Register | Sign In


Understanding through Discussion


EvC Forum active members: 65 (9162 total)
5 online now:
Newest Member: popoi
Post Volume: Total: 915,817 Year: 3,074/9,624 Month: 919/1,588 Week: 102/223 Day: 13/17 Hour: 0/0


Thread  Details

Email This Thread
Newer Topic | Older Topic
  
Author Topic:   Rationalism: a paper tiger?
Chiroptera
Inactive Member


Message 31 of 125 (433484)
11-12-2007 7:57 AM
Reply to: Message 28 by PaulK
11-12-2007 7:34 AM


Re: Yet more nonsense.
So what exactly is the relevance of postmodernism ?
Or even Rationalism -- that was mentioned in the OPs as well. But I think most folks here are closer to Empiricism than they are to Rationalism.
I tried to get Nem to clarify what he was getting at, but my posts always get ignored!

Computers have cut-and-paste functions. So does right-wing historical memory. -- Rick Perlstein

This message is a reply to:
 Message 28 by PaulK, posted 11-12-2007 7:34 AM PaulK has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 32 of 125 (433506)
11-12-2007 10:53 AM
Reply to: Message 14 by Hyroglyphx
11-11-2007 2:51 PM


Re: The catch-22
Try and follow the train of logic.
I have done so so carefully that I can see that it isn't logic.
I'll give you an easy contemporary illustration. For many young women today, they face a catch-all, catch-22 situation. Some people deride the chasteness of women, calling them prudish, as if chastity is just some antiquated and silly relic of a previous era.
But then when she finally does throw off the shackles of what they claim oppress her, she now gets to be a slut by doing the very thing they said would free her.
And those would be two different groups of people.
Well done, you have discovered that not everyone thinks alike.
Since you didn't provide a link, I have no way of either agreeing with you or objecting to the assertion. Please provide something for me to go by.
What are you asking me for: proof that GKC disapproved of rape, or proof that GKC (a Catholic) disapproved of divorce?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 14 by Hyroglyphx, posted 11-11-2007 2:51 PM Hyroglyphx has not replied

  
Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 33 of 125 (433508)
11-12-2007 11:12 AM
Reply to: Message 26 by nator
11-12-2007 7:22 AM


Re: The catch-22
But seriously, are you expecting me to believe that a woman wanting an abortion is more likely to get real support or a guilt trip from a conservative, considering the typical anti-abortion position of the majority of conservatives?
It might be wise to point out that, although recent times might seem to indicate otherwise, the religious right and conservatives are separate entities. I'm not arguing that H is right, or you're wrong - just thought the distinction might be where the two of you have reached a disagreement. Maybe not, though, just chucking in a couple of cents.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 26 by nator, posted 11-12-2007 7:22 AM nator has not replied

  
arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1344 days)
Posts: 9069
From: god's waiting room
Joined: 05-21-2004


Message 34 of 125 (433514)
11-12-2007 11:58 AM
Reply to: Message 27 by Chiroptera
11-12-2007 7:30 AM


Re: Yet more nonsense.
i've been to a few postmodern philosophy classes. they do deny absolutes. absolutely. and then talk about the contradiction.
Huh. Is that so? You know what that sounds like to me? It sounds like no one (including the postmodernists themselves) know what they mean when they use the word "absolute". I've never seen anyone give a precise definition of what an "absolute" is -- and so how could anyone know whether or not there are absolutes? Or whether the statement, "There are no absolutes" is itself an absolute?
that's pretty close to how they phrased it, actually.


This message is a reply to:
 Message 27 by Chiroptera, posted 11-12-2007 7:30 AM Chiroptera has not replied

  
arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1344 days)
Posts: 9069
From: god's waiting room
Joined: 05-21-2004


Message 35 of 125 (433515)
11-12-2007 11:59 AM
Reply to: Message 28 by PaulK
11-12-2007 7:34 AM


Re: Yet more nonsense.
Postmodernists aren't "rationalists",
yes, no, and sometimes.
there's a lot of "wow, look at that!" and "i don't know!" in the camps, so i see how an ID advocate could also be a postmodernist pretty easily.


