No Compromise When You’re Right!

← Another illegal murders an innocent American! OPEN BORDERS LEAVE US VULNERABLE TO ATTACK →

Rape of the Truth–The Second Pillar of Secular Humanism

July 18, 2007 · 10 Comments

Dear Reader,

This is a must read article, and I don’t want you to miss it so please click:

Rape of the Truth–The Second Pillar of Secular Humanism

Please leave your comments on the new blog.  Thank you for your patience while I transition to my new No Compromise blog

Kindest regards,

~No Compromise

Categories: Christianity · News · Politics · Religion · USA · Wordpress Political Blogs
Tagged: , , , , , ,

10 responses so far ↓

  • ClapSo // July 18, 2007 at 8:52 pm

    As well written a piece as I’ve ever read. I don’t however agree with a word of it. You try to define truth as a constant when in fact a truth only has validity in a given social context.

    There are two kinds of truth:

    1)Personal truth (what any ONE of us believes to be true)

    2)Consensual truth (what TWO or MORE of us agree to be true)

    Even if there is an absolute truth, the truth agreed upon by any number of social groups (consensual truth) may or may not agree with this absolute truth even if it exists.

    Within any given group it is the leadership that decides what shall be the truth, and leaders have always used the power of leadership to FORCE CONSENSUS. The leaders will always insist that the leaders truth IS the absolute truth.

    This is easily seen in any social group, whether you agree or not ;)

    The scientifically impossible I do right away
    The spiritually miraculous takes a bit longer

  • biffmagma // July 18, 2007 at 9:34 pm

    There is no usage of “empiricism” in English that corresponds to what you’ve said:

    “However, our progressive counterparts, for the most part, believe that reality is entirely subjective, with all of reality being inside the brain of the perceiving subject with nothing independent of it. This philosophy is also known as Empiricism.”

    Adler’s book was written in 50s and has thus missed much of significance in the development of philosophical thinking over the last half century.

    I haven’t read Sire, but IVP is generally not a reliable publisher when it comes to philosophy.

    If you really want to understand philosophy, I strongly recommend Metaphysics: An Introduction by Michael Loux or Metaphysics by Peter Van Inwagen. Inwagen is a Christian so that you may be more comfortable with him. Loux is a bit more rigorous. Neither of these are easy reading. However, given the complexity and significance of the issues, they deserve serious attention. You might also find Robert Audi’s Epistemology: An Introduction of interest.

    The correspondence theory of truth that you talk about is quite problematic in many ways. The American philosopher Hilary Putnam examines this in great (some might say excruciating) detail. Putnam is not what you would call postmodernist. His essay “Language and Meaning” in his collected papers would be the best place to begin thinking through the issues. Any of his books touch on this at some point.

    All of this presupposes, of course, that you’re actively interested in thinking through the issues rather than throwing things together into a club with which to beat up people whose politics you dislike.

  • No Compromises // July 19, 2007 at 4:04 am

    Magma: Guys: If this counts as “informative and educational” then conservative thought has slipped off the rails.

    NC: You get to judge what’s informative and educational? By what standard are you judging what is “informative and educational?”

    Magma: NC: There is no usage of “empiricism” in English that corresponds to this:

    “However, our progressive counterparts, for the most part, believe that reality is entirely subjective, with all of reality being inside the brain of the perceiving subject with nothing independent of it. This philosophy is also known as Empiricism.”

    This is solipsism and is regarded as the antithesis of empiricism.

    NC: The definition of Empiricism is; “The doctrine which denies or doubts the validity of all intellectual knowledge and admits only the certainty of sense-knowledge.” The definition of Solipsism is: “The skeptical attitude, in which the thinker is certain only of his own personal internal states of mind.” Both of these definitions fit the essay that was submitted today. With empiricism nothing is certain except subjective sense experience. There is nothing outside of the subject that is real.

    Magma: Adler’s book was written in 50s and has thus missed much of significance in the development of philosophical thinking over the last half century. Adler also indulged his prejudices quite freely and his book should not be mistaken for a systematic (let alone consistent) approach to serious philosophy.

