I just realized I can retort that the first argument starts with a loaded question. “On what authority do we argue?” Why does argument need authority?
Because as finite beings our knowledge set is limited. Given that limitation, it we have to draw upon authorities both consciously and unconsciously.
I’d say that we argue for the same reason we look in the mirror, to know what we look or sound like to the other. To also then determine the degree of realness of those looks and sounds. Its a very lonely game. Desperate too. The hope is to connect.
Okay, that was just a snappy title for the thread. It’s hard to encapsulate the entire question in one line! By ‘on what authority…’ I mean ‘how do we justify…’. Usually we appeal to an authority, so I was sort of hoping someone might give an answer like ‘ah yes, the prevailing view is that logical thought is hard-wired into the human brain’, or some such.
Sorry, your message is hard to follow. I’m not sure if you’re addressing me here or if you’re speaking of me in the third person. And either way I’m not sure how this addresses my questions!
Well I’m not a philosopher! I want to be able to defend my arguments, but also to be comfortable with what I argue (and believe) because I understand its basis. At the moment, if I trace such arguments back far enough I get to (among others) the questions I’m asking at the top of this thread.
This is the kind of thing I was looking for! Logic and the ‘laws’ of reason may be a description of something innate, if I read you correctly. How respectable is this view? (No offence 
)
It is certainly respectable, marky. Personally, I think Spinoza and Leibniz are dopes. But human brain function is innate.
Well as I see it, you’ve argued that ignorance of A is =~A
Tough sell…
He’s said, A=B+C where C is true conditionally so he actually said
A=B
Tough sell…
You both have shaky arguments. His is better.
There is some philosopher dude who gave a model for arguing. It’s pretty good.
It is true…Spinoza was drunk on God. Reason, rationale and intellect were intoxicating for him. But he didn’t do dope, per se.
I argue on the authority of Truth.
Well I hope you’ve bottled a little of it for me, Smears, because we all seem to figure it’s there but it’s not exactly filtered out from the rest.
Markh, I found another answer which I think is what you’re really looking for. There probably is no other.
The axiom.
There is nothing else. Religion doesn’t prosper in the face of philosophy because although religion has axioms, it doesn’t remain consistent with them. The dominance of reason becomes the most thorough measure of axioms. This offers some problems and some solutions. On the one hand we demand proof before leaping into the unknown. On the other, there are many common sense things that simply can’t seem to be proven.
All of logic is dependant upon axioms. Math creates axioms from theorems to give proof of a solution. Theorems try to create axioms for themselves. Discrete Mathematics (like propositional logic) uses axioms for reasoning. Reasoning depends on that logic. On the whole it’s ridiculously arduous. For me to reason out everything I say, I need to provide every single axiom I can find to support this argument. English sounds more messy because we cut corners to save time. We assume that the obvious ones will be picked up without mentioning. But I am convinced that there is no reasoning which is not axiomatic. Philosophy doesn’t tread anywhere that lacks reason. Axioms are fundamental to philosophy / argument / reason.
Ah, well you have that wrong because that’s not what I’m intending to argue. (Perhaps it was misleading to only show the tail-end of the argument and not to say something about the context.) I’m not trying to prove ~A (that hand-waving is not therapeutic), I’m merely pointing out the fallacy that ignorance has no value in proving the opposite. The wider argument is that in the absence of any evidence, believing A (that hand-waving is therapeutic) is spurious. Of course, it is then interesting to explore the reasons why the person might still continue to believe it.
I can appreciate you passion for argument. Time has made my mind slothful. Debates for me should be non-condescending and varied. Finding like minded people is somewhat of a comfort, but does not promote simulation of thought. Other arguments fall into non sequiturs which get splayed into off topic threads…perhaps like this one if it isn’t what you were not looking for as a continuation of your thread. It’s good your thoughts are still reaching for answers. Try not to set hard constraints to issues in your thinking. Keep you your foundational thinking firm while exploring for subjective truths. Though truths like advice are somethimes palatable, while some get spat out like putrid fruit. I hope the fruits that come your way are all beneficial to you.
Here is a simple answer. The source of rationality, of logical thinking is society. We all engage in this type of thinking, without question, because we have been trained by society to do so for years and years, in a process known as “going to school”.
Him: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
Gotcha!
Defense rests Your Honor.
What you describe is as modern phenomenon and one used by all those that have no understanding of the world and of their own positions.
It is the tactic of perspectivism.
These weak minds take the proposition that all minds live within their own reality, in that they exists within the contexts and beliefs they hold a true, is evidence that all perspectives are equally valid or possible.
In fact perspectivism implies that man is limited to a perspective and can only extrapolate or hypothesize the general from the particular.
The tactic of avoidance, by implying error in the others position or implying that they have a right to beleive what they wish if this right is reciprocated, is the end result of egalitarianism.
It is the insinuation that all perspectives are equally flawed or valid and so no arguments need support a position no matter how absurd and irrational it is.
Unfortunately for them the universe doesn’t care about what they wish or hope and failure is how a perspective is shown to be flawed.
The problem with this is that human societies provide a shelter and so they prevent the dire consequences of a flawed judgment. this, in turn, propagates weakness and the erors associated with it.
The entire process results in disintegration and a slow deterioration into decadence.
It is the oldest process.
Struggle results in success or failure. Successes result in dominance. Dominance results in comfort. comfort results in atrophy and atrophy results in decadence.
The stupid and the retarded will always fall back to the ‘you have a right to believe whatever you like’ position because when they reach a point where they cannot defend their perspectives they wish to avoid further conflict.
The system provides them with the protection to be just as stupid and retarded as they wish, just as long as they remain disciplined to it - in fact stupidity and retardation makes this discipline more probable.
I don’t think there is any way to respond to that kind of attack that will satisfy the attacker. They’ve already decided on a rejection of logic that they are unlikely to be convinced about. I do think its a bad move, and lazy, though. I think logic in the general sense (not simply formal logic/logical notation) is the study of universal, implicit assumptions about what does and does not make sense to humans. We are logical insofar as we respect these features of human thought.
Sometimes I think that its impossible to ever convince anybody about anything. One might assume that a philosopher could be convinced by a good argument, but sometimes I think that philosophers are less likely to ever be convinced by a good argument, because they are too familiar with arguments.
By this I mean that as philosophers, we’ve all encountered arguments that seemed like good ones until a devastating counter-example obtains. Some philosophers become cynical about arguments. Sometimes the result obtains that they will never accept an argument for anything, and will always stick to their pet theory. I’m not married to this notion, but sometimes I do feel this way.
I don’t know why you continue to think I’m trying to provide ‘evidence of absence’. I said quite clearly in my last message that I’m not.
Yes, this rings true. My mission, if I can call it that, in thinking these things through is to be able to build a coherent argument against people who have been exposed to social constructionist ideas but who deploy them uncritically and (I think) erroneously to afford mysticism and pseudoscience equal status to science.
We are not all so radically different from each other. Yes, we all bring our own baggage and our own perspectives, and these lead to implicit assumptions. But I think for the most part, these differences are insignificant compared to our similarities. I think we are more similar than we commonly admit to, and that we possess a powerful connectivity that transcends our apparent separation from each other. Our logic, and the way we reason, is all wrapped up in this. I am so compelled by this, that I think the type of situation described in the OP represents either purposefully lying or self-deception (Re: Perspectivism).