• Joshs
    6.7k
    Just because it is not 100% truth that doesn't make it the same as someone saying their own opinion, as the good sir AmadeusD is patiently explaining to you.unimportant

    If I say my truth about my own gender is unique to me, is that an opinion or true?
  • AmadeusD
    4.2k
    Science works, not because it is truth with a capital T, but because it allows us to predict events in a useful way in spite of the fact that each participant in the enterprise of science contributes their own perspective on the meaning of what is called true.Joshs

    This is only half the case. THe first half seems to be true - but that's because we aren't God, not because we cannot adjudicate what the case is. This is why the second is false - science does not proceed on mere consensus. Kuhn is well aware of this and makes much of it in "The Structure..". I'll respond with a couple more from him:

    "Nature cannot be forced into an arbitrary set of conceptual boxes"
    "Though the world does not change with a change of paradigm, the scientist afterward works in a different world."
    "I am not suggesting that there is no reality or that science does not deal with it."
    "Scientific development must be seen as a process of evolution from primitive beginnings—a process whose successive stages are characterized by an increasingly detailed and refined understanding of nature."

    A very key one, which I think illustrates that while Kuhn does reject T truth (as many do - or at least, access to it), he explicitly rejects subjective notions of it, too:

    "Later scientific theories are better than earlier ones for solving puzzles in the often quite different environments to which they are applied."

    His Revolution is in structural applications of scientific apparati. It's not about whether or not true things can be known and adjudicated, from what I can tell. The position is more than science, as a practice, is not concerned with trivial things and so the paradigms relating to which questions to ask are unstable and go through these cycles. I don't think there's much to suggest he thinks "my truth" could be a reasonable phrase.

    There is, I think, no theory-independent way to reconstruct phrases like ‘really there'; the notion of a match between the ontology of a theory and its “real” counterpart in nature now seems to me illusive in principle. Besides, as a historian, I am impressed with the implausability of the view. I do not doubt, for example, that Newton's mechanics improves on Aristotle's and that Einstein's improves on Newton's as instruments for puzzle-solving.

    What I understand to be a common critique of Kuhn is encapsulated here well - The first half of this suggests we cannot improve, because conclusiory notions are incoherent in some way ("illusive"). But goes on to say does not doubt hte results of that very activity occurring. It was certainly the most obvious tension I picked up in the book.

    While I agree, there's no need to slide down into suggestions of motivation. Joshs is a well-spoken and respectful poster. I doubt anything is "sneakily" being done here.
  • Joshs
    6.7k


    His Revolution is in structural applications of scientific apparati. It's not about whether or not true things can be known and adjudicated, from what I can tell. The position is more than science, as a practice, is not concerned with trivial things and so the paradigms relating to which questions to ask are unstable and go through these cycles. I don't think there's much to suggest he thinks "my truth" could be a reasonable phrase.AmadeusD

    Kuhn’s skepticism about capital-T Truth is not grounded simply in human finitude, as if better epistemic access would solve the problem. It is grounded in the historical and conceptual fact that different paradigms carve the world differently. When Kuhn says that after a paradigm shift the scientist “works in a different world,” he is not making a merely psychological or perspectival claim. He is saying that standards of relevance, similarity, explanation, and success have shifted. Your response treats this as compatible with a stable notion of adjudication, just better tools applied to the same underlying court of appeal. Kuhn’s insistence on incommensurability questions that reading Paradigms are not just rival hypotheses evaluated by neutral criteria; they partially determine the criteria themselves.

    When Kuhn says “later theories are better puzzle-solvers” he introduces that formulation precisely to avoid saying that later theories are “truer” in a correspondence sense. “Better” is indexed to puzzle-solving within a tradition, not to convergence on an ahistorical truth. You seem to read this as a reassurance that objectivity is intact and that subjective variants of truth are excluded. But Kuhn’s own formulation blocks naive relativism, but it also blocks the idea that we can cleanly separate epistemic success from the historically situated standards that define what success is.