    NC: Oh, brother!!! Are you kidding? What you are talking about is the Great Books which contain 52 volumes of which I personally own. This book that I resourced at the bottom of the essay was written in the year 2000.

    You have made another generalized statement that no reader would be able to evaluate. Us readers just have to take your conclusion by faith. The “development” that you talk about that I have seen has only been in terms of monistic, postmodern, and subjectivistic idealistic philosophy, which happens to be the true antithesis of dualistic, classical, objective realist philosophy according to Plato and Aristotle. Have I made the distinction clear enough for you? I am not aware of any recent significant development of Objective Realism in the past 50 years. If there has been such development that builds up on the scholastic foundation of Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, and Leibniz, I would be very interested in that. I am aware of the works of G.E. Moore, Bertrand Russell, and Arthur Lovejoy who have done good work defending dualism and objective realism.

    Modern philosophy started going down hill with Nominalist, Okham–14th Century, to Decartes–17th century, continuing with Locke, Berkley, and Hume–all 17th Century, further descending with Cant, Hegel, Marx and Nietzsche–18th and 19th Century. Locke is not an extreme empiricist, but he started down the empiricist road that Berkley and Hume further trod. If this is called developing philosophy, No thanks!

    Magma: I haven’t read Sire, but IVP is generally not a reliable publisher when it comes to philosophy.

    NC: Puhleeeeeze. Guilt by association. A broad brush. Not specific. Whatever. Non-evaluable general conclusions lacking supporting premises necessary for evaluation. You are asking us to accept your conclusions a priori by faith.

    Magma: “If you really want to understand philosophy,”

    NC: Is Plato and Aristotle inadequate for one to be able to “really understand philosophy”?

    Magma: I strongly recommend Metaphysics: An Introduction by Michael Loux or Metaphysics by Peter Van Inwagen. Inwagen is a Christian so that you may be more comfortable with him. Loux is a bit more rigorous. Neither of these are easy reading. However, given the complexity and significance of the issues, they deserve serious attention. You might also find Robert Audi’s Epistemology: An Introduction of interest.

    NC: You might be right. I will investigate. Thank you.

    Magma: The correspondence theory of truth that you talk about is quite problematic in many ways.

    NC: Okay, this good. Yes, I can understand how you would think it’s problematic if you start with a basic premise that everything is to be doubted such as Decartes then you have a serious challenge to the correspondence theory of truth, but such radical skepticism is unreasonable. The Correspondence theory of truth necessarily depends upon the a priori belief of external objects that exist independent of subjective empirical sense data.

    Magma: The American philosopher Hilary Putnam examines this in great (some might say excruciating) detail. Putnam is not what you would call postmodernist. His essay “Language and Meaning” in his collected papers would be the best place to begin thinking through the issues. Any of his books touch on this at some point.

    All of this presupposes, of course, that you’re actively interested in thinking through the issues rather than throwing things together into a club with which to beat up people whose politics you dislike.

    NC: Another rabbit trail. What does this have to do with philosophy and objective knowledge which is what we are seeking and discussing here?

  • No Compromises // July 19, 2007 at 5:12 am

    NC: Hi Clapso, I appreciate your polite and thoughtful response and thank you for taking the time to read it. I would like to comment on your post:

    Clapso: As well written a piece as I’ve ever read. I don’t however agree with a word of it. You try to define truth as a constant when in fact a truth only has validity in a given social context.

    There are two kinds of truth:

    1)Personal truth (what any ONE of us believes to be true)

    2)Consensual truth (what TWO or MORE of us agree to be true)

    NC: 41 is a prime number. This is an absolutely true statement. This truth has absolutely no dependence upon either individual belief in this truth or collective consensus regarding it. It would be just as true if you had used any other language or number base to express this truth, or within any given social context.

