Faust, what you’ve run into is a contradiction of terms. Much like holding relativism as an absolute, or believing in nihilism, by holding no truth highest, that is -your- highest truth, thus is a contradiction and a dichotomy.
It has nothing to do with the existence of god, as god’s existence has nothing to do with the truthfulness of our existence.
Think of it this way, you’ve made a logical proposition that there is no “highest truth”, but by making such a proposition you are holding that truth, as the highest truth. If not, than at any moment you could be proven wrong, correct?
But in doing so, you also contradict yourself. The highest truth exists.
I have made no such claim. I’ll type it more slowly.
I am saying that the claim “There is a highest truth” has no meaning. It has no literal meaning. It is a pseudo-statement and not a statement - it is not an assertion of fact, but it is nonsensical - it has no truth value - it is nether true nor false.
I could say I hold no splinf in my hand, but that would be neither true nor false, because “splinf” signifies nothing. It is nonsensical to say “I hold no splinf in my hand”. Nonsense is not false, it is nonsense.
I have not made the claim that there is no highest truth at all. I have made the claim that any claim about a highest truth is nonsensical - gibberish. I don’t really know where you are - I only know that I am not there with you.
The speed of your typing has nothing to do with the speed of my reading or comprehension. The speed of your typing will not change my mind about the truth.
that’s funny.
The sun will not rise tomorrow. Is that statement true or false? You follow the path that you consider greatest. True or false? If it’s false, then why are you continuing along the same path? Why not follow what you consider greater?
The great lie (IMO) is that all beliefs and paths are equal. The farmer has to work much harder than the CEO. There are highest truths, because there are lies.
There in lies the contradiction faust. How can you know what holds “true” value, if there is no highest truth? How can something be neither true or false for you, if you can’t even tell one truth from another?
So, you make a false analogy about a made up word, and claim the word is meaningless, therefore truthiness is meaningless. At least my bread analogy related to something.
I could say that believing in god is like believing in Pink unicorns. Both are meaningless, but it’s a lie. Believing in pink unicorns is nothing like believing in ANY god. You make something meaningless to deface the only thing that has meaning. Truth.
And here’s another contradiction… how can you know nonsense without knowing truth? The fact is you can’t. If you claim you can, then claim there is no truth, you are either a liar or misled. Either way why should anyone else believe that you are right about your position?
So your making a claim of relativism? Your making a claim that the highest truth is nonsensical, based upon what? A higher truth?
The only way truth can be nonsensical, is if it’s suddenly made false.
Has it been made so? In your mind certainly. But not in mine. Things still have differing values in mind, and I don’t have to pull mental gymnastics to get my philosophy to work, unlike you.
I agree with you, faust, that the claims about a ‘highest truth’ or ‘absolute truth’ don’t mean anything- or if they do, I don’t know what it would be.
But the claim “God exists” seems pretty straightforward- when you say this claim is meaningless, I’m assuming you have some inkling of what other people mean when they make the claim, so can you explain what you mean when you say it’s literally meaningless? If something doesn’t exist, does that make statements about it’s existence meaningless? Is “Unicorns exist” meaningless?
Come on, as a pragmatist, there is no truth other than what works at the moment. Truth in that sense, is both conditional and temporary - and that’s the truth.
was just getting into that privately with Uccisore.
I agree, and at any given moment (slice of time) what you believe is an absolute. But, I also realize that given the grand scale of time, my belief and or truth could change.
But realistically, I must observe the world as if I am following the highest truth. The best way to try and follow the truth, is to observe the lies and try to remove them from your life.
So, you are right. Truth is condition and temporary. But so are we. We are here for a mere slice of time. And that’s absolute.
So why not view our world in slices?
Why not move forward realizing that we at this very moment are following the highest truth? When the time comes, we can step up to the next highest truth.