    Kuhn would reject “my truth” if it meant idiosyncratic, private belief unconstrained by communal practice. A lone scientist does not get to baptize a new paradigm by fiat. But But I’m questioning whether, even within a shared paradigm, individual scientists inhabit it identically, interpret its results in precisely the same way, or attach the same meanings to its key terms. I think Kuhn’s answer is clearly no. Paradigms are learned through exemplars, not through explicit rules, and that learning always involves a degree of tacit judgment and variation. Scientists agree enough to work productively, but not so much that their perspectives collapse into a single cognitive point.

    Kuhn doesn’t license “my truth” as an all-purpose slogan, but he does show how truth-claims are always embedded in practices, traditions, and shared forms of life. Outside highly regimented domains like mature sciences, where paradigms are relatively stable and consensus is enforceable, the room for divergence in interpretation is much wider.
  • Ludwig V
    2.5k
    Kuhn doesn’t license “my truth” as an all-purpose slogan, but he does show how truth-claims are always embedded in practices, traditions, and shared forms of life.Joshs
    That's fair enough. But I think that there is a little more to be said. Kuhn is not wrong to emphasize paradigm shift and incommensurability in an argument to establish the importance of those concepts. But I think there is an implicit continuity in what he describes.
    He identifies anomalies as the prime movers in the shift of paradigms. These are, inevitably, to be described in the "old" context. The point is that, in that context they appear insoluble but that they are perfectly soluble in the new context. So it is critical that the same anomalous phenomena can be recognized across paradigms, in spite of any incommensurability.
    Further, it is not sufficient that the anomalies are resolved in the new paradigm. In addition, the new paradigm has to solve (explain) all the phenomena that were solved or explained in the old.
    I'm not certain how much Wittgenstein talks about change and development in practices and ways of life. I have the impression that what impressed him most about them was their stability. In making this comment about Kuhn, I'm trying to reconcile the two without overthrowing either.
  • Questioner
    567
    You know when someone believes it, when they believe it to their bones. That's their truth. Why are people so afraid of declaring their truth? Why are people so afraid of others declaring theirs?

    We need more conviction, not less.
  • AmadeusD
    4.2k
    When Kuhn says “later theories are better puzzle-solvers” he introduces that formulation precisely to avoid saying that later theories are “truer” in a correspondence sense.Joshs

    I think this is more to do with avoiding using "true" at all, because a theory isn't a truth. Its a "best possibility", and the scientific method essentially gives us license to take it as "true". But hte scientific method is not private, or even caught in labs. The layperson can carry out a scientific investigation, and so truth can be shared. But what is not possible is for some scientific method to come to a conclusion across multiple individuals/labs/whatever and another to come to another conclusion (other than interpretation - that doesn't seem apt for the true/not true distinction but I admit this is hard to tease apart) and for both to be the case. There is only one "the case" about the vast majority of questions science can answer. I think we would be doing a disservice to the world and ourselves by suggesting that our access to those "is the case" statements is mediated by context. It is the questions being asked that are mediated by context, and I think this is specifically what Kuhn is talking about.

    The success of the method, in answering those questions, doesn't appear to be his target basically.

    You seem to read this as a reassurance that objectivity is intact and that subjective variants of truth are excluded.Joshs

    Hmm. Not quite. But rather that facts are intact, and we should be striving for them. We often obtain them. But "practice" is not stable or sound in this regard. It may be accidental that a particular paradigm was able to answer questions C, F and J while we must await another to also answer G, Q and V. I don't think Kuhn is, anywhere, suggesting that we understand truth as anything other than a 1:1 match between the world and ourselves, but that we can't actually achieve that so let's take a step down and approach what we can approach - which is understanding paradigms and contexts as motivators for what science investigates.

    the room for divergence in interpretation is much wider.Joshs

    I agree, but I guess I wouldn't (and take it Kuhn wouldn't, even before having these thoughts that lead to Structure...) call that truth in any epistemic sense. Those interpretations are the raw materials that must be adjudicated between, with reference to the "is the case" of the questions at hand. Maybe this is not achievable. I think that's ok, though.
  • Outlander
    3.2k
    You know when someone believes it, when they believe it to their bones. That's their truth. Why are people so afraid of declaring their truth? Why are people so afraid of others declaring theirs?Questioner

    Why do you care? What non-logical mindset requires others to publicly declare any and everything they happen to believe to complete strangers, possibly those incapable of even understanding? Particularly in situations of little relevance. We live in a society of the perpetually afraid accusing others of being "afraid" when they don't do things the afraid person wants that the other person simply has no desire or reason to do. Afraid people are the most violent and accusatory. They know they're controlled by their fears and find fleeting, short-lived, and shallow alleviation from such by instilling or attempting to instill the same in others.

