Beyond theism

autophoron said:

If you have a problem with the word "God", simply replace it with the word "Nature"

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I do mate dont worry. But i'm in conversation, and want my interlocutors to understand why it would
be worth their while to do likewise OR convince me that my understanding is flawed. i dont deny the appeal
of parts of spinoza's system, however, his integration of religion, and more generally social phenomena,
is not among this. he's a good student of natural science but a bad sociologist. of course that's not his
fault but rather a consequence of living way before the social was begun to be understood in the 19th century,
when rapid modernisation vaporised the conventional wisdom about society.

autophoron said:

and consider the "wisdom" of his stoic applications. Freedom is freedom from being determined by a particular cause. Desire is to be determined by a particular cause. Knowledge and the leveling of desire leads to relative freedom and more happiness.

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sorry, but this attribution of causality is unsubsgtantiated and the conception of freedom is essentially
oppressive as it doen't integrate bodily and socia causes of determination in a convincing way, but it's
probably not the right place to discuss the very concept of freedom here.

autophoron said:

Ritual is simply smaller bodies coming into larger consonance. I think this is somewhere to where k-punk's OP was heading.

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well, if you want to go the way of abstraction, you will end up saying something indubitably true, but at the
price of being uninteresting. in other words: yes, ritual can be seen as bodies in consonance, but so what?
what does it exclude?

borderpolice,


"he's a good student of natural science but a bad sociologist"


I'm not sure what you mean by a bad sociologist? Are you referring to his political theories? Was Nietzsche a bad sociologist? And exactly what "natural science" understanding did he have that awards such appreciation?


"his integration of religion"


In what way does he "integrate" religion? Simply by discussing the ethical?




autophoron

isn't this conversation supposed to be about what an immanent earth religion would look like if we take for granted:

(A) that there is but one substance

and (B) per badiou, that substance is not one

i.e., this one substance is the void = inconsistent multiplicity out of which consistent multiplicities are brought into being qua counting "as one"

whether inconsistent multiplicity may be treated as the one substance is a major question

but k-punk seems intent on reconciling badiou w/ spinoza in this fashion, which is why k-punk says "there is but one substance, but substance is not one"

and what k-punk is interested in practicing is a kind of "true" religion

so if spinoza/badiou is the true philosophy -- which is to assume, first, that spinoza and badiou can be reconciled in the manner k-punk proposes, and, second, that this position would then be the true position -- if all of this is assumed, then we have issue of this thread, which is whether the true position is amenable to religion -- not religion as it now exists and as it will continue to exist, but of a "true" religion that would compete against all these false religions

my sixth sense is that badiou's ontology is superior to any other ontology that i'm familiar with

(and by "familiar" i mean a very low degree of knowledge -- i.e., i'm most familiar w/ hegel & heidegger, i've read but one book of essays by badiou plus stuff on internet -- i'm too broke at the moment to buy any new books, o/w i'd have read the book on st paul by now -- and anything i say about spinoza reduces to hearsay as the ethics boggles my mind, such that i intend to approach spinoza through secondary literature when i have $ -- i.e., the ethics is by far the most difficult book i've attempted to read w/o the benefit on being enrolled in a seminar dealing w/ the book -- so i won't deny that i'm a dilletante in these matters -- and yet i think myself capable of following arguments, which is why i'm trying to participate in this discussion)

but my sixth sense also tells me that badiou's philosophy is hostile to the religious mindset

first, b/c badiou is not a phenomenologist -- he does not take the ordinary seriously -- ordinary/order/direction/orientation -- unlike other philosophers of *immanence* like hegel and heidegger, badiou does not treat *ordinary* preconceptions about "what is" as the way the truth and the light to a real understanding of being -- i.e., badiou has no concern for the overarching meaning of "what is" -- and it is the concern w/ overarching meaning that defines the religious mindset

second, b/c there is nothing in badiou to "resolve" the many multiple sets into one -- i.e., in heidegger man is involved in many competing projects, and indeed exists in several modalities (in relation to things, ordinarily as tools; in relation to self and others, ordinarily as the they-self; and through various moods), and yet these multiple projects and concerns find their unity in man's anticipation of his own death -- by contrast, for badiou it is of no significance that men live on this earth as mortals, or that they have a need to make sense (or are called upon to make sense) of their existence as a whole

