Hey Matt just wanna say thanks... the atheist experience changed my life over 10 years ago, all of the education and information that you guys gave sent me down a rabbit hole of gaining knowledge and totally changed my perspective on Christianity and religion. thanks for helping to free my mind brother
It just so happens that I have "43" tattooed on my arm. When my stepdaughter was 13 or 14, she had a friend who had a small tattoo on her toe and wanted one herself. In my infinite stupidity, I told her if she correctly picked a number between 1 and 100, she could get one. The number I chose was "43." The number she guessed was "43." She didn't get the tattoo. For consolation, she got a fun story and "43" became a nickname of sorts for her. In March of 2020, she passed away at 22 years old. Her funeral was the last the funeral home was able to host before the lockdowns. Similarly, the tattoo was the last the artist was able to create before locking down shop. I don't know why I felt compelled to share, but the number "43" being used as an example of an arbitrarily chosen number was a bit heart warming.
Thanks Matt. Had to come and view this again after you mentioned it in your last episode on AXP - and on that note, I would just like to transmit a deep appreciation for all the work you've done in these nearly 20 years. Knowing there are many great hosts who will continue carrying the torch makes your leaving only slightly bittersweet - I'm certain your future projects will maintain the standards of quality and I can't wait to see them! Much love, luck, and health. See you out there!
Great explanation! First time I heard about Foundherentism it immediately made so much sense, I'm baffled why it hasn't taken off, too. I'm no philosophy buff but when I learned about Foundationalism and Coherentism I felt like they led to overlap, you can't really have Coherentism without some base assumptions, like logic, to start with, and with Foundationalism the base assumptions can't be contradictory, they have to cohere. I guess the difference between the two is more subtle, but Foundherentism seems to embrace them the way they naturally drive to each other.
Coming from a math point of view, that's exactly what you want in any mathematical theory. You need some axioms (and rules of how to build on them) as a given ("foundationalism"), and then you want the result to be consistent (that is, non-contradictory) ("coherentism")[1]. (If you also want it to be complete, say hello to Mr. Gödel. But note that this strictly applies to a certain class of mathematical theories.) [1] I've never heard of a name for these requirements before. I incidentally note that the Wikipedia article on Foundherentism seems to only exist in English.
I feel like I enjoy philosophy, especially when it is helpful. The problem is, it's often unnecessarily overcomplicated. I don't think there is a need for any of these "isms" terms to exist. They don't deserve our attention and they don't serve any practical function. They are deepities. Epistomology shouldn't take so much time to explain.
@@Cheesesteakfreak Often? How much philosophy have you read? Philosophy can get very rigorous and sure, some of the debates can be seen as overly complicated, but it does not follow that there is no "practical function" (philosophy ITSELF is a set of methods to attempt to understand specific questions; so you're not interested in that. Philosophers are and understand the history).
I’m on the side of Mr Money. Philosophy tends to make complex puzzles out of the most simple concepts. As thought experiments they are interesting and arguably beneficial in some ways, but for understanding reality they often lead the other direction into obfuscation and even the denial of reality. If a philosopher claims to have demonstrated the existence of something in reality, you know he has been eating his own dogfood. The only way to do that is through empirical evidence, aka science.
I found this to be an incredibly useful and enlightening presentation. I have never dug that deeply into the details of various philosophies but Foundherentism seems to be the most robust one to me. To me it also provides an explanation why it is so important to continue to add to our knowledge... To follow the crossword puzzle example... Let's assume one were to "solve" a small crossword puzzle, with four or five words, each relatively short. Even if the words we entered both fit the clues, and fit together, they still might not comprise a UNIQUE solution... (There could be other combinations of words that could ALSO fit both the clues and each other.) However, the more complex the puzzle, and the more words and interconnections involved, the less likely this is to be the case. Assuming we allow only words from a certain dictionary... With a very small puzzle there might be several possible solutions. Then, as the puzzle gets larger and more interconnected, we would expect there to be fewer valid solutions. And finally, at some level of complexity, we would cross a line where only ONE valid solution existed. And, by doing research, and observing things, and adding to our knowledge, we are "adding to the size of the puzzle".
