You are free to imagine a world without religion as per the silly ditty of John Lennon, but if Pew Research Center predictions are correct, atheists and leftists need to brace themselves for serious disappointment:
. . . the religiously unaffiliated population is projected to shrink as a percentage of the global population, even though it will increase in absolute number. In 2010, censuses and surveys indicate, there were about 1.1 billion atheists, agnostics and people who do not identify with any particular religion.5 By 2050, the unaffiliated population is expected to exceed 1.2 billion. But, as a share of all the people in the world, those with no religious affiliation are projected to decline from 16% in 2010 to 13% by the middle of this century.
The above hyperlink via Richard Fernandez, The Easter of Crisis. An excellent column. Read it!
In the first article below I lay into Michael Walzer, one of the smarter lefties, for his failure to understand both religion and the human heart.
Finally, if you have a hankering to imagine things, then I suggest you
Imagine No 'Imagine'
Imagine no 'Imagine' It's easy if you try No more lefty lyrics Above us more than sky.
You may say I'm a dreamer But I'm not the only one I hope some day you'll join us And Lennon's song'll go unsung.
An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth (1940), 1969 Pelican ed., pp. 156-157:
I will observe, however, that empiricism, as a theory of knowledge, is self-refuting. For, however it may be formulated, it must involve some general proposition about the dependence of knowledge upon experience; and any such proposition, if true, must have as a consequence that [it] itself cannot be known. While therefore, empiricism may be true, it cannot, if true, be known to be so. This, however, is a large problem.
It is indeed a large problem. But, strictly speaking, is empiricism self-refuting? A self-refuting proposition is one that entails its own falsehood. *All generalizations are false* is self-refuting in this sense. It is either true or not true (false). (Assume Bivalence) If true, then false. If false, then false. So, necessarily false. Other self-refuting propositions are antinomies: if true, then false; if false, then true.
Let empiricism be the proposition, *All knowledge derives from sense experience.* Clearly, this proposition does not refute itself. For it does not entail its own falsehood. It is not the case that if it is true, then it is false. Rather, if it is true, then it cannot be known to be true. For it is not known by experience, and therefore not knowable if true.
Empiricism, then, is not self-refuting, but self-vitiating, self-weakening. It is in this respect like the thesis of relative relativism (RR): it is relatively true that all truths are relative. (RR) does not refute itself, but it does weaken itself. Presumably, what the relativist really wants to say is something stentorian and unqualified: all truths are relative! But the demands of logical consistency force him to relativize his position.
The real problem is that if empiricism is true, then it cannot be believed with justification. For on empiricism the only justificatory grounds are those supplied by sense experience. It is also quite clear that empiricism is not a formal-logical truth or an analytic truth. A logical positivist would have to say it is cognitively meaningless. But we shouldn't go that far. It plainly enjoys cognitive meaning.
You might say that empiricism is just a linguistic proposal, a non-binding suggestion as to how we might use words. Equivalently, one might say it is just a stance one might adopt. If you tell me that, then I will thank you for 'sharing,' but then politely voice my preference for either a non-empirical stance or a stance that is not a mere stance, but the blunt asseveration that empiricism is false. After all, I know that kindness is to be preferred over cruelty, ceteris paribus, and I know this by a non-empirical value intuition.
Another wrinkle is this. If all knowledge derives from sense experience, then presumably this cannot just happen to be the case. I should think that if empiricism is true, then it is necessarily true. But what could be the ground of the necessity? I have already noted, in effect, that the necessity is neither formal-logical nor analytic. Is the necessity grounded in the nature, essence, eidos, of knowledge? That would be a rather unempirical thing to say. Empiricists have no truck with essences or Forms or eide.
Here then we appear to have a further embarrassment for empiricism. It cannot be the nature of knowledge to derive from and have its sole justificatory ground in sense experience. So it just happens to be the case. This cannot be ruled out as logically impossible. But it smacks of deep incoherence and is, shall we say, profoundly unsatisfactory.
Please note that similar reasoning can be deployed against scientism. If all knowledge is natural-scientific knowledge, then this proposition, if true, cannot be known to be true. Is it then merely believed without justification? Is it merely a matter of adopting the 'scientistic stance' or doing the 'scientistic shuffle'? If so, I will thank you for 'sharing' but then politely refuse your invitation to dance.