now of course the analysis in being & time is directed more toward the structure of human existence, whereas badiou is more concerned, at least in the little i've read of him, w/ describing for the structure of being and the possibility of the radically new -- so maybe badiou's thought is not as hostile to man's quest for overarching meaning as it seems

but i mean only to put this on the table as issues subordinate to the main issue

the question, again, is whether some hybrid spinoza-badiou position is amenable to a new kind of religion

and if so, what might such a religion look like

and, further, where might lacan figure into all of this

borderpolice said:

Yes, but such explanations will take place in social situations and will be following the rules of the social. they will not (in general) be structurally similar to whatever may have been conscious content.

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by "interrogating and unfolding" the reasons for a person's having gone to church, i don't mean to suggest that we sit that person down in a room and ask him for an explanation

i mean, rather, that a person goes to church for his own sake or for the sake of his children

i.e., he expects some kind of reward or perhaps thinks it "good" for his moral character or perhaps expects to gain some kind of strength or guidance or salvation through prayer

or maybe he does it merely to be respectable, or have the favorable opinion of a certain class of people

ultimately, however, the reason people go to church is to devote time to that which is most important in a space devoted to that purpose

i.e., not only does the space foster activity devoted to that purpose, but also gathered in that space are other people with the same purpose

i.e., they go to the space to have an ecstatic encounter -- the space and the others gathered there have the effect of taking the person out of his private consciousness & private body = communion

and if they have lost sight of this ultimate purpose, then this is merely testimony of the religion's decadence, of the religion have lost its hold on its subjects, such that they go there for formulaic reasons rather than original reasons

borderpolice said:

yes, something along those lines

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that which is most important = the god principle

the ground which grounds all meaning

that which gives order, structure, coherence

it's why cathedrals have high arches = what is it that gives overarching meaning to our lives on this earth?

borderpolice said:

but note that parents say their children are their most important things, lovers claim each other and so on.

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this is merely the dialectic of the near and far

children as the most near and dear

the lover as closest to the heart

that which is as the obscure and distant ground -- that which is encountered at the origin

and yet that which is also calls us from inside = conscience

it is the inside and the outside

(of course different people have different manifest natures -- some are family men, others lovers, others thinkers -- and the argument for religion is the same as the argument for philosophy, i.e., that men have something like a final cause, that men have a higher nature or purpose -- and that the apparent diversity in human types is not an argument for the truth of pluralism but merely evidence of the sad truth that most people neglect their higher nature or ownmost possiblities -- and so maybe people go to church out of a kind of guilt, i.e., the guilt that comes from knowing that one has been neglectful -- none of which is to say the arguments for philosophy and religion are correct on this count)

borderpolice said:

religious parents would presumably weaken alligance to their church rather than their children, should divirgent expectations arise from their respective roles as parents and co-religionists -- maybe using distinctions like that between true religion and its earthly degenerations at the hand of religious bureaucrats to maintain the coherency of the parents' world-views.

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again, i think you're focusing too much on existing religions rather than the future religion

of course all true religion will assert the priority of man's relationship to that which is over his relationship to his own children and blood

but as far as god ordering abraham to sacrifice isaac -- i think this particular dilemma arises only in the context of a creator god

o/w the conflict is merely that of the child who must turn against the ways of his parents -- i.e., disavow his patrimony

borderpolice said:

This is why i have a slight preference for allusion to transcendence, to that which is not (currently) observable, as the cut off criterion for delineating the realm of the religious

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that which is is the ground of all meaning

it is the god principle

however, the ground of all meaning need not be a transcendent ground

i.e., heidegger locates the ground of all meaing in the *relationship* of human beings to that which is -- for without human being, that which is would not have being -- i.e., it would be inarticulate, silent, dead -- it would be, for all intents and purposes, meaningless

