Sam,
And in fact, truth and reasonableness may be meaningless.
No. Truth and reasonableness are negotiated experiences, assemblages of power, manufactured consensus within history by humans participant in what may be assumed a larger Becoming. Rather than philosophy not being a “reliable guide”, philosophy is in fact a powerful means of discovering the underlying pictures that shape and determine our experience, and a productive means toward greater coherence amid diversity.
Dunamis
No, truth and reasonableness make sense only within particular subjective experience, within a system of beliefs resting upon mere assumptions, and not beyond them, and they are not entitled to evaluate worldviews.
What I believe is that such a role for reason is unacceptable. I should convert to poetry or drama.
Anyway, I should be grateful to you for having opened my eyes.
Sam,
What I believe is that such a role for reason is unacceptable. I should convert to poetry or drama.
Or go on posting endless “proofs of God” for reasons I cannot fathom at all. I would be interested in your poetry or drama, if I had to choose between yet another ‘proof of God’ and a nice clean haiku.
Dunamis
I don’t do haikus. I do alexandrins like classical French poets.
Ressens, ô scélérat, ma haine incoercible
Consumant mon esprit, ce feu inextinguible
Ah yes… Let us now meditate on how we might attain an even more sagely wisdom.
Harvest moon:
around the pond I wander
and the night is gone.
-Matsuo
Regards,
James
p.s. you forgot Aristotle.
James,
p.s. you forgot Aristotle.
Purposively left him out.
Dunamis
Not a φίλος of Mr. Onassis’ more ponderous namesake? 
James,
Not a big fan enough to say that we are in “conversation”, though I certainly acknowledge his tremendous influence, and I converse often with one of his very committed, though very distant followers, Spinoza.
Dunamis
faith Audio pronunciation of “faith” ( P ) Pronunciation Key (fth)
n.
Take a look at definition two, then read on.
[size=200]Faith is belief that something will be consistent with past experiences even if it does not seem logical in the current situation.[/size]
faith
c.1250, “duty of fulfilling one’s trust,” from O.Fr. feid, from L. fides “trust, belief,” from root of fidere “to trust,” from PIE base *bhidh-/*bhoidh- (cf. Gk. pistis; see bid). For sense evolution, see belief. Theological sense is from 1382; religions called faiths since c.1300. Faith-healer is from 1885.
To trust…
So faith is making a decision based on past knowledge rather than hard, current evidence.
IE: Because my friend has never lied to me. even in situations where most people would say s/he should have, I assume that s/he did not lie to me in this instance.
The problem is, you might not be able to know if they have ever lied to you or not…
So…
Say you have proven belief X and 35 times, people have tried to disprove belief X, and each time it failed. When someone makes the 36th attempt to disprove belief X, even if their evidence and logic seem good and solid, you assume that belief X will not be disproved because of its past integrity, despite the current knowledge and situation.
But then… how long to you wait for belief X’s truth to be re-proved or for the misconception that the 36th attempt was made on to be corrected? How do you know if it ever will?
What he’s saying is that theists see as proof what you see as coincidence, or irrelevant.
To them, saying that God made you fall to the earth is just as logical as saying gravity made you fall to the earth. They could see gravity and physics itself as proof of God, while you see it as an alternate explanation of reality.
To them, saying God saved their life when they fell off a cliff is as logical as saying “he landed in X way saving him by chance,” and some would say God even made him land that way.
You cannot actually disprove God to a theist until they start thinking like an atheist.
Sam,
One must differentiate between theological truth and philosophical truth. As far as the latter is concerned, truth is not waiting to be invented, it blossoms under the fertile contact between intelligence and reality.
So I would agree with you, faith is in itself a poor guide to truth.
Harvey
Hi Harvey,
Welcome to ILP.
I’m happy to grant you the intelligence part, but you speak of reality as something ‘out there’. Which reality are you suggesting? Yours? Mine? Which one contains the truth? Or, perhaps there is only one reality. From which perspective is the truth known? Your perspective or mine?