I knew there was a reason why I like the NYT crossword puzzle so much. Thanks for the explanation. Would love to hear a conversation between you and Susan Hawk.
In the example of the crossword puzzle, the clues are not foundations. As Matt noted, one clue may have several answers that fit - both the letter-count and the web of associations that make clues possible. But if we're talking about "fit" - that's coherentism.
I really like this framework and the accompanying crossword puzzle metaphor. I think it is probably apt that the part of the word from foundationalism is before the part from coherentism. It seems to me that, much as you have to start somewhere and from some clue when filling in a crossword puzzle, you would have to provisionally build a base of knowledge foundationally before reaching the point where a coherentist framework is even constructable... Which is not to put some kind of primacy on foundationalism: one would only be able to attain full confidence in the part which is built foundationally by putting it into coherence with a larger framework. About the only thing it is not greatly meaningful to doubt is of course that we are individually thinking, and that we seem to be perceiving our bodies and an outside world. From this we can say provisionally that perhaps our senses correspond to something that we'll call reality, and the other beings that look like us and profess to experience the same reality as us, we will provisionally assume to be substantially like us. Well I think that solipsism is pretty useless as far as telling us anything or inspiring us to do anything, it is hard to foundationally disprove it. But saying we'll get back to that question and building this provisional foundation with empiricism and science and scientific skepticism, we can soon learn all kinds of things that make the reality of the world and the reality of other people coherent with our own existence and experiences. I can also think of it as much like finding the edges of a jigsaw puzzle, or the act of a linguist trying to learn a language solely by listening to people speak it and trying to interact with them.
I hold the belief that the most important part of epistemology is in learning how to come to justified true belief, with the emphasis on TRUE, and not as much ones justification, or at least not as in just feeling justified, but as Matt stated justified by a solid foundation based on facts and known truths, and never should ones belief precede the justification. Knowing how we as humans come to knowledge, and how so many of us mistake our beliefs as knowledge ultimately can help us use good epistemology in coming to our beliefs, one of the most precious ones being abstaining from belief given insufficient evidence. I hear all too often people, especially apologists saying that because something is logical, therefore it must be true, which doesn't rule out viable logic derived from false premises, making it very likely untrue. They also all too often base their whole method of finding truth starting with a conclusion, which although can be called epistemology, is not good epistemology, and just because it is a common way people come to "Truth" or "Knowledge" and with it belief, it's not necessarily true, and definitely not justified in all reality. Atheism is the only true justified belief given all of the evidence and truth we know, with consideration of the lack of evidence, and the only honest position if one uses good epistemology. Oh, and I hate when people use "isms" because all too often they are seen as bad by default, nor do the labels matter in the grand scheme of things, what does is how you got to your belief, and is t justifiably true! You are an ____ist, is all too often just used as a trap that doesn't change anything in that regard.
6:15 That's mathematics: complex proofs are based on less complex proofs, which are based on simpler proofs, which are based on very simple proofs, which are based on asserted axioms. 8:33 Because of Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorems.
This was interesting. It made me wonder about Foundationalism and mathematics. Especially since I've been revisiting Gödel lately. It made me wonder about the universe and infinite regression. If the universe in some form has always been, then couldn't unending regression exist?
The short check I did on this at your mention of this Foundherentism concept referenced Bertrand Russel's epistemology as being its precursor. I wonder if Ms Haack would agree?
I'm still not sure what 'foundherentism' gives us that 'coherentism' doesn't already have covered. If coherentism requires ideas to be internally consistent _and_ consistent with logic, as you said Matt, then that means the ideas have to be both valid and sound. That means they have to be consistent with observable reality - which is the foundation, isn't it? Basically, doesn't coherentism include foundationalism as a sub-set of it (i.e. as the 'reality check' on any given idea)? If, on the other hand, the foundation isn't observable reality but a 'properly basic belief', and we can't identify anything as _being_ 'properly basic', then 'foundherentism' is just including something non-existent into coherentism - again, adding nothing (literally and figuratively). I feel like I must be missing and/or misunderstanding something here, but I can't figure out what it is.
