LunarIf nothing can be justified, why Christianity? Isn’t the answer loaded with rationality and empiricism, or is it arbitrary choice?
You still need to presuppose the very epistemological categories which make them coherent with respect to one another. (This is the most important problem for your argument, I think.
Even coherentism needs to presuppose its qualifiers for being coherent in the first place, which is actually a nontrivial problem.
This is true if I am looking for ultimate truth or certainty, but realizing that ultimate truth is infinately indeterminable, I am unable to justify beyond my limited context, which is served well by evidence. Isn't it foolish to use the unattainability of ultimate truth as justification for nonjustification.
How are you defining what is the "relevant means of discernment?" Rationality? Intuition? Convenience? None of these things are intrinsically justified.
Is there no reason to choose the option before you that ensures reliable outcomes? Is there no place for evidence? If I open the jar in which I placed coffee, what will I find? And yet you argue that I am just as justified believing that I won’t. Justification has devoured itself; it was removed from its proper place where it validates knowledge, and unleashed on that which can’t be vanquished-ultimate truth. As a result justification becomes meaningless and unusable, and is consequently misused as the justification for unjustifiable positions.
How are you defining what qualifies as a proof? You can't do that in the absence of all other beliefs.Believing something as the result of an experiment wouldn't be a dogma, no (well, it might be, but that would be an extremely odd way of going about things, definitely not the way most people go about it). That would be contingent upon another belief, and rational with respect to it.
By proof I meant a limited demonstration, not being supported by ultimate truth, but by a network of cross referenced demonstrations, it is dependant on multiple reference points, but none of them need be foundational. For example- I have many senses, I can verify the existence of a tree with approximately three of my senses, the tree exists therefore in relation to those senses, whether it truly exists is unattainable and irrelevant, I need not justify reliance on my senses any further than to say that they exist in relation to the tree (and many other things). Consequently I can piece by piece build a view of the world that is unjustified in relation to ultimate truth, but usable in my limited context. I am stunned that you would suggest that most people don’t form beliefs based on experimentation, I’m sure it’s the way we all do it, in fact irrational acceptance of arbitrary dogma is an experiment from which you are now gathering results, the question is- will you learn.
Belief in empiricism itself, however, is a dogma. David Hume gave a rather convincing argument for this - the only way you could justify empiricism is with empiricism.
Agreed, but irrelevant unless seeking to justify belief in ultimate truth.
Of course they don't act completely without impetus, but the claim that human psychology is completely rational is patently false and flies in the face of the last 80 or so years of psychology.
You can’t be serious? I would love to hear these arguments.
That being said, even if human psychology were intrinsically rational - a belief which I don't think is defensible, but I've neither the expertise nor the inclination to segue from philosophy into psychology - that wouldn't make it epistemologically justified.
Agreed, in regard to ultimate truth, but absolutely justified by the available network of demonstrated phenomenon.
Like I said before - to justify rationality via rationality is a circular argument. There's no way to escape that problem. Rationality must be an epistemological axiom and nothing more.
Of course rationality is an epistemological axiom, aside from the fact that it is justified through abstract theoretical calculation, it is justified by the demonstration of reliable outcomes, unlike irrationality, which can only be defended on the basis that rationality my not be universally useful. To choose to be irrational is to refuse to be present in the moment, and all because the moment might not be ultimately real. Surely a better method would be to use the information available to project hypotheses about ultimate truth, and then test them by experiment, rather than jumping to pre prepared conclusions.
You still need to presuppose the very epistemological categories which make them coherent with respect to one another. (This is the most important problem for your argument, I think.
Even coherentism needs to presuppose its qualifiers for being coherent in the first place, which is actually a nontrivial problem.
This is true if I am looking for ultimate truth or certainty, but realizing that ultimate truth is infinately indeterminable, I am unable to justify beyond my limited context, which is served well by evidence. Isn't it foolish to use the unattainability of ultimate truth as justification for nonjustification.
How are you defining what is the "relevant means of discernment?" Rationality? Intuition? Convenience? None of these things are intrinsically justified.
Is there no reason to choose the option before you that ensures reliable outcomes? Is there no place for evidence? If I open the jar in which I placed coffee, what will I find? And yet you argue that I am just as justified believing that I won’t. Justification has devoured itself; it was removed from its proper place where it validates knowledge, and unleashed on that which can’t be vanquished-ultimate truth. As a result justification becomes meaningless and unusable, and is consequently misused as the justification for unjustifiable positions.
How are you defining what qualifies as a proof? You can't do that in the absence of all other beliefs.Believing something as the result of an experiment wouldn't be a dogma, no (well, it might be, but that would be an extremely odd way of going about things, definitely not the way most people go about it). That would be contingent upon another belief, and rational with respect to it.
By proof I meant a limited demonstration, not being supported by ultimate truth, but by a network of cross referenced demonstrations, it is dependant on multiple reference points, but none of them need be foundational. For example- I have many senses, I can verify the existence of a tree with approximately three of my senses, the tree exists therefore in relation to those senses, whether it truly exists is unattainable and irrelevant, I need not justify reliance on my senses any further than to say that they exist in relation to the tree (and many other things). Consequently I can piece by piece build a view of the world that is unjustified in relation to ultimate truth, but usable in my limited context. I am stunned that you would suggest that most people don’t form beliefs based on experimentation, I’m sure it’s the way we all do it, in fact irrational acceptance of arbitrary dogma is an experiment from which you are now gathering results, the question is- will you learn.
Belief in empiricism itself, however, is a dogma. David Hume gave a rather convincing argument for this - the only way you could justify empiricism is with empiricism.
Agreed, but irrelevant unless seeking to justify belief in ultimate truth.
Of course they don't act completely without impetus, but the claim that human psychology is completely rational is patently false and flies in the face of the last 80 or so years of psychology.
You can’t be serious? I would love to hear these arguments.
That being said, even if human psychology were intrinsically rational - a belief which I don't think is defensible, but I've neither the expertise nor the inclination to segue from philosophy into psychology - that wouldn't make it epistemologically justified.
Agreed, in regard to ultimate truth, but absolutely justified by the available network of demonstrated phenomenon.
Like I said before - to justify rationality via rationality is a circular argument. There's no way to escape that problem. Rationality must be an epistemological axiom and nothing more.
Of course rationality is an epistemological axiom, aside from the fact that it is justified through abstract theoretical calculation, it is justified by the demonstration of reliable outcomes, unlike irrationality, which can only be defended on the basis that rationality my not be universally useful. To choose to be irrational is to refuse to be present in the moment, and all because the moment might not be ultimately real. Surely a better method would be to use the information available to project hypotheses about ultimate truth, and then test them by experiment, rather than jumping to pre prepared conclusions.
