Absquatch Wrote:
> In another thread, there was the suggestion that
> the following statement of CAS's
>
> All human thought, all science, all religion, is
> the holding of a candle to the night of the
> universe.
>
> may be self-refuting.
>
> I was actually glad to see this suggestion arise,
> as it dovetails with a somewhat recent interest of
> mine in post-Classical logic.
>
> Believe it or not, logic has not sat still since
> the time of Aristotle. Even if we were to accept
> the notion that logic should be the final arbiter
> of the wisdom of CAS's statement (I do not), there
> are actually any number of post-Classical
> developments in logic that potentially dispose of
> the alleged self-refutation problem quite nicely:
> Russell and Whitehead's Theory of Logical Typing
> (meta-statements), axiomatic probability theory,
> fuzzy set theory and possibility theory,
> dialetheism, fallabilism, paraconsistent logic,
> and neutrosophy, to name only a few. Fuzzy logic,
> dialetheism, and neutrosophy are of particular
> interest, as they convincingly assail the law of
> the excluded middle and reduce, even eliminate,
> the need for meta-statements.
"I don't understand science" woulda been quicker... Onan the Vulgarian fully agrees that logic isn't "the final arbiter of the wisdom of CAS's statement." Why do you think Onan raised Comte's "statement"? But thanx 4 demonstrating that you haven't fully absorbed that ad-hom fallacy article you linked to (an exercise in laboring the obvious, IMFFHO):
Quote:
...the fallacious belief that introducing impressive-sounding Greco-Latin terms somehow gives one the decisive edge in an argument... (adapted)
Argumentum ad hominem fallacy
Frankly, Abby, I think you're a bit of a freud: not so much Ãœbermensch as Obamensch. You could also've pointed to the vast body of theology on the Infallibility of the Pope, Bible, and/or Magisterium, wherein various fallible humans seek to prove that fallible humans can partake of divine infallibility. The theology is all bollox, a-course, just like yr polysyllabicity above.
> So, those who are serious about this subject have
> ample matter to explore. I leave that to them,
> though, even at the risk of being accused once
> again (and ignorantly) of empty citation of
> authority and mere regurgitation. There's a
> significant difference between that and between
> providing material for others to make discoveries
> on their own, and all the playground-level
> prodding in the world isn't going to induce me to
> do others' work for them, especially since no one
> did mine for me.
Squirt ink and flee -- p'r'aps you're a member of the cuttlefish community. Anyway, I suspect Abby'll claim not to be readin' my posts, but I'll explain anyway. Examine these statements:
1) "I despise people who despise people."
2) "I always lie."
3) "You always lie."
4) "All human thought, all science, all religion, is the holding of a candle to the night of the universe."
1 is autologic and legitimate, but self-refuting, or self-defeating. (But it may be true, if meant seriously: one CAN despise oneself.)
2 is autologic and pathological. (
Cf. the onanist who onanizes all who do not onanize themselves. Does he onanize himself? If he doesn't, then he does; if he does, then he doesn't.)
3 is heterologic and legitimate, but not necessarily true.
4 is amphilogic: a human is talking about humans AND the universe. The autologicity of 4 doesn't eg-ZACT-ly parallel the autologicity of 1, but 4 is still potentially (weakly) self-defeating. However, 4 isn't necessarily false and it differs from 1 in being a scientific/empirical claim. Whether or not humans can understand the universe is not decidable
a priori: it's a scientific question. CAS didn't like or understand science, and tho' I sympathize with that rejection, I do NOT think this expression of it was humble. Agnosticism would've been humble and would've avoided the trap Comte created for himself:
5. On the subject of stars, all investigations which are not ultimately reducible to simple visual observations are ... necessarily denied to us. While we can conceive of the possibility of determining their shapes, their sizes, and their motions, we shall never be able by any means to study their chemical composition or their mineralogical structure ... Our knowledge concerning their gaseous envelopes is necessarily limited to their existence, size ... and refractive power, we shall not at all be able to determine their chemical composition or even their density... I regard any notion concerning the true mean temperature of the various stars as forever denied to us.
5 parallels 4. Comte made a prediction about human knowledge of (an aspect of) the universe and has been proved comprehensively wrong. So may CAS be: like Comte, his only authority for the claim was himself.
Quote:Even if we were to accept the notion that logic should be the final arbiter of the wisdom of CAS's statement (I do not)...
Indeed. Nor was "logic" the "final arbiter of the wisdom" of Comte's statement. Astronomy was. AISB, you don't understand science. (Or psychology. If you did, you wouldn't have cooperated so well with the experiment I recently performed on you (Kant would not've been pleased, but I doubt you're muchuvva Kantian).)
“The true independent is he who dwells detached and remote from the little herds as well as from the big herd. Affiliating with no group or cabal of mice or monkeys, he is of course universally suspect.†—
The Black Book of Gore Vidal.