JT
Believe it or not, most of us know things through faith first, before actually confirming it again with rationalism or empiricism. Many things that are believed in faith align very harmoniously with rationalism and empiricism later on.
Taking faith as a way to perceive things did not become popular anymore because many of us who lived in the past decided to cling on many things based on faith, but that’s because of the wrong base of faith. An example would be that we believed that the Earth was the central of the universe because creation was centralized in Earth, according to Christianity. This was very strong in Europe.
I think because it was finally proven wrong, many people lost faith in faith because they held on it very strongly.
I think most of us haven’t done any genetical check to confirm whether our parents are really our parents. Whether our mothers gave us birth through another man, whether they lied to us because we were adopted, etc… Even before looking at any documents to certify that we’re their children, of which can be faked too, we already believed that our parents are our parents.
Is it that foolish to believe in these things simply due to the factor of possibility that humans can lie?
How can we put so much faith on rationalism and empiricism that have not proven themselves to be perfect?
Hi Tentative,
Thanks for the warm greeting. My answer:
There is but one reality. I am not speaking of the point of view from which one glimpses this reality. Let me give an example…I walk towards a house and see a tree further on to its right. Then I walk around the house and I see the tree to the left now. Has the tree traded places? No, I have, the tree has only traded places following the (logical) analysis of my intelligence. You would thus be right in saying that I cannot see the tree to the right and to the left of the house at the same time, but there is no doubt as to the reality of the tree’s existence (being qua being). There is assuredly always a danger of mistaking ones knowledge of a reality with reality itself. However reality is neither to the left nor to the right: it is.
Welcome here
Are you willing to become a member of the club “reason is faith”?
You have not proven your viewpoint: you have only shown its possibility by answering an objection (the objection being: how can a thing be objectively existent if it can be seen in many ways).
“”“there is no doubt as to the reality of the tree’s existence (being qua being).”“”
There is no doubt in a certain worldview. There is some doubt in another worldview, and in a third one, the existence of the tree is ruled out.
Sam,
We attain reality through a judgement of existence: “this existsâ€, “this isâ€. Our intelligence bears a judgement of existence through our senses. This judgement homes in on the being of a reality, not on the perception one has of this reality. It is present in all our experiences. It is obvious that we each have a specific and particular way of knowing. However what we know exists independently from our knowledge and also from our way of knowing. If “woman†existed only in our heads why would Joe Blo not marry an antelope? Because intelligence is made for what is (reality). Does your friend exist before freindship? Of course he does ! If you understand that without a friend there would be no friendship, then you must realise that without being there would be no intelligence ! 
)
Ruled out? I’m afraid I don’t understand…
Harvey.
Hello,
You should (re)-read Popper… I think he has discussed all that a while ago in “objective knowledge”, in a quite satisfactory way. If I remember right, he proposes that there is one fundamental act of faith : to believe that something exists (realism), that there is an objective universe… or not (idealism). If someone does not believe it, that there is something “outside” his mind, Popper proposes that he goes right into the sun and checks by himself : it is just impossible to argue with idealism. Once that step is made (realism), science manifests the coherency and rationnality of the world - i.e. the matter, in this perspective.
Marc
Hi Marc,
I have never read Popper. At a glance it seems to me he is mainly interested in the philosophy of science and of “politics” whereas my interest lays mainly in metaphysics, in as much as it revolves around the person.
However I don’t agree with “to believe that something exists (realism)”? Realism is asking first and foremost “does this exist?” before asking “what is this?”.
Harvey
Our senses do not determine what exists. Our senses help us to perceive the things which exist.
It doesn’t make sense to say that you haven’t seen America so it doesn’t exist.
Hi Harvey,
According to Popper, the difference between idealism and realism is in the belief that the universe exists or not. Either everything is just illusion (idealism) or does exist (realism). So I think Popper agrees with you when you say :
However, I don’t see clearly what kind of metaphysics can get rid of this question ? Just out of curiosity…
Marc