Contradictory beliefs are only possible in scenarios where something can be shown to someone that they were previously unaware of that contradicts a belief they are holding. There is no possibility of showing someone "the absence of a healing God", so there can be no contradictictory belief in a healing God.

Yeah, I don't know what the heck Willow was thinking on that one.

Yeah, I don't know what the heck Willow was thinking on that one. — Terrapin Station

What Willow was thinking is simple. He (or she) believes that some things are not logically possible because, when one tries to work them out (work out their implications), one finds that it is impossible for them to be worked out. This is similar to how Spinoza proceeds to justify his moves in his Ethics.

Yeah, but that would make them logically incoherent, not logically impossible.

Yeah, but that would make them logically incoherent, not logically impossible. — John

If they are logically incoherent, then they are impossible.

Yeah I should have qualified that I meant 'logically incoherent to us'. It's always logically possible that something might not seem logically coherent, but be possible nonetheless.

Yeah I should have qualified that I meant 'logically incoherent to us'. It's always logically possible that something might not seem logically coherent, but be possible nonetheless. — John

Then the onus is on you, or any other metaphysician, to prove how it might be possible. It's absurd to claim "Hurr Hurr it might be possible you know! >:) " without even being able to show how it might be possible. The proof is in the doing.

You are misunderstanding. I am suggesting that what is possible for metaphysics does not reflect the totality of what is possible. What the mystics speak of cannot be explained by the metaphysicians; they will always become bogged down in aporias and antinomies, as Kant clearly showed.

I don't think of myself as a metaphysician, in any case. I don't think that highly of it as a discipline at all; it's really just an arcane intellectual exercise in explicating what is imaginable to us, and how we might think the imaginable relates to what is. Metaphysics produces only models or maps; and we all (should) know the map is not the territory, right?

I am suggesting that what is possible for metaphysics does not reflect the totality of what is possible. — John

That is nonsense. Metaphysics is the science of Being/Existence itself. If something is metaphysically impossible, then it is impossible and full stop.

I disagree; I would say there is no science of being; but there is an art of being. If metaphysics is a science, then why do all the metaphysicians disagree with one another? Are you saying that if metaphysicians think something is impossible then it is impossible?

If metaphysics is a science, then why do all the metaphysicians disagree with one another? — John

Because some of them are wrong? Because metaphysics has political ramifications, and thus certain truths can't be recognised without thereby recognising their political implications?

Are you saying that if metaphysicians think something is impossible then it is impossible? — John

No - because it's possible that the metaphysician is wrong, but this would have to be shown.

I don't think metaphysics can be an exact science, because its 'truths' cannot be intersubjectively confirmed or disconfirmed by observation. Only the kind of a priori analysis that Kant undertook may be confirmed by all as self-evident, but even here heaps of philosophers disagree.

it's possible that the metaphysician is wrong, but this would have to be shown. — Agustino

I don't believe it is possible to "show" such a thing.

I don't think metaphysics can be an exact science, because its 'truths' cannot be intersubjectively confirmed or disconfirmed by observation. — John

This is still a metaphysical question.

Only the kind of a priori analysis that Kant undertook may be confirmed by all as self-evident, but even here heaps of philosophers disagree. — John

Ehm... in what sense can Kant be confirmed by others as self-evident? And what does that have to do with his method?

Kant made a foundational assumption. That assumption is that the faculties participate in perception and give structure - or form - to the perceptions. We impose the forms on reality, not the other way around. Once that assumption is in place, of course everything runs smoothly. Just grant him that little (actually big) point. This was all of Kant's imaginative leap. Then he renders traditional metaphysics to result in antinomies - and no wonder! If we impose the forms on Reality, then we have access only to appearances and not to things-in-themselves. And hence when we try to reach things-in-themselves we reach the antinomies. Woah! What a grand discovery! >:O You put the rabbit in the hat, and you take the rabbit out. It's simple. The rest of Kant is the working out of the logical implications of his central thought. But has Kant ever asked himself, perhaps by chance, what happens if our faculties are not, in fact, the source of the forms of space, time, causality and the rest? What then?

This is still a metaphysical question. — Agustino

So what? Even if that is so, it doesn't follow that metaphysics is a science?

