Ender

You mean that little tet a tet with Koyannisqatsi over at the political forum where he mistook you for a theist? Cracks me up.

Possible under a certain ontological framework, but not necessarily under one you’ve adopted, perhaps?

In all likelihood you have very little to worry about stepping on anything but into new information or understanding. In the end, the pros outweigh any perceived negatives!

I’m curious to figure out what constitutes as an “epistemic position” and whether it could be foundational and germane to the case that atheism and humanism are mutually exclusive.

I was thinking along the lines of a certain empiricist, whose scholars view as a moral philosopher, that posited man as he is, not as he ought to be, and extrapolated a science of man from therein.

All value judgments are predicated from external impressions, which in turn constitute copies in the mind (ideas). Reflective impressions such as passions are derived from this Lockean maxim and are grounds for any possible excursion in ethics, namely a humanist one.
Others? Who? Everyone? I always took language to be an intersubjective activity. Could you rephrase this statement?

Wouldn’t “interdependency” work better than “intersubjectivity” here?

Indeed

~WiGGiN~

John Page

Glad to see your framework of tolerance is working in practice, I was getting worried about you there!

Our differences apart, perhaps I have been misled about humanism in general by the local humanist organizations I've visited. It seems we at least share distaste of the quote I posted from the Council for Secular Humanism's site - I had no idea that you would be so sensitive to this!

BTW, threatening me in a condescending way had no effect. I was happy to read your latest post, I had privately bet with myself that you were going to end up in the hypocrite zone.

I agree with your statement "As to saying "What works, works", this is a circular argument, not a valid ethical base, IMHO" For the record, I didn't say this. Furthermore Thrasymachus didn't exactly say "Might is Right" as far as I'm aware (my inference, not yours), he was rather making a point about the means justifying the end (or was it the other way round!). What I'm proposing is to be clear about the objective for one's ethical standards rather than develop them unconsciously by trial and error. I think this could allow societies to advance quicker than otherwise through more transparent competition (go meritocracy).

As you now know from our discourse, this general topic is something I care about and if you would like to provide me a link to a more appropriate flavor of secular humanism I'd be glad to have it.

Cheers!

John Page

Laurentius:

Given the position that Atheism and Humanism are not strictly related, how about a thought experiment considering the following four options as the basis for a system of ethics:

1. Secular Humanism
2. Theistic Humanism
3. Secular Alienism
4. Theistic Alienism

Alienism can be any set o ethics that the defined Humanism is not. I think the debate comes down to whether you stick with the "feelgood" humanism (because we're human) at the risk of extinction from the exercise of superior Alien ethics. Going a step further, wouldn't you prefer to subscribe to a system of ethics that can evolve to be superior to Alien ethics. The next step is to see that such a system must lie inside the domain of Alien ethics. Therefore, Alien ethics are superior to Humanistic ethics! The other outcome is that if theistic beliefs preclude the adoption of the superior Alien ethics then Pascal just lost his wager.

So, one gets a very different result when considering an external threat to one's system than if one is just considering the internal workings of a Utopian human society.

Of course, I'm being deliberately provocative here. My own position, maybe you could call it Secular Pragmatism. Comments?

Laurentius

Gurdur

AVE


The fact that “not all atheists are humanists” can’t be a counterargument. It is as if a student got an F in a math test and told the teacher that he shouldn’t have received such a low grade on the basis of his not getting the right results because there were more students who did not give the answers the teacher wanted than those who did.

And atheism can indeed lead to nihilism, but not quite logically.


AVE

Gurdur

Whyever not ? It's an empirical fact which runs against the theoretical observation.
Here:

Hypothesis:
Atheism leads logically to humanism.

Counter-Observation:
I personally know of some atheists who are long-tem atheists and long-term non-humanists.
This fact, while it does not comprehensively disprove the above hypothesis, certainly creates great problems for it.

So I fail completely to see why it can't be a counter-argument. Please expand.


