I am most skeptical of the idea that belief can be momentous in the way that James describes, but I am skeptical for a range of reasons (there's a reason that the video is so long, I clearly had quite a few objections).
I read James as saying "when Clifford rationality is exhausted, only then apply these four conditions to see if a decision or belief is justified". Consider that if it doesn't meet those criteria exactly, then James is by no means saying that we still allow our passions to guide us and instead saying that belief should not be held or that decision should not be made. So I disagree with the point you (or James himself) made in 7:00 that "according to james, we can believe or not believe based on our irrational 'passions' alone". To be clear, I find the application of his own methods to the belief of god to be flawed (it is neither forced since atheists and agnostics thrive nor is it momentous since all consequence of belief one way or another is in the after-life) but I find his basic methodology of "IF rational fails THEN test for conditions THEN discard or accept" to be a valid and rational way to approach a perfectly symmetric decision or belief.
No he's not. He quoted Clifford extensively, but is giving his own interpretation of James. To understand James the "philosopher" you must always remember that he was first and foremost a physiological psychologist (what might today be call a Cognitive Scientist). James's degree was in medicine, then he switched to physiological psychology, then to philosophy. Belief is that upon which we are prepared to act (and accept, and live with, both the positive and negative outcomes). The idea that we can only "act" when we have rationally justified knowledge, of the expected outcome of our actions, before acting, is impossible. We always act upon incomplete (or flat out wrong) knowledge. Or to believe that we must thoroughly understand something before acting is also impossible. I "believe" that if I drop my shoe it will fall to the floor. But how many people understand Einstein's General Relativity and the equivalence of acceleration and gravity? And General Relativity is irreconcilable with Quantum Mechanics. And yet, our cell phones, using Global Positioning (General Relativity) and electronics (Quantum Electrodynamics) do "work". The Wright Brothers had little more to go on than a "belief" that they could make an airplane fly. They had absolutely no understanding of aerodynamics as we think of it today (and we still have much to learn). The essence of James' Pragmatism is that Reality will disprove your bad beliefs or incomplete knowledge - but, act we must. And we must learn by acting - by participating in life.
Carneades is a radical skeptic. We can hardly expect Carneades speak in support of beliefs of any kind. Even if Carneades were determined to try to object to Clifford, how would he go about it? To say that beliefs should be formed on insufficient evidence is much like saying that kittens and puppies are not cute. You can say it, but you can't very well argue for it. Who in the world would want to admit that their beliefs are based on insufficient evidence? Clifford has hardly gone out onto a limb and made any bold claims, so it's hard to find any real angle from which to attack his claims.
+Gaining Understanding I was advancing the discussion one step, Clifford presented an argument, James objected to it, I responded to it for Clifford. Also, as Ansatz notes, James is very clearly positioned against skepticism, and while, though Clifford is clearly not a skeptic, my objections to his position would have to do more with his dogmatic claims (which I did not highlight here), not his ones that to a certain degree support skepticism.
+Ansatz66 I know who Carneades is. I've known about this channel and his radical skepticism for a long time. That's why I brought this up, because usually he'll go after both sides. He's on nobody's side so he's out to refute everybody lol
+jeremy hansen Haha, yeah. The three months were October, November and December, I wanted to make it an even 100 so I extended the series and I'm taking my time with the last ten, trying to put a bit more content into them. Thanks!
not a philosopher, just an amateur debater, but here's my concern with your objections to James: you assert that if believing in god is a forced choice then it cannot be a live choice. i think you conflate the state of the decision maker before the decision is made with the state of the decision maker after the decision is made. the choice can be forced and live before it is made because the belief is not yet dogmatically held. after the decision is made to believe in god, then the decision maker faces a secondary choice: to continue to believe or not. you might object that this compromises the 'Momentousness' of the first choice because it can later be reversed, but the state of the individual between the point when they choose to believe in god and the point when they face this secondary decision (and the point between the secondary and the tertiary and so on down the line) is unique. time spent believing in god is radically different than time spent not believing in god, and any time spent either believing or not believing can be viewed as irreversible in and of itself.
