[Bups-dis] Response to previous discussion

[D.A. Crowe]

I'll post two messages separately; one with replies or observations on 
previous, the other with a largely new puzzle (though not unrelated to 
the last).

Firstly, regarding Wittgenstein's Catholicism (or as it turns out, lack 
thereof) I'm happy enough to be corrected. I guess I just put 'obsession 
with Tolstoy's On the Gospel' and the Catholic burial together and made 
a Catholic. In any event my aim was merely rhetorical - dissociate from 
myself the appearance of thinking there is any intrinsic incompatibility 
of Catholicism and good philosophical practice - I didn't realize the 
matter was contentious. There is something of a haze covering my 
understanding of Wittgenstein's relationship with many of the areas of 
philosophy he avoids explicitly discussing in his main works, religion 
and ethics among them. So... 'oops'.

Regarding Andrew's reply: "To say that racism is wrong is acutely 
obvious and its unlikely that may readers needed that input." Perhaps, 
but it apparently is not that obvious to this particular girl. We would 
do well to ask how obvious it is to her parents. Remember inappropriate 
is not the BBC's word to describe her expressed views, but that chosen 
by those who were responsible for her upbringing.

Matt: I'll accept there might be a duty to family solidarity on the 
matter. But I don't see a particular degree of difference in terms of 
hostility between saying 'she said X and it was inappropriate' and 'she 
said X and X is wrong'.

The whole issue rather hinges upon the difference between saying 'she 
said X and X is wrong' and 'she said X and it is wrong to say X' and 
whether this latter form is something 1) that people in general should 
accept and 2) that philosophers when they're being philosophers should 
accept.

"Secondly, points about not changing his religious views despite 
philosophical conclusions is at least highly honest."

Yes, I will grant that, and I'll grant moreover that such honesty speaks 
to his character (and is a good thing in a philosopher). Yet much as one 
might admire someone for admitting to a particular vice ("the first step 
is admitting you have a problem" etc) it doesn't negate the negative 
which that vice amounts to. I'll leave off discussing the question of 
whether it is possible for a philosopher (or anyone) to be otherwise for 
the second post and say in the meantime merely that it does not strike 
me that if one admits to having prejudices immobile in the face of 
reason that it forgives this (at least immediately apparent) failure of 
philosophical character, all the more unsettling coming from one of the 
brightest stars of contemporary philosophy.

"You mention that you believe Aristotle's philosophy is closest to the 
truth"... wow! I hope not! With the exception of parts of his ethics I 
think it's almost entirely wrong. I suppose I was being a little obscure 
when I brought up context: my point was to say that given the background 
of the time in which he wrote he made comparatively greater progress 
towards what-seems-to-be-the-way-the-truth-is-going than anyone since, 
though I believe I made the possibly exception of Hume (though Roderick 
Graham is leading me to suspect that in fact that is something of a 
mistake as well, Hume's views being much more of a synthesis of the 
ideas of others around in his day).

In response to Carl:  "...we might not think that it was appropriate to 
rehearse the solution to the problem of evil at this point...". I think 
one of the problems is I have a little stoic in me who says 'yes, that 
is exactly what you ought to do'. One of the most troubling arguments I 
encounter regarding religion is - if we look to the opposite camp than 
Van Inwagen for a moment - the people that say 'well, even if there is 
no God, afterlife etc you probably shouldn't go around saying it because 
1) religious people in general (substitute 'religious moderates' often 
do nice things as a consequence of their religiosity 2) 'the people' 
take a lot of comfort from religious ideas e.g. about the afterlife'. 
Some people (Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins spring to mind) object to 
the division of blame for fundamentalism implicit in (1), but my 
personal problem is I just think it's a) disgustingly patronizing 
(someone, I forget who, got me in the habit of referring to it as 
government house atheism - after Bentham) and b) again, philosophically 
vicious. By (b) I mean that if you know (or strongly believe with 
doubleplusgood justification) that something is the case then you have 
something of an epistemic duty to propagate that knowledge, regardless 
of how it might 'hurt peoples feelings' etc. At the risk of jumping from 
duties to rights, to do so seems to violate a right I think fairly basic 
that people have to deal with reality on their own terms and not have 
you decide what falls within their 'need to know'. If someone's world 
view is incorrect, they have a right to be informed of it and as one can 
never be entirely sure (arguably) that your own (as the informer) world 
view is the correct one, the best you can do is present your reasons as 
well as you are able for thinking that they are wrong and you are right. 
Or so it strikes me.

"But if the subjective probability of his religious beliefs is greater 
than the subjective probability of his beliefs about realism and 
anti-realism..." I can wholeheartedly accept that this would be 
legitimate were it the case, but I doubt that is what is being said 
here. The passage came from a much longer interview and in its proper 
context it follows immediately after Dummett expresses his regrets that 
he has never really contributed much to areas of philosophy such as the 
philosophy of religion because he got heavily involved in/bogged down 
with foundational issues in logic and ontology. What this means is that 
his anti-realism is the product of a deep and rigorous philosophical 
consideration, while his theism is not. Even if his theism is based on 
elements of natural theology, it stands to reason that this is 
principally 'second hand' natural theology, not reasoning he has arrived 
at first hand as by his own lights his foundations-up philosophy hasn't 
reached that height yet. What he was expressing was akin to saying that 
if after he rigorously and painstakingly built a construction of his 
ideas, if he found those at the top differed from what he was indoctrinated

I believe I already mentioned Papineau's discussion of philosophical 
scepticism, but perhaps I can substitute another (fairly entertaining, 
though I cannot decide if the charge is entirely fair) philosopher's 
accusation of a certain kind of presuppositional intellectual failing: 
http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/granny.htm I suppose, in a way, the 
accusation leveled at Fodor is the opposite of that aimed at Dummett: 
Dummett says he will follow reasoning where it leads and then reject it 
if it leads to the wrong place; Fodor (at least on Dennett's view) is 
attempting to steer in the 'right' direction as things go along. In both 
instances there is the conviction that the conclusions already reached 
through non-philosophical considerations were right all along, and if 
reason points elsewhere... so much the worse for reason.