[Gem Windcaster]

Cold Iron, on 30 March 2010 - 09:42 PM, said:

Cougar, on 30 March 2010 - 11:16 AM, said:

Au contraire dear CI. I do not want to derail this into some epistemological dead end, but I disagree. The key word is 'know', you can't know anything and you certainly can't know something is true. I think a better word might have been believe or feel.

I need to do more reading, I fear I'm still stuck at Plato in a world that has long moved past. Still, I'm not sure that your distinction has any meaning to the subjective individual - the feeling that Tiste describes is not dependant on others agreement, indeed he is ignoring his own conscious reasoning to "know" this "truth". My point is that we are all not only capable of this type of irrational response but we need it, we depend on it, we make a million decisions a day with it. Try if you want to deny it but you are drawing a false line in the sand, there is no real difference between a theist and an atheist, just social identity.

I can't help but feel that rationality is overestimated in discussions regarding truth. That subjectivity exists is one thing, but the very concept of truth means nothing if it isn't objective in some sense. You could argue that rationality is a sort of post-modern truth, that it supposedly effect everyone whether they want to or not. But subjectivity and rationality then becomes opposite edges of a two edged sword, and the argument are no longer able to paint the whole picture. But we do rely on other things than the immediate 'rationality', because if rationality is a sort of truth, there are many rationalities and many truths. There is no singular part that makes us into what we is, but a host of parts, if that makes sense.

One could argue that the feeling that Tiste describes is an intersection of those parts.

This post has been edited by Gem Windcaster: 30 March 2010 - 10:05 PM

[Tiste Simeon]

The feeling I describe is so much more than just a feeling... It is a knowld=edge that goes beyond rational and logical explanation. That's why it's called faith. It's trusting that it is true without hard scientific evidence...

[Cougar]

Actually what CI says makes sense. What Gem says, however, has issues. Post-modernity rejects rationality (two items which Gem has expressly associated above), since you can't hierarchicalise the value judgements necessary for rationality, which is actually very much associated with modernity.

I totally agree with CI though when he says that you don't cognise and conceptualise every decision/experience etc, as Schopenhauer loved to point out, doing this for every experience would literally drive you mad. However, I think belief in the existence of an all powerful being that crated the universe is probably something you'd want to spend a few minutes thinking through.

My objection was really only terminology, Tiste says he knows, I'd say he can't, no matter how certain he is. He can think he knows, he can even rationalise it should he choose.

[Gem Windcaster]

Actually Cougar, I'm not sure what I did say. Personally I'm torn how to perceive rationality in regards to truth.

[Darkwatch]

No one can know, in the hard sense of the word (in the sense of having any kind of hard experience/proof), if God does OR does not exist.
You can believe, postulate, think, conceive, theorize, opine, etc...
But you cannot know anything without proof.
Since there is no proof one way or another the only possible answer to:

"Do you KNOW if God exists?"

is:

"I do not know."

Which should then be followed by:

"But I am trying to find out."

[Cold Iron]

Personally I'm trying not to find out, as traditionally that involves death.

Anyway if you prescribe to Plato the only time you can "know" is when there's no evidence or proof, when it's an ideal. Any ideas about sensory items are opinions only. As I said though I'm yet to get to a modern rebuttal of this.

[Use Of Weapons]

The classical rebuttal to Plato is Descartes. The thinking that led him to 'Cogito' was exactly the thinking you are describing, the Platonic tradition that knowledge is impossible, equivalent to the 'brain in a jar' thought experiment. Descartes essentially removed all experience and thought from his world view, and ended up with the thought that, 'if there is a thought, then there must be a thinking-thing to think that thought. The existence of thought requires the existence of a thinking thing, thus a thinking thing must exist.'

An excellent overview of the main threads of thought in classical and modern philosophy is Garvey's 'Twenty Greatest Books in Philosophy', which distills the main arguments of twenty giants, and follows them through chronologically, so you can really see the progression and counter-response evolution of philosophical thinking, from Plato to Wittgenstein (or Schopenhauer, can't remember who's last).

http://www.amazon.co.../dp/0826490549/

[Cold Iron]

Thanks, I'm reading Bertrand Russel's History of Western Philosophy so I'll get there, it can be a little slow going at times tho. In light of what I'm reading about Plato at the moment I can see why cogito ergo sum was so important. I look forward to getting to the end and having a bit more to go on in these threads.

I imagine the next step is that it's safe to assume others are also real because they too think therefore they are?

[Use Of Weapons]

No, IIRC the next step is to start trusting the evidence that your senses present to your mind and hence your reason. At least, that was Descartes's next step.

[Tiste Simeon]

Cougar how do I KNOW that you exist? I've met you. I've spoken to you. In some ways you could say we have a relationship, weird though it is... It's the same thing with God. I have a real relationship with Him and it is no more complicated than that.

[RodeoRanch]

I hear God's chest minge is ever studlier than Cougar's. I don't know if I believe that.

More on topic, I looked at the quiz and contemplated doing it but laziness won that battle. I wouldn't have done well anyways.

[Cougar]

The chest minge is a manifestation of God.@Tiste, you know you've met me because of your sore ring and that tingling sensation you get in your stomach when you think about me that you will one day realise, to your horror, is arousal.

[Gem Windcaster]

I see it takes two admins to completely derail the thread. *glee*