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gveale

Listed below are comments made by gveale between Friday, 23rd October 2009 and Thursday, 29th October 2009.

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Atheists reach out to agnostics 11:42am on 29 Oct 2009 Nice to see the ad hominems back again PK. For a few days I thought you may have discovered manners, if nothing else.

Ah, well...
Creationist leader to visit Northern Ireland 11:41am on 29 Oct 2009 Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear...you know you're committed to quite a bit more than that. (I'm assuming that you believe that science gets things right - that it gets at the truth.)

And analytic philosophy is just the clarification and the defence of ideas. It rarely trades in certainty. Every argument can, in principle, be challenged and overturned.

But I'm not a philosopher, so I'll butt out.
Creationist leader to visit Northern Ireland 4:34pm on 28 Oct 2009 "To take natural science as the model of the nature of knowledge is to say something about natural science that the natural scientist does not say, i.e. one does not, as a natural scientist, take natural science as the model of the nature of knowledge, rather, such a position is a philosophical one. Thus, by even talking about epistemic contact with reality, one steps outside of natural science. But if one steps outside of natural science by taking natural science as the model epistemology, then one admits the validity of some form of knowledge that is not derived from the natural sciences, i.e. the very knowledge by which one justifies one's acceptance of the natural science as the model of knowledge."

Yes, that seems to be the case here. There have been epistemological and metaphysical arguments. What I'm finding very interesting is the philosophy of a type of atheism that is being teased out here.

Put this another way. What do we need to presuppose about our minds and the world to explain the truth-telling power of science? That doesn't seem to be a meaningless question.

Like Gavin says, an atheist can give an answer (he might even like grokes(on pain of circularity) try to draw all his premises from propositions in scientific theories), but he needs to step outside science to explain the success of science. That's an historical and philosphical question.

I'm also sure that philosophy and natural science are rarely in direct competition. Science started life as "natural philosphy". Then it branched off. So the same sorts of questions are not addressed in both subjects. There is dialogue(eg. Google "cognitive science"). And philosophy reflects on human experience among other things, so premises are drawn from science, and the arts and human testimony, and so forth.

GV
Creationist leader to visit Northern Ireland 4:19pm on 28 Oct 2009 You guys realise that this is one of the most constructive discussions between atheistic scientists and theistic philosphers that W&T has seen in a long time.
I think that it's going so well (if very slowly) because you're clarifying terms and presuppositions.
On that note, I think that LSV and Bernard are talking about two different kinds of certainty.
Bernard's would be theoretical - if I were in his shoes I'd say my certainty would be on a par with, say, my certainty in a mind independent reality - or that we should trust our sense perceptions are generally reliable but are not infallible. (At least if his argument works, I think this is the sort of certainty you would have.)
LSVs seems more experiential. If I were in his shoes I'd say that my experience of God is on a par with moral experience. So I'd be as certain of God's existence as I would that "cruelty for it's own sake is wrong".
Now, yes, there are arguments against moral realism. They don't seem good enough to make me skeptical of my experience. And as for Helio's counterexamples, they just show that there is a cross cultural, common, core experience of a transcendent personal reality. That doesn't make LSV correct. But for the life of me, I can't see how it undermines or defeats LSV's experiential knowledge claim. It may be relevant to #121 & #126, but PK and LSV can work out the details there.
We need to be careful not to mix up Christian Theology with the claim that God exists.

Just my tuppence's worth. I'm off again for a couple of days. But this threads a very good read IMHO. I look forward to reading it again on Monday.

GV
Nick Griffin: the morning after 5:13pm on 23 Oct 2009 Of course if various political organisations wedded to violence in Northern Ireland can rebrand successfully, and if the PLO can rebrand successfully then the BNP can rebrand successfully.

It seems that the genie is out of the bottle in England. It'll be interesting to see if they can squeeze it back in again.

GV
Bon mots 4:47pm on 23 Oct 2009 Parrhasios

Where you smoking something in the 1960's? Is it still on the market?
The people have a right to know? (-;
Nick Griffin: the morning after 4:14pm on 23 Oct 2009 In answer to LSV
1) How do we define the term "indigenous"?

This isn't very important. How a nation is built and forms an identity is important. How that identity can change is important.

2) Now it is true, from what I have read, that many holocaust deniers have a political agenda, but does it logically follow that that must always be the case?

Logically, no. But factually it might be the case. So if a well informed person is a holocaust denier there is a high prior probability that politics is driving the assertion.

3) And in fact he praised Islam for its opposition to usury, and linked that to the serious problem of the banking crisis...the BNP was the only party which supported the Israeli position in the recent conflict with Gaza...

Yes, but Goebbels admired Jesuit oragnisation and rhetoric. He still hated the Jesuits with a passion. If that's the extent of his evidence, I'm underwhelmed.
Muslims are against Free Market Capitalism. So are Nationalists. So are conservatives like Roger Scruton. They have points in common. That doesn't mean that they've sympathy for each other.

And saying that the Jews can do what they like in their own land to Muslim communities isn't a strike against anti-semitism. Griffin could simply believe that they shouldn't be over here. Even the Nazi's toyed with the idea of an alliance with the zionists. They didn't have a plan in 1933 to eliminate 6 million Jews. Their ideas simply made that possible.

GV
Nick Griffin: the morning after 2:43pm on 23 Oct 2009 Following LSV, I agree that this may be a short term defeat for the BNP, but it could be part of a long term victory.
It will no longer be shocking to have a BNP representative on a flagship politics show. The jeers and insults from the audience lose their sting over time. They become boring.
Griffin appears to be hanging on to his sanity by a thin thread. But Griffin isn't my concern. Who succeeds Griffin? If that person can position themselves as well educated, in touch with a section of disillusioned voters, and as someone who can keep white racists under control, then we've got a problem. It's all about appearances. Griffin's appearance is beyond redemption. That doesn't mean that a replacement can't be found.

QT tried to use the programme to reassure literate middle class voters that all is well. That Griffin doesn't present a threat, that only a few cranks have sympathy with him. That the audience was a good representative sample of English society. That rational debate and soundbites can stem irrational forces.
I'm not comforted. The whole affair is quite disturbing.

GV
Nick Griffin: the morning after 11:14am on 23 Oct 2009 Griffin said that he thought the BBC to be 'part of a thoroughly unpleasant ultra-leftist establishment'

So there's Griffin and a blogger here in on the conspiracy.
Dean of King's College, Cambridge found dead amid child abuse allegations 09:21am on 23 Oct 2009 I'm going with paranoia as well.

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