Then we are in rough agreement that the concept of religion cannot be set out explicitly.

It's pretty clear he is talking about treating the laws of nature as logical necessities in that section.

So I am not sure that the context supports your interpretation.

That is not Kierkegaardian faith, of course. But as the usual kind, — Constance

What?

The knight of faith does not doubt his understanding of god. He is "standing before the world with the presumption of certainty."

The "rituals of bottle washing"? And the liturgy of the lecture hall and the Eucharist examination? Heh, heh....I don't think so. If so, then everything is religion. Washing my dog. Ah, the soapy....baptism? — Constance

Seems to me that there is a failure here to acknowledge the piety of the scientist, their subservience to a greater being. Take care not to be indulging in special pleading.

There is a whiff of special pleading here, of the need for folk to stipulate that whatever religion is, science cannot share in its wisdom. I'll stand with you against that.

It's as if the rejection of scientism leads folk to the rejection of science as a profound human enterprise. So it is as if @Wayfarer would deny that what he referred to earlier as sapiens is also evident in the practice of science.

I just think that is question begging. The article is about what a concept can be including a non-essentialist concept. So we can agree that religion is not usefully conceived as an essential concept that can be explicitly set forth, but I’m not sure that means that we can’t make an explicit statement about the concept of religion.

Or maybe I am reading too much into “explicitly” and not enough into “set out”. Either way, we agree the concept of religion is non-essentialist and it is a fool’s errand to try to make it one. What I haven’t figured out yet is whether that strikes you as a negative thing about the concept or just an observation to be shared with others.

Not to go too far afield, but I am reminded a bit of Mr. Holland’s Opus (if you’ve ever seen it). Is music necessarily sound/heard? You get to cry a bit as he (and perhaps you) discover the answer.

Big all encompassing ideas are tough. It is their sheer size and people’s desire to use them that makes them fit in places you wouldn’t otherwise think they belong.

What I haven’t figured out yet is whether that strikes you as a negative thing about the concept or just an observation to be shared with others. — Ennui Elucidator

It's a common feature of all concepts, I suspect. So not something that counts against religion.

It's interesting that the struggle to explicate the concept leads to so many places.

Is it the mistake of confusing the body of knowledge science produces with the process of uncovering that knowledge?

Seems to me that there is a failure here to acknowledge the piety of the scientist, their subservience to a greater being. Take care not to be indulging in special pleading. — Banno

Okay, I take it back. "Greater being" is an interesting choice of words. If there is no "greatest" Being, then all that remains are the demigods of mundane living. Unless you think that the term mundane is unduly deflationary given the grandeur of science. Then I would ask what you mean by great, for in this lies something beyond the science as science, just as there is more to the hymnals, solemn music, symbols, etc., of practiced religion. Then question then clearly goes to this sense of greatness or grandeur, as I would put it. And this grandeur is not specific to the science at hand. It is not born out of the math and the data. Rather, it comes upon one in a moment of exaltation, which is just a synonym for grandeur, really, and there are others, but importantly it is a rising importance of something that really transcends the occasion itself.

I suggest that in this one really has touched upon the religious, and if this feeling of grandeur that has no object is given its analytic due, it is not unlike what I said about indeterminacy. It is a finite affirmation, and since all that is affirmed is indeterminate, it is a metaphysical affirmation. The one premise that is always unseen is that indeterminacy puts all of our affairs beyond the boundaries we set for them.

And if the argument is that it is not the case that all things are indeterminate in their final analysis, then it would be patently wrong. Simply because indeterminacy is self affirming, easily testable.

What?

The knight of faith does not doubt his understanding of god. He "standing before the world with the presumption of certainty." — Banno

The presumption of certainty in the denial of mundane certainties. Faith, the faith of Abraham that surpasses the principles of common morality and affirms in the qualitative leap beyond, is also a negation of the world's laws, culture, religious comforts. Mundane faith K denied most passionately.

As early Heidegger and the later Wittgenstein (among others) would have it an implicit background understanding and interpretation is always involved.

It's interesting that the struggle to explicate the concept leads to so many places. — Banno

Not that I agree that you have to be religious to understand religion, but I do think that explication devoid of purpose makes it harder to get at what I think you believe underpins “defintions”: how you use the word. Knowledge that vs. knowledge how, perhaps. The people in the article were using religion to an end and they found the use useful (as, perhaps, did other members of their language community).

Use the word a bit. Play the game. See when you are called in and called out. In this way you will come to know the concept of religion. Kicking some ossified remnants of prior generation’s use is amusing in some respects, but do you really expect it to be enlightening?