Ehm... in what sense can Kant be confirmed by others as self-evident? And what does that have to do with his method? — Agustino

He considered his method to be an a priori method. If this is true then his conclusions would be self-evidently true to all unbiased rational minds. I say "if this is true" because it is by no means uncontroversial. Think of Quine's rejection between the a priori/ a posteriori distinction, for example. Quine was an arch empiricist, though, so i obviously would not agree with him. It is this very possibility of genuine rational disagreement between thinkers that ensures that metaphysics cannot be a science.

So what? Even if that is so, it doesn't follow that metaphysics is a science? — John

No but it follows that if you're interested to talk about this, you should try to show why it isn't - or rather can't be - a science.

He considered his method to be an a priori method. If this is true then his conclusions would be self-evidently true to all unbiased rational minds. I say "if this is true" because it is by no means uncontroversial. Think of Quine's rejection between the a priori/ a posteriori distinction, for example. Quine was an arch empiricist, though, so i obviously would not agree with him. It is this very possibility of genuine rational disagreement between thinkers that ensures that metaphysics cannot be a science. — John

Bullshit, address the specifics:

Kant made a foundational assumption. That assumption is that the faculties participate in perception and give structure - or form - to the perceptions. We impose the forms on reality, not the other way around. Once that assumption is in place, of course everything runs smoothly. Just grant him that little (actually big) point. This was all of Kant's imaginative leap. Then he renders traditional metaphysics to result in antinomies - and no wonder! If we impose the forms on Reality, then we have access only to appearances and not to things-in-themselves. And hence when we try to reach things-in-themselves we reach the antinomies. Woah! What a grand discovery! >:O You put the rabbit in the hat, and you take the rabbit out. It's simple. The rest of Kant is the working out of the logical implications of his central thought. But has Kant ever asked himself, perhaps by chance, what happens if our faculties are not, in fact, the source of the forms of space, time, causality and the rest? What then? — Agustino

Kant was faced with a problem. How to explain the fact that mathematics models the world so well... well let's see, how to explain it? (he even asks, for example in the Prolegomena - How is science at all possible? >:O How is mathematics at all possible? >:O ) Simple! The structure of the world, which mathematics models, is created by our mind - it's the form of space and time. So something imposed by the mind, can of course be modelled and understood by the mind. That explains why mathematics is so powerful - except it doesn't. But Kant didn't know about non-Euclidean geometry. He tried to do metaphysics by starting from science and going the other way around. Bullshit - Aristotle illustrated why Metaphysics must always be first philosophy. And it is first philosophy for Kant too - he just doesn't realise it, and sneaks in a critical assumption to explain science, which is never, afterwards, metaphysically assessed and judged. If you attempt to do metaphysics not as first philosophy, but instead make its foundation in, say, science, then you fall or climb with science. But science isn't apodeictic - thus neither will your metaphysics be. Instead of heeding Kant's system as Kant requests them, anyone who henceforth wants to engage in Metaphysics would better heed Aristotle:

"Those who wish to succeed must ask the right preliminary questions"

It’s an incoherence. What you are describing understands God to be an existing actor. This is the logic of “miracles.” The existing actor, all powerful and amazing, literally does the impossible, performs the action the world could never do itself. No doubt it is a relationship to the world, an understanding of events that have occurred,but it’s one which lacks understanding and imagination. From the first instance, they were wrong to think the world couldn’t being anew. The fracture is only between what the expected the world to be and what it did. God didn’t ruin the general. The world did. And it always could. Nothing in the world is has the power of precluding the possibility of its destruction. The general is ignorant by his own hubris. He mistakenly thought it was impossible for him to loss. History is broken in the way the general thinks. It’s just the history the general thought was so was never there. Nothing in the world is pre-determined.

The “metaphysical” relationship of “miracles” is the mistake of logic. It maintains God acted, even in the face of a world that does otherwise, because it thinks itself concerned with the metaphysical rather than the empirical. It mistakes the metaphysical (necessity, an imagine image of the world) for the empirical (what the world does), and thinks becasue it speaking about “logic” it can say stuff about the world without reference to the world, in turn generating the schism of “miracles” and “broken history” when the world defies their expectations.

