[Bups-dis] RE: Metaphilosphy and Inappropriatness

[Carl Baker]

This is really interesting stuff.
 
Someone (Andrew I think) implied that perhaps as philosophers we shouldn't be concerned with the appropriateness of what we say, if it is true. Here's an example of when we might think that was wrong - lifted largely from van Inwagen's recent book on the Problem of Evil.
Say that a theist has a successful solution to the problem of evil; and suppose (for argument) that the solution is warranted. If this theist comes across someone who has just suffered a very painful loss - i.e., has undergone great evil - we might not think that it was appropriate to rehearse the solution to the problem of evil at this point, even if it is true. We probably wouldn't have thought it sensitive - after all, it's unlikely to alleviate the person's grief - it seems unlikely that an understanding of the purpose of evil will undermine all your grief on facing evil.
 
Secondly, on the Dummett/religion question. I agree that, prima facie, it just sounds like bad philosophy to say "well, I should think that my reasoning had gone wrong somewhere", and that it looks right to follow reason, broadly. But if the subjective probably of his religious beliefs is greater than the subjective probability of his beliefs about realism and anti-realism, then it seems that he'd be justified in rejecting the latter rather than the former. We might want to argue about this - but, at least, it's an example of a case where Dummett's move could be justified.




Carl Baker
devils_avocado at hotmail.com | jha4ceb at leeds.ac.uk
http://carlonline.blogspot.com 
_________________________________________________________________
Personalize your Live.com homepage with the news, weather, and photos you care about.
http://www.live.com/getstarted.aspx?icid=T001MSN30A0701