Philosophy alumnus Mike H. recently posted this comment under the on-going “Religious Authenticity” discussion, but I thought it was different enough and interesting enough to post it separately:
It seems like a lot of people think the world is a place where you’ve got a ton of different packaged worldviews and your mission is to choose between them and pick one, put it on like a helmet with goggles and your world will forever be transformed by it. You “understand” the people with different worldviews because you understand their helmet.
Truly understanding people is quite different because each person’s view of the world is really their own. A person’s view of the world is mostly guided by things that are outside of his/her control (environment, culture, indoctrination, etc.). So understanding myself and my view of the world is a discovery process not a construction process. It’s similar when I change my view of the world. I read something or understand some new concept and can’t help but be changed by the concept.
I think some story like this is the human process and I think arguments about this camp vs that camp don’t really get anything done. So… I wouldn’t pair Spinoza and Einstein [as being in the same camp] and I view all people as having distinct worldviews. If I were to pair people by worldviews I’d probably be more likely to use culture as a metric. Culture seems to have a large impact on human behavior and therefore seems like something we could (should?) work on directly to make a better world. Metaphysics is largely impotent and has been for quite some time. Looking around… “American” is what defines the people I see in regard to behavior much more than Christian or Atheist or Buddhist.
Choosing camps… choosing faiths… maybe those aren’t really choices we have? OR how is it that we gain that level of control over “reality”?
USUPhilosophy 
I must admit to not liking the turn of phrase “worldview”. I have never quite been sure what it really means, but I am afraid there is a sneaky relativism if not solipsism (denial of reality) lurking just behind it.
I am very sympathetic to Gadamerian hermeneutics, so I would never want to understate the role of culture and tradition in shaping belief. But I also find myself hesitant to accept the view that those with different beliefs (or “worldviews”) have nothing in common from which to build a discourse. This kind of radical relativism seems to deny that we have something in common – say, human nature or reason. In other words, I hold out some insistence that there is a possibility for a truly catholic (universal) discourse.
Upon what might that be founded? What about Aristotle’s suggestion: the principle of non-contradiction? That seems to be a necessary first principle for anyone that wants to even speak. It is not restricted to one culture over and against another. It is a universal feature of human reason that it must presume this first principle (you cannot argue for first principles) in order to say anything about anything. In other words, this first principle is not a “helmet” we put on. It is part of the basic and fundamental fabric of human inquiry across all cultures and traditions.
Or am I missing Mike’s point?
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I think Mike’s point (he can correct me if I’m wrong; but why think he knows any better than I do??) is that people seldom work out their beliefs with respect to philosophical systems or “camps.” And also: maybe it is wrong to try to understand everyone’s beliefs as systematic. Maybe many of us pick up beliefs as singlets, like dishes at a buffet, without worrying about how or whether they all go together.
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So, I totally missed his point. Your honor, can I redirect?
Huenemann’s clarification made me think of this from Ayn Rand:
“…As a human being, you have no choice about the fact that you need a philosophy. Your only choice is whether you define your philosophy by a conscious, rational, disciplined process of thought and scrupulously logical deliberation – or let your subconscious accumulate a junk heap of unwarranted conclusions, false generalizations, undefined contradictions, undigested slogans, unidentified wishes, doubts and fears, thrown together by chance, but integrated by your subconscious into a kind of mongrel philosophy and fused into a single, solid weight: self-doubt, like a ball and chain in the place where your mind’s wings should have grown” (Philosophy: Who Needs It p5).
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These thoughts, along with the initial ones are fairly raw and early attempts to get them out on paper (ha). I’ve been on philosophical hiatus. With that and the fact it’s now nearly 1am in mind…
I am someone who thinks many views of the world are “correct” but I don’t mean this in the sense of many worldviews, religious paradigms, or “overarching interpretive frameworks”. What I mean is that some people are “correct” in their view of the world. That doesn’t mean they have all their conceptions perfectly in order, it means that they’ve understood themselves (to some extent) and are responding appropriately. It has a lot more to do with the Christian concept of “calling” or doing what you’re made to do.