(and that which is is all that we encounter in and around us -- i.e., depending on our comportment or mood it is the sheltering sky, the threatening sky, the undead matter of the universe or the milky way at night -- but it does not exist outside our comprehension, in some transcendent realm)

human beings relate to that which is, first, by finding themselves thrown into existence, and, second, by anticipating their own mortality or utter demise = realizing that what you have in or close to hand is all you're ever going to have, so make the most of it before you pass

i.e., human being is structured by absence = all that is present emerges out of and returns to absence

in badiou that which is = the void out of which new elements are brought into representation

i.e., in the representation of any situation certain elements are deemed inconsistent w/ that situation (impossible) -- and so the event is the reordering of the situation such that certain elements that in fact belong to the situation are now represented -- what had previously been deemed impossible is proven possible -- and the elements that are now represented were not previously in some transcendent space -- they do not come from the outside -- rather, they already inhered in the situation (set of elements)

in heidegger man oscillates b/w authentic & inauthentic modes of existence -- and yet it is built into the structure of man's existence that he can seize upon his existence and make it truly his own -- this is an existential possibility that is always present

in badiou there is no such possibility "there" to be seized at all times -- men live for the most part in "states" of untruth, regimes of positive knowledge, where everything is a matter of routine, knowledge a matter of filling in the blanks -- and what redeems the situation is not so much man as man drawing out the implications of his own mortality -- rather a person lives in relation to some kind of discourse, of science, art, politics or love -- of these politics and love are perhaps the most accessible to man as man -- certainly politics, insofar as each of us belongs to some place some where -- and yet in badiou the event simply seems to happen, and only then can men redeem themselves by wagering that the event is indeed an event, and in so doing become subjects of that event, forcing its truth into presence, representing the situation w/ elements previously thought inconsistent w/ it -- and yet the people who make these events happen must seemingly be (1) subjects of an earlier truth-event, as in science or art or politics (except that badiou presents these people, prior to the new event, more as automatons of the state machinery rather than proper subjects), or else (2) they are randomly struck down in the midst of their everyday lives, as in the case of love

of course perhaps badiou is picking up on the late heidegger as opposed to the early heidegger, since the late heidegger thought the account in b+t too centered on the human subject -- i.e., as though men, upon grasping their mortality, could simply will their own authenticity -- w/ result that late heidegger tended to anthropomorphize being as a compensatory strategy, i.e., to show man's dependency on something other than his own will and the material he has in hand -- whereas badiou locates the dynamic element, as it were, in the infinite material of any given set -- repressed by any representation (subset) of the set are elements inconsistent w/ that representation but which nonetheless belong to the set and which eventually make their presence felt

(of course i'm likely making a complete mish mash of both heidegger and badiou)

the point is that there need not be a transcendent ground for there to be meaning or religion

though i do suspect that religion requires a relationship to the whole, rather than simply to various sets

borderpolice said:

the trajectory of religious developments points to increasing differentiation into multiple ritual approaches. a multiplicity of religions [although it is possible that globalisation may reverse that trend ... we'll see], rather than being a modern phenomenon, and despite modernity facilitating
differentiation, is as old as religion itself. this suggests that positing a future convergence towards
one religion, instead of being a likely outcome, points to a problem in your approach to understanding
religious phenomena.

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i think it should be clear from what i've said above that by "one body" that i don't have in mind ecumenism

again, the true religion based on spinoza would likely exist alongside traditional religions

(it would only replace them if it had, in addition to proselytizers, guns missiles bombs and swords)

the true religion need not claim all hearts

you asked what is the purpose of religious communication -- and i answered "to create one body"

at a religious celebration people sing together, rise and kneel together, dance together -- they do all of this together -- i.e., the intended effect is to make out of many one body because, viewed under the aspect of eternity, each participant amounts to nothing

(it's the same principle as soldiers marching)

the proper mood is that of being over-awed by the presence of the lord = wonder at the intricate works of nature = collective shiver at the dead expanse of the universe and the fiery sun that will consume the earth

and the rituals are designed to produce (or induce) this mood by breaking down people's bodies

borderpolice said:

another problem with what you say is meditative and privatistic approaches to religion which don't really fit the convergence towards unity paradigm you seem to advocate.