This message is a reply to:
 Message 28 by PaulK, posted 11-12-2007 7:34 AM PaulK has not replied

  
Chiroptera
Inactive Member


Message 36 of 125 (433520)
11-12-2007 12:29 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Hyroglyphx
11-11-2007 10:32 AM


A clarification.
To sort of add to some comments that were made before, it appears that Chesterton was not speaking against Postmodernism, since there was no Postmodernist movement during his lifetime.
What he appears to be speaking against, if he is speaking about anything that is labelled with a string containing modern, is, perhaps, Modernism, a movement in the Catholic Church that has almost nothing to do with the school of philosophy called Postmodernism.
I think that this is a possibility since Nem brings up Rationalism; Rationalism is a part of this Catholic Modernist movement which is not quite the same, it appears, as Rationalism in Philosophy. If so, then, since a heck of a lot of us are atheists or agnostics, Chesterton's arguments don't seem to have a lot to relevance to us.

Computers have cut-and-paste functions. So does right-wing historical memory. -- Rick Perlstein

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Hyroglyphx, posted 11-11-2007 10:32 AM Hyroglyphx has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 45 by Hyroglyphx, posted 11-12-2007 5:40 PM Chiroptera has replied

  
Hyroglyphx
Inactive Member


Message 37 of 125 (433536)
11-12-2007 1:10 PM
Reply to: Message 15 by Chiroptera
11-11-2007 3:03 PM


Re: The catch-22
Huh? Now I am confused. The problem is that whichever decision this particular woman makes, someone somewhere is going to be offended? This is the fault of who? Postmodernists? Rationalists? Prudes? Libertines? Anti-American pro-terrorist liberal socialist pedophile Democrats?
I was just giving an example of Chesterton was referring to. I'm sure you can appreciate it for what it says, not in whom it implicates or doesn't implicate.
Do you think it wrong to in one moment scorn a woman's virginity, most likely for one's own gain, only to turn around and shame for reversing her decision, the very decision you prompted?
Where I have tied it all in, (and I apologize for the confusion. I take full responsibility in that), is those who maintain a relative stance on these issues, be they Rationalists or Postmodernists, is that there is a fluidity they seem to aspire towards. In that fluidity they get to become the arbiter of their destinies, deciding what is good, moral, or just at a whim, without feeling a sense of reservation for having foisted contradiction after contradiction.
Therein lies the perennial scapegoat, the moral skeleton key, the justification, the absolution, the exoneration. And it is only so because in their mind there is nothing concrete. The common modality then becomes.... well.... common and modal.
Is the only logical, non-hypocritical thing to do is set up a regime like Soviet Russia or the Islamic Republic of Iran where everyone is required to believe the same exact thing?
Society will never achieve this, nor is the goal to have carbon copies walking around.

“This life’s dim windows of the soul, distorts the heavens from pole to pole, and goads you to believe a lie, when you see with and not through the eye.” -William Blake

This message is a reply to:
 Message 15 by Chiroptera, posted 11-11-2007 3:03 PM Chiroptera has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 40 by PaulK, posted 11-12-2007 1:55 PM Hyroglyphx has not replied
 Message 44 by Chiroptera, posted 11-12-2007 2:59 PM Hyroglyphx has not replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 38 of 125 (433537)
11-12-2007 1:10 PM
Reply to: Message 22 by Silent H
11-12-2007 2:48 AM


