My point is that his writings were an attempt to justify the leap into the subjective absolute in order to find meaning for your life.
None of it matters when you realize that it purpose is to frame the argument for the leap of faith.
Most of traditional philosophy is obessessed with causality, and how causality is intertwined with purpose. God is almost always assumed to be the first cause, aka the Creator.
However, if you liked your Socrates you know that as philosophers, we only know that we know nothing.
So Kierkegaard wants to justify belief in order to solve this problem. Christian existentialism is not a contradiction, it is a paradox, rather than acknowledge the void Kiekegaard want to leap right over the chasm all together. He almost makes an elaborate intelligent design argument, over all. Only the watchmaker could have made such a watch, begs the question.
Philosophically speaking, he’s a cheater, imho. But that is okay in existentialism, as it helps frame the category of thought overall…
My point is that his writings were an attempt to justify the leap into the subjective absolute in order to find meaning for your life. The either/or is a dialectic that provides no values for meaning without making that leap.
None of it matters when you realize that his sole purpose is to frame the argument for the leap of faith.
Most of traditional philosophy is obessessed with causality, and how causality is intertwined with purpose. God is almost always assumed to be the first cause, aka the Creator.
However, if you liked your Socrates you know that as philosophers, we only know that we know nothing.
So Kierkegaard wants to justify belief in order to solve this problem. Christian existentialism is not a contradiction, it is a paradox, rather than acknowledge the void Kierkegaard wants to leap right over the chasm all together. He almost makes what amounts to an elaborate intelligent design argument, over all. Only the watchmaker could have made such a watch, begs the question. Only subjective value gives truth value, absolute truth then must require the leap of faith for the subjective faith must be based on the universal truth, begs the question/existance.
Philosophically speaking, he’s a cheater, imho. But that is okay in existentialism, as it helps frame the category of thought overall…
more or less,
I agree with all you’ve said in your last post. Great response. I once had a conversation with someone who informed me that Plato’s absolutes were like carrots in front of the horse, ideas that draw us onward and upward toward the best that is human possibility. My reaction, as you’ve probably already guessed, is that an absolute as a standard of perfectabilty may place an undue burden on anyone who cannot hope to aspire to such standards.
my real name,
Thanks for your responses. For me, the example you give of empathy in understanding is a constant, not an absolute. Where I distinguish constants from absolutes is from my understanding of algebra in which unknowns can be solved by having at least one known. In Einstein’s theory of relativity the speed of light is used as a contant in order to determine what energy can mean. This does not mean that the speed of light is an absolute. It only means that, used as a constant, the speed of light, helps make meaningful theories about the nature of matter and energy.
I may not be understanding you. Isn’t a given (a constant) in math representative of an absolute quantity? Or are constants when dealing with quantities called absolutes when dealing with verbal meanings? It seems you could have unknowns in a verbal argument as well. So I must not be understanding you. As to constants in physics, that’s an empirical science, so I’m not sure there are absolutes there due to the nature of the science.
my real name,
All of our logic whether mathematical or simply logical as in debates is fallible. If we can hope to find any raft in the sea of changes, we choose constants that allow us some sense of understanding. These could be considered pragmatic “absolutes” in that they work in our logical assumptions. In a larger sense, however, they are merely phase stable aspects of processes. Humans do need such constants regardless. This is where Kierkegaard comes in. He confuses a necessary expediency with an absolute truth.
So all logic is expediency? Is some knowledge at least morally certain?
Is our knowledge of 2 expediency? Is our knowledge of 2+2 expediency? If 2 acts the same in different modular systems (base 10, binary, etc.), isn’t this a clue that math at least has two witnesses to it’s behavioral objectivity?
As I understand the matter, theory is not as absolute a kind of knowledge as, say, math or metaphysics – methodologically.
To see 2 as separate from its meaning (as a reification) is to negate its place in concepts humans can understand. Basic math and the higher mathematics that derive from that began as human experience. I count chickens as chicken 1, chicken 2, etc. The first extant writings humans did were inventories of product in warehouses! (written in cunieform–Sumer’s written language.)
2+2=4 has no verifiable meaning in Alice’s land of no names, which is the land of most animals other than humans and the land of human infants. An absolute must have a verifiable meaning in all possible worlds.
I think I see what you are saying. Math is universal in abstraction, whereas I get the impression that “universal truth” necessarily implies more than just abstraction.
Is the “more than abstraction” of “universal truth” that it applies as well to meaningful particulars (like oneself) as in philosophy?
Kierkegaard makes quite a deal out of the necessity for philosophy to be “subjective” in his Concluding Unscientific Postscript.
Yes, because he notes how ironic Socrates points about knowledge are.
Therefore, based on the “need” for subjectivity to have knowledge of values, or to have value itself, why must these necessarily subjective values originate from somewhere other than the individual?
Why must they not originate from the “objective world”?
Again, its Ks fondness for Aristotlean construction and the assumption [actually the argument which begs the question] that they originate from GOD or a higher being. ie, they must be CAUSED.
Why is this origin of values either true or necessary? Why is not their very subjective creation all that is necessary?
This is what got Nietzsche’s underwear all bunched up.
All evaluations are subjective; but this does not mean, as more or less astutely observes, that evaluations point to supernatural causes. They become objective by virtue of intersubjective agreement.
A human baby expresses hunger. Given food, the baby expresses delight or repulsion. This is the source of esthetics. Later on, adults might agree --"This is foul tasting stuff. " That the agreement leads to “this should not be eaten” is the beginning of ethics.
more or less,
I apologize for any former negative remarks about your posts. You know your philosophy!!! I’m impressed.
You’d have to define value for that to make sense to me. Math is not an objective value. Its an assigned numerical value to what we accept as to being objective observations.
You don’t accept that some things may have intrinsic value? I agree that the value would vary due to the participants, but intrinsic aspects and objective reality cannot be denied merely for the lack of the observer.
If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, a tree has still fallen in the forest.
I think to get on the ethical level you have to have abstract thought. In this instance, there must be some form of science by which to determine what things to eat, since some foul-tasting things may be medicinal.
I’m not sure I was using “subjective” your way in my posts. I meant the personal relation to the universal. But you are probably right that this is based in personal experiences, although I think these experences are interpreted rationally.
my real name,
There are two ways of looking at the example I gave. One is to go to the book of “Deuteronomy” in order to find out what God wants us to eat or to abstain from eating. Pork is one such no no. The other is to realize that eating certain things will make us sick or dead. Pork is really not one of them unless it is undercooked or one is hooked on the sweet taste of fat. McDonald’s fries and hamburgers support the fat addiction.
It is my opinion that we humans will learn only from experience, including our experiences with what happens to other humans.
Experience shows what happens. Esthetics shows how we feel about what happens. Ethics shows what we believe should happen.
Actually trichinosis sounds like a good reason to avoid pork if you live centuries before the invention of the meat thermometer. Or it could just be that pigs are scavengers – scavengers like crabs are non-kosher as well. Should “a people set apart” eat such things? Maybe not.
Well, actually ethics is less about what should happen than about what we should do…whether from a motive of piety or of physical virtue, in this case.
Literature is about what should happen.
my real name,
No matter how you parse it ethics always deals with “should” and “ought”.
Did God discover trichinosis? Did God allow it in some further test of human obedience to divine laws?