Harry Reid, the top Democrat in the Senate, was asked by CNN’s Dana Bash this week if he regretted his 2012 accusation on the Senate floor that GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney “hasn’t paid taxes for ten years.” Reid presented no evidence at the time and claimed he didn’t need any: “I don’t think the burden should be on me. The burden should be on him. He’s the one I’ve alleged has not paid any taxes.”
Clapton and Winwood, Presence of the Lord. Why is Clapton such a great guitarist? Not because of his technical virtuosity, his 'chops,' but because he has something to say.
I read the seventh and final volume of Thomas Merton's journals, The Other Side of the Mountain, in 1998 when it first appeared. I am currently re-reading it. It is once again proving to be page turner for one who has both a nostalgic and a scholarly interest in the far-off and fabulous '60s. But what a gushing liberal and naive romantic Merton was! Here is but one example:
Yesterday, quite by chance, I met Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche and his secretary . . . . Chogyam Trungpa is a completely marvelous person. Young, natural, without front or artifice, deep, awake, wise. [. . .] He is also a genuine spiritual master. (October 20, 1968, p. 219, emphasis added)
Unfortunately, the 'spirituality' of many 'spiritual masters' is of the New Age type, a type of spirituality that fancies itself beyond morality with its dualism of good and evil. One of the worst features of some New Age types is their conceit that they are beyond duality when they are firmly enmired in it. Perhaps the truly enlightened are beyond moral dualism and can live free of moral injunctions and prohibitions. But what often happens in practice is that spiritual aspirants and gurus fall into ordinary immorality while pretending to have transcended it. One may recall the famous case of Rajneesh. Chogyam Trungpa appears to have been cut from the same cloth. According to one report,
. . . Trungpa slept with a different woman every night in order to transmit the teaching to them. L. intimated that it was really a hardship for Trungpa to do this, but it was his duty in order to spread the dharma.
With apologies to the shade of Jack Kerouac, you could say that this gives new meaning to 'dharma bum.'
That Merton could be taken in by the fellow says something about Merton. A phrase such as 'genuine spiritual master' ought not be bandied about lightly. But perhaps Trungpa's excesses were not in evidence at the time.
Herewith yet another indication of why philosophy is essential to balanced thinking and living. Jerusalem and Benares are both in need of chastening, and Athens wields the rod. Although I maintain that philosophy needs completion by what is beyond philosophy, that maintenance is not a license to abandon rational critique. Every sector of life requires critique, including Philosophy herself, and Philosophy is the Critic.
As for putative 'spiritual masters,' run as fast as you can from any such 'master' or 'guru' who has something to sell you or is not in control of his lower self.
If you can see the moral necessity of controlling the head, why then can't you see the moral necessity of controlling the heart? With all due respect to 'the King,' you can help falling in love with her.
Help a man, and he may be grateful to you. Or he may resent it that he needs your help, or envy you your ability to provide it, or act as if he has it coming, or become dependent on you, in which case your 'help' is harm.
Absolutely, one must do no harm. (Primum non nocere.) But when to help and when to leave well enough alone require careful thought.
What is a contradiction from one angle is a koan from another.In a contradiction, logical thought hits a dead end. Discursive thought's road end, however, may well be the trail head of the Transdiscursive.
The highest mastery is self-mastery. The highest self-mastery is thought-mastery. To control one's thoughts is to control the seeds of one's words and deeds.
The following is verbatim from a post by Jim Ryan, dated 14 August 2013. The truths below are important and need to be widely disseminated.
Some Self-Evident Truths
A "self-evident" proposition is one that is obviously true to anyone who understands it. These truths are self-evident:
1. To support a free market does not mean to oppose the regulation of commerce. On the contrary, the concept of a free market without the rule of law hardly makes any sense.
2. It is not theocratic to argue that abortion ought to be as illegal because it is the wrongful killing of a human being. The civil rights movement, as deeply Christian as much of it was, was not theocratic. It is not obvious that the current moral support for abortion is not as foolish and wrongheaded as the moral support for slavery was in the early 19th Century.