Ours is the only species that concerns itself with such matters of the mind. The missing ingredient is actually a question….why the F#$k does our species exist? Humans offer nothing to the questions of hope, meaning, and purpose which btw no other species concerns itself with. And, because we have no answers, we delve into unanswerable questions that lead to nowhere…again, exclusive to our species. Fact is..our species has no business existing here on this planet which is a limited resource. We destroy everything we touch and if other species had a voice, they would all concur. Eliminate us…the planet thrives. F homo Sapian!
For someone to assume they have access to a foundational properly basic belief suggests to me extreme arrogance as well as detachment from reality. We form beliefs to negotiate our worlds, and reality continually smacks us in the face to tell us we're wrong.
There are other, more cogent critiques of Foundationalism/Coherentism. The point about Foundationalism as being "dogmatic" is a straw person: no foundationalist thinks PBB (properly basic beliefs) are dogmatic! It's in the NAME: 'properly'. It identifies specific types of beliefs which support many other beliefs but are SO pervasive there is no longer a justification that CAN be made. For example, other human beings have minds which function very similar to ours. We ASSUME that in SO MANY beliefs in our folk psychology, yet we do not have a way to justify this. Another PBB: there are middle-sized objects (i.e. macroscopic "stuff") which we talk about all the time. Yet, if you look at the very concept, it is quite ambiguous and lacks any necessary and sufficient condition that explains the belief. It has other VALUE than being justified; it allows us to generate beliefs about the world. This is not dogma. And note that the infinite regress critique of foundationalism is stopped at that point. PBBs are 1) very descriptive of quite a number of beliefs which are assumed to generate many other beliefs and 2) a concept which allows foundationaglists to utilize it to stop the infinite regress critiques of foundationalism. It turns the spade of the regress. One issue with Haack et al is that both foundationalism and coherentism are each themselves not seen as meeting the burden of justification for JTB. There do not seem to be a way to justify a belief by somehow walking the belief chain to PBB in ways that do not run afoul of being a JTB (note also that some REJECT JTB as well) that foundationalism requires (see Sellars summary here:plato.stanford.edu/entries/sellars/#Epis). Likewise, coherentism cannot seem to explain how something is a JTB because it is too internalist: coherence does not guarantee ANYTHING about truth as it is only a property of how beliefs relate to each other. Not saying Haack cannot answer these objections but separately, foundationalism and coherentism are considered to fall sort of explaining JTB. I would add: there are a lot of work that could be done around the epistemology of theology/fundies to shed light on how BAD their epistemology is as well. Religious philosophers like Alvin Plantinga claim that one PBB is that god exists!
Foundationalism has the bias of gravity. Building on a strong foundation relies on the law of gravity for it's analogy. Coherentism doesn't need the bottom, only that the ideas fit together. The two epistemologies seem similar, otherwise. If your foundation is that a god exists, it's like throwing a monkey wrench into the gears and the whole system blows up. Metaphor.
The main issue is that Haack is trying to save BOTH foundational and coherentism. Both independently have generally been rejected as complete explanations of knowledge because of many logical/exception problems in both. Haack seems to think that together, they can answer the objections to both. I am not convinced.
When you start describing it as the dodecahedron, I can't help but think of a sphere which leads to the idea of circular (spherical?) logic. How do these -isms avoid falling into the trap of circular logic?
As you talk about it, I realize that Foundherentism largely describes _both_ Scientific Method _and_ our Legal System. They are both systems by which _probability_ is established by logical inference based on a body of physical evidence. Individual data points provide the "bricks" in the factual _foundation,_ while sound logic enables us to infer _coherent_ conclusions. Yes?
Please note: there is nothing in what Dilluhunty said that ties Foundherentism to empiricism. In fact, neither individual theories connect with the WORLD very clearly. Foundationalism/Cohernetism are about BELIEFS, not how beliefs "comport with reality". All three are internalist about belief.
@@flaffer69 Fair point. I suppose, in that respect, the degree to which _individual_ Foundherentism comports with reality is defined/influenced by the degree to which one favors Foundations and Coherent Arguments that _also_ comport with reality. It's thus possible for a Foundherentist to believe in objectively ridiculous things _if_ the only data they input is objectively dubious. Yeah?
the logical end of foundherentism which is a fancy name associated with Haack but predates her by at least half a century is a form of theism (in a maximally internally related Absolute) and the best defender of this was Brand Blanshard arguably the greatest defender of reason in the 20th century. Indeed this Foundherentist intuition in modern times is best defended by none other than Spinoza.