Scythe - you have so little comprehension of my position that I find it difficult to respond. Closer to the point is whether the sun “came up” today. My position has nothing whatever to do with the sun coming up tomorrow. That the sun came up today can be verified, in the same way that you can verify that someone, even if not I, made a post for you to respond to. In the very same way that you can verify the answer to the question “where is my computer?”. Where it will be tomorrow is a different matter.
I agree that not all paths are equal - it is my point entirely. How you can miss this is beyond me.
I ascertain truth value in the way I described in my first paragraph here. By direct observation, in the case of the sun. My analogy is not false, and I cannot fathom how you have argued that it is.
That which is meaningless is not a lie. Perhaps we need a link to a dictionary site. I am not going to do your homework for you, though.
Nonsense is not realated to truth, but to meaning. You are way off here. Again, I will not provide you with basic vocabulary. If you do not know the definition of nonsense, I am not even interested.
I don’t know why anyone else would adopt my position. It is no concern of mine. There are reasons to, but your limited vocabulary, again, precludes any meaningful elaboration on my part.
I am making a claim nothing like relativism. I am surprised that someone as censorious as you does not recognise the derivation and basis of my claim. It seems to me that cursory knowledge of philosophy would make that basis clear.
If these seem like gymnastics, you are way out of shape, my friend. This is standard, off-the-rack logical positivism. I cannot divine how that can be mysterious to such a great thinker as you.
We can construct anything we like. But there is no “out there” anything to which we can appeal. There isn’t anything wrong with our constructions until we attempt to cast them in stone. Now we’re back to my “absolutes” and everyone else’s absolutes, and we don’t want to go there…
OH! Did you use the term 'logical positivism' before? I admit, I was only skimming. That clears up quite a bit about your perspective. I have to admit, positivism is something I've only read about, there's a few questions I'd like to ask a living breathing proponent! But then, I've been accused of being a naive realist before, and I don't exactly deny it- so I'm considered a bit of a dinosaur too.
Uccisore - Excellent question, about unicorns. It depends a bit upon what you mean when you say “unicorn”. Is a unicorn a mammal? Does it eat and shit? Can you (theoretically) ride one? If the answers are “yes” than it is not nonsense to say “unicorns exist”.
Now, when I say “God” I am definitely talking about the Christian God, and probably talking about any theistic God, but that is getting ahead of myself a bit. I am saying that claims about this god are claims about a metaphysical entity, which entities are, by definiton, unverifiable by simple observation, or by systematic observation (science, generally). No claim about a metaphysical enitity is verifiable, and so I have no way of assigning a truth-value to these claims. Without the means to verify the truth or falsity of these claims, I cannot assign any meaning to them (except as poetry - I cannot assign any literal meaning, I mean).
That is a very brief version, and you may see some holes in it. I would rather answer to any objections you have than lay it all out at once - it takes a bit.
I may not have used the term logical positivist, but I don’t need to. As this is not a term paper, I don’t feel I need footnotes. I mentioned it when I did only to correct the erroneous characterisation scythe made of my position.
Let me make a further note. Scythe asked why anyone should adopt my view, or believe that I am right. What I am saying does not in any way constitute an argument against the existence of God. I thought that was obvious, and may be, to everyone but Scythe. My position, in fact, precludes such an argument. When I have complained about atheists making such arguments, it is sometimes based on logical positivists grounds. But not always - I am a perspectivist, and logical postivism does not define my view, it’s just one of the several methods that informs that view.
I was totally sincere wth my comment about positivism- I think it’s cool to meet someone who espouses it.
Not totally sure what you're driving at here. Are you saying the meaningfulness of 'unicorns exist' is dependant on how much the concept of a unicorn resembles actual, living creatures? For example, if unicorns could allegedly skip through the air and fart butterflies, would "unicorns exist" not be meaningful? Or are you just saying that a person should have a firm concept in mind when they say "unicorn", such that they could answer these questions in pressed?
OK.