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i have no use for meditative and privatistic approaches to religion

that is, i see religion as accomplishing what philosophy or, to use a more modest term better suited to most cases, reading & thinking & discussing cannot accomplish -- namely, it does what can only be done collectively

religion allows for frenzy, ecstatic celebration, etc -- and again, it produces the realization that we amount to nothing

(and if sunday mass is dull & sober -- then that's an argument against sunday mass, not against religion)

whereas solitude allows for serious reflection, for getting things worked out properly -- i.e., for aspects of truth that must be won on one's own, perhaps w/ help from others in sober conversation, but in the end through one's own hard labor (or else left neglected)

borderpolice said:

yet another problem is to distinguish this conception of religion from other mass ritals such as football fandom.

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football fandom may have its merits -- but don't these merits (collective frenzy) speak to what existing religion fails to accomplish?

football as a space for frenzy despite being about the most trivial things

football satisfies needs otherwise left unserved

autophoron said:

I'm not sure what you mean by a bad sociologist? Are you referring to his political theories? Was Nietzsche a bad sociologist? And exactly what "natural science" understanding did he have that awards such appreciation?

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He writes like an engineer. His style is "de more geometrico". he proposes a materialism that was informed
by develpments in natural sciences. Nietzsche, while a brilliant psychologist, never got a convincing handle
on sociology. Just think of his genealogy of good and bad.

autophoron said:

In what way does he "integrate" religion? Simply by discussing the ethical?

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the whole Deus Sive Natura complex for example. The connection between his ethics and metaphysics.

PS i'd prefer not to discuss this or that philosopher in detail. instead, let's stick to the subject matter: religion.

borderpolice,


"The connection between his ethics and metaphysics.

PS i'd prefer not to discuss this or that philosopher in detail. instead, let's stick to the subject matter: religion."


As you define as religious anything that connects ethics to metaphysics (I assume that you mean ontology, since properly Spinoza doesn't seem to have a metaphysics, considering his single substance), or the sematic reference to "God", (a system earlier that you characterized as atheistic), I assume that we have been talking about religion all along. Seeing as k-punk was in search of a non-theistic religion, I'm not sure how much closer we could come than Spinoza. It seems that we have been pretty much on topic.




autophoron

dominic said:

that which is most important = the god principle

the ground which grounds all meaning

that which gives order, structure, coherence

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i do not see the connection between "god" and "the ground which grounds all meaning".
this is neither true of religions as practised, because it omits the sacral, transcendental
aspect

dominic said:

of course all true religion will assert the priority of man's relationship to that which is over his relationship to his own children and blood

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somehow i cannot see this religion taking off.

borderpolice,


"somehow i cannot see this religion taking off."


But isn't the point that it is and has been taking off with or without you? Isn't in the end the proper name for this "religion", History?




autophoron

autophoron said:

As you define as religious anything that connects ethics to metaphysics (I assume that you mean ontology, since properly Spinoza doesn't seem to have a metaphysics, considering his single substance), or the sematic reference to "God", (a system earlier that you characterized as atheistic), I assume that we have been talking about religion all along. Seeing as k-punk was in search of a non-theistic religion, I'm not sure how much closer we could come than Spinoza. It seems that we have been pretty much on topic. autophoron

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no my understanding of religion isn't quite as simple, but i admit to being sloppy in my choice of words, partly
reflecting the subject matter, partly because my work leave little time and partly because i was trying to avoid
getting into exegesis of this or that philosopher. in some of my early posts on this thread i tried to communicate something like the following.

* the social function of religion is to provide a semantic repertoire to communicate about the distinction between
what's observable and what isn't. I cannot go into detail, but that distinction is everywhere, whenever one
observes or communicates. so in some sense religion or the problem it deals with is everywhere. As my
favourite theory tradition is fond of saying: "Communication implies religion". So far so uninteresting (because too abstract). The specificity of religion is in how it handles the observable/not observable distinction. The reproduction
and its social control poses two problem that all religions share: (1) how to put constraints on what is said
about the non-observable (I usually say that religion transforms questions into rituals so the lack of answers
are not noted)? How to create and facilitate shared experience and communication of the semantic
repertoire about the non-observable.