Someone like my Orthodox monk missionary friend in Uganda (with 40 or so orphans he takes care of) for instance seems about right while someone like Jerry Falwell seems (RIP) wrong. Both believe in the Christian God yet one is right and the other wrong in what I consider the most important sense. Not that Christianity is the problem but that it’s not necessarily the solution, sometimes you might even get lucky and it will be the solution.
A religious/philosophical point of view does have impact on behavior. “Love your Neighbor”, “Love your Enemies”, “Bless those who persecute you” all have very practical implications, unfortunately they can be interpreted away (ahh, hermeneutics and systematic theology, what gems!). What I’m talking about is the intangible parts of those paradigms (which are the ones most often used to ‘interpret’ the tangible ones). Unfortunately these are the ones that many people find to be the most important things to focus on and get ‘right’. I guess western rationalism has created this obsession with getting these intangibles ‘right’? Thinking about these abstract concepts is fine but the question that should be answered, and that I argue should be answered directly (in contrast to answering via a pre-packaged interpretive framework… again discovery, not construction… learning as remembrance anyone?) is “how should we, and specifically I, live?”
With understanding other people I think it helps to simply accept that their view (not their helmetized view) of the world is the ‘correct’ one before you even start the conversation. If you assume the truth of another person’s point of view then it helps you to fill in the gaps that you might otherwise use as tools to disagree with them. In reality you can generally fill in those gaps and come to a point where you can see how their view makes sense. You still can’t really adopt it as your own generally because like I said earlier, you can’t just grab any helmet and put it on. At least not genuinely.
There is something that can be said here about how “mainstream” religious persons tend to label other religious people (often those who share similar beliefs about God) as ‘fundamentalists’ or ‘cultists’. The metaphysical or abstractly religious ceases to be impotent and thereby gets marginalized. What does this mean about the nature of those who profess that beliefs are foundational/central? Can we say that this marginalization of fundamentalists is a good thing? Might we say culture and even *gasp* science are having an influence here?
Understanding what people’s central beliefs are has more to do with their behavior (not that this is a replacement for learning to listen) than with what they proclaim OR in regard to oneself, core beliefs are more about behavior than what we might think we believe. Jesus said, “Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord’, ‘Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.” So at least I’m not the only one with this preference for determining things via behavior. I think we can ‘build a discourse’ on pretty much anything but at this point I’m thinking we should try to build our discourse around things that are shown to impact human behavior in this century.
I realize I’m not being careful enough here with my comments about metaphysics because the concept is so clustered. I think the original thread helps make sense of that.
I’ll try to be more offensive in the future as to not be confused with a person condoning relativism, really I am very intolerant ;) . Sometimes when I pose questions they really are meant to be taken as such.
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It seems like Mike’s approach is similar to some school of psychological therapy — is it Wiesel’s logotherapy? — but with a sharper philosophical edge. First, try to understand what an individual’s set of beliefs is doing for them: is it integrated with their behavior, does it determine or inhibit their behavior, provide a cover for cowardice, etc. But then (and this is uniquely Howsden) assess those beliefs on the basis of what they are doing. He says “responding appropriately” or “solution,” but what he seems to have in mind are some central humanitarian concerns, like helping people who suffer. Any set of beliefs that is well-integrated with a person’s behavior and lead or help the person to help other people is “good to go.”
Two further questions come to mind. First, do we simply just recognize “central humanitarian concerns” as obvious? (That seems ok to me.) Second, is this all philosophy concerns itself with, or does it also concern itself with truth? I get the sense from Mike’s comments that truth is left to other endeavors (like science), which eventually will nudge everybody along.
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I must admit I think I am still missing Mike’s point – but it seems an interesting one so I wish I wasn’t. Anyway, I am probably steering the discussion all wrong again here.