    "You have a right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you."

    Truer words have seldom ever been spoken. Avoiding something you would avoid because you are (or would be) afraid, is hardly a matter of emotion but is instead one of pure, calculated logic. We assume we know all there is to know about ourselves, and thus human nature in general. It's this fallacy that assumes no other person performing a given action does so for reasons that can't be comprehended by (or worse, magically and perfectly aligned with) our current mindset.

    We fear what we don't understand. And so our mind takes the path of least resistance. "Oh, that guy doing something, well if that was me, Explanation XYZ is why I would be doing it, and I know all there is to know so obviously he's doing it for the same reason I would be doing it, if it were me in his shoes." This is basically how the unenlightened mind works. It doesn't mean the person is dumb. It's basic pattern recognition. Reliance on memory, experience, and what has seemed to work in the past. Keeps us alive. Until it doesn't.
  • AmadeusD
    4.2k
    You know when someone believes it, when they believe it to their bones. That's their truthbelief.Questioner

    I have fixed this for semantic consistency and logic.
  • Joshs
    6.7k


    Kuhn is not wrong to emphasize paradigm shift and incommensurability in an argument to establish the importance of those concepts. But I think there is an implicit continuity in what he describes.
    He identifies anomalies as the prime movers in the shift of paradigms. These are, inevitably, to be described in the "old" context. The point is that, in that context they appear insoluble but that they are perfectly soluble in the new context. So it is critical that the same anomalous phenomena can be recognized across paradigms, in spite of any incommensurability.
    Further, it is not sufficient that the anomalies are resolved in the new paradigm. In addition, the new paradigm has to solve (explain) all the phenomena that were solved or explained in the old.
    I'm not certain how much Wittgenstein talks about change and development in practices and ways of life. I have the impression that what impressed him most about them was their stability. In making this comment about Kuhn, I'm trying to reconcile the two without overthrowing either.
    Ludwig V

    From a Kuhnian vantage, the continuity you emphasize can’t be understood as neutral continuity. You say anomalies are “inevitably described in the old context” and recognized as the same phenomena across paradigms. But for Kuhn, what counts as “the same phenomenon” is not theory-neutral. Observation is theory-laden. Scientists working in different paradigms may literally see different things when looking at the same instrument readings or experimental setups. The “same anomalous phenomena” are not bare data standing outside frameworks; they are structured by the paradigm that renders them anomalous in the first place. After a shift, what was once an anomaly may no longer even be described in the same conceptual terms.

    Kuhn’s incommensurability thesis doesn’t deny all translatability, it denies perfect translation. The fact that scientists can argue across paradigms doesn’t mean they share a fixed observational language that adjudicates the dispute from nowhere. A new paradigm preserves much of the old paradigm’s puzzle-solving ability, but it may reclassify what counts as a legitimate puzzle. Certain old problems may be dismissed as ill-posed, meaningless, or peripheral.

    Wittgenstein would likely go even further by questioning the Kuhnian picture of anomalies driving development as though reality were pressing back against theory in a structured way. For him, what counts as a failure, an anomaly, or a contradiction depends on rules internal to the practice. When those rules shift, the “problem” may dissolve rather than be solved. That is not puzzle-solving in Kuhn’s sense; it is conceptual reorientation
  • Joshs
    6.7k


    There is only one "the case" about the vast majority of questions science can answer. I think we would be doing a disservice to the world and ourselves by suggesting that our access to those "is the case" statements is mediated by context. It is the questions being asked that are mediated by context, and I think this is specifically what Kuhn is talking about.AmadeusD

    You claim that Kuhn avoids “true” simply because a theory is not a truth but a “best possibility,” and that the scientific method licenses us to treat it as true. This reframes Kuhn as offering epistemic humility about access, not a structural account of scientific change. But Kuhn’s avoidance of “truth” language is not merely caution about overstatement. It reflects his deeper claim that standards of theory appraisal, what counts as explanation, simplicity, accuracy, even what counts as a problem, are internal to paradigms.