* many different answers to these questions are possible, often using sacral constructions, usually referring to
places (like holy mountains) or objects (totems) or rituals, all of which are observable and recognisable. another
prominent religion-construction-tool is to personify god or gods. To stipulate a peculiar class of observers which
is a bit like us, but at the same time paradoxical, in that to such observers there is no non-observable. the inevitable logical problems with such constructions are defused again by rituals, or prohibitions on depicting the gods, or auxiliary observers like satan ...

* the increasing differentiation of society in its drive towards modernity has increasingly disentangled
religion from other important sectors of society like politics, economics, the law, and religion is increasingly
autonomous

* one unique aspect of religion is that it does not (or only on the fringes as in ethnic religions where membership is by bloodline, but these are marginal in the modern world) work according to a logic of inclusion/exclusion. Of course there is one big and cruicial exception to this lack of inclusion/exclusion
mechanisms and that is other, competing religions.

it seems to me that what this whole thread is really about is: what a better society would look like, under the assumption that (1) a better society needs a religion, especially religious rituals, but (2) suchan improved religion should not take the personalisation option, i.e. be non-theistic.

i guess my problem with the whole disscussion is that (1) seems false.
i think it's best to avoid bullshit and say: OK, we can't observe the non-observable
that's it. and ditch all the mythology. To deflate the whole issue into a big question
mark and get on with life. i just don't see convincing arguments for (1), for why
being religious leads to more eudemonia, other than claims.


.

Borderpolice,


“i think it's best to avoid bullshit and say: OK, we can't observe the non-observable
that's it. and ditch all the mythology.”

What I suppose confuses me is that all theories about reality are not theories about the “unobservable”, but attempts to explain what is “observable”. Empirical evidence does not come with instruction booklets that explain its interpretation. It seems rather naïve to imagine that one theory assumes no “unobservable” dimensions and others some. Any descriptions of organization are “observable” only through their effects. You can observe anything, but to say that that anything is one thing and not another thing is to step into the territory you imagine should not be tread. This is pretty much at the core of all philosophy. Reality is mythology.

What exactly are you proposing? We accept realty as the going ideology presents it to us?


Consider Quine's


As an empiricist I continue to think of the conceptual scheme of science as a tool, ultimately, for predicting future experience in the light of past experience. Physical objects are conceptually imported into the situation as convenient intermediaries not by definition in terms of experience, but simply as irreducible posits comparable, epistemologically, to the gods of Homer . . . For my part I do, qua lay physicist, believe in physical objects and not in Homer's gods; and I consider it a scientific error to believe otherwise. But in point of epistemological footing, the physical objects and the gods differ only in degree and not in kind. Both sorts of entities enter our conceptions only as cultural posits.


Two Dogma's of Empiricism




autophoron

you know, if k-punk started some kind of "church," i'd go!

I have miscommunicated if you see me as a (naive) realist: nothing
could be further from the truth. In first approximation I agree with
Quine!

My use of the observable/unobservable distinction is far from common
sensical. Of course I start out with the everyday use of such terms
(what else could i do?) which I guess are learned from talk about the
visual field, i.e. with something that is phenomenologically
given. One could say my use of observation is a spatial metaphor. But
then the distinction is generalised drastically so as to make it
usable for other types of systems, like organisms and more
importantly, communication. Phenomenologically the essence of
observation is that distinctions are made, borders are drawn, with a
preference for one side of the distinction. A similar thing happens in
communication, as this exchange shows: jam is sweet, religion is X
(and not Y) ... this is part of the deep structure of all
communication. It is crucial for this position, and this prevents it
from being realistic, that I do not claim that two observations, even
by the same observer, will lead to the same observation. In fact
agreement is the exception rather than the rule. We use the concept
"reality" to denote the surprising convergence of observations over
extended periods of time across populations, but such can never be
guaranteed. It is one of the key challenges of society to keep a
sufficient number of observations in convergence. How this is done,
and what role religion plays in this endeavor is is studied in the
sciences.