Can you compare or contrast Foundherentism with the Presuppositionalism of, say Cornelius Van Til (or more recently of the Moscow Idaho folks like Douglas Wilson)? It seems to me they might equally claim their epistemology comports with yours, though with a very different outcome.
The God they presuppose does not cohere with reality. They start with a conclusion and claim that is the solution to the crossword of reality, and ignore all the blank spaces that leaves, rather than trying to solve reality with what we can observe and test.
The Theism implicit in Foundherentism: foundherentism as applied to ethics: the "clue" is something like "Maximize human well-being." The "answers" in the puzzle are specifics, like "don't have slaves." The "coherence" in the puzzle is the extent to which we explain away any contradictions in the answers - i.e. if one answer is "don't have slaves" then how do you explain another answer that is "put prisoners to work." But how do we know that we have the right clues, or the right answers or the right coherence? i.e. How do we know our puzzle is "objectively correct?" Of course, the answer is that the notion of "correct" just doesn't apply to the puzzle. We can comment on the extent to which we are satisfied with the puzzle, but beyond that there is no such thing as "correct." Or, to continue the analogy, there is no "answer key," there is only the puzzle. We have nothing to compare our puzzle to, but that's ok, for we none the worse for that. We don't need our puzzle to be "correct" in order to find it valuable. We, as secular atheists, have no problem understanding the ethical puzzle this way. foundherentism as applied to epistemology: The "clue" is our experiences, our perceptions and concepts. The "answers" are what we think those experiences tell us about "reality." The "coherence" is the extent to which we explain away apparent contradictions in "realty" - i.e. "why is Newtonian physics different than quantum physics?" but again, how do we know the puzzle is "correct?" Isn't the whole point of the puzzle analogy is to show that EVERYTHING is part of the puzzle. So how can we compare our puzzle to something "not-puzzle" for the purposes of verifying "correctness" of the puzzle? How are we to get an "answer key?" We can't, can we? We don't know our epistemological puzzle is any more "objectively true" than our ethical puzzle. In both cases we are making the puzzle as we solve it. There is no answer key; there is no "objective truth." Claiming otherwise, that there is something called "not-puzzle," or an "answer key" of some kind, even one we can't directly access, by which we can determine the "truth" of our epistemology is a form of "theism" in that it is the impulse to declare that we are to find what we value if only we can cultivate a relationship with the non-human. Saying "reality determines truth" is no different than saying "god determines goodness," in the sense that they are both examples of acting out the same psychological motive to provide ourselves with a sense of safety that comes from having a "foundation" and "coherence".
Still not sure what Foundherentism can help with that Coherentism can't do on its own, and that's mostly because I am incredibly leary of Foundationalism. Seems like Coherentism already has to assume a few foundation things anyway; one would have to lean in to the absurd if they were to only use coherentism without a foundation.
Well, what if you just assume nothing and consider knowledge the result of recognizing when patterns are there and when they are not there, because that seems to be how it works. Then it's just a matter of how we find out if the pattern we see actually exists or is a correlation or a causal link or a figment of our imagination and what it can tell us about reality and we'll just have to be create in figuring that out and that's what we do. Even if you consider this universe that we only have one of, it seems to be fundamentally the same as the universe we were in yesterday and a lot of aspects of it are the same for you as for me. If the universe stops being reliable i its fundamental physics then that's the pattern it has. What I'm saying is that basically we don't need to assume anything at all definitively. You can basically treat everything as a scientific theory where the underlying principles you assume are for practical reasons and can always be revised or thrown out and we can let the context and goals be the guide. So when a coherentist line of thinking works, then do that, when foudationolism works, use that. There are many ways to get to answers, just as there are many ways to calculate the volume of a sphere. And none of those methods will give you the length of a line. So maybe just not stick to one method.
Could you give us an example? Could you show us how you arrived at some conclusion or belief using foundherentism that you couldn't using other methods, or where other methods lack sufficient justification, that foundherentism addresses much better?