    What you are describing above is not truth, but rather two forms of subjective belief. #1 is subjective individual belief and #2 is sociological shared group belief. We must be very careful that we do not redefine truth to be what is actually belief. Postmodernism is famous for redefining and bending terms to suit a dominant leader’s will.
    Belief and Truth are two very distinct things. Truth is actually the relationship that subjective belief has with objective reality. Belief will either correspond or agree with or else will contradict objective reality. Its agreement with reality is called truth, and its contradiction is called falsehood. Mere beliefs, whether individual or collective, are not sufficient of themselves to establish truth, according to the subject-object correspondence definition of truth.

    Postmodernism attempts to redefine truth as mere sociological group belief for the purpose of manipulating social opinion as the means of acheiving political control and despotism. This is why we must always be wary of any covert redefinition of terms that may be craftily presented for our intellectual consumption. Instead, we should consciously evaluate and question for ourselves the adequacy of all terms that we use, seeking to eliminate equivocal and ambiguous terms and preferring simple, clear terms as much as possible.

    Clapso: Even if there is an absolute truth, the truth agreed upon by any number of social groups (consensual truth) may or may not agree with this absolute truth even if it exists.

    Within any given group it is the leadership that decides what shall be the truth, and leaders have always used the power of leadership to FORCE CONSENSUS. The leaders will always insist that the leaders truth IS the absolute truth.

    This is easily seen in any social group, whether you agree or not ;)

    The scientifically impossible I do right away
    The spiritually miraculous takes a bit longer

  • ClapSo // July 19, 2007 at 6:43 am

    41 is just a name given to a quantity. So is every word we use a symbol. The idea’s used by those that believe in absolute truth have been used “as the means of achieving political control and despotism.” Hitler was just as sure that the Jews were an inferior race as you are sure 41 is a prime number.

    While we can argue that truth is absolute or subjective. I can see no basis for your claim that believers of subjective truth are in any way more subject to being despotic. It’s clear the kings of old were absolutely sure that god wanted them to be king. You can’t get more absolute then that.

    The scientifically impossible I do right away
    The spiritually miraculous takes a bit longer

  • No Compromises // July 19, 2007 at 8:09 pm

    ClapSo: 41 is just a name given to a quantity. So is every word we use a symbol.

    NC: Yes, 41 is a symbol, just like any other word we use. However, is it JUST a symbol? Or does it have meaning and make reference to some real existent thing beyond its own literal or numerical expression? Nominalism would answer yes to the first question and no to the second. If nominalism were true, then a change of the symbol or word would indicate an entirely different thing literally, because it has no inherent meaning to anything else, in fact would have no meaning at all except what we give to it. This is the essence of Postmodernism. Words and numeral combinations would be mere empty vessels with no content or substance, other than what we put into them. People become convinced of this because of the arbitrary appearance of using different words for the same real thing. The choice of symbols may appear arbitrary, but the meaning behind them remains fixed.

    I could have expressed 41 in:
    Roman numerals: XLI
    Hexadecimal base: 0×29
    Base 7: 56 sub 7
    Binary: 00101001
    English: forty-one
    German: ein-und-vierzig

    These are all different symbols, yet they all make reference to the same thing, which is a prime number. It is not the symbol itself that is prime, but rather the real number that it represents that is prime. Platonic Realists such as Bertrand Russell and myself, believe these numbers have real independent existence outside of our own conception of them. Conceptualists would deny that they have any real existence outside of any mind, but believe they have real existence within the mind of the thinker as real concepts. Nominalists deny even the conceptual existence of numbers within the mind that are represented by symbols, and only accept the reality of the literal symbols themselves. This amounts to the very denial of all meaning, such as the prime-ness of any number.