another fact about communication (observation) is that we can cross
the boundary drawn by a distinction X is Y: "what is not Y?" and we
can always do this. For some questions about the other side of some
observation we have firm narratives, involving further observations,
but they will eventually come to an end if we keep asking and what's
the other side of these subsequent observations, a typical example
being iterating "and what's the cause of ...?" In this sense (natural
science) tries to answer some of these questions, but since science
itself will answer these questions using further distinctions and
observations, it doesn't stop the aforedescribed iterability.

If you -- like to my great surprise many on this board -- like badiou, you
can use set theoretic metaphors: science produces successor cardinals
while religion asks about large cardinals which are simply not reachable
by intrinsic means.

if this description, which i suspect may lead to more confusion than
clarity, is appropriate, one is lead to realise that there's no prima
facie connection between religion and eudaimonia. society has to find
ways to stop the endless iteration of inquiry about the unobservable
and transforming the questions into rituals is one way. but the
easiest solution seems to be to accept that for fundamental reasons
this line of inquiry is not particularly fruitful, i.e. atheism.

borderpolice,

If you agree with Quine, then what is the "mythology" you imagine that you can ditch in "ditch all the mythology"? Quine is saying essentially that one can only move from one "mythology" to another.




autophoron

autophoron said:

If you agree with Quine, then what is the "mythology" you imagine that you can ditch in "ditch all the mythology"? Quine is saying essentially that one can only move from one "mythology" to another.autophoron

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My agreement was "In first approximation". But please note that Quine compares Homerian Gods in this quote to the rather colourful entities introduced by contemporary phsics in their role as helping to formulate models of the world. As such both enjoy equal epistmological status (in Quine's account). But Quine and myself being theory holists, we have other evaluation criteria. Quine mentions one that shows contemporary physics is superior to the greek gods: and that is the ability to predict future event.

In the same vein I believe atheism to be superior to religions, because i take the former to be more likely to increase human happines than religions. There are several key reasons for this: (1) because A. is less of an obfuscation then R. It makes the world less complex (this argument is structurally similar to one of the key socialist arguments against capitalism, an argument i disagree with BTW) (2) because R encourages escapism and (3) because R (for various reasons) leads to fragmentation (of religions) and cannot deal with the problem of competing relations.

One difference between my preferences and the difference between physics and homerian gods is that i cannot prove my claims. It is hence even more mythilogical than physics, which itself rests on dubious foundations, but that doesn't mean all mythologies are created equal. I'm quite happy to change my mind in the light of new evidence ...

borderpolice,


"please note that Quine compares Homerian Gods in this quote to the rather colourful entities introduced by contemporary phsics"

I am unsure of this restriction upon what is posited. Further in the text he says, "Positing does not stop with macroscopic physical objects. Objects at the atomic level and beyond are posited to make the laws of macroscopic objects...", suggesting that the "object" itself qua object is posited, marcro or micro. "The positing of physical objects is far more archaic [than that of irrational numbers, to which he compares it], being coeval, I expect, with language itself."

And "[your]self being theory holists", you understand that all of your judgments upon religion are ideological (holistically) structured, a holism that you seem to take for granted as a definitive basis for judgment, not subject to critique. The consequence of applying Quine's holism to your views would suggest that it is History, or some other trans-Individual force, that structures the very "world view" you are operating from. This force in Spinoza is God/Nature, in Hegel the Phenomenology of Spirit. Your holism should not only unseat the mythologies of religion, but also your own mythologies.




autophoron

I'm afraid I can't help but think you misuse Quine's text. He makes an
ontological statement about scientific entities: "I continue to think
of the conceptual scheme of science as a tool, ultimately, for
predicting future experience in the light of past experience." and in
this sense he thinks homerian gods and the creatures of physics are
alike. as I said, I agree with this in first approximation. However,
Quine and myself have other means for evaluating the quality of
stipulated entities, for example how much they help with "ultimately, [...]
predicting future experience in the light of past experience." This is
why him and myself attach stronger notions of existence or correctness
or appropriateness to atoms and photons than to zeus and cronos.
Quine does not say, religious and scientific entities are equally
credible, he only says they share a common feature, essentially that
they are both being posited to aid our understanding of the world. Of
course one doesn't have to agree with him or myself that
predictability is a good criterion for evaluating entities. in the
context of the discussion, it seems the criterion here is -- as i have
said already -- whether an entity increases or decreases eudaimonia.
The problem with this criterion -- for me and you -- is that this
doesn't lead itself to easy evaluation, because of the complexity of
human society.