@@canwelook His crossword puzzle was an analogy to explain the difference and complimentary way in which the two methods could fit together. Not an example of using the method to arrive at a real life question. He didn't use foundherentism to finish his Tuesday crossword puzzle. He used the Tuesday crossword puzzle as a tool, as a metaphor, to explain foundherentism. I'm asking him to use foundherentism to show us an example.
@@SteveEwe OK I see where you're coming from. And I can't answer it, but here are my preliminary lay opinions, for what its worth, which are different to Matt's. Foundationalism seems to assume there are infallible basic beliefs, and then use deductive reasoning to arrive at supposed certain conclusions. I don't buy it. It seems to be based on the flawed methods of Descartes in his cogito argument. A better way of thinking IMO is to regard these foundations instead as appealing yet fallible assumptions. People drawn to a belief in (knowable) absolute truths seem to love this foundationalism way of thinking. Coherentism, in contrast, seems to see beliefs as highly interconnected, context-impacted, and interdependent. It seems to deal much more effectively with ambiguity and uncertainty. But if evidence is particularly strong for a proposition, then that proposition could be used as a foundation - which brings the method a little closer to foundationalism --> foundherentism. Just preliminary perspectives, probably flawed in ways I don't understand.
@@canwelook Why are you explaining it again? He already explained it in his video, I didn't ask for another definition, I didn’t express confusion about its meaning. The explanation is sufficient to understand. I didn't have a problem with the explanation. I'm just asking for a CONCRETE EXAMPLE. A DEMONSTRATION. Show me how you use it. Was I not clear enough what I was asking for? Reread these posts again and please tell me where I went wrong if I was not specific or clear what I was asking for.
@@SteveEwe Don't you think that any example will suffice? How do we know that the Sun will rise tomorrow? It is the result of our empirical observations that were completely reliable for a long time, so we assume the consistency of nature, general reliability of our senses etc. as axioms (based on empirical data, empirical foundationalism) and the resulting set of statements must be internally coherent (non-contradictory, coherentism). P.S. So, empirical foundationalism relies on the circular reasoning in a way: how do we know that these axioms are better - because they are consistently demonstrated to work in all related circumstances. So, empirical justification of reliability of empirical method. And here we have coherentism as a condition.
I'm not well-read on the subject, but to my eye, coherentism (and by extension foundherentism) just looks like foundationalism where one of the foundational beliefs is the value of logical coherence. That part still has to be taken for granted as a starting point, right? Which would make it just another form of foundationalism.
I think you are confused here. PBBs (properly basic beliefs) are beliefs that play a certain role on our system of beliefs. They are beliefs which are generally beliefs which we do not argue for or justify because their role is to allow us to do the things we want with the world. So, for instance, we assume that there are other minds who work basically similarly to our own minds and we derive MANY, MANY beliefs about others assuming that. To disbelieve it does not make sense since ANY belief derived from it would then lose all support. So, we might look at our beliefs and how they logically cohere but the decision to keep or stop believing something because of coherence issues can done, but there is in no way that we assume that all beliefs must logically cohere with all others in order to GENERATE beliefs.
Oops. I need to go back to Epistemology 101. I'm a regular listener/viewer on AE, but my only reaction after 5 minutes is, Huh? I'm not used to saying this, but I don't think I'm smart enough for this. I'll come back later and try again. Love ya anyway. Just too fast for me.
Thank you very much. Maybe I'm missing something obvious, but I'm struggling with finding out how it is different from the scientific method. The reason I ask is that it seems to have both elements ( along with a few others).
I find the crossword a great way to visualize the concept. I’m having trouble, though, imagining how to put Foundherentism into practice in a real world situation. Can it be used to learn something new? It is my position that philosophical arguments cannot demonstrate the existence of anything in reality. For that you need empirical evidence, which is science, not philosophy. Am I wrong?
@@SansDeity ok, sure. But how are the analysis and conclusion verified? Is there an example you can point to that would demonstrate Found…ism in application to a problem/question? The practical application is what I’m struggling with, even though I agree with the strength of the idea. My other point, and why I’ve become rather jaded about philosophy, is more general: it seems that since in philosophy there is no emphasis on empiricism, the questions being analyzed are fundamentally unfalsifiable, and therefore no conclusion can justifiable be made. In the end, it’s like, “just your opinion, dude”, if you get my meaning.
