The question 'What do you think of so-and-so?' really needs to be answered with 'I know him/her mostly in relation to this idea about which I think...' but it's probably better not to ask that question at all in most situations and start with the ideas.
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Replying to @HPluckrose
We are drowning in stupid things as we try to discuss bigger issues. I cite Petterson and Sam Harris' first debate, where they ended up lost in arguing about just what the concept of 'truth' is. I see this in intellectual debate again and again. How to prevent this?
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Replying to @Soulstorm99 @HPluckrose
I thought that was perhaps the most important thing to debate before one can even move on. Not a “just” at all.
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Replying to @alex_amurillo @Soulstorm99
I understand people not wanting to get bogged down in definitions of concepts but address what is actually happening, why & what we can do about it. I frequently get frustrated when philosophically minded people focus on definitions to the extent that no productive convo happens.
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However, I think our understanding of truth and knowledge has changed radically with postmodernism & post-truth and we cannot possibly hope to address current political and cultural problems without understanding how all parties are seeing truth & knowledge.
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Peterson has struck a nerve, and the question of what need he's meeting and how to meet it without cranking up the fog-maker is one that I intend to bravely wait for you to answer while ciriticizing every little misstep along the way. Good luck!
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Thanks.
I did address it a bit here but the problem of how to supply human needs for emotionally resonant metanarratives & something akin to spirituality without losing empirical truth & reason will probably always be with us. We are stupid apes.https://areomagazine.com/2017/12/08/the-problem-with-truth-and-reason-in-a-post-truth-society/ …1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes -
The other problem I have with the Dillahunty/Harris/etc argument is: how can one ever “prove”the supernatural if what constitutes proof (solely the empirical) would automatically move the phenomenon into the realm of the natural?
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I find this uninteresting. If something supernatural exists and cannot be known in the natural realm, its existence cannot be known by us and there seems little point in speculating about it. If people want to, they can, of course but no-one else has to take them seriously.
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I’d agree with perhaps one caveat: the absence of empirical proof for the supernatural so often cited by atheists should not be used as a club for criticizing methods of acting in the world. Or if it is, it has just as much moral weight or lack thereof as its antithesis.
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In what way? I don't care if people want to touch their forehead to the ground multiple times in worship of something there's no evidence of. We might laugh. But they can also criticise us not doing that.
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