Reflectorites
On Thu, 02 Nov 2000 22:28:23 -0600, Chris Cogan wrote:
[...]
CC>Jones has even gone
>so far (following similar claims by Johnson) as to claim that ultimate
>starting points must be simply assumed, ...
Indeed! If Chris disagrees how does he propose to arrive at an *ultimate*
starting point except by, in the end, assuming it?
Since reason works from premises to conclusions where does Chris get his
ultimate premise from? If he bases it on another reason then that must rest
on a yet more ultimate premise, unless he starts to reason in a circle.
This is not to say that one's ultimate premise cannot be critiqued - it can
and be replaced by another ultimate premise. To that extent Chris is
misconstruing what Johnson (and I) are saying by prefacing "assumed"
with "simply". The process at arriving at an ultimate premise does not have
to be simple, but in the end an ultimate premise must indeed be assumed.
An *ultimate* premise cannot, by definition, be supported by any reasons
more ultimate than itself:
"By not asking the last question, Leff in effect placed the death of
God, in the place of God. In his system, the absence of a
supernatural evaluator was a premise so far beyond question that it
could not be doubted even when it pointed to a conclusion. Leff
desperately wanted to escape, even a conclusion he acknowledged
to be false. If we know that totalitarian mass murder is evil, and
that those who acquiesced in it deserved damnation, then we know
something about the absolute evaluator as well. Leff offered no
reason for protecting modernism's founding premise from the
brilliant sceptical analysis that he directed at everything else. To a
theist this must seem indefensible, but Leff could not have done
otherwise without ceasing to be a modernist. A system's ultimate
premise is always beyond question; that is what it means to say that
is an ultimate premise. The most interesting aspect of any argument
is not what it explicitly states, but what it implicitly assumes. A
rationalistic culture teaches us to think that truth is the product of a
process of logical reasoning. When we are dealing with
intermediate or detailed truths, this model is correct. The model
breaks down, however, when we try to apply it to the fundamental
premises themselves. This is because logic is a way of getting to
conclusions from premises. By its very nature, a logical argument
cannot justify the premises upon which it rests. When these
premises are questioned, they have to be justified by a different
logical argument, which rests upon different premises. We may
follow this process forever, and we will still never encounter
anything but another logical argument, which will itself be based
upon premises. But then what is the ultimate premises, the
Archimedean fulcrum on which intellect can sit and judge all the
rest? If we try to answer that question by employing logic we lapse
into the absurdity of circular reasoning. Reasoning has to start
somewhere. Any attempt to justify the ultimate starting point
necessarily fails. Because it only establishes a different starting
point. Hence, the really important step in any argument is apt to be
the unexplained, unjustified, and often unstated starting point."
(Johnson P.E., "Nihilism and the End of Law", First Things, March
993, No. 31. http://id-www.ucsb.edu/fscf/LIBRARY/JOHNSON/nihilism.html)
Chris no doubt dislikes this simple truth because he seems to fancy himself
as something of a rationalist. But *pure* rationalism is a delusion. In the
end one must chose one's ultimate premises by *faith* based on the best
available, but necessarily limited, evidence. And of course one is strongly
biased by what one *wants* to be true (see tagline).
And of course if one is wrong in one's choice of ultimate premise then all
one's conclusions based on that premise are wrong too. For example,
if Chris' ultimate premise is (say) that there is no God, and there is, then all
his reasons about evolution and Christianity are, to that extent, wrong (and
of course vice-versa).
This is the *real* reason for the intractable differences in philosophies among
humans. It is not that those one disagrees with are "irrational" (as Richard
naively imagines) but that we are all rational and have *chosen* different
ultimate starting points.
We can of course debate these ultimate starting points and indeed
we do. But what *is* irrational is to deny that such ultimate starting points
must necessarily exist and/or that they have to be, at the end of the
day, *assumed*.
[...]
Steve
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"Multiple hypotheses should be proposed whenever possible. Proposing
alternative explanations that can answer a question is good science. If we
operate with a single hypothesis, especially one we favor, we may direct
our investigation toward a hunt for evidence in support of this hypothesis."
(Campbell N.A., Reece J.B. & Mitchell L.G., "Biology," [1987],
Benjamin/Cummings: Menlo Park CA, Fifth Edition, 1999, p.14)
Stephen E. Jones | Ph. +61 8 9448 7439 | http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones
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