@@skeptic_al I agree. There is a strand of philosophy, often traced from Nietzsche to James to Quine to Wittgenstein to Rorty called pragmatism that attempts to show that the traditional "problems" of philosophy, including "philosophy of science," such as discussed here, are not so much "true" or "false" as just useless. In this example, the crossword puzzle is an enlightening heuristic; it is a particularly fruitful metaphor in helping us understand how we organize our thoughts, but other than that, there is no sense in which it can be called "true," but that's ok, its none the worse for that.
I was thinking along the same lines but I suppose what we as scientists are doing is following a coherentism model, that what we believe must be coherent with all the empirical evidence that we accept as reliable. The religious position is foundationalism with the god as the foundation for the house of cards of beliefs they build around it. For me the crossword analogy makes more sense that we are constantly discovering new words and they must also fit the current answers or we must revise the previous answers to fit the new discovery, or we can remove words if we find they are no longer trusted evidence. I don't see a part for any foundationalism and to take any foundation for your beliefs in this way is to start to build a house of cards of beliefs that will come crashing down because almost everything we have believed about the world has been shown to be false and it is a fair assumption that most of what now understand will also be shown to be false or incomplete.
As I understand it, all three epistemologies use reason to construct a representation of reality, or more. Using reason is often insufficient, because there can be multiple lines of logic that may contradict one another. I prefer to stick to Hitchens' Razor: "What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence."
@@SansDeity but there are lines of logic that contradict and are BOTH valid. Geometry has Euclidean Geometry, Elliptic Geometry, and Hyperbolic Geometry. All 3 of these are internally consistent, and are all potentially true depending on the Geometry of space itself.
@@NelemNaru none of them are internally inconsistent but they are entirely incompatible with each other. As to which matches reality, we don't know at the moment. If space in reality is Hyperbolic, then Euclidean Geometry conflicts with reality as far as space is concerned.
Holy f_ck! Some years ago I made up an analogy with the crossword and it actually matches with Matt's view on foundherentism: The creationists’ desperate attempts to revise revealed scientific discoveries about reality and conform them to their creation myth corresponds to solving a crossword puzzle with disconnected words that not even remotely depict the synonyms asked for, let alone fit the grid. When belatedly discover the result in fact being a contextless jumble in pig Latin, they have the brazen audacity to blame a substandard quality control in the production of the print, whereas being incapable of considering to have made any mistake or blindly refuse to concede it as not only a probable but moreso as an imminent reason to their failure. I found a goal with it, at last. Thanks, Matt.
I think "Justified True Belief" suffices for a definition of Truth so long as you add to it a check for so-called Gettier cases. Self-referential statements should probably also be considered higher order statements.
It cannot be a definition of truth as truth has nothing to do with belief. Knowledge does, or so the argument goes. I find Gettier cases to be the sine qua non in killing JTB but of course there are philosophers who disagree and thingkGettier got things wrong.
@@flaffer69 There's no doubt that Gettier found instances where JTB failed, and it was proper to point that out. They are extremely odd cases, as you seem to be aware. As to your position that Truth cannot be a Belief, I obviously disagree. One can believe DESPITE (contra) the evidence (to the contrary). And one can believe that the evidence actually is evidence of truth -- in which case one is siding with all currently available evidence. In BOTH cases, it's a proper 'belief', because it CANNOT be known for CERTAIN. It's for this very reason that Science does NOT do dogma. I would ask you to consider the fact that science now says that the gravitational clusters are moving away from each other faster than the speed of light (relative). The space between the clusters is apparently growing in volume. Long into the future, anyone attempting to do research into the origin of the universe will be completely without knowledge of those distant clusters which will then be beyond all detection. They'll BELIEVE that all that exists is all that they see. And in some sense, we live in a privileged period where such knowledge of distant clusters is still available. We can still see those far away clusters. But some day they will be forever gone from any and all views. And so will their import into anyone's scientific efforts in that time period. Modern Christianity most definitely took a bad fork in the road. But they did so AFTER Anslem. Anselm believed so that he might understand. Today's Christians tend to believe in the absurd as a testament of their faith (eg. 'The greater the absurdity, the greater the faith necessary to maintain that belief') -- which Anselm would have found well beyond distasteful.