Be that as it may, you are mistaken when you claim that "all of [my]
judgments upon religion are ideological (holistically) structured, a
holism that take for granted as a definitive basis for
judgment, not subject to critique." On the contrary, as I said in my
last post "I'm quite happy to change my mind in the light of new
evidence". however, evidence, which may or may not change my
position, will be evaluated according to my current holistic
standards. another way of looking at it is to see (my) theory as a function
mapping "evidence" (in a very general form) to theories (which may or
may not be the same as that which just did the mapping. abstractly, a
theory is a map

theory = evidence --> theory​

where evidence contains theory. as you will undoubtedly realise, this
understanding of my position encompasses Spinozist and Hegelian
accounts, but expressed in a modern languauge. so yes, my position can
be seen as a historic trajectory in the space of all possible theories, but my
theory does not unseat itself as you suggest. You use the word "ideology"
which i dislike, because its essentially pejorative as one easily sees because
nobody describes their own position as ideological. I prefer to call my
position constructivist. it contains an explicit account of its
own social and historical constructedness, more generally, it contains
itself and its genesis as its objects of explanation (like any interesting
theory should). it turns out that this iis possible, or so it seems,
without leading to an instablility of the theory, to its self-destruction,
in the same sense that for example physics is really a self-description
of the world, since physicists are part of the world and subjects to
physical laws. yet, physical theories are quite stable and not unduely
worried about this circularity [partly because there is no adequate
physical account of entities as complex as physicists].

now that that's out of the way, how about coming back to the subject
of religion? I'm very happy to discuss other issues raised here, like self-referential
theory design, but it may be better to do this in a dedicated thread.

borderpolice,

I have read that you think that I misuse Quine's text and in your response I find the two of you somehow a definitive pair,

“However, Quine and myself…”
“This is why him and myself…”
“… one doesn't have to agree with him or myself”


Are the two of you working on a paper together? This is a very odd way of writing. Let me ask you, what do you make of his analogy of the positing of irrational numbers which he suggest augment "our ontology [experience] with some mythical entities". The act of positing in the paper goes beyond that of quarks. Positing (macro and micro) objects is coeval with language. What do you imagine that that means? I would also suggest that Quine's Indeterminacy of Meaning does not privilege any translation manual over any other.


"You use the word "ideology" which i dislike, because its essentially pejorative as one easily sees because
nobody describes their own position as ideological."

It is out of ignorance that people do not want to describe their position as ideological, or out of the hubris of imagining that they hold the truth. I willingly declare my position as ideological. It has been constructed. And it was not me who has constructed it.

As to your "open-minded" concession:

"I'm quite happy to change my mind in the light of new evidence"

This is a bit disingenuous or self-deceiving, as you realize that your holism will absorb through various shifts in definitions any "evidence" necessary for change. This is a key aspect of ideological thinking - a near immunity to evidence. You are a "true believer", little different in the structure of your belief than a born again Christian, or a Marxist revolutionary. They too are "open" to new evidence, but seem to find "proof" of their position everywhere.

"...the total field is so undetermined by its boundary conditions, experience, that there is much latitude of choice as to what statements to re-evaluate in the light of any single contrary experience. No particular experiences are linked with any particular statements in the interior field, except indirectly through considerations of equalibrium affecting the field as a whole".






autophoron

I'd rather play music in quine's band. anyway, irrational numbers and
quarks are similar in the sense discussed by quine. "Positing (macro
and micro) objects is coeval with language." that means that
simplifying things objects has always been a part of language.

autophoron said:

I would also suggest that Quine's Indeterminacy of
Meaning does not privilege any translation manual over
any other.