+Dillon McConnell Here's my argument for that point stated clearly. P1) If a decision about believing or not is live, then it is not certain. P2) If a decision is not certain, then you have an option of what degree of belief you can assign to it (anywhere between 0 and 1). P3) If you can assign a degree of belief to a particular belief then your choice regarding that belief is not forced (since you could assign any degree of belief to it, not just belief or not). C) Therefore, If a decision to believe is live a decision to believe is not forced. The point is that if, before a decision is made, the choice is live, then it is not forced because the choice is not dogmatically held. If it were dogmatically held, it might be forced, but not live. I do think that the stronger point is that five seconds believing or not believing in God is not momentous unless that five seconds would matter for getting into some kind of paradise. And it seems that if you can just change your mind at the last minute, the choice is not momentous until the last second of your life.
@@CarneadesOfCyrene i have an issue with the second premise i.e assignment of a scale of 0 to 1 for the choice of belief vs lack of belief since the question is of the existence of belief not of the strength of belief. Even the guy on the verge of a total loss of faith (to whom according to your scale we can assign some value like 0.00000001) is still a believer. The difference in the mental state between belief and disbelief is not one of quantity but of quality. Therefore the term in the premise should be 'choice' not 'decision'. You can assign your value of 0-1 to the degree of faith once the choice has been made to believe but before the choice its a dichotomy, not a continuum.
@@chaosss444 decide and choose are such synonyms that the words are used to describe each other in the dictionary. Your point is one of connotations that are solely created for the sake of argument with no ability to propel the conversation. Just calling it how i see it.
u cant argue "phrasing." not like that. if u say "have the belief that god does not exist" what do you have?... exactly you have no belief. your skeptical arguement is flawed in the first point. that makes ur whole arguement false.
But should you not believe in god because at any moment your life could end? At any instant belief in god could be momentous, because you do not know when you will die. Therefore at any instance you should believe in him. That would we an objection to your third and fourth objection. It just crossed my mind, I do not agree with Jame's point.
Your utter contempt of william james's philosophy always amuses me
Hey! Nice job ur doin here! Im enjoyin it very much!
+Fernanado Lasman Thanks! I'm glad you enjoy. Thanks for watching!
Which ones do you think are the strongest objections?
I am most skeptical of the idea that belief can be momentous in the way that James describes, but I am skeptical for a range of reasons (there's a reason that the video is so long, I clearly had quite a few objections).
I read James as saying "when Clifford rationality is exhausted, only then apply these four conditions to see if a decision or belief is justified".
Consider that if it doesn't meet those criteria exactly, then James is by no means saying that we still allow our passions to guide us and instead saying that belief should not be held or that decision should not be made. So I disagree with the point you (or James himself) made in 7:00 that "according to james, we can believe or not believe based on our irrational 'passions' alone".
To be clear, I find the application of his own methods to the belief of god to be flawed (it is neither forced since atheists and agnostics thrive nor is it momentous since all consequence of belief one way or another is in the after-life) but I find his basic methodology of "IF rational fails THEN test for conditions THEN discard or accept" to be a valid and rational way to approach a perfectly symmetric decision or belief.
Are you using direct quotes from his article? And where can I find these quotes?
No he's not. He quoted Clifford extensively, but is giving his own interpretation of James. To understand James the "philosopher" you must always remember that he was first and foremost a physiological psychologist (what might today be call a Cognitive Scientist). James's degree was in medicine, then he switched to physiological psychology, then to philosophy.
Belief is that upon which we are prepared to act (and accept, and live with, both the positive and negative outcomes). The idea that we can only "act" when we have rationally justified knowledge, of the expected outcome of our actions, before acting, is impossible. We always act upon incomplete (or flat out wrong) knowledge. Or to believe that we must thoroughly understand something before acting is also impossible. I "believe" that if I drop my shoe it will fall to the floor. But how many people understand Einstein's General Relativity and the equivalence of acceleration and gravity? And General Relativity is irreconcilable with Quantum Mechanics. And yet, our cell phones, using Global Positioning (General Relativity) and electronics (Quantum Electrodynamics) do "work". The Wright Brothers had little more to go on than a "belief" that they could make an airplane fly. They had absolutely no understanding of aerodynamics as we think of it today (and we still have much to learn).
The essence of James' Pragmatism is that Reality will disprove your bad beliefs or incomplete knowledge - but, act we must. And we must learn by acting - by participating in life.
Wounderfull
Ah you offer objections to James but not Clifford?
Carneades is a radical skeptic. We can hardly expect Carneades speak in support of beliefs of any kind.