Is this a fair way to frame the question: Mike is exploring in an interesting way the relation between orthodoxy (right belief) and orthopraxy (right action). And, this from Huenemann, he is suggesting that orthopraxy has a certain priority over orthodoxy, or at least it is the praxis that will be the basis of an assessment of the doxa?
If this is not unfair, Christianity is a very interesting example. For Christianity is distinctive in having so much concern over orthodoxy. Why? “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (Jn 3:16). It looks like, from lines like this, that salvation depends on believing rather than acting.
But Mike is right, Christians can become too enamored with the doxa and forget the praxis. They are not unrelated. One of the debates between Catholics and Protestants (which, I might add, I think is based on a basic misunderstanding on the part of Luther) is really about this – the relation between faith and works. But the Catholic/Orthodox position here is, I think, clearly superior because it recognizes more fully that belief and works cannot be seperated – “Every tree is known by its own fruit.” (Keirkegaard has a wonderful reflection on this in the first section of Works of Love). When they are seperated, as Mike suggests, something has gone terribly wrong.
But Mike’s question might be – does any old doxa do so long as it leads to orthopraxy? But might it be that only certain doxas lead to the orthopraxy? I am inclined toward the latter view, which is why philosophy has concern for both thought (truth) and action (love). Socrates, who I think is almost universally accepted by philosophers as a “role model”, is an examplary example of both, is he not?
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I don’t think there is only one right practice or that everyone needs to be dealing with humanitarian concerns. That’s why I talked about calling. Even a lot of non-religious people get caught up in the ‘worldview’ thing and I think it hinders them from making progress. Look at Dawkins for instance. He’s obviously adept at science (maybe that’s his calling?) but he’s off pontificating his philosophy without even bothering to do in depth study. If he was approaching his science that way he’d be laughed out of the classroom.
And before I get charged with hypocrisy, at least I’m only pontificating on the internet. :)
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Fruits and helmets… we’ve got some good metaphors going here….
I like this idea that two seemingly different ways of seeing the world might be in some sense identical because they issue in the same ways of relating to others. It does seem like the truly inspirational religious figures do advocate the same lifestyle, regardless of the differences in their beliefs. (Or? Is this merely wishful?) The view agrres with a view I sometimes espouse (and sometimes believe), that beliefs are merely epiphenomenal, a sort of ineffectual chatter that bubbles up out of behavior that has been conditioned by forces opaque to reason. Imagine a team of zoologists who have studied everything there is to know about ape behavior, who finally get the chance to communicate with the apes. And imagine the apes’ own construal of their behavior as wildly different from what the zoologists postualte. “Why do we groom? Because we believe the Big Banana will send us to Tok Tok if we don’t.” Who would be right? I think the zoologists would be, and the apes would be simply clueless about why they do what they do.
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I like what Kleiner has said about orthopraxy. I think he’s starting to understand what I’m saying and I appreciate the feedback. Nice to ‘meet’ you btw.
If a particular ‘overarching interpretive framework’ (helmet) can lead in a plethora of directions I would prefer to discard that particular helmet (or at least not focus my time on talking about it). Because to me then it wouldn’t actually ‘mean’ anything.
It seems the ‘doxa’ of both christianity and athiesm can lead to heteropraxy :)
But if we see ‘culture’ as the important overarching interpretive framework then we see much less variation in what sorts of behavior that it produces. It generally also seems to produce the heteropraxy. But maybe it does it in a meaningful way and thereby should pull our attention and efforts to it. Since it is ‘alive’ it should be what we’re focused on getting to produce the orthopraxy.
I can’t believe I decided to use those words. I do need to think about a lot of this stuff more to work out some of the details. Like what range of behavior patterns count as my orthopraxy though I hope not to use that term.
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The question I still have is do “worldviews” produce fruits? Is that really how it works? What makes you think this? Both Vince and Charlie have alluded to believing this. Btw, I don’t think defining worldviews in such a way as to make this tautologically true is going to help you out. At least it won’t score any points with me.
