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What Everyone is Required to ThinkDid that title grab your attention? Here are some rules or guidelines for avoiding muddled (heh!) thinking. RULE #1: There is such a thing as the way things really are that obtains independently of what anyone happens to believe about the way they are. This is inescapable. Suppose you tell me, "No, there is not such a thing as the way things really are, but only our various conceptions reality." You have just offered me your own account of the way things really are. Agnosticism is a reasonable position in some cases. The agnostic says, "I know there is a truth of the matter. I just do not have access to evidence sufficient for deciding what it is." Relativism is not a reasonable position in any case. The relativist says, "There is no Truth of the matter. There are only 'truths.'" But this is itself an attemt to assert Truth in the sense that it denies. RULE #2: An assertion (i.e., a proposition) is true just in case it represents things as they actually are. "It is now raining in PTC" is true if and only if it is, in fact, raining in PTC at the time of utterance. RULE #3: Rule #2 applies equally to religious and non-religious, moral and non-moral assertions. The rules do not change simply because the assertion includes words like "God" or "Nirvana." RULE #4: To believe a thing just means believing it to be true. If I believe that Yellowstone is situated mostly in Wyoming, then I believe it to be true that Yellowstone is situated mostly in Wyoming. That is, I take the proposition, "Yellowstone is situated mostly in Wyoming" to be a true proposition. And, as per Rule #2, this means that I take that proposition to represent the world as it actually is. RULE #5: To believe a thing to be true logically requires also thinking that anything that contradicts it is false. If I take "Yellowstone is situated mostly in Wyoming" to be true, then I must also take it to mean "It is not the case that Yellowstone is situated mostly in Wyoming" to be false. (And, assuming that "Yellowstone is situated mostly in Vermont" contradicts my "Wyoming" belief, I must take it to be false.) RULE #6: Rules 4 and 5 apply equally to religious and moral beliefs. The rules do not change simply because the beliefs involve concepts such as "God" or "Nirvana." If I believe that Jesus is not divine then I must also believe it to be false to say that Jesus is divine. If I believe that individual persons really exist, then I must also believe it is false that only Nirguna Brahman really exists. It follows that truth--and, therefore, belief, is exclusive. And because this is so, thinking other beliefs are false can hardly, in and of itself, be regarded as some sort of vice. If "tolerance" requires never thinking anyone else's beliefs false, then, necessarily, there is no such thing as tolerance. RULE #7: Any assertion that either entails or is reducible to the form "A and not-A" is necessarily false. RULE #8: Rule #7 applies equally to religious and moral beliefs. The rules do not change simply because the beliefs in question involve the concepts "God" or "Nirvana." If my religious beliefs include the assertion "God exists and does not exist at the same time and in the same respect" then at least that belief itself may be safely dismissed as necessarily false. If the Christian doctrine of the Trinity is formally contradictory, then it is necessarily false. If the Advaitin notion that "Nirguna Brahman" is the only thing that really exists is formally contradictory, then it is necessarily false. RULE #9: Well-formed propositions are either true or they are false. There is no third thing for them to be. It is either true that Yellowstone is situated mostly in Wyoming or it is false. To suggest that it is neither true nor false is to manifest confusion about the nature of language and of logic. RULE #10: Rule #9 applies equally to religious and moral propositions. The proposition "God exists" (assuming that we have fixed the reference of the word "God") is either true or it is false. It is necessarily false to say that it is neither true nor false. RULE #11: Offering a proof for a conclusion does not essentially require convincing the person with whom you are arguing. Arguments are either sound and non-question-begging or they are not, and tbnhis is so regardless of what anyone happens to think about their soundness. To think otherwise would be to think that the bare assertion, "It is not!" is a decisive philosophical refutation, which is absurd. RULE #12: There is no philosophically interesting sense of 'Belief B is true for person S.' It is either the result of utter confusion or it merely means 'Person S takes B to be true' (i.e., 'S believes B.') But 'S believes B' invites the perfectly good question, 'Is B true?' There will do for now. muddle's blog | login to post comments |