Nietzsche only left God somewhat dead. While he identified separation, killing the idea of unity, he did not escape the expectation of unity. For Nietzsche, the crisis of Nihilism appears precisely because he cannot see beyond the expectation of unity. Ethics and value supposedly turn from something eternal to only an finite whim, all because unity it lost. In effect, Nietzsche is making the same ransom found in many proselytisers (religious or otherwise)— “Value requires unity (God), else it is all meaningless.” And so do the “last men” who follow him. For many a modernist and even post-modernist, God is not really dead. To some of them, we will finally have unity through science, through technology or social acceptance. Nietzsche said we killed God, but many of us only killed religious tradition, including him to a large extent. The metaphysics of God, the confusion of metaphysics for the empirical, notions of a predetermined world of unity, all carried on strongly. In the modern world, many say their is separation, but a lot of them don’t think it’s true.

God only dies when the world becomes the locus of possibility. Where the world sub specie durationis is finally understood to besub specie durationis, rather than being considered a pre-determined outcome of the world sub specie aeternitatis. It’s an understanding where there are no “miracles” because no-one has the hubris to think the world is predetermined to their expectations, be that winning a battle, death or solving a social problem. The world is known to have the power to form a new state of system that destroys what we expected or desired. In it, we understand not only is history broken (separated), but that all are actions are put towards to building a broken history (some state of a separated world) and this is where the infinite of ethics and value are expressed— with any question of ethics or value, our goal is not to bring unity to the world, but rather defend its separation, to protect important states of sub specie durationisfrom destruction or destroy instances of sub specie durationis which are vile. Politics doesn’t seek unity. It defends separation.

The virgin isn’t the same as the slut. Either is separation sub specie durationis, a distinct state, which is (sub specie aeternitatis) worth defending (to the postmodernist, who is right here- but that’s another argument). No-one is trying to make the world unbroken, to give the world unity. Everyone is defending a separation and that’s important. The only question is whether one realises that or is still deluded into thinking the world can be unified.

You are still deluded. You read politics as if its goal was unity, as if our institution were made to progress to unity, to a pre-determined world in which there were no loss or problems. Democracy isn’t made for an unified or eternal end. It serves the present, to defend particular sub specie durationis states, to avoid a totalitarianism government in its presence. That’s why it’s important, not some ultimate end where we get to sit in a world where totalitarianism is impossible. Our choices and actions may always erode or overturn democracy. Electing dictators is not new. Erosion of democratic systems is not new. It’s happened many times before all over the world. The world is always destroying its own. Sometimes this follows an institution created to solve a problem. Indeed, sometimes it even a response of result of solving a problem (e.g. cane toads in Australia, the impacts of DDT on the environment, etc., etc.). That’s what it means to live in a world of possibility. Nothing ensures we will get what we want. History (or rather the predeterminate) gives us nothing.

The crisis of Nihilism is the failure to accept this, a pining for the predetermined world immune to destruction and change. The world without Sin is not expressed or even sought in the death of God. Indeed, such an idea is the fantasy of God, the unified world in which there is no loss, in which Sin is impossible, where the world is predetermined to be as expected and just, a fantasy which views ethics not as a question of world action defending separations that matter, but one in which the world has no value or significance or ethics (i.e. “without God, there is not meaning, value or morality”). In this respect, it far precedes Nietzsche and the modern world. We might say the crisis of Nihilism is the belief in and expectation of the unified world.

What you are describing understands God to be an existing actor. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Not in the sense that I am an actor when I hit a billiard ball and it moves a certain way.

The existing actor, all powerful and amazing, literally does the impossible, performs the action the world could never do itself. — TheWillowOfDarkness

As I said, God is a way of relating to the world. You put God as just some other thing standing besides the world.

God didn’t ruin the general. The world did. — TheWillowOfDarkness

You're not saying anything different - just using a different word for it. You're relating to it in a different way. Furthermore, by saying that, you're missing something. When the general says that, it's not his hubris that has defeated him. That's not what he's saying, I was too careless/arrogant and therefore I lost. He's saying I couldn't have done anything to win. Winning just wasn't in the cards. I did my best, but my best wasn't sufficient. I executed the best strategy I could, and I executed it in the best way I could. Still not enough.

Nietzsche only left God somewhat dead. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Nietzsche would have preferred that God wasn't dead. His whole secret ambition was always to revive God. The fact that God was dead was a problem for him - a problem to be solved, to be overcome.
And he was right.

While he identified separation, killing the idea of unity, he did not escape the expectation of unity. — TheWillowOfDarkness

I think he did. The idea of unity and expectation of unity (sub specie durationis) is anti-thetical to the idea of God.