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Let’s suppose a worldview is a set of beliefs about what the world is and what human beings are, along with a set of values. Does that set of beliefs produce actions? Earlier I presented the possibility that maybe it doesn’t — maybe beliefs are epiphenomenal chatter, etc. But usually we believe it does, as when we say that the suicide bomber’s work is prompted by his beliefs. I suppose we might wonder whether two people could have the same worldviews but act in different ways (say, the suicide bomber vs. the pious Moslem). Wouldn’t we expect to find some difference in their beliefs or values, though? Or am I heading into Mike’s forbidden tautological waters?
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Huenemann has provided a workable definitinon for “worldview”, but I think some of this stream has tended to forget that human beings are not merely rational animals.
Kant, who in many ways is the culmination of that modernist bias, recognizes in his Groundword that in human beings reason does not infallibly determine the will. It is not a non-stop flight from belief to action. Inclinations can “get in the way” (from Kant’s point of view).
I think the ancients can help us here. The problem – if your belief is that X is good, why would you not do X? – is at least as old as Plato. It is the problem of ‘akrasia’ (a lack of self-command or control, weakness of will). Of course, Plato denies that akrasia is a legitimate concept. The Philosopher (Aristotle), does not. Aristotle has a much more sophisticated analysis of the relationship between reason and the will. For him, akratic acts can be caused by improper habituation, improper knowledge, conflicting moral principles, or desire.
In other words, moral syllogisms (the movement from belief to action) are not merely logical movements. They are complicated psychological exercises which can easily be hijaked by a imperfect knowledge, a lack of virtue, absense of gnome (good sense), poor analysis of the situation, disordered desires, etc.
Now, I am inclined to think that the pious Moslem and the suicide bomber have not only different praxis, but also different beliefs. But it is not hard to find people with relevantly similar beliefs (say, two Mormons, or two Lutherans, etc) who make different choices. But this does not demonstrate that the beliefs don’t matter in determining action. In Aristotle’s practical syllogism, it is moral beleifs that make the major premise, so they certainly matter. But two Moslems (or Christians or whatever) acting differently just shows that beliefs are not the only things that matter. I’d say that the flourishing person has his desires properly ordered to his reason. This is why Aristotle insists that while habituation might matter most, the truly virtuous person is not only properly habituated but he also knows what he is doing and believes that it is good (rather than simply being habituated to the tendency through fear of punishment or something like that).
Perhaps here is a good example, if a tragic one (on many fronts). I think the guys name was Haggert who was the head of that big evangelical church in Colorado Springs who, it was discovered, was living something of a double life – preaching against homosexuality from the pulpit but hiring male prostitutes in his free time. What is the relation between his beliefs and his actions? This is really a tragic story – not only for those that he hurt but for his own state of affairs. I think he really believes that homosexuality is immoral. But his desires were not ordered to his beliefs, and he has a kind of weakness of will such that he could not reign his desires in to accord with his beliefs. What you get is a tragically divided man, and a hypocrite.
My point: beliefs matter. But they are not the only things that matter since we are not purely rational beings. The habituation of desires also plays a major role.
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Vince’s description of his conversion experience made me think…
Here’s someone with a de-conversion experience for contrast
http://www.control-z.com/pgs/why_no_longer.html
So if Vince went through everything this guy said and did his own research and came to a new understanding about life I have to admit this would have some value in and of itself. Not sure how to quantify that value.
But if we were to compare Vince and this guy who probably share quite different worldviews what we probably wouldn’t find is a huge difference in…
– how they treat other people
– how much they spend on international aid
– their daily environmental impact
Of course I’m just guessing here and this particular case might not be the best example but if you do some sort of statistical analysis over a larger population sample I think you get my drift. Divorce rates are one that a lot of people like to site where self proclaimed ‘Christians’ and non Christians don’t vary as much as a lot of Christians would like to believe. So maybe their worldviews aren’t so different after all and we’re defining it in a way that might not be paying attention to some of the more important factors. In contrast to what Vince might think also, I think his character is of such a quality that changing his beliefs about God wouldn’t destroy his morality. Or at least I would hope he has that sort of character, if not he might be a greater danger to society than I thought. :)
When I engage in a long philosophical conversation I would like to think I do it in order to change myself in a larger way, not just tweak some concepts around. I want to become a better person and I would like to bring some philosophical brain power to bear upon the core concerns of our generation.
