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Sunday, September 25, 2011

Is Atheism Logically Untenable?

Must we keep an open mind about God, even those of us who are skeptical about the grounds for theism?

Let me first give some examples of things I personally do not feel I need to keep an open mind about. You may or may not agree:

I do not need to keep an open mind about whether it is possible for someone to predict events that will happen in my life by observing the movements of the planets and stars, or reading the lines on my palm.

I do not need to keep an open mind about the claims of Scientology.

I do not need to keep an open mind about Hitler's responsibility for the Holocaust.

Isn't it irrational of me to be dogmatic, when there are people who believe in astrology and palmistry, or in Scientology, or in Hitler's innocence? — Just because people believe something — perhaps lots of people — just because the available evidence does not logically rule out the possibility that their belief is true, is not in itself sufficient reason for suspending judgment. My argument is if you allowed that such considerations were sufficient for suspending judgment, "just think what the consequences would be."

When it comes to the question of the ultimate ground of our existence, we are all profoundly ignorant. All that is left is the practical decision — the existential choice — whether to live in fear of God. However, existential choice still leaves us with three possibilities: we can choose to embrace theism; we can postpone the choice and profess agnosticism; or we can choose to embrace atheism.

In these terms, I would argue, the atheist option is neither untenable nor illogical. What the atheist has and the agnostic lacks, is something akin to religious faith. For those who find such faith supporting and life enhancing, that is sufficient ground for belief.

Saturday, September 10, 2011

What is Determinism?

Determinism makes the ideological point that our actions and thought are determined by some universal basis. This universal basis can be language (Bakhtin talks about linguistic determinism), class ideology (Marx talks about determinism of class-consciousness), will (Nietzsche said that everything is determined by will), writing (Derrida says that everything is writing) and so on.

For example, according to linguistic determinism: if one's native language is English one thinks with the help of language as well as one thinks in this language. Language belongs to one as well as one belongs to language. Everything we say in English is contained in the English language. That is why the writer just expresses the structures which are contained in the language to which he belongs.

Language is the tool of thinking, according to Wittgenstein. But it is not a tool like a hammer. So, one can lose one's hammer and yet hit the nail without a hammer. But one can think nothing without language. Really language is the way of thinking. If one's native language is French, you think as Frenchman, you have the logic and world outlook of French culture.

Every language, in my mind, creates its own would outlook, its own culture therefore its own thinking. For example, what color do you associate with happiness? It might be pink or yellow, perhaps? But for the Chinese, black is the symbol of happiness and laughter. Another example, with what do you associate the flower chrysanthemum? For the Japanese, the chrysanthemum is the symbol of death as well as the symbol of the Emperor.

So, there is linguistic determinism: we can think nothing without language. Everything we think belongs to our world outlook (this is ideological determinism too) and to native language (this is linguistic determinism). Every word we think, say or write belongs to our native language, therefore our thinking, saying and writing is determined by our language.

The basis of determinism, in my mind, is the human aspiration to understand the underlying nature of the person. Freud says that a subsection of the person is sexual appetite, therefore he creates the determinism of sexuality. The basis of the person (Ego) in his mind is Id, which embraces all sexual wants and instincts. I think that the philosopher creates determinism to understand and to describe the nature of the human person and to build his own system of philosophical ideology.

Saturday, September 3, 2011

Why Can’t Descartes Doubt his Own Existence?

In his First Meditation, Descartes wants to more or less abandon any belief that he can doubt at all. This is a way of finding a belief that is completely certain, a belief that he can be absolutely sure is true. If he cannot find any reason to doubt a belief, even the slightest bit, then it's certain in this sense. And the reason he wants to find such a belief (or such beliefs) is that he thinks that he can then base the rest of his beliefs on them, and he will be able to be sure that his beliefs rest on a secure foundation.

The problem is that he seems to have found skeptical arguments that show that there is no absolutely certain belief, that every belief he has is open to some (perhaps very slight) doubt. These are the skeptical arguments he gives in the First Meditation. It might seem, then, that he's doomed to be without an absolutely certain foundation for the rest of his beliefs. And this, clearly, would be a grave problem for his aims in the Meditations.

But this is where the fact that he cannot doubt his own existence comes in. It turns out that he really cannot doubt the belief that he himself exists. For the mere fact of his trying to doubt that he exists, or of his thinking anything at all, clearly shows him that he does exist: “I think therefore I am.” So there is no doubt, not even a very slight one, that he exists. Consequently, there is at least one belief that is absolutely certain: that he himself exists. So it turns out that there is a belief of the sort he needs to ground the rest of his beliefs on a secure foundation.