Re: The catch-22
Isn't it unfair to paint all conservatives with the brush of a few specific ones?
It's not a few, though. It's a new one every week. Ted Haggard. Mark Foley. David Vitter. That guy in Florida. That guy who died last month with a buttplug and two wetsuits.
It's almost axiomatic, at this point, that the loudest, most visible crusaders against the civil rights of gays and lesbians or the right to private sexual conduct are the ones who, themselves, are gay, lesbian, or into some pretty freaky shit.
Is the snobbery and intolerance from progs worse, from my experience yes.
I don't think there's anything less tolerant than pushing legislation to marginalize specific American citizens, so I simply don't see any comparison between whatever personal distaste a given progressive may have with, say, anal sex and the coordinated, concentrated efforts of the conservative movement to separate "sexual deviants" from their civil rights.
I mean, you're looking at two people who are saying:
Progressive: I don't like anal sex, and I think it's gross that you do it, but it's not like I'm going to make a law about it or something!
Conservative: I don't like anal sex, and I think it's gross that you do it, but I love you as a person; still, though, I'm going to push for legislation to make you a second-class citizen. Nothing personal.
And you're telling me the first guy is less tolerant? That doesn't make any sense.
? All do this?
No webpage found at provided URL: http://www.team4news.com/Global/story.asp?S=7238816
quote:
AUSTIN (AP) - A federal judge in Austin today ordered 40 years in prison for a man accused of trying to use an explosive at a clinic that does abortions.
Is this the tolerance you're referring to?
Is this?
Again I'm not sure who you are talking about.
Conservatives. There's no way to win on the "Madonna/Whore" scale, because the purpose of the scale isn't to define an acceptable middle between extreme behaviors; it's to provide a double standard upon which to judge all women and find them wanting. Because conservativism is a misogynistic ideology.
If you have sex, you're a slut. If you don't, you're frigid. You can't win for losing if you're a woman. You should ask one about it.
His guy was saying that rationalists damn a girl if she does or doesn't, as if to suggest there was some sort of contradiction, and no sense of acceptability.
I don't know who "rationalists" are supposed to be, either, but the people who are enforcing the Madonna/Whore scale are misogynists, and the point is to provide a basis to condemn all women, because that's how patriarchy is upheld.
And it's common. It's common because a lot of progressives do it, too, but it's much more common among conservatives because, there, it's explicitly demanded by religion.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 22 by Silent H, posted 11-12-2007 2:48 AM Silent H has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 49 by Silent H, posted 11-12-2007 8:54 PM crashfrog has replied

  
jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 39 of 125 (433539)
11-12-2007 1:24 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Hyroglyphx
11-11-2007 10:32 AM


Looking for the source.
I know that Ravi (actually I think one of his ghost writers, likely Jill Carattini should get the credit) likes to drop this quotation into every sales spiel, but other than the assertion it was by G. K. Chesterton, can you tell us the source?
I have read much of Chesterton over the years, and honestly do not recall that quotation. I'd like to check it out if possible and see just what it is saying within context or if it is simply another example of "Misrepresenting for Jesus™"

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Hyroglyphx, posted 11-11-2007 10:32 AM Hyroglyphx has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 42 by ringo, posted 11-12-2007 2:13 PM jar has replied

  
PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 40 of 125 (433545)
11-12-2007 1:55 PM
Reply to: Message 37 by Hyroglyphx
11-12-2007 1:10 PM


Re: The catch-22
quote:
I was just giving an example of Chesterton was referring to. I'm sure you can appreciate it for what it says, not in whom it implicates or doesn't implicate.
Chesterton seemed to be referring to a single individual. Your example seems to refer to the combined views of many individuals. If Chesterton merely meant to bewail that there were differing views within society I have to wonder what he felt was a reasonable alternative. Forced conformity hardly seems preferable.
quote:
Do you think it wrong to in one moment scorn a woman's virginity, most likely for one's own gain, only to turn around and shame for reversing her decision, the very decision you prompted?
This also assumes a single individual. But your example was only plausible because it DID NOT assume a single individual.
Chesterton - unlike your example - was asserting that individuals really did engage in these contradictions. Perhaps it has an element of truth - humans being what they are. But it is hardly the product of any particular philosophy or viewpoint. Indeed you will find that in this debate it is the creationists who do not care about consistency. The scientific mind values consistency - the apologists mind is not interested in building a truly coherent picture of the world.
quote:
Where I have tied it all in, (and I apologize for the confusion. I take full responsibility in that), is those who maintain a relative stance on these issues, be they Rationalists or Postmodernists, is that there is a fluidity they seem to aspire towards. I
What you mean is that you want to drag up the same old accusations again. And again you don't want to go to the effort of actually supporting them. What does your absolute morality say about that ?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 37 by Hyroglyphx, posted 11-12-2007 1:10 PM Hyroglyphx has not replied