For instance, it would be nice if a careful thinker…
– created films on some of the issues Michael Moore addresses in his movies
– wrote screenplays/movies in hopes they’d end up getting to a larger audience
– wrote books like Dan Brown’s but with better research (i’ve heard Umberto Eco is an example of this)
– became as loud as someone like Dawkins but engaged people on larger social and political issues
So i’m not really anti-philosophy. I want more philosophy (for similar reasons as the Rand quote) but I would like it to engage the world and not just keep reproducing minor variants of the same books.
God knows the culture at large could use it. This is one of my main reasons for wanting to get back into philosophy. To help wake myself and others (smarter than me) who seem thoughtfully competent from their ‘dogmatic slumbers’ and get them out into the world.
The more careful thinker (usually he isn’t really wanting to call himself one) is often the most quiet but if he remains silent in relation to the world, we all lose.
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For my part, I don’t find it the least bit surprising that atheists and theists (Christians, Muslims, whatever) largely share basic moral values. Morality is not reducible to religion. Christianity is NOT a morality – it is a salvific story. Sure, there are moral messages in the Christian story, but I don’t think any of them are all that earth-shattering. Surely people knew that it is good to love one another before Christ told them, didn’t they? I don’t want to diminish how radical Christianity is, but what is most radical is not the claim that we should love our neighbor as ourselves – what is most radical is the claim that God is love.
Claims that one religion has some sort of monopoly on morality are as silly as they are dangerous. Note that Benedict 16 did not make this mistake – in his recent calls to interfaith dialogue on terrorism and mideast violence he never mentioned Christ. Instead he made an appeal to reason, nature, and community. If we don’t do this, don’t we exclude Socrates, Aristotle, Plato, Confucious, etc – who did not know the scriptures – from being profound moral teachers?
So Mike is quite right – I also doubt that Vince’s moral beliefs would change much if he abandoned Christianity. But this does not demonstrate that beliefs (”worldviews”) do not impact action. All it shows it that true moral beliefs (or our “moral worldview”) are not deduced solely from a sectarian religious camp. Rather they are culled from something more universal (human nature, the nature of human communities, conscience, etc).
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“it shows that true moral beliefs (or our “moral worldview”) are not deduced solely from a sectarian religious camp”
… I’ll take it. At least that leaves enough room to pay a good amount of attention on the other things our moral worldviews are deduced from?
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ugh, i really should log in so i can edit. “attention to”
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I still don’t think I’ve gotten the hang of speaking of beliefs/worldviews as “helmets”. But I am beginning to think that it is not a helpful turn of phrase. Our “worldview” (or our beliefs, values, culture, in general our interpretive framework) is not something we can take on or off, like a helmet. The helment analogy makes it sounds like there is some bare cogito that then “tries on” worldviews like I would try on ski helmets. But the kind of hyperbolic doubt Descartes pretended to have in the First Meditation is existentially impossible.
There is a great book by a former mentor of mine called ‘The Self After Postmodernity’ (by Cal Schrag) that I would recommend as a clear and accessible encounter with postmodernity and its aftermath (I, like Schrag, want to moderate the movement). There he argues that the self is nothing other than a narrative, a nexus of communicative praxis in relation to community, action, and transcendence. So our “worldview” (if by that we mean something like our historicized interpretative encounter with the world) is not something we try on – it is who we ARE.
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That last post is almost exactly what I was trying to get at with my post in that other thread. What I was saying is that I didn’t like it that so many people viewed their ‘worldview’ as a helmet and life as a place where we have a bunch of choices and we can just pick one and things will change. That’s also why I was contrasting the term ‘worldview’ with individual points of view. I want to say this choosing is disingenuous and people should stop talking like it’s a ‘real’ choice. So maybe we’re on the same page here.