. Then I would ask what you mean by great, for in this lies something beyond the science as science, just as there is more to the hymnals, solemn music, symbols, etc., of practiced religion. — Constance

Oh, sure. So what is the more...?

Can you tell me? If not, don't ask me to tell you wheat the "greater" is in science. Let's just agree to a revert silence.

...the faith of Abraham... — Constance

Again, What?

The conversation went...

Faith is "standing before the world with the presumption of knowing."
— Banno

That is not Kierkegaardian faith, of course.

But that is exactly what Kierkegaard says Abraham did. Despite all else telling him not to sacrifice Isaac, he follows through on his certainty - "standing before the world with the presumption of knowing".

Faith is believing despite the evidence.

as if the rejection of scientism leads folk to the rejection of science as a profound human enterprise. — Banno

Nothing of the kind. Think about what the postulate of methodological naturalism excludes. When that is transposed to the domain of philosophy it is not only ‘scientism’ that results. That is what I think that TLP passage is driving at.

Faith is believing despite the evidence. — Banno

Something more like positivism.

I don't follow that. Can you fill it in?

When that is transposed to the domain of philosophy it is not only ‘scientism’ that results. That is what I think that TLP passage is driving at. — Wayfarer

It's pretty clear he is talking about treating the laws of nature as logical necessities in that section.

So I am not sure that the context supports your interpretation. — Banno

It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists.

The experience that we need in order to understand logic is not that something or other is the state of things, but that something is: that, however, is not experience.

To say 'I wonder at such and such being the case' has only sense if I can imagine it not to be the case. In this sense one can wonder at the existence of, say, a house when one sees it and has not visited it for a long time and has imagined that it had been pulled down in the meantime. But it is nonsense to say that I wonder at the existence of the world, because I cannot imagine it not existing. I could of course wonder at the world round me being as it is. If for instance I had this experience while looking into the blue sky, I could wonder at the sky being blue as opposed to the case when it's clouded. But that's not what I mean. I am wondering at the sky being whatever it is. One might be tempted to say that what I am wondering at is a tautology, namely at the sky being blue or not blue. But then it's just nonsense to say that one is wondering at a tautology.
...
At the basis of the whole modern view of the world lies the illusion that the so-called laws of nature are the explanations of natural phenomena. So people stop short at natural laws as at something unassailable, as did the ancients at God and Fate. And they both are right and wrong.

Some kind of minimal 'being mysticism' seems to be sketched here. From the outside, it's just wandering at a tautology (any tautology will do). I don't see how anything could be added without spoiling the effect. This is like 'the pure witness' who is the world.

Implying that the religious situation is no more than a realization of one's lack of cunning? But then, the term "supernatural" just gives religion a bad name, which it usually deserves. But the reality of religion lies outside of the cunning and the supernatural. It is something else. — Constance

Why would you think that "it is something else"? Have you read/seen the Mahabharata? I recommend it, with subtitles of course. Opens up a new window on god(s).

The discussion was around where in the Huston Smith schema I presented does science belong - actually the comment was ‘science ought to be added to it’. So I said that science is already there, in the ‘inner circle’. There’s a simplified version of the schematic (from integral psychology):



Natural science is situated mainly in the inner circles - physics and biology. There are always questions as to whether psychology is a science at all, and as for theology….well, what need be said.

So for the purposes of naturalism, only natural explanations ought to be considered - which is perfectly sound. But when it comes to the philosophical question of the reality or otherwise of the outer rings - well, that’s a metaphysical question. Properly speaking the naturalist response to whether they are real is not to venture an hypothesis (‘that of which we cannot speak’….)

Positivism is the tendency to assert that nothing outside the naturalist circle should ever be considered, because there is no evidence - well, nothing which it considers evidence. It starts by excluding certain kinds of factors or ideas - again quite sound with respect to its scope of application but not beyond. But this doesn’t mean there is no beyond. That is what occurs as a result of taking mythological naturalism as a metaphysic, which it isn’t.

Scientific laws are universal in scope, within their range of applicability. But the question of ‘what is a scientific law’ is not itself a scientific question. It’s a metaphysical issue, one on which there are various competing schools of thought. But it’s not really subject to scientific verification.

I would say more, but I family duties are screaming calling.

Positivism — Wayfarer

I don't quite get positivism. It's supposed to be the stance that only verifiable claims are in aany way important or truth-apt. Any and all claims that resist verification is, for positivists, nonsense.

