There are few more futile and frustrating activities than trying to discuss assumptions (i.e. metaphysics) with somebody who believes that all answers come from logic (i.e. "philosophy", or indeed theology, science, law, or any other rational discourse)!
And such persons are legion - while those willing and (and capable?) of discussing assumptions seem to be rare.
Which is unfortunate in a world where the main problems are at the level of assumptions.
Logic therefore serves as an ultimate "defence mechanism" by which everybody (at least to his own satisfaction) refutes all conceivable challenges to... whatever he currently believes-in and lives-by.
His assumptions form circular complexes, and each supports the others such that there seems no way out, and there is no way in.
Hence all ideologies (and religions) may be robust to all possible (and actual) human experience and all conceivable world events* - not because they are true, but because they are true by assumption.
I have been banging my head against this for at least a decade; but there is tremendous resistance to acknowledging what seems obvious (once pointed-out) - perhaps because people feel that to acknowledge it would be to adopt a nihilistic relativism.
But this is not so.
*For instance: The voluntary and celebratory self-closure and cessation of Christian Churches in 2020 has not even dented the assumptions of traditional mainstream Christians - whose answer to everything is "do the same as before, only do it harder". Any attempt to challenge the assumptions of that type of Christianity have been pre-empted by immunizing dogmas which are assumed to be definitive of "being a Christian".
1 comment:
"Hence all ideologies (and religions) may be robust to all possible (and actual) human experience and all conceivable world events - not because they are true, but because they are true by assumption.
I have been banging my head against this for at least a decade; but there is tremendous resistance to acknowledging what seems obvious (once pointed-out) - perhaps because people feel that to acknowledge it would be to adopt a nihilistic relativism. "
it's rather the belief systems who are impermeable to experience, changing circumstances, etc, which are nihilistic in my opinion (though i suppose not relativistic), because in the end the only thing that really exists is that standalone, impermeable assumption.
though i have tried to make this point to some, using real world examples everyone presumably has experienced, it met with no success. everything looks like a nail to a hammer sort of thing.
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