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Vince,
I think certain types of philosophical pursuits are pointless mostly as a result of understanding history and how long those sorts of arguments have continued. So I think it’s important to focus on the areas where real change can occur. Also it’s important to write in a way that people can understand. I’m not yet on top of either of these two things but that’s the goal.
What I think is that changing more abstract points of view, like switching between being an athiest and a christian doesn’t NECESSARILY change behavior. So it’s not an inherent property of the belief. Other beliefs, like some of my beliefs about gravity for instance, are intricately tied with behavior. I think there is some space in between (political/social issues primarily) that careful thinkers could be more active in. Like i said somewhere previously sometimes you get lucky and a particular religious belief system is the exact right fit for your point of view so in that case it may help you be ‘all that you can be’, I think this may be the case with my orthodox monk friend. But generally I think we should (and I know you do actually with a lot of your political views) promote directly what we want to see happen in the world. So this sort of indirect approach of trying to convert people to change the world or tweak more abstract concepts and hope it trickles down is really what is distasteful to me.
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I would offer this one amendment to Mike. I would still want to say that we have some choice in our beliefs/worldview – and that those beliefs have some effect on our actions. But we do not “choose” beliefs as if in a vacuum. We “always already” (to use one of Heidegger’s favorite turns of phrase) have a history. We always already have a self-narrative, a community in which we are involved, etc. There is no bare bones cogito starting point – even when we change our minds about something it is always done within the interpretive context of our “facticity”. In short – we are free, but our freedom is always already situated within discursive contexts.
Is there anyone that disagrees with this? If so, perhaps they have not encountered the most persuasive elements of the postmodern critique of modernity. Heidegger’s introduction to Being and Time would be a good place to start (in particular, his reflections on his own starting point, and why the starting point for philosophy must be “everydayness”).
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Kleiner — Well, what I’m saying I think still matches your last point although you should correct me if I’m wrong. What you’re saying you can’t choose is the ‘overarching interpretive framework’. That is to a large extent a given. A belief that you might be able to gain (i’m still a bit wary of using the term ‘choose’ here) could be “bikes are better than cars because they don’t require oil and if used in lieu of driving may also help me lose weight”. And this belief may lead to me actually riding my bike instead of driving (actually, it already has, well in conjunction with my ‘facticity’ at least).
Do you think we have a greater level of control than that? Can you describe some choices that you think we have given this context?
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Vince, that last line is precious. I will probably steal it.
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Vince – have your wife store away that last line to use as your obituary. Awesome.
I think I would allow for more liberality in choosing beliefs than Mike would. In fact, I think fairly radical “worldview” choices are possible (things much more fundamental than his bike riding example). In short, I think metanoia is possible. It is possible to undergo radical conversions of thought and belief. I mean this in both the philosophical sense (Plato is encouraging us to metanoia in the allegory of the cave) and in the theological sense (conversion).
But I would argue that even metanoia (conversion, literally “turning around”) always occurs in concrete, “enmattered” and historicized contexts of language, meaning, and community.
An example? I was raised atheist and was a “fundamentalist atheist” (if there is such a thing) through college. You know, I had read my Nietzsche and was deeply influenced by Sartre, and I just knew better than those religious suckers. But I converted (slowly) while in graduate school at Boston College. But it is worth pointing out – the conversion involved choices but it was just as much a slow enfolding. I did not do it alone – as if the process was in a silent and lonely vacuum. Rather my reflections and choices all occured within a community of the Jesuit college and with mentors (profs) and friends. Can it happen in any other way? Isn’t Aristotle right – contemplation (be it philosophy or theology) can only be done among friends. There is no thought outside of the communicative praxis of the communities one finds oneself in.
That seems, at least to me, like a pretty radical worldview shift. Maybe we could say that I “gained” a new worldview instead of “chose” one. One cannot understate how we are enfolded into these interpretative/discursive contexts through culture and community. But at some point (or perhaps at a bunch of points along the way) there are choices. After all, at some point I had to choose to stand in front of the congregation and proclaim the Nicene Creed (We believe ….). I suppose I had already become enfolded into that community, but at that point – and with that choice – I fully appropriated that membership in a volitional act.
