Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Reason and Rationality

  • Gun Control and Liberal-Left Irrationality

    The quality of 'elite' publications such as The New Yorker leaves a lot to be desired these days.  Adam Gopnik's recent outburst on Newtown is one more example of a downward trend: it is so breathtakingly bad that I am tempted to snark: "I can't breathe!" Could Gopnik really be as willfully stupid as the…

  • Reason’s Limits

    It is quite unreasonable to suppose that the appeal to sweet reason is the best way forward in all of life's situations.  The reasonable appreciate that the hard fist of unreason applied to the visage of evil intransigence is sometimes the most cogent of 'arguments.' It is unreasonable to be reasonable in all things.

  • Burden of Proof, Appeal to Ignorance, Safety Considerations, and God

    Presumption and Burden of Proof Firearms instructors sometimes say that every gun is loaded.  That is plainly false as it stands, but a wise saying nonetheless if interpreted to mean: every gun is to be presumed loaded until proven unloaded. Presumptions are procedural rules.  To presume every gun to be loaded is to adopt a…

  • Disputation and Burden of Proof: A Round with Professor Novak

    I proposed for consideration a bit of dialog: A: The law of noncontradiction (LNC) is a law of thought merely. B: I dispute your claim. LNC is not a law of thought merely; it is also a law of extramental reality. In this example, B disputes what A says by making a counter-claim, a counter-assertion.…

  • Parsimony, Burden of Proof, and God

    From an e-mail by Spencer Case: . . . by my lights, parsimony might be a consideration that puts the burden of proof on the theist. Theories that multiply entities unnecessarily are less likely to be true and the theist's theory postulates an entity. Now, it may be that the theist will say that we…

  • Peter van Inwagen on Burden of Proof in Philosophy

    Andrew Bailey sends the following quotations for our delectation: "(When a philosopher says, "The burden of the proof lies on you", he means, "You must deduce your conclusion from the truths of immediate sensory experience by means of an argument that is formally valid according to the rules of elementary logic; I on the other…

  • Are Burden-of-Proof Considerations Relevant in Philosophy?

    1. The question this post raises is whether it is at all useful to speak of burden of proof (BOP) in dialectical situations in which there are no agreed-upon rules of procedure that are constitutive of the 'game' played within the dialectical situation.  By a dialectical situation I mean a context in which orderly discussion…

  • Genuine Inquiry and Two Forms of Pseudo-Inquiry: Sham Reasoning and Fake Reasoning

    In Philosophers Who Compartmentalize and Those Who Don't,  I drew a distinction between 1. Philosophical inquiry pursued in order to support (defend and rationally justify) an antecedently held thesis or worldview whose source is extraphilosophical and 2. Philosophical inquiry pursued in order to support (by generating) a thesis or worldview that is not antecedently held…

  • Quod Gratis Asseritur, Gratis Negatur and Petitio Principii

    It occurred to me this morning that there is a connection between the two. Suppose a person asserts that abortion is morally wrong.  Insofar forth, a bare assertion which is likely  to elicit the bare counter-assertion, 'Abortion is not morally wrong.'  What can be gratuitously asserted may be gratuitously denied without breach of logical propriety, a…

  • More on the Rationality of Political Ignorance

    Alex L. writes, "I was interested in the post where you mentioned voting rationality.  I've heard this argument as well — that the chance your vote will influence elections is minuscule, so it's not rational to vote." But that is not the argument.  The argument is not to the conclusion that it is not rational…

  • The Rationality of Political Ignorance

    There are those who love to expose and mock the astonishing political ignorance of Americans.  According to a 2006 survey, only 42% of Americans could name the three branches of government.  But here is an interesting question worth exploring:  Is it not entirely rational to ignore events over which one has no control and withdraw…

  • Not Enough Evidence?

     "Not enough evidence, God, not enough evidence!" (Bertrand Russell) It may well be that our predicament is such as to disallow conclusive or even sufficient evidence of the truth about it. If Plato's Cave Allegory is apt, if it lays bare the truth of the human predicament, then it must be that the evidence that…

  • Morris Raphael Cohen: Logical Thought as the Basis of Civilization

    This just over the transom from David Marans: Recognizing your praise for Critical Rationalism and Morris Raphael Cohen, I believe his page (and also the Karl Popper page) in my PDF Logic Gallery will interest you. Of course, I hope the book's entire theme/content will also interest you. Your comments will surely interest ME. In…

  • How Reasonable is it to Rely on Reason Alone?

    Edith Stein, Finite and Eternal Being, tr. Reinhardt, ICS Publications, 2002, p. 22: Reason would turn into unreason if it would stubbornly content itself with what it is able to discover with its own light, barring out everything which is made visible to it by a brighter and more sublime light. Is it unreasonable to…

  • Solubility Skepticism, Religion, and Reason

    Ruffin Crozat writes, There is much depth in your short post on religion and reason from 6 May. Here are two points I often ponder about this topic: First, I appreciate the difficulty of solving philosophical problems, but I wonder about the claim that they are insoluble (I suppose “insoluble” means “insoluble by humans alone”).…