged in pointless sophistry.William J Murray_{July 17, 2013
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KN, You are essentially arguing that
My fallible mind can be absolutely certain of some things, because my fallible mind tells me that I can be absolutely certain of them.
As a professional philosopher, I think you can see the fallacy.keiths_{July 17, 2013
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William,
I agree that there are perils to misplaced certainty, but throwing out Royce’s Error and the LNC with the dirty bathwater is hyperskepticism to the point of self-refuting madness.
Good grief, William. No one is advocating that we throw out the LNC or Royce's argument. I am simply saying that you cannot be absolutely certain of either.keiths_{July 17, 2013
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Bearing in mind my own fallibility, I can see how "my impression could be wrong" in the sense of, "my sense-impression does not correspond to how things are" (I could have bad eyesight; my memory could be faulty; the lighting could be unusual; I might be on acid; etc.) -- -- which is quite different from "I am mistaken about how the sense-impressions themselves are" -- this would require me to say something like, "It seems to me as if it seems green to me [right now], but perhaps it does not really seem green to me [right now]".Kantian Naturalist_{July 17, 2013
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Then there is no paradox, no slippery slope, just safeguard against the perils of misplaced certainty.
I agree that there are perils to misplaced certainty, but throwing out Royce's Error and the LNC with the dirty bathwater is hyperskepticism to the point of self-refuting madness. I realize that many atheists felt burned by the certainty they had, as former theists, that they could have been so wrong about something so important, but armoring oneself against future red-faced failure with the steel plating of doubting one's own existence isn't the answer.William J Murray_{July 17, 2013
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KN,
If I am presented with object O as appearing to me to have the sensible feature S, then I might very well be mistaken about whether O actually has S, or even about whether there is an O at all. But I cannot see how I might be mistaken about O appearing to me as having S. That phenomenal content, the content of the seeming itself, seems beyond doubt.
It may seem beyond doubt, but only if you fail to consider your own fallibility. Your impression might be wrong. Absolute certainty isn't justified.keiths_{July 17, 2013
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Royce’s argument depends on logic, which is a system constructed by fallible humans.
Your metaphysical assumptions are showing. I disagree that logic is a system constructed by humans. I think fundamental logical premises are discovered or apprehended by humans, not invented by them. Royce's Error is not arrived at by logic; it is directly apprehended. It is can be validated logically, but knowledge of logic is not required to understand that error exists.
It’s a good system, and it seems to work really well, but we can’t be absolutely certain of its correctness. The LNC is an assumption that seems obviously true to us, and that also works really well in practice. I rely on it myself. But am I absolutely certain of it, with a literally 0.0% chance of error? No way.
If the LNC is not certain, then there is no necessary difference between "certain" and "not certain", rendering your entire argument (as KN would say) unintelligible. You are arguing that squares might be circles. IOW, self-conflicting sophistry. It does not follow that because humans are fallible about most things, that they are fallible about all things. It does not follow that because humans apprehend most things subjectively, that such subjective interpretations are in all cases subject to error. You are treating minds and humans as particles that either have the global characteristic of fallibility (in all things) or they do not. That is an error. It is at least the theistic perspective that humans can apprehend some things that are absolute, and can be absolutely certain of them.William J Murray_{July 17, 2013
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Whereas I am taking the view that the very question, "is our logic correct?" is a meaningless question. However, there is a perfectly intelligible question to ask, which is, "could there be revisions and changes in the logical systems employed by our distant ancestors so drastic as to make their logics untranslatable into those we use now?" or "If there are intelligent aliens elsewhere in the universe, might their logics of alien races be incommensurable with our own?" And to those questions I would say "yes, of course!" But that is just to say that we, given our own grasp of what counts as rational constraints, could not understand what it would like to have a conversation with them.Kantian Naturalist_{July 17, 2013
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StephenB,
So, you think that scientific conclusions and speculations are the equivalent of first principles do you?
No. I was merely pointing out that as history shows, "self-evident" does not mean "absolutely certain".
You still do not even know what is meant by a first principle. And yet, you carry on in your ignorance. Remarkable!!!
Calm down, Stephen. What's remarkable (with no exclamation points) is that you claim to embrace logic, but then you abandon it at the crucial moment.keiths_{July 17, 2013
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Kantian Naturalist,
It’s a fundamental commitment of our grasp of logical space that square circles are logically impossible. If we were to embrace the thought that our grasp of logical space is so fallible that square circles are logically possible, then postmodernist anti-rational nihilism would be true. (“It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine”) [emphasis added]
I've highlighted the key word. Yes, if our logic is correct, then square circles are impossible. But we are fallible, and our logic might not be correct. There is nothing "anti-rational" about this. It's a logical conclusion, based on the well-supported premises that 1) we are fallible, and 2) we do not always know when we are mistaken. I hesitate to say this, but your "postmodernist anti-rational nihilism" rhetoric reminds me a lot of kairosfocus. I am not, and have never, advocated the abandonment of logic. I am simply pointing out that we cannot be absolutely certain, with no doubt whatsoever, that logic is correct, or that our application of it is perfect.keiths_{July 17, 2013
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KN will put me right, but isn't this "I cannot be certain" business just an example of a self-referential paradox? I cannot be certain that I am not certain, therefore I could be certain, there I could be certain that I cannot be certain, in which case I really cannot be certain.... If so, this could be a very long thread! Is it not better simply to say: It is good to bear always in mind that however self-evident it seems that a proposition is true, there is always a possibility, however small, that we may be mistaken? Then there is no paradox, no slippery slope, just safeguard against the perils of misplaced certainty.Elizabeth B Liddle_{July 17, 2013
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