    I don't think Kuhn is, anywhere, suggesting that we understand truth as anything other than a 1:1 match between the world and ourselves, but that we can't actually achieve that so let's take a step down and approach what we can approach - which is understanding paradigms and contexts as motivators for what science investigates.AmadeusD

    The issue isn’t just that we fall short of a 1:1 correspondence with reality. The issue is that what counts as matching reality is itself partly paradigm-structured.You say “There is only one ‘the case’ about the vast majority of questions science can answer.” But for Kuhn, the Newtonian question “What is the absolute motion of this body?” and the Einsteinian framework that denies absolute space are not simply two answers to the same neutral question. The very structure of the question changes. So to say “only one is the case” presupposes a shared conceptual framework in which the case is described.

    Paradigms don’t just select topics, they shape what counts as a legitimate solution and even what counts as evidence. Observation is theory-laden. Puzzle-solutions are judged by paradigm-specific standards. That doesn’t mean reality is invented, but it does mean that “the case” is never accessed from nowhere. You read Kuhn as saying there is one truth, and we just approach it imperfectly and context shapes our interests.

    Kuhn argues instead that there is one world, but what counts as a true account of it is inseparable from the historically evolving practices that define problems, evidence, and explanation. Kuhn’s point is not that the ideal stands but is out of reach. It is that scientific rationality does not require that ideal to function. Science progresses by increasing puzzle-solving capacity within shifting frameworks, not by demonstrably approaching a fixed description of “the case.”
  • AmadeusD
    4.2k
    It reflects his deeper claim that standards of theory appraisal, what counts as explanation, simplicity, accuracy, even what counts as a problem, are internal to paradigms.Joshs

    I am genuinely sorry if I was insufficiently clear, but this is exactly what I have explained in my response. I'm really sorry if anything sounds short, but its probably going to be things I've either stated, or intimated.

    The issue is that what counts as matching reality is itself partly paradigm-structured.Joshs

    I do not read Kuhn this way. I read him as presenting an issue with falsifiability. If questions are asked within a paradigm, then the answers come within the paradigm and interpretation is an issue - but this does not mean we are not truly (pun intended) aiming at "the case". I realise this is a tricky concept, not because its clever, but because it took me a while to actually figure out in "The Structure..". I couldn't get my head around the claim you're making precisely, but when I shifted to noting his issue is with structural choices and not an epistemic issue per se everything fell into place.

    If this isn't how you read him, that's all good.
    but it does mean that “the case” is never accessed from nowhere.Joshs

    This is hte issue, as I see it, in Kuhn. And I think what I've described accurately captures how he approaches it. If you don't, that's all good with me :) We are, after all ,interpreting from different paradigms.

    But the kicker here is that asking Kuhn would give us a fixed "the case" if he were alive! Heh.
  • Philosophim
    3.5k
    Its a person using language to manipulate
    — Philosophim

    You really need to shrug off this sense of victimization.
    Questioner

    How does this imply victimization? If a person is being manipulative with language it doesn't mean I personally am being manipulated.

    I am sure when people speak their truth, they are not thinking about you.Questioner

    This is just ignoring the discussion and insisting on using manipulative language. When people are speaking on their subjective view point, of course they don't have to think about me. But if they're trying to speak a subjective viewpoint that twists language to their own ends, its being manipulative. I consider using manipulative language one of the few clear evils that people can do. And your response being completely unintelligent and lacking is one of the reasons why. You cannot be a manipulative person and be good. It infects your mind as a poison, twists your emotions into hate, and utterly ruins otherwise good people.
  • unimportant
    200
    You know when someone believes it, when they believe it to their bones. That's their truth. Why are people so afraid of declaring their truth? Why are people so afraid of others declaring theirs?

