That would mean that all knowledge is empirical. But some of it can be
gotten by reason. Conger's original post was:
On Sep 11, 2011, at 7:13 PM, William Conger <[email protected]>
wrote:
For some reason Cheerskep ignores my main point that belief is not a
choice
but
a necessity of consciousness. This aspect of belief has nothing to
do with
the
existence of a god or gods or anything at all concerned with
religious
belief.
But it does imply that Cheerskep's denial of belief ignores the
fundamental
fact that our brains and consciousness rely on a-priori assumptions,
about
the
next moment, thought, act all the way on to grand totaliing concepts
like
God.
That's also the underlying assumption that Pascal, in the context
and
language
of his time, recognized in his argument. Is it silly? Of course!
Any
admission of assumptions -- the first recognition of philosophers
from Plato
to
Kant and beyond -- is silly form the standpoint of being conjectural
and
impossible to set beyond the circle of subjectivity.
It's no less a silly presumption to deny the "verities" of religion
(I
extend
this to consciousness) than it is to accept them. What
satisfactions does
Cheerskep attain by denying them? Whatever they are, those
satisfactions are
no
more substantial than the ones he denies. When he says he can't
belive,
what
takes its place?
What's really silly is to presume the historical imagery of God,
angels, and
all
the rest, is to be taken as the substances and not as transient
symbols. If
the
symbols are silly does that mean that the symbolized is silly? I've
seen
many
silly portraits of Lincoln. Was Lincoln silly?
KAte Sullivan
-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Mallory <[email protected]>
To: aesthetics-l <[email protected]>
Sent: Thu, Dec 15, 2011 5:10 pm
Subject: Re: Aesthetics, intellect, high intelligence, and sensibility.
It seems to me that knowledge is the story of our experience.
Mike Mallory
----- Original Message -----
From: <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, December 15, 2011 5:11 AM
Subject: Re: Aesthetics, intellect, high intelligence, and sensibility.
I think that there are two possibilities of argument about this,
one
of them including your knowledge and experience, and the other not
including it, but proceeding from a priori. I have noticed that both
you and Conger fail to keep these two separate,you mix them up, and I
don"t think it works.
Kate Sullivan