One. more point: I think the crossword puzzle analogy is flawed. Take another word in one corner and another in the opposite corner. They "cohere" because they are all connected to other letters/words. But that "coherence" is quite trivial. One could be a belief in ghosts and the other could be a belief that the sky is blue. Yes they cohere but are justified in vastly different ways. One cannot use coherence to determine whether one is knowledge and the other underdetermined by reality (i.e., ghosts). IT seems that coherence has little to do with understanding why one belief is justified and the other not without appealing to truth externally.
@@SansDeity I might be. My concern is that coherence is a rather weak relation which seems disconnected from justifying knowledge statements. Adding foundationalism does not help either as it is still an internal relation between a proximal belief and its foundational PBB, for example, if there is a PBB there at all. I had planned on reading Haack and will do so. I will add it to the pile :)
@@SansDeity BTW, I mentioned below an entry on Wilfred Sellars paradigmatic essay "Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind" considered to the death blow to foundationalism. That and Willard VO Quine's Epistemology Naturalized. www.ditext.com/sellars/epm.html joelvelasco.net/teaching/3330/Quine-Epistemology-Naturalized.pdf
When Christians ask me about my atheist philosophy, (As though that's a thing.) I tell them that I believe in honestism, and accuratism. I evaluate all of the evidence honestly, to try and come up with the most accurate answer. That doesn't mean that I will always succeed. I could be missing something, my calculations might be off, but at least I'm trying to do it properly. To which they will say that they believe in honesty, and accuracy too, they just disagree with answers that I'm giving based on the evidence that they see. "Evidence... Really? Tell me. What am I missing?" And then the fun begins. 😊
Logic, honesty and accuracy doesnt allways lead us to the same, right answers. Different people believe in different things, no matter how smart and honest they are.
@@eklektikTubb Logic, and honesty, give you the best chance at accuracy, and different people should be able to come up with the same accurate answers, if they all have access to the same evidence, and that is usually the problem. One person may be missing data, or including faulty data, or rejecting data that they think is faulty, but is actually accurate. Shit happens, that's why you talk about it, compare data, double check the sources, re-do your calculations. As long as you are trying your best to do it properly, that's all that can be expected of you.
@@jmg94j Yes, missing data and including faulty data are the main part of the problem. But sometimes you dont know the truth and what you believe in is just a matter of opinion.
@@NelemNaru Not exactly. I dont know if you are really a human, i also do not pretend to know that you are, but i can say that it is my opinion and i believe it... and my belief is justified just by my logical reasoning, intuition and personal experience. Should i just call it "faith" and throw it away? Should i admit that you could be an alien, robot, animal, or some other non-human creature? I dont think so.
So I could label myself a repetitionherentist! XD That's awesome XD But seriously, I like philosophy to serve not only me but everyone, so as much as I like to delve into how we actually know things, in everyday conversations I will just basically try and explain that things are possible or likely when certain aspects of a thing happen or exist, and what we consider possible or likely changes when we learn more about the thing we want to know is possible or likely. So for instance, a black swan is entirely possible because swans exist and black feathers exist. A creator god is not possible because as far as we know a mind can only exist as an emergent phenomenon from brains. A theistic god or anything other that is supernatural cannot exist in this universe because we know it's impossible/negligible for things to have an effect on the universe without leaving an affect on the universe and even if it is possible then it's indistinguishable from something that has no effect so we should treat it as having no effect. Even a single neutrino has infinitely more effect on this universe than all gods combined. And I think we should prioritize our attention based on how much/what kind of effect something has, and something with 0 effect should have 0 attention. I don't think it's useful to thank a god for a successful surgery and I think it's harmful to even suggest that a god's influence is worth mentioning more then the research and care of the people involved. And just imagine you had surgery in Kentucky and god just lets your family drown. How much jumping through hoops would you have to do to just maintain your placebo/god belief? How much easier would it be to have the love and support of friends and family and the actual care and empathy from health care workers as your comfort blanket instead? You don't have to wonder if someone