There are two kinds of verifiability which I will illustrate with examples:

1. S = My car is metallic silver in color. The statement S is verifiable. All one has to do is find my car and look at it. If it's metallic silver, S is true, if not, S is false.

2. The theory of relativity is verifiable. Use it to make some predictions. Conduct an experiment and if the predictions pan out, the theory of relativity is verified. However, this doesn't mean the theory of relativity is true. Review the scientific method to confirm my statements.

The first kind of verifiability (truth can be established via observation) doesn't sit well with metaphysics, but the second kind seems very much metaphysical in character (truth can't be established and all that can be said is they hypothesis/theory fits the facts).

Relevant OP
https://www.britishwittgensteinsociety.org/wittgensteintolstoy-and-the-folly-of-logical-positivism

:up: :smile:

The question which for me is central to the thread is now why science does not count as a religion, given these anchors. — Banno

Separating science from religion is a recent development. In Europe, Christianity disintegrated so that "religion" came to reference the conflict between different sects.

The idea of a secular government with non-divine legitimacy appeared and with that, the idea of religion is now substantially contrasted.

So you're dealing with a concept of religion that's familiar to you, and no doubt associated with various memories and emotions of your own. Remember that an analysis of that won't transfer to the larger concept of religion.

Oh, sure. So what is the more...?

Can you tell me? If not, don't ask me to tell you wheat the "greater" is in science. Let's just agree to a revert silence. — Banno

A revert silence? Look, it is your position that the scientist is comparable to the, say, religious disciple, and the comparative trappings of belief, test tubes to tabernacle, if you will, is your doing. If you make a claim like this (though I do suspect you are being evasively vague) then you have to follow through You talked about a subservience to a higher being and the rituals of the laboratory. If you don't like my interpretation, then by all means, disabuse me on this.

But that is exactly what Kierkegaard says Abraham did. Despite all else telling him not to sacrifice Isaac, he follows through on his certainty - "standing before the world with the presumption of knowing".

Faith is believing despite the evidence. — Banno

But as you know with all serious thinkers, all ideas are presented in context. the ordinary, churchy faith of the many is something Kierkegaard rejected from the very core of his being. We are talking here about existential faith: an affirmation that has no content. It is a personal movement toward a qualitatively different kind of faith born out of wonder and realized in a "positing of spirit", to use his jargon, against all certainties of the world.

So it really is not about believing in the usual sense at all. Belief needs an object, and the church, Christendom (Kierkegaard's favorite pejorative) is ready to provide one, in the the ritual, the symbols and so on; K's faith is a radical departure from all this.

Faith is believing despite the evidence — Banno

On the contrary. Faith is believing because of the evidence. Not because the evidence points directly at a presence, but because there is no evidence for àn ultimate scientific explanation. So the evidence is lack of scientific explanation. No doubt you call that a god of the gaps but as long as science offers no explanation it's only God who offers an explanation. And by its nature, science can't offer such.

Why would you think that "it is something else"? Have you read/seen the Mahabharata? I recommend it, with subtitles of course. Opens up a new window on god(s). — Agent Smith

But religion is not about "god(s)" and the Mahabharata is extremely long and and where something symbolic and enlightening may be there (Hinduism in its basic concepts apart from the story telling are differently considered here), the narratives and the metaphysics tell me nothing at all, nearly, about the nature of religion.
For me, the way is clear: The essence of religion is discovered in a suspension of all that is merely incidental, the particulars of the given system of religious beliefs and practices that are of a cultural nature, and vary in content. I ask, what is it in the world that religion responds to that is not political and controlling, nor merely organizational or anything else. After all, remove, say, the politics, and religion remains. Remove the empirical science and religion remains, and what does not remain is the bulk of historical struggles of the entangled world.

:ok: We're basically bombarded with info from all sides (could it get any worse?), making it nigh impossible to separate the wheat (essential) from the chaff (accidental). It is too great a task for a single invidividual to handle; truth be told, even teams of the crème ​de ​la ​crème have failed countless number of times. :grin: Should we give up and just live our lives as best as we can or should we keep banging our heads against this now bloody wall that has claimed many, many victims? :grin:

So the candidates for an anchor that seem most promising are ritual, transcendent hierarchies and longing.

The question which for me is central to the thread is now why science does not count as a religion, given these anchors. — Banno

It seems to be the case that all forms of knowledge, including scientific knowledge, are ‘ideological’ in the sense that there is no neutral, objective body of knowledge that is not infected by the purpose-relative concepts of a group of inquirers. However, scientific knowledge isn’t woven into a meaningful narrative that offers…

àn ultimate scientific explanation. — Haglund