The term ‘metaphysical’ throws me a bit, but otherwise I agree. Are you using it like ‘supernatural here’? I’m pretty sure you are, but I just want to make sure you aren’t taking God to be allegedly abstract, like justice or blueness.
Yeah, I’m familiar with how positivism works. I have two questions- these are criticisms I haven’t seen answered, not because they are necessarily good, but because I haven’t seen a positivist come forward to address them.
First, how do you deal with statements about fiction? “Puff the Magic Dragon lived by the sea.” certainly seems meaningful to me.
Second, it seems like you have to ascribe some meaning to “God exists” in order to take it through the process of examination you described to ultimately conclude it’s without meaning. At the very least, if someone says to you “God exists”, you have a ball-park notion of what it is they are trying to convey- it’s not exactly the same as “All my mirks are quite twispy today.” Is there a term for that ball-park comprehension?
Ucci - Not how much it resembles living creatures, but whether this claim is like “horses exist” or like “Moby-Dick” exists. If you are claiming that unicorns physically exists in the phenomenal world, then it is meaningful, for it is subject to verification. We may give a detailed description of something we do not take to be real - the “firmness” of the conception is not at issue, only if it has a referent in the phenomenal world - even potentially.
Yes, like “supernatural” but without the “ghost story” connotations. The metaphysical is that which is not phenomenal, that which describes a reality that we cannot sense. Every word is an abstraction - I don’t want to use that word here, no.
Fiction is not intended to describe the real world. I have used “poetry” as a catchall for fiction. It has meaning - emotional, psychological, even pedagoguical meaning - but not literal meaning.
I only have to read the sentence “God exists” to undertake the process of ascertaining meaning. You and I both could formulate a sentence that we know as we write it is nonsensical and meaningless, but which conforms to the rules of English grammar. Sentences are easy to come by. Statements (sentences that are meaningful) are another thing.
Ballpark comprehension is how we live most of our lives. The philosopher tries to do better on the important stuff. I can get your drift without wanting to sail away with you.
I like your arguments, faust. I think I have an instinctive resistance to positivism, in that it seems counter-intuitive to me that something could at first seem meaningful, but then upon inspection, turn out not to be. Meaning, for me, seems caught up with that initial ‘pinging’ in the mind that I get when I hear a statement. The idea of investigating a statement to see if it means anything is strange to me.
I still think that fictional statements can have a literal meaning- when taken singly, it’s easy to say that a statement of fiction, or a poem, exists purely for emotional or psychological content, but in the middle of a novel, statements about the characters washing their clothes or walking down the street seem the same meaning-wise as indentical sentences about real people.
Well, as to your last point - this is even more striking in a movie shot at a location that you are familiar with. Or a play - where the actors are close enough to touch, if you’re in the front row, for instance. But we engage is a suspension of disbelief at a play - we suspend the disbelief in the literal truth of the story. That’s okay, as long as you can come back after the show is over. We are supposed to do that - it adds to the enjoyment of the movie or play. Or novel. Children can do this, and often better than we can. I have learned much about philosophy, including logical positivism, from children.
And there is temperamental disposition. I was born to think this way. I can’t help but investigate.
I certainly agree with you that we suspend belief about the truth of an the things claimed in a story to enjoy the story, but on the one hand, I’m not sure that fictional statements can’t be true:
"Darth Vader was Luke's Father" seems to me to be [i]true[/i] in an important way, though it may be that this sentence is a paraphrase for a much bigger statement like"In the fictional Story [i]Star Wars[/i], the character Darth Vader was the father of the character Luke" which is the real true statement. Even if I grant, though, that statements within fiction aren't literally true, I guess I'm not convinced that truth or assertion of truth is necessary for meaning.
Ucci - I only mean “literal” meaning. I am sure you do not mean to say that “Let the source be with you” (Is that right? I’ve only seen it once, when it first came out!) is meaningful in the same way that “Thou shall not kill” is.