3. To argue that big government welfare destroys self-reliance and prosperity and makes national bankruptcy inevitable should not be confused with arguing that one should not offer assistance to the poor.
4. There is a wide array of values we have inherited: liberty, hard work, justice, limited government, courage, charity, involvement in civil society, etc. It makes no sense to raise equality in property above these values.
5. It is not clear that equality in property is ever preferable to liberty, hard work, team work, charity, and self-reliance. It is not clear what would count as a good reason to say that a society in which liberty, hard work, team work, charity, and self-reliance were flourishing would be even better if the the government decreased the achievement of those values so that equality in property could be increased. For this reason it is not clear that equality in property is even a value at all.
6. It is hypocritical for a wealthy person to maintain his great wealth while advocating equality in property and holding that it is unjust for some to be rich while others are poor.
7. To advocate a system in which a small group of leftwing leaders and their technocratic experts maintain enormous political power and wealth while they keep the overwhelming majority of people in society relatively powerless and poor is to advocate kleptocracy and totalitarianism, not to take any sort of moral stance at all.
8. Leftism and totalitarianism both advocate the government's having great control over individuals' economic endeavors and property. If all the preceding truths are self-evident, then it is not clear how a leftwing government can maintain power without controlling speech and thought in order to stop those truths from being communicated, explained, discussed, and understood. If that is true, it is not clear how a leftwing government can avoid full totalitarianism if it is to maintain power.
Moore's health was quite good in 1946-47, but before that he had suffered a stroke and his doctor had advised that he should not become greatly excited or fatigued. Mrs. Moore enforced that prescription by not allowing Moore to have a philosophical discussion with anyone for longer than one hour and a half. Wittgenstein was extremely vexed by this regulation. He believed that Moore should not be supervised by his wife. He should discuss as long as he liked. If he became excited or tired and had a stroke and died — well, that would be a decent way to die: with his boots on. Wittgenstein felt that it was unseemly that Moore, with his great love for truth, should be forced to break off a discussion before it had reached its proper end. I think that Wittgenstein's reaction to this regulation was very characteristic of his outlook on life. A human being should do the thing for which he has a talent with all of his energy his life long, and should never relax this devotion to his job merely in order to prolong his existence. This platonistic attitude was manifested again two years later when Wittgenstein, feeling that he was losing his own talent, questioned whether he should continue to live. (Emphasis added)
Yes! No wife, only fair Philosophia herself, should preside over and supervise a philosophical discussion. If an interlocutor should expire in the heat of the dialectic, well then, that is a good way to quit the phenomenal sphere.
There is a passage in Peter van Inwagen's "Existence, Ontological Commitment, and Fictional Entities," (in Existence: Essays in Ontology, CUP, 2014, p. 98, emphasis added), in which he expresses his incomprehension of what the Meinongian means by 'has being' and 'lacks being':
… the Meinongian must mean something different by 'has being' and 'lacks being' from what I mean by these phrases. But what does he mean by them? I do not know. I say 'x has being' means '~(y) ~y = x'; the Meinongian denies this. Apparently, he takes 'has being' to be a primitive, an indefinable term, whereas I think that 'has being' can be defined in terms of 'all' and 'not'. (And I take definability in terms of 'all' and 'not' to be important, because I am sure that the Meinongian means exactly what I do by 'all' and 'not' — and thus he understands what I mean by 'has being' and is therefore an authority on the question whether he and I mean the same.) And there the matter must rest. The Meinongian believes that 'has being' has a meaning that cannot be explained in terms of unrestricted universal quantification and negation.
Before I begin, let me say that I don't think van Inwagen is feigning incomprehension as some philosophers are wont to do: I believe he really has no idea what 'has being' and cognate expressions could mean if they don't mean what he thinks they mean.
No one articulates and defends the thin theory of existence/being better than Peter van Inwagen who is arguably 'king' of the thin theorists. The essence of the thin theory is that
1. x exists =df ~(y)~(y=x).
Driving the tilde though the right-hand expression, left to right, yields the logically equivalent
1*. x exists =df (∃y)(y = x)
which may be easier for you to wrap your head around. In something closer to English
1**. x exists =df x is identical to something.