  
Hyroglyphx
Inactive Member


Message 41 of 125 (433546)
11-12-2007 1:58 PM
Reply to: Message 17 by nator
11-11-2007 4:01 PM


Re: The catch-22
She can go where the progressives and liberals are, because in my experience, that's where people are most encouraged and allowed to get the information they want and need in order to make the personal choices that are best for them.
I don't think all the credit can go to either a conservative group or a liberal group since there are individuals on either ideological side that can either show incredible compassion or incredible scorn.
I was a virgin for far longer than most women in my generation, but I had not a single one of my "liberal" friends chastize me for it.
Perhaps not, or perhaps unbeknownst to you. This is isn't a thread about liberalism vs conservatism. I don't want my thread being hijacked. So if we all can keep it within context it would be much appreciated.
I'm sure you are aware that this dichotomy exists for many women, which is the product of a fractured society which doesn't know which moral it wants to ascribe to. As Chesterton alluded to, is it morals trampling men, or men trampling morals?

“This life’s dim windows of the soul, distorts the heavens from pole to pole, and goads you to believe a lie, when you see with and not through the eye.” -William Blake

This message is a reply to:
 Message 17 by nator, posted 11-11-2007 4:01 PM nator has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 57 by nator, posted 11-13-2007 6:31 AM Hyroglyphx has not replied

  
ringo
Member (Idle past 412 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005


Message 42 of 125 (433551)
11-12-2007 2:13 PM
Reply to: Message 39 by jar
11-12-2007 1:24 PM


Re: Looking for the source.
I did a quick Google and found Orthodoxy (1909). The "new rebel" quote is about a quarter of the way down.

“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place”
-- Joseph Goebbels
-------------
Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation.
Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC

This message is a reply to:
 Message 39 by jar, posted 11-12-2007 1:24 PM jar has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 43 by jar, posted 11-12-2007 2:32 PM ringo has not replied

  
jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 43 of 125 (433554)
11-12-2007 2:32 PM
Reply to: Message 42 by ringo
11-12-2007 2:13 PM


Re: Looking for the source.
Ah. On his reply to his work "The Heretic".
The particular quotation is part of a paragraph. Before the quotemined section he says:
In case the point is not clear, an historic example may illustrate
it. The French Revolution was really an heroic and decisive thing,
because the Jacobins willed something definite and limited.
They desired the freedoms of democracy, but also all the vetoes
of democracy. They wished to have votes and NOT to have titles.
Republicanism had an ascetic side in Franklin or Robespierre
as well as an expansive side in Danton or Wilkes. Therefore they
have created something with a solid substance and shape, the square
social equality and peasant wealth of France. But since then the
revolutionary or speculative mind of Europe has been weakened by
shrinking from any proposal because of the limits of that proposal.
Liberalism has been degraded into liberality. Men have tried
to turn "revolutionise" from a transitive to an intransitive verb.
The Jacobin could tell you not only the system he would rebel against,
but (what was more important) the system he would NOT rebel against,
the system he would trust.
The sentence that precedes the quotemined section is significant.
The Jacobin could tell you not only the system he would rebel against, but (what was more important) the system he would NOT rebel against, the system he would trust.
Leaving that out is a clear indication of obfuscation.
When I ask for an example of some Absolute Morality, I do not deny absolutes. I have repeatedly said that there are absolutes, and further, that humans can imagine absolutes, IDEALs, that we also know to be impossible in reality. To repeat some examples, I have pointed to the Ideal of the Perfectly Straight Line or the Absolutely Smooth Surface, neither of which can exist in reality yet which can be easily imagined by most.