The only question is whether one realises that or is still deluded into thinking the world can be unified. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Yes, those who seek to level down the world - they still think it can be unified within history. Those who seek to maintain the tensions of the world, understand, as Augustine did in his City of God for example, that the end of history isn't within history. Kant, and all the moderns misunderstood this. Especially Marx and Hegel.

The crisis of Nihilism is the failure to accept this, a pining for the predetermined world immune to destruction and change. — TheWillowOfDarkness

But you don't understand my point. My point is precisely this, that the world isn't immune to destruction and change, and can't be immune to them, and the more we seek to actualise those things in history, the farther we get from them. And Nietzsche understood this too. This is trying to bring the end of history - which is a SPIRITUAL happening - into empirical, physical history.

We might say the crisis of Nihilism is the belief and goal of the unified world. — TheWillowOfDarkness

I agree. And Nietzsche does too. And perhaps Plato has foreseen this waaaaay before anyone else ;)

Nietzsche would have preferred that God wasn't dead. His whole secret ambition was always to revive God. The fact that God was dead was a problem for him - a problem to be solved, to be overcome. — Agustino

Which is why he has an expectation of unity. Rather than treat and accept the world as separated, he tries to pull it back together into unity, as is separation was a problem. Instead of realising separation and the value those states express (an infinite of value), he thinks it's a problem, that unity must be returned if their is to be meaning-- the absence of God isn't realised as how meaning is expressed (i.e. each separated state expresses meaning, which is why some things are important and other not) but thought to be the absence of meaning (the world must have unity to be meaningful).

But you don't understand my point. My point is precisely this, that the world isn't immune to destruction and change, and can't be immune to them, and the more we seek to actualise those things in history, the farther we get from them. And Nietzsche understood this too. — Agustino

You've missed mine. I'm saying that's an illusion born from the belief and expectation of unity-- the breaking of our philosophy from that tradition. History is full of people achieving changes they sought to make. It's also full of unintended outcomes and failures to meet expectations.

Things seem further away because we expect what we are seeking, even though it hasn't happen yet. We make the mistake of taking our eye off the world and only focusing our imagined outcome (which is frequently some notion of a unified world).

The reason "the more the more we seek to actualise" seems to result in goal further away is because it's an action in response to the world response the world pushing back against attempts to change it. As the number of rejections build, so do things like violence. A campaign for economic equality turns into a violent totalitarian action, with plenty of scapegoats, when the rich an powerful refuse to make any change, for example. The expectation of the unified world is so strong, that all manner of Sin becomes acceptable under the promise of achieving it. That's the cost of believing in God-- one's imagined world (unity, metaphysics) overpowers awareness of the world (separation, empirical), to a point where can no longer see what's being done in the name of progress or justice.

When the general says that, it's not his hubris that has defeated him. — Agustino

Wasn't my point. His hubris has him shocked at the outcome-- he thought it was impossible for him to loss-- and defines that he thinks that its a "miracle (the impossible)" rather than just the world doing what it might. The point is not about why he lost, but how he makes a logical error in reasoning about his loss-- the thought he was beyond the possibility losing. Rather than an issue with the world, it's a problem with his metaphysics.

No but it follows that if you're interested to talk about this, you should try to show why it isn't - or rather can't be - a science. — Agustino

But, I've already given the reason for thinking that. Philosophical ideas cannot be empirically confirmed or disconfirmed, and thus no intersubjective consensus is possible. People agree or disagree with phislsophical ideas on the basis of their own intutions.

Philosophical ideas cannot be empirically confirmed or disconfirmed, and thus no intersubjective consensus is possible. — John

That presumes that empirical confirmation is required for intersubjective consensus. Do you have empirical confirmation for the meaning of the look a girl gives you?! :-* And yet there seems to be intersubjective consensus between you two... Let me be a good Kantian as you like, and ask a great question! How is intersubjective consensus at all possible?

Sure, but in science there is determinate consensus. There is no determinate consensus in regard to smiles or artworks. For me, 'consensus' is the wrong term in human contexts; there I would use 'sympathy', 'empathy' or 'communion', instead.

I think intersubjective consensus is formalized, logical matter. Logically, if we are both looking at the same tree, then the existence of the tree must be independent of any and all individual perceptions of it.