Aside 1: so glad we have a nice little group of philosophers active on this blog. I’ve really been enjoying it!
Aside 2: Vince – I am something of a Heideggerian – so I have a bias – but I think Heidegger is an absolute giant on par with Kant, Descartes, Augustine, Aquinas, Plato, Aristotle (you know, the big big names in the history of western thought). Even if not, I don’t think one can understand any 20th century continental thought without first going through Heidegger (Gadamer and hermeneutics, Foucault, Derrida, Rorty, Lonergan, John Paul II, Levinas, Marion, Postmodernity, Structuralism and Post-Structuralism, … …). So it is worth reading some Heidegger (when you are in the mood for some heavy lifting). Perhaps we could have a reading group next year as I know there is some interest from some students. You’ll see that contemporary theological discourses are heavily influenced by Heidegger (a good example of this is the Radical Orthodoxy movement).
That said, the Schrag book is accessible enough to those that have not read Heidegger. You’d get more out of it if you had read Heidegger, Derrida, Levinas, and Kierkegaard – but it could also be used as an introduction to those thinkers.
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Kleiner,
I would certainly be interested in attending a reading group this Fall. I have not had a considerable amount of exposure to Heidegger, and I think it would be interesting to learn more about him in a group setting. So if you decide to do so, please let me know!
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When I originally decided to write in this thread I was thinking I wanted to get back into working out my point of view a little bit better specifically because I had changed a lot since last time I really thoroughly tried to test my perspective in philosophical discussion. I had started to write an essay but then I thought, this really could use some dialog, there probably is a ton I’m missing here. The first time I wrote the words
“It seems like a lot of people think the world is a place where you’ve got a ton of different packaged worldviews and your mission is to choose between them and pick one, put it on like a helmet with goggles and your world will forever be transformed by it.”
I actually wrote… “MY first mistake was thinking that I could choose my worldview and that my view of the world was the same as my religious or philosophical point of view.”
So although a lot of what I’ve written here references Vince I was generally thinking of Mike v1.0 when I wrote about Christianity and worldviews/helmets. Mike v1.0 didn’t share most of the Vince’s positive qualities. None of this was meant to be some sort of personal attack or anything so I apologize if it comes across that way. On the other hand if we all feel comfortable then we’re probably not having very good philosophical discussion.
This sort of conversation is how I like to work out my thoughts and I’ve appreciated the thread. I think I can be much more careful about what I write and see some of the issues involved a bit better if/when I try to turn some of these thoughts into an essay.
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Hijack away! I am impressed by the quality of the dialogues we have going on here.
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Isn’t one of the chief marks of the philosophical spirit is that it does not take argument “personally”? By that I mean it does not take offense to someone saying “Your belief is false and here are the reasons why …” Peers in other fields always marvel at how robustly philosophers can argue without anyone worrying about hurting other peoples feelings. My wife often has a bit of shame about it – sometimes I come on a bit too strongly at cocktail parties (just yesterday I told a friend of my wife’s, “Well, what you are saying is just plain false and here is why ….”). :)
But what is sad is that our culture has become so enthralled by the Gospel of Nice that it has become nigh impossible to have a real discussion.
What makes philosophers so different? I have a modest proposal (stolen from Socrates):
Philosophers are not really trying to change minds – at least, that is not their first order of business unless we mean that they are trying to change all minds (including their own) insofar as they hold false belefs. Philosophers are not defending an argument over and against others (in the hopes of “winning”). Instead, philosophers are investigating ideas. In that sense they are not opponents but rather friendly (in the full Aristotlelian sense) interlocutors. I am no more tied to my argument than you to yours, we are both concerned with truth. In being concerned with truth, we must not be tied to ideologies or secondary realities (Voeglin), but instead must be willing to remove (from ourselves or others) false beliefs.
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