. . . including the “sophisticated” ones (more on that later).
An answer to all theology
December 3, 2009 • 6:58 am
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What a religious person would respond:
And yet I believe.
Not that it is a valid response.
For many believers, faith is heroic and courageous–the less evidence you have, the more virtuous the belief becomes. Evil is defined as uncertainty, not ignorance.
I think that OB would agree.
Don’t forget that most believers rely on a Holy Book that contains nothing less than God’s word. The Book that trumps all other books. Without it they have nothing. They are caught in perfectly circular logic. How do you know that God exists? Because the Book says so. Why would you believe what the Book says? Because it is God’s word.
Arrghh…
As long as kenotic prestidigitation is safe, there will be no rest for the pious.
Verily, it is a classic two-state system of beggar-the-question or bugger-the-evidence.
Great little video one problem though the definitive Sherlock Holmes was Basil Rathbone
“Great little video one problem though the definitive Sherlock Holmes was Basil Rathbone” – HERETIC!
Jeremy Brett.
Agreed. Not only definitive but comprehensive. Nevertheless, I’m still looking forward to seeing the new Robert Downey, Jr. version, because you can never get enough.
How silly – trying to use common sense and logic to calmly make valid points – how non-theistic!
So many would cover their ears, run around and shout “Nah, nah, I can’t HEAR you”.
Sorry but my deity disagrees. His Noodleness told me directly.
Brilliant video. Hope the theistic-ally minded give it a look see. It is amazing how simple logic and reasoning can’t totally deflate the arguments of the faithful.
Good point; however, this is an answer to all theology, not all theism, which includes both theistic and non-theistic domains.
It also ignores the basic quality of any sound theology which is: Theology begins where logic ends and non-logic begins.
A rational argument about religion is possible only after one has clearly defined the precise qualities of love, altruism, compassion and other non-logical human qualities.
I know not the who the faithful are as I have never met anyone who did not have faith in the unknown.
Correction:
It is amazing how simple logic and reasoning CAN totally deflate the arguments of the faithful.
Ah! The old verificationist criteria for knowledge reares it’s ugly head again!
Those who do not know the history of epistemology are doomed to repeat it, badly (it’s amazing how often that happens on the internet).
The video argues for the idea that to be able to know that a proposition is true you need to be able to (at least in principle) be able to verify it. If you cannot do this then you cannot know that the proposition is true.
The problem is that this argument has been dead for 40-50 years. It was dead since the start actually, but the logical positivists tried for 10-20 years to make it work.
So, why was it dead? What killed it? Well, the one that tends to get the most credit is Hempel with his paper: “Problems and changes in the empericist criterion of meaning” but it’s more simple to regurditate the observation that the sentence “to be able to know that a proposition is true you need to be able to (at least in principle) be able to verify it” is itself not verifiable and as such is self refuting.
http://www.tilburguniversity.nl/faculties/humanities/tilps/EPS/Lutz_Hempel.pdf
OK, I’ll bite.
Let’s say I agree that this statement is unable to be verified: “to be able to know that a proposition is true you need to be able (at least in principle) to verify it.”
Are you saying that “self-refuting” follows necessarily from “unable to be verified”? I don’t think so.
Going on, and this is a separate point, if the statement is false, then to know whether a proposition is true you don’t need to verify it. This is obviously incorrect.
I wonder if the best you can say about “to be able to know that a proposition is true you need to be able (at least in principle) to verify it” is that is is unprovable but true.
In this regard it would be like another self-referential propositions, such as “This very proposition is unprovable.”
Right? Maybe? Off-base?
Aargh. Please forgive typos and sloppy proofreading.
That the statement is self-refuting follows with logical necessity from the statement itself. Apply the statements critera to itself and it refutes itself. Your example of “This very proposition is unprovable.” can not be applied to itself since it is not a method capable of separation between two groups of statements. The verifiability criteria does not refer to itself in itself, it puts forth a method, when you apply that method to the proposition the method itself gets refuted by its own criteria.
Here is a video with A.J. Ayer, one of logical positivism’s strongest supporters describing the history of it(he does take his time explaining it though).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMlXmLbGKJY
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/vienna-circle/#VerCriMetClaPer
“For most critics (even within the ranks of logical empiricism), the problem of ruling out metaphysical statements while retaining the terms of high theory remained unsolved. By 1950, in response to the troubles of Ayer’s two attempts to account for the indirect testing of theoretical statements via their consequences, Hempel conceded that it was “useless to continue to search for an adequate criterion of testability in terms of deductive relationships to observation sentences” (1950 [1959, 116])… To many, this amounted to the demise of the Circle’s anti-metaphysical campaign.”
Today logical positivism is dead in academia.
“Are you saying that “self-refuting” follows necessarily from “unable to be verified”? I don’t think so.”
But on verificationism “being unable to be verified” means “unable to be known”. Thus verificationism can’t be known to be true.
“Going on, and this is a separate point, if the statement is false, then to know whether a proposition is true you don’t need to verify it. This is obviously incorrect.”
What about basic beliefs?
Small correction:
The cube could indeed contain 1-dimensional cubes.
A one dimensional cube is defined to be a line segment, in the sequence:
1-cube = [0,1]
2-cube = square
3-cube = ordinary cube
4-cube = hypercube
…
I don’t know about 1-dimensional swans though.