    We need more conviction, not less.
    Questioner

    @AmadeusD now this is being sneaky. :) To say we are 'afraid' because we point out a logical fallacy.

    I see the asking of the question was not in good faith and it is more of a propaganda effort to get us to buy into this way of thinking.
  • Questioner
    567




    I’d be interested in your thoughts about what I posted earlier, re: the Eastern concept of shradda – a concept for which we don’t have an equivalent word in the English language. Here’s what I posted –

    shraddha – a word derived from two Sanskrit roots: shrat meaning "truth," "heart" or "faithfulness," and dha, meaning "to direct one’s mind toward."

    https://www.yogapedia.com/definition/5360/shraddha

    Shradda -

    "is literally 'that which is placed in the heart,' : all the beliefs we hold so deeply that we do not think to question them. It is the set of values, axioms, prejudices, and prepossessions that colors our perceptions, governs our thinking, dictates our responses, and shapes our lives, generally without our even being aware of its presence and power. This may sound philosophical, but shradda is not an intellectual abstraction. It is our very substance."

    Ecknath Easwaran, The Bhagavad Gita, Introduction, p. 63 (Nilgiri Press 2007)
  • AmadeusD
    4.2k
    We have several English words for this: conviction is one. Devotion, faith and deeply-held belief all do just fine for this concept, which I've been aware of for years.

    This may sound philosophical, but shradda is not an intellectual abstraction. It is our very substanceQuestioner

    He is literally describing standard world-view, base-level belief. There is no reason to think this is special in terms of various concepts of deep belief. It's probably dangerous, having beliefs you wont question.

    A little, yes, but I don't think it's on purpose. I trust Questioner is being fully earnest in these replies.

    This is just ignoring the discussion and insisting on using manipulative language.Philosophim

    I do think this is occurring, though.
  • Ludwig V
    2.5k
    From a Kuhnian vantage, the continuity you emphasize can’t be understood as neutral continuity.Joshs
    It can't be understood as the continuation of specific elements unchanged, if that's what you mean. I had in mind something more like an overlap, as between different languages or different perspectives (economic, geological, political, etc.) on the same events.

    But for Kuhn, what counts as “the same phenomenon” is not theory-neutral. Observation is theory-laden.Joshs
    I would not dream of denying that. However, some cases may be like the Copernican system. There, the data were common to both theories. It was the interpretation (and the physics) that changed. Again, even though the concepts were radically different, we can trace the concept of "heat" from alchemy to molecular theories. Perhaps, it comes down to the shared life and shared practices outside the theoretical perspective. Heat is welcome in the winter, but often unwelcome in the summer. Common humanity.

    Kuhn’s incommensurability thesis doesn’t deny all translatability, it denies perfect translation. ..... A new paradigm preserves much of the old paradigm’s puzzle-solving ability, but it may reclassify what counts as a legitimate puzzle. Certain old problems may be dismissed as ill-posed, meaningless, or peripheral.Joshs
    Yes, of course. I found it difficult to describe all those possibilities without getting unduly wordy.

    Wittgenstein would likely go even further by questioning the Kuhnian picture of anomalies driving development as though reality were pressing back against theory in a structured way. .... When those rules shift, the “problem” may dissolve rather than be solved. That is not puzzle-solving in Kuhn’s sense; it is conceptual reorientation.Joshs
    Certainly, Wittgenstein would insist, I think, that there could not be a definition of reality that was not part of a language game. But, perhaps, a language (game) is not quite the same thing as a theory.
    There are different kinds of anomaly. The rejection of epicycles was not based on data that could not be reconciled, but on the awkwardness and complication of the application of the theory. The Brownian motion was different and did consist of data that could not be explained. But perhaps that was not a case of paradigm shift. After he wrote "paradigm" became over-used and diluted to. imo, a ridiculous extent.
    However, I feel a bit awkward about this. One of my reasons for believing that idealism is false is precisely that the phenomena do not always conform to our theories. More generally, experimental methodology assumes that there is a theory independent reality that may or may not conform to our theories. So presumably, this possibility must be built in to any respectable theory - shades of Popper. That doesn't mean it must be built in to any language (game).
  • Philosophim
    3.5k
    I’d be interested in your thoughts about what I posted earlier, re: the Eastern concept of shradda – a concept for which we don’t have an equivalent word in the English language.Questioner