Click to expand...

I disagree with that in the sense that from the point of view of
any given interesting theory, some theories are better than others. why else
would we use language to talk with others?

autophoron said:

I willingly declare my position as ideological.

Click to expand...

but you do not determine language usage, unless you're famous and a celebrity.

autophoron said:

This is a bit disingenuous or self-deceiving, as you realize
that your holism will absorb through various shifts in
definitions any "evidence" necessary for change. This is a key
aspect of ideological thinking - a near immunity to
evidence. You are a "true believer", little different in the
structure of your belief than a born again Christian, or a
Marxist revolutionary. They too are "open" to new evidence, but
seem to find "proof" of their position everywhere.

Click to expand...

well, how would you know? i have in the past changed my mind many
times. now what? in any case, being able to accomodate all evidence,
as opposed to be immune, is one of the hallmarks of good theory. but
it cannot be the only criterion, for otherwise going abstract would be
the way to go. But "Either it rains or it doesn't isn't an interesting
account of the weather". In that sense, your claim that I am a "true
believer, little different in the structure of [my] belief than a born
again Christian, or a Marxist revolutionary", even if it were true,
would be rather uninteresting.

There are various well-known strategies to accomodate new ill-fitting
evidence: declaring the bearer as evil or bad or irrational, i.e. ad-hominem
attacks, going the way of abstraction, changing the theory, either by
completly abandoning it or by making it more complex. another strategy
is pushing a discussion into a meta-disscussion of methodology, as
we're doing right now. ... we've seen the others here too, in differing
shades of intensity.

But there is a deep conceptual problem here, one that i would not
claim to have solved: how does one evaluate self-referential theories,
those who have themselves as objects? I have already mentioned the
ability to accomodate as much evidence as possible. I propose a
(vague) second criterion: a theory should be as complicated as
possible. I realise that this is of limited use.

Well, on what grounds did you decide to attack my position and push
the religious option?

borderpolice,



I disagree with that in the sense that from the point of view of
any given interesting theory, some theories are better than others. why else
would we use language to talk with others?

I am being specific to his theory of the Indeterminacy of Meaning, wherein no amount of Empirical data can prove one translation manual over another. Considering that coeval with language is the positing of objects (and it is unclear if any object as object becomes a mythological object, but I suggest that this is a reasonable conclusion), and that the empirical observations of an alien tongue can never produce a definitive translation manual, it is not much of a leap to move from parallel translation manuals, each equally empirically true, to the relative ontology of minds. In fact this is the very position that Spinoza takes. The Intentional Opacity inherent in Quine’s observations on meaning, that find themselves in Davidson’s Anomalous Monism, in Spinoza show how each mind holds an idea that is adequate under the form of eternity, but inadequate in the mind of the person. The Intentional Opacity in meaning ungrounds causal knowledge because the truth of statements varies on the field of beliefs which gave rise to them. The field is a relative ontology. This is what I call ideology.

“another strategy is pushing a discussion into a meta-disscussion of methodology, as
we're doing right now. ...”

Spinoza’s theory of knowledge requires a meta-discussion. Adequate ideas are achieved by understanding the causes that bring about your state. More to the point, you would like to define “religion” in a fairly pedestrian way, and make anti-religious arguments which to me sound a little stale. Of course one can rail against “religion” the way one can rail against “government”, but what is more interesting and productive is to ask what is religion, what are the mechanisms that bring it about and which make it cohere. When you realize the pervasive nature of the mechanisms that give rise to religion, the omni-presence of sacrament through ritual – outside of religious institutional contexts, one sees that “reality” is a constructed thing. If you want to go on and declare “science = good, religion = bad” the discussion really doesn’t become anything more than a polemic against easy targets. What k-punk’s post did was cast the effects of religion without the theism invoked. This is for me a worthwhile analysis. More pertinent than the decrying of religion would perhaps be question, “In what way is science the mythology/religion of our age?”




autophoron