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

This message is a reply to:
 Message 42 by ringo, posted 11-12-2007 2:13 PM ringo has not replied

  
Chiroptera
Inactive Member


Message 44 of 125 (433563)
11-12-2007 2:59 PM
Reply to: Message 37 by Hyroglyphx
11-12-2007 1:10 PM


Re: The catch-22
Hi, Nem.
Okay, sorry, but I am becoming more confused as to your point.
Do you think it wrong to in one moment scorn a woman's virginity, most likely for one's own gain, only to turn around and shame for reversing her decision, the very decision you prompted?
I don't know about wrong, but it is ridiculous. But I don't do that (at least not that I've noticed), I haven't noticed anyone here who does that (if there are, examples would be helpful), and I don't think any of the movements for which I have sympathy are this schizophrenic.
Perhaps the problem is that I have wandered into a conversation that doesn't really concern me?
Edited by Chiroptera, : forgot to spell check

Computers have cut-and-paste functions. So does right-wing historical memory. -- Rick Perlstein

This message is a reply to:
 Message 37 by Hyroglyphx, posted 11-12-2007 1:10 PM Hyroglyphx has not replied

  
Hyroglyphx
Inactive Member


Message 45 of 125 (433641)
11-12-2007 5:40 PM
Reply to: Message 36 by Chiroptera
11-12-2007 12:29 PM


Re: A clarification.
To sort of add to some comments that were made before, it appears that Chesterton was not speaking against Postmodernism, since there was no Postmodernist movement during his lifetime.
I don't think he was either. I just happened to come across this piece, when halfway through, I was simply ecstatic that someone else saw what I have seen. The more I read, the more I couldn't help associating it contemporaneously. Apparently very little has changed in many respects 100 years later.
What he appears to be speaking against, if he is speaking about anything that is labelled with a string containing modern, is, perhaps, Modernism, a movement in the Catholic Church that has almost nothing to do with the school of philosophy called Postmodernism.
He's speaking about Revolutionaries, which in that time, and quite unlike the American Revolution, coincided with the French Revolutions anti-theological stance. The outworkings of that revolution, from Voltaire onward belies the same nihilistic nonsense that proves to be an unlivable life. He then segues into this excerpt:
"This last attempt to evade intellectualism ends in intellectualism, and therefore in death. The sortie has failed. The wild worship of lawlessness and the materialist worship of law end in the same void. Nietzsche scales staggering mountains, but he turns up ultimately in Tibet. He sits down beside Tolstoy in the land of nothing and Nirvana. They are both helpless--one because he must not grasp anything, and the other because he must not let go of anything.
The Tolstoyan's will is frozen by a Buddhist instinct that all special actions are evil. But the Nietzscheite's will is quite equally frozen by his view that all special actions are good; for if all special actions are good, none of them are special. They stand at the crossroads, and one hates all the roads and the other likes all the roads. The result is--well, some things are not hard to calculate. They stand at the cross-roads."
-G.K. Chesterton; Chapter III - Suicide of Thought - Orthodoxy, 1909
I think that this is a possibility since Nem brings up Rationalism; Rationalism is a part of this Catholic Modernist movement which is not quite the same, it appears, as Rationalism in Philosophy. If so, then, since a heck of a lot of us are atheists or agnostics, Chesterton's arguments don't seem to have a lot to relevance to us.
Did you feel specifically implicated? If you neither refer to yourself as either a Postmodernist or a Rationalist, what prompted you to believe that it was directed towards you? Its directed towards anyone who rationalizes in the manner with which Chesterton describes. If that doesn't include you, sit back and enjoy the dialogue.
Edited by Nemesis Juggernaut, : typo

“This life’s dim windows of the soul, distorts the heavens from pole to pole, and goads you to believe a lie, when you see with and not through the eye.” -William Blake

This message is a reply to:
 Message 36 by Chiroptera, posted 11-12-2007 12:29 PM Chiroptera has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 46 by PaulK, posted 11-12-2007 5:53 PM Hyroglyphx has replied
 Message 47 by Chiroptera, posted 11-12-2007 6:01 PM Hyroglyphx has replied

  
Newer Topic | Older Topic
Jump to:


Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved

™ Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024