    Use whatever words you want. Having a dear belief does not make it true. Nor does it excuse manipulating language to describe a situation. I may believe with all of my heart that something exists, that does not make it so. That is a child's viewpoint of the world.

    If you are using language to imply that what is objectively not true, is true, you're using manipulative language. Humanity loves to rationalize and shape language to fit a belief system instead of using language as a clear and accurate representative of reality from which to rationally come to a correct conclusion. This is nothing new.

    That is what philosophy is supposed to teach us. To separate our convictions and beliefs from rational thought. 2+2=4, and no amount of belief, want, desire, or anger will change that. It is not someone's 'truth' that 2+2=5. Manipulative language puts one above the idea that their belief can be wrong. If you cannot honestly say, "My belief could be wrong, I will fairly consider it," then like a child, you will lie, ignore anything which would counter that belief, and go to the manipulation of language to dodge accountability. It is irresponsible, childish, and makes the world a worse place.
  • AmadeusD
    4.2k
    If you cannot honestly say, "My belief could be wrong, I will fairly consider it," then like a child, you will lie, ignore anything which would counter that belief, and go to the manipulation of language to dodge accountability. It is irresponsible, childish, and makes the world a worse place.Philosophim

    All of that.
  • Questioner
    567
    and makes the world a worse place.Philosophim

    Especially when you don't like what they're saying.

    So, you see, it's you imposing your subjective truth
  • Philosophim
    3.5k
    Especially when you don't like what they're saying.

    So, you see, it's you imposing your subjective truth
    Questioner

    You can't possibly think that's going to convince me or anything else of anything. The only one you're trying to convince is yourself.

    You know, I was deep into Christianity growing up. I had all the answers. I shaped the language to get what I wanted. And I remember being angry at the people that denied God or my belief system. And I remember with shock one day that I, a supposedly good and rational Christian, had to really open myself up to the idea that I could be wrong.

    I understand what its like to have a conviction in something that feels like its too precious to let go. I stopped, because I realized that if I was to be a good person, I had to be open to the fact that I didn't want to be tied to the wrong conviction. Defending an unworthy conviction isn't good, its destructive to yourself and others around you. I want you to think about your interactions with me in holding your conviction. Are you being the best person and conversationalist that you can be, or are you struggling with the emotional weight and purpose of something that might be wrong, and thus resorting to less than stellar behavior and arguments?

    I say this because I think you're a good person. But anyone can get trapped in that. Not having the answer right now also doesn't mean you won't have it later. But please don't resort to conversation tactics like you just did. We cannot be thinking of only ourself when we converse, but the other person's points and arguments as well.
  • Questioner
    567
    Defending an unworthy conviction isn't good, its destructive to yourself and others around you. I want you to think about your interactions with me in holding your conviction. Are you being the best person and conversationalist that you can be, or are you struggling with the emotional weight and purpose of something that might be wrong, and thus resorting to less than stellar behavior and arguments?Philosophim

    We cannot be thinking of only ourself when we converse, but the other person's points and arguments as well.Philosophim

    let's cut the b*llshit. We both know I was alluding to your insistence that transgender persons are "sexist" because they choose to live in the gender that their brains tell them they are. Nothing, not all the scientific evidence to the contrary, could shake you from that position. You held it as a sacred truth. So don't you start lecturing me. My point is that if a truth is true to the subject, it is indeed a subjective truth. And you have in fact corroborated my position without even realizing it.
  • Philosophim
    3.5k
    We both know I was alluding to your insistence that transgender persons are "sexist" because they choose to live in the gender that their brains tell them they areQuestioner

    I wasn't thinking that at all. I'm talking about this conversation here.

