comelately you are tying yourself in knots. too many partially digested philosphy books is my diagnosis. if the thinking is clear the writing is clear and yours is garbled.
Probably a fair diagnosis. I am trying to explain something difficult, I'm not doing as good a job as I want to or perhaps need to. To put this into context, I'm coming off arguing with a 'recovering objectivist' whose personal philosophy relies on reducing altruism to self-referentialism whilst retaining the transcendental ideal of freedom.
Mr Tea said:
You don't actually believe that there are no facts, do you? Of course you do. Everyone does. You'd be unable to function as a human being otherwise.
That's pretty much the point yes. We need facts and so we have facts (as I have stated), but it is possible to observe our thoughts and come to the realisation that facts are not actually facts are not really what we consider them to be. They are interpretations pretending to a certainty that does not sustain careful analysis
So what? Well human beings can't live merely in a world of such certainties either.The jump between likelihood and certainty is not side-effect free. We have other requirements as human beings which lead us to drop these certainties.
baboon2004 said:
there are lots of fairly objective facts that people ignore all the time or obfuscate around, in order to function.
The most obvious example is human perception of 'will'. We have a need to perceive of ourselves and others as having autonomy - not totally, but the buck has to stop somewhere. Someone has to be accountable. Closure. The making of 'meaning'. But we cannot find this freedom through scientific analysis - it just isn't there. So we have two types of closure, two types of meaning making that will be 'in competition' some of the time. And there are other types, the desire for justice for example. Induction and analysis are necessary parts of human meaning-making, but they are not sufficient.
IdleRich said:
I'm assuming that if a statement isn't true then it is at least partially untrue
I honestly believe that is still question begging when considering the phrase 'there are no facts'. To state 'there are no facts' is not the same as stating 'it is a fact that there are no facts'. My inkling is that a more subtle deconstruction of the statement 'there are no facts' is possible, but accusations of meaninglessness are wide of the mark. With that, I'm going to leave it. Really.
I'm not trying to argue that science is another religion. It does, however, rely upon metaphysics.
padraig u.s said:
please keep that pomo bullshit about the impossibility of facts way the hell away from science
Pretty much happy to do that actually. It's when Dawkins starts sharing platforms with Deepak Chopra and the like that the whole thing gets fucked up. Science should not seek to become another religion.
I'll try and restate 'a left-wing critique' of Dawkins later - I had a heavy Mexican lunch.