Even if Carneades were determined to try to object to Clifford, how would he go about it? To say that beliefs should be formed on insufficient evidence is much like saying that kittens and puppies are not cute. You can say it, but you can't very well argue for it. Who in the world would want to admit that their beliefs are based on insufficient evidence? Clifford has hardly gone out onto a limb and made any bold claims, so it's hard to find any real angle from which to attack his claims.
+Gaining Understanding I was advancing the discussion one step, Clifford presented an argument, James objected to it, I responded to it for Clifford. Also, as Ansatz notes, James is very clearly positioned against skepticism, and while, though Clifford is clearly not a skeptic, my objections to his position would have to do more with his dogmatic claims (which I did not highlight here), not his ones that to a certain degree support skepticism.
+Ansatz66 I know who Carneades is. I've known about this channel and his radical skepticism for a long time. That's why I brought this up, because usually he'll go after both sides. He's on nobody's side so he's out to refute everybody lol
Doesn't it strike you as odd that your three months of model logic is in its fifth month? Great video as always.
+jeremy hansen Haha, yeah. The three months were October, November and December, I wanted to make it an even 100 so I extended the series and I'm taking my time with the last ten, trying to put a bit more content into them. Thanks!
not a philosopher, just an amateur debater, but here's my concern with your objections to James: you assert that if believing in god is a forced choice then it cannot be a live choice. i think you conflate the state of the decision maker before the decision is made with the state of the decision maker after the decision is made. the choice can be forced and live before it is made because the belief is not yet dogmatically held. after the decision is made to believe in god, then the decision maker faces a secondary choice: to continue to believe or not. you might object that this compromises the 'Momentousness' of the first choice because it can later be reversed, but the state of the individual between the point when they choose to believe in god and the point when they face this secondary decision (and the point between the secondary and the tertiary and so on down the line) is unique. time spent believing in god is radically different than time spent not believing in god, and any time spent either believing or not believing can be viewed as irreversible in and of itself.
+Dillon McConnell Here's my argument for that point stated clearly.
P1) If a decision about believing or not is live, then it is not certain.
P2) If a decision is not certain, then you have an option of what degree of belief you can assign to it (anywhere between 0 and 1).
P3) If you can assign a degree of belief to a particular belief then your choice regarding that belief is not forced (since you could assign any degree of belief to it, not just belief or not).
C) Therefore, If a decision to believe is live a decision to believe is not forced.
The point is that if, before a decision is made, the choice is live, then it is not forced because the choice is not dogmatically held. If it were dogmatically held, it might be forced, but not live. I do think that the stronger point is that five seconds believing or not believing in God is not momentous unless that five seconds would matter for getting into some kind of paradise. And it seems that if you can just change your mind at the last minute, the choice is not momentous until the last second of your life.
this needs to be the top comment.
@@CarneadesOfCyrene i have an issue with the second premise i.e assignment of a scale of 0 to 1 for the choice of belief vs lack of belief since the question is of the existence of belief not of the strength of belief. Even the guy on the verge of a total loss of faith (to whom according to your scale we can assign some value like 0.00000001) is still a believer. The difference in the mental state between belief and disbelief is not one of quantity but of quality. Therefore the term in the premise should be 'choice' not 'decision'. You can assign your value of 0-1 to the degree of faith once the choice has been made to believe but before the choice its a dichotomy, not a continuum.
@@chaosss444 decide and choose are such synonyms that the words are used to describe each other in the dictionary. Your point is one of connotations that are solely created for the sake of argument with no ability to propel the conversation. Just calling it how i see it.
”as a good skeptic” a self-proclaimed ”good” skeptic, I find this concerning
Hypothetical good (good at being a skeptic), not (necessarily) categorical good (morally good). :) ua-cam.com/video/Zb88tiIG0tY/v-deo.html
I'm starting to think UA-cam is a curse
u cant argue "phrasing." not like that. if u say "have the belief that god does not exist" what do you have?... exactly you have no belief. your skeptical arguement is flawed in the first point. that makes ur whole arguement false.
But should you not believe in god because at any moment your life could end? At any instant belief in god could be momentous, because you do not know when you will die. Therefore at any instance you should believe in him. That would we an objection to your third and fourth objection. It just crossed my mind, I do not agree with Jame's point.
I made it to 1:58, then I had to stop. Your voice is so unpleasant to listen to.
this video is pretty cringe bro