    Nothing, not all the scientific evidence to the contrary, could shake you from that position. You held it as a sacred truth.Questioner

    Incorrect. If the science demonstrates a new position, I go with that. You're getting wildly off topic here.

    So don't you start lecturing me.Questioner

    Present clear arguments on point with the current thread you're in, and I won't.

    My point is that if a truth is true to the subject, it is indeed a subjective truth.Questioner

    If a subjective point is true, then it is the truth. Truth it what simply is, despite what we may think it is. Truth is not 'mine' or 'yours'. Truth it what is, and it isn't owned by anyone. There is no "My truth". I've already mentioned a few posts up why its disingenuous and harmful language. Feel free to address the points I've already made.
  • Questioner
    567
    Truth it what is, and it isn't owned by anyone.Philosophim

    i disagree.

    In your rush to push forward that only the objective matters, you forget the person.

    I do not forget the person.
  • Joshs
    6.7k
    If you cannot honestly say, "My belief could be wrong, I will fairly consider it," then like a child, you will lie, ignore anything which would counter that belief, and go to the manipulation of language to dodge accountability. It is irresponsible, childish, and makes the world a worse place.Philosophim

    Can two competing beliefs both be right? Is demanding a one-size-fits-all truth the sign of maturity or a kind of childish tantrum in the face of perspectives that don’t fit neatly into the established norms?
  • Richard B
    577
    “I said I would ‘combat’ the other man,-but would’t I give him some reasons. Certainly, but how far do they go? At the end of reasons comes persuasion.”

    From Wittgenstein’s On Certainty 612

    And

    “Wherever I found a living thing, there found I will to power; and even in the will of the servant found I the yearning to be master. That the weaker should serve the stronger, thereto it is persuaded by its own will, which would fain be master over what is weaker still: this delight alone it is unwilling to forego.”

    Thus Spoke Zarathustra
  • Philosophim
    3.5k
    Can two competing beliefs both be right?Joshs

    If they are competing? No. Competing beliefs mean that they are at odds. Meaning if one is correct, the other is incorrect.

    Is demanding a one-size-fits-all truth the sign of maturity or a kind of childish tantrum in the face of perspectives that don’t fit neatly into the established norms?Joshs

    I fail to see how this has anything to do with the topic or my point on manipulative language.
  • Philosophim
    3.5k
    Truth it what is, and it isn't owned by anyone.
    — Philosophim

    i disagree.
    Questioner

    You are free to disagree. Disagreement alone does not mean you are correct or have captured the truth adequately. That's my point. A strong emotional belief or insistence about something doesn't make it so. What is, is, whether we like it, believe in it, or not.

    In your rush to push forward that only the objective matters, you forget the person.Questioner

    Where did I say only 'the objective' mattered? Where have I forgotten the person when my point about manipulative language was all about a person?

    I do not forget the person.Questioner

    You seem to have ignored a lot of what I stated, put things in my mouth I did not say, and have not provided much but personal emotional disagreement. I think you're only thinking about your own ideas in this conversation and have forgotten about me. :)
  • Questioner
    567
    personal emotional disagreement.Philosophim

    Why should emotion be dismissed? I prefer a person who passionately holds their views to one who pretends they are above it all.
  • Questioner
    567
    I think the person who knows their own truth is present with themselves. I think this makes them happier people. I say this in the context of the following quote from Søren Kierkegaard (May 5, 1813–November 11, 1855)

    The unhappy person is one who has his ideal, the content of his life, the fullness of his consciousness, the essence of his being, in some manner outside of himself. The unhappy man is always absent from himself, never present to himself. But one can be absent, obviously, either in the past or in the future. This adequately circumscribes the entire territory of the unhappy consciousness.
  • Questioner
    567
    “This may sound philosophical, but shradda is not an intellectual abstraction. It is our very substance."

    Ecknath Easwaran, The Bhagavad Gita, Introduction, p. 63 (Nilgiri Press 2007)

    “It should not be a surprise if contemporary philosophy perceives the world as though it had no substance.”

    ~ Viktor Frankl
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