    This is the logical result and endpoint of the denial of the dual nature of objective reality, the duality of mind and matter, subject and object. Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas and the Scholastics built up a philosophical foundation upon this metaphysical dualism of mind (or forms) and matter. The modern philosophers beginning with Okham, Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Nietzche, and the postmodernists, have destroyed this dualistic foundation built up by the classical and scholastic philosophers. They have replaced it with a monistic foundation, either by reducing all mental/formal/spiritual reality as mere properties of matter, or, reducing all material reality to only properties of mind or spirit. The former monistic philosophy is materialism, of which Karl Marx is a most prominent defender. The latter monistic philosophy is spiritualism, such exponents would be Hegel and Berkeley, and many Eastern religions. In both cases, it is ontological reductionism run amok, and leads to the denial of meaning and universals, and even the denial of existence and reality itself.

    ClapSo: The idea’s used by those that believe in absolute truth have been used “as the means of achieving political control and despotism.” Hitler was just as sure that the Jews were an inferior race as you are sure 41 is a prime number.

    NC: The truth that 41 is a prime number does not even depend upon my belief or knowledge that it is in fact a prime number.

    While we can argue that truth is absolute or subjective. I can see no basis for your claim that believers of subjective truth are in any way more subject to being despotic. It’s clear the kings of old were absolutely sure that god wanted them to be king. You can’t get more absolute then that.

    NC: Yes, it is true that in the old days, that despots would use an absolute justification for their right to rule, the “divine right of kings” . However, King John of Runnymede was held accountable by a group of Barons that he was not able to dialectically manipulate through public opinion. Modern despots today no longer need to appeal to any absolute standards above them to justify their despotism. They simply manipulate perceived social opinion through dialectical methods and the media. Karl Marx and/or Nietzche are their prophets, and have provided them with more effective intellectual weapons to use upon a unsuspecting manipulated population, without them being aware that they are serfs and slaves, since the best slaves are made by making them think that they are free, when in fact they are not. There is no longer any higher standard by which anyone may lawfully hold them accountable. They become their own law. The justification of presumed public opinion is constantly manipulated and distorted to satisfy their own lust for power. This is the reason for eternal vigilance, and to reject the philosophical tool that gives despots such power over the minds of man.

    I have sworn upon the altar of Almighty God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny upon the minds of men.
    – Thomas Jefferson

    The scientifically impossible I do right away
    The spiritually miraculous takes a bit longer

  • ClapSo // July 19, 2007 at 9:35 pm

    Despotism is reliant on making people believe that it is good for them. One need only look at the acts of the US government and how these acts were sold over the last 5 years to see how both relativism and absolutism are used to manufacture consent. It was easy to get the evangelicals to vote for bush. He just told them “god wants me to be president.” Just like the kings of old.

    He used outright lies to con many of my fellow citizens into falsely believing they are in danger from outside this country. The real danger is not from absolute truth or relative truth. It’s from LIES whether they be absolute or relative.

    The real danger comes from not outside but inside our country. It comes from the power elite that run our government, our economy, our religious institutions, our colleges and universities. These are the sales forces that convince us to be enslaved.

    The scientifically impossible I do right away
    The spiritually miraculous takes a bit longer

  • No Compromises // July 20, 2007 at 3:55 pm

    All we can do is act logically and virtously in our own sphere of influence. Philosophy is not merely therotical it is also practical and practical philosophy is also known as ethics. The best resource for over 2000 yrs. is the Bible, and I highly recommend Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle.

    Do unto others as you have them do unto you.

    This is what we can do regardless of what corrupt political leaders in the world might do. My previous discussion re: despostism and philosophy related to how we should respond to make our selves immune from their Machiavillian social maniputaions. One of the most critical things we can do to achieve this end is clear didactic thinking.

    Shalom.

  • ClapSo // July 20, 2007 at 9:14 pm

    A fitting close to a most enlightening discussion. Even though we don’t agree on the means, we can agree on the goals! I have enjoyed this much, and so am adding you to my blogroll. We must forever use our ethics to make peace a worldwide reality…

    The scientifically impossible I do right away
    The spiritually miraculous takes a bit longer

  • No Compromises // July 21, 2007 at 4:32 am

    Thanks Clapso! It has been quite enjoyable!

    Blessings upon you!

    NC

  • Like gas stations in rural Texas after 10 pm, comments are closed.