The thin theory is 'thin' because it reduces existence to a purely logical notion definable in terms of the purely logical notions of unrestricted universal quantification, negation, and identity. What is existence? On the thin theory existence is just identity-with-something. (Not some one thing, of course, but something or other.) Characteristically Meinongian, however, is the thesis of Aussersein which could be put as follows:
M. Some items have no being.
Now suppose two things that van Inwagen supposes. Suppose that (i) there is exactly one sense of 'exists'/'is' and that (ii) this one sense is supplied in its entirety by (1) and its equivalents. Then (M) in conjunction with the two suppositions entails
C. Some items are not identical to anything.
But (C) is self-contradictory since it implies that some item is such that it is not identical to itself, i.e. '(∃x)~(x = x).'
Here we have the reason for van Inwagen's sincere incomprehension of what the Meinongian means by 'has being.' He cannot understand it because it seems to him to be self-contradictory. But it is important to note that (M) by itself is not logically contradictory. It is contradictory only in conjunction with van Inwagen's conviction that 'x has being' means '~(y) ~(y = x).'
In other words, if you ASSUME the thin theory, then the characteristic Meinongian thesis (M) issues in a logical contradiction. But why assume the thin theory? Are we rationally obliged to accept it?
I don't accept the thin theory, but I am not a Meinongian either. 'Thin or Meinongian' is a false alternative by my lights. I am not a Meinongian because I do not believe that existence is a classificatory principle that partitions a logically prior domain of ontologically neutral items into the existing items and the nonexisting items. I hold that everything exists, which, by obversion, implies that nothing does not exist. So I reject (M).
I reject the thin theory not because some things don't exist, but because there is more to the existence of what exists than identity-with-something. And what more is that? To put it bluntly: the more is the sheer extralogical and extralinguistic existence of the thing, its being there (in a non-locative sense of course). The 'more' is its not being nothing. (If you protest that to not be nothing is just to be something, where 'something' is just a bit of logical syntax, then I will explain that there are two senses of 'nothing' that need distinguishing.) Things exist, and they exist beyond language and logic.
Can I argue for this? It is not clear that one needs to argue the point since it is, to me at least, self-evident. But I can argue for it anyway.
If for x to exist is (identically) for x to be identical to some y, this leaves open the question: does y exist or not? You will say that y exists. (If you say that y does not exist, then you break the link between existence and identity-with-something.) So you say that y exists. But then your thin theory amounts to saying that the existence of x reduces to its identity with something that exists. My response will be that you have moved in an explanatory circle, one whose diameter is embarrassingly short. Your task was to explain what it is for something to exist, and you answer by saying that to exist is to be identical to something that exists. This response is no good, however, since it leaves unexplained what it is for something to exist! You have helped yourself to the very thing you need to explain.
It is the extralogical and extralinguistic existence of things that grounds our ability to quantify over them. Given that things exist, and that everything exists, we have no need for an existence predicate: we can rid ourselves of the existence predicate 'E' by defining 'Ex' in terms of '(∃y)(y = x).' But note that the definiens contains nothing but logical syntax. What this means is that one is presupposing the extralogical existence of items in the domain of quantification. You can rid yourself of the existence predicate if you like, but you cannot thereby rid yourself of the first-level existence of the items over which you are quantifying.
Here is another way of seeing the point. Russell held that existence is a propositional function's being sometimes true. Let the propositional function be (what is expressed by) 'x is a dog.' That function is sometimes true (in Russell's idiosyncratic phraseology) if the free variable 'x' has a substituend that turns the propositional function or open sentence into a true closed sentence. So consider 'Fido,' the name of an existing dog and 'Cerberus.' How do I know that substituting 'Fido' for 'x' results in a true sentence while substituting 'Cerberus' does not? Obviously, I must have recourse to a more fundamental notion of existence than the one that Russell defines. I must know that Fido exists while Cerberus does not. Clearly, existence in the fundamental sense is the existence that belongs to individuals, and not existence as a propositional function's being sometimes true.
Now if you understand the above, then you will be able to understand why, in van Inwagen's words, "The Meinongian believes that 'has being' has a meaning that cannot be explained in terms of unrestricted universal quantification and negation." The thin theory entails that there is no difference in reality between x and existing x. But for Meinong there is a difference: it is the difference between Sosein and Sein. While I don't think that there can be a Sosein that floats free of Sein. I maintain that there is a distinction in reality between a thing (nature, essence, Sosein, suchness) and existence.
If van Inwagen thinks that he has shown that Meinong's doctrine entails a formal-logical contradiction, he is fooling himself. Despite his fancy footwork and technical rigmarole, all van Inwagen succeeds in doing is begging the question against Meinong.
Christ has harsh words for those who misuse the power of speech at Matthew 12:36: "But I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment." But what about every idle word that bloggers blog and scribblers scribble? Must not the discipline of the tongue extend to the pen?
Suppose we back up a step. What is wrong with idle talk and idle writing? The most metaphysical of the gospels begins magnificently: "In the beginning was the Word and Word was with God, and the Word was God." (John 1:1) The Word (Logos, Verbum) is divine, and if we are made in the divine image and likeness, then the logical power, the verbal power, the power to think, judge, speak, and write is a god-like power in us. If so, then it ought not be abused. But in idle talk it is abused. Here then is a reason why idle talk is wrong.
But if idle talk is wrong, then so is all idle expression. And if all idle expression is wrong, then it is difficult to see how idle thoughts could be morally neutral. For thought is the root and source of expression. If we take Christ's words in their spirit rather than in their mere letter, moral accountability extends from speech to all forms of expression, and beyond that to the unexpressed but expressible preconditions of expression, namely, thoughts. Is it not a necessary truth that any communicative expressing is the expressing of a thought? (Think about that, and ask yourself: does a voice synthesizer speak to you?)
So a first reason to avoid idle thoughts and their expression is that entertaining the thoughts and expressing them debases the god-like power of the Logos in us. A second reason is that idle words may lead on to what is worse than idle words, to words that cause dissension and discord and violence. What starts out persiflage may end up billingsgate. (This is another reason why there cannot be an absolute right to free speech: one cannot have a right to speech that can be expected to issue in physical violence and death. Consider how this must be qualified to accommodate a just judge's sentencing a man to death.)
There is a third reason to avoid idle expression and the idle thoughts at their base. Idle words and thoughts impede entrance into silence. But this is not because they are idle, but because they are words and thoughts. By 'silence' I mean the interior silence, the inner quiet of the mind which is not the mere absence of sound, but the presence of that which, deeper than the discursive intellect, makes possibly both thought and discourse. But I won't say more about this now. See Meditation category.
What go me thinking about this topic is the 'paradox' of Thomas Merton whose works I have been re-reading. He wrote a very good book, The Silent Life, a book I recommend, though I cannot recommend his work in general. The Mertonian 'paradox' is this: how can one praise the life of deep interior solitude and silence while writing 70 books, numerous articles and reviews, seven volumes of journals, and giving all sorts of talks, presentations, workshops, and whatnot? And all that travel! It is a sad irony that he died far from his Kentucky abbey, Gethsemane, in Bangkok, Thailand at the young age of 53 while attending yet another conference. (Those of a monkish disposition are able to, and ought to, admit that many if not most conferences are useless, or else suboptimal uses of one's time, apart from such practical activities as securing a teaching position, or making other contacts necessary for getting on in the world.)
There is a related but different sort of paradox in Pascal. He told us that philosophy is not worth an hour's trouble. But then he bequeathed to us that big fat wonderful book of Pensées, Thoughts, as if to say: philosophy is not worth an hour's trouble — except mine. Why did he not spend his time better — by his own understanding of what 'better' involves — praying, meditating, and engaging in related religious activities?
And then there is that Danish Writing Machine Kierkegaard who in his short life (1813-1855) produced a staggeringly prodigious output of books and journal entries. When did he have time to practice his religion as opposed to writing about it?
I of course ask myself similar questions. One answer is that writing itself can be a spiritual practice. But I fear I have posted too much idle rubbish over the years. I shall try to do better in future.