Did I say it did proceed logically ? No.

I do not think that atheism must lead logically to anything else.
I simply pointed out an empirical observation.
BTW, IMHO, moral nihilsm can either result from a value choice (as can humanism) or from a much more simple psychological tendency or cognitive "bind" (as for tendencies - e.g. sociopathy).

My questions to you:
It seems to me that either:
A) You are looking for a fail-safe argument that say humanism (or anything else) must of logical necessity proceed from atheism.

Why should this be so ? I don't think it's true.
Atheism comes in a myriad flavours, so does humanism.

B) Or you believe in a very mechanistic view of both philosophy and human politics.

I'm sorry if I misrepresent you, or - as is probably the case - I misunderstand you; please correct me where wrong.

Ender

*scoffs* How can any self-respecting student of philosophy assume causality in this day and age in an argument?

~WiGGiN~

[ April 04, 2002: Message edited by: Ender ]</p>

Laurentius

Gurdun

AVE

Yes, it does, and that's why I've started this thread in the first place. I, personally, was aiming at finding a way to show how atheism can logically lead to humanism, by humanism - a lax term - understanding the stand that supports human life and values.

Again, I was referring to the fact that theoretically atheism should lead to a humanistic view, although practically it might not be the case. Of course it is not the case, since one acts emotionally and tends to refuse logic out of subjectivity.

I'm not describing a psychological or social aspect of reality; I'm trying to say that once you are an atheist you should adhere to Humanism, even if your philosophy will exceed it. I regard Humanism as a loose frame (the way Buddhism allows one to hold it even if one will still follow another religion at the same time), within which specific philosophies can develop at will as long as they don't contradict a minimum of basic humanist principles.

This my personal approach, I don't know if it really works, but I think that logically I will manage to show that one should be a humanist as long as he is an atheist.

AVE

Laurentius

Ender

AVE

Reading God knows where and surfing around the net I've come across various basic humanist principles that I myself have made use of in these posts. The ideas merge with my position, and frankly I don't care whether they were originally mine or I just adhered to them. I haven't been to rigorous so far, since no real philosophical writing has ever come out from my pen. However, I'll print these writings you've pointed and read them in my painfully short time.

AVE

[ April 04, 2002: Message edited by: Laurentius ]</p>

Laurentius

John Page

AVE

Well, it seems that I'm not very accustomed to all main Humanist views that have already been devised (which leads us to the conclusion that I myself should first "think" and then "rethink" Secular Humanism). At the moment, as I have already infered or said, Secular Humanism is atheism + valuing human life&values, a wide umbrella, under which different theories could develop. Buddhism was born as a reaction against traditional Hinduism, but today Hinduism has smoothly absorbed its ideas and thus enriched itself. Humanism can do the same with what you call Alien, as long as the basic humanist principles are accepted. What are these basic principles? The ones I've just mentioned and maybe others I'll be thinking of.

As for Pragmatism, in general it makes sense, but it has its own bugs. Take the problem of truth. How does one extablish the truth? Let's say one has a match in his hand, and wants to prove it's a match. What should he do? Well, the pragmatic one will light it. If it catches fire, then it is a match; if it doesn't, it isn't. Let's say that USSR (I've read that you've spent some time there) wants to prove that Moldovia (up to the Prut river) belongs to it, and not to Romania. How can this be done? The USSR army starts occupying that territory - if they are successful, then USSR is right, if they aren't then USSR is wrong. As it happened, the land was successfully occupied by the Red Army and Moldovia was proved at the time to be USSR territory, although most of the population was not Russian (don't ask what Lenin and Stalin have done to many of them). I think Pragmatism can lead to distorted truths, although it would be difficult to say what non-distorted truths should be like.

AVE

[ April 04, 2002: Message edited by: Laurentius ]</p>

Laurentius

bynature

This is so vague that I cannot even really start to muse about it. Or maybe I fail to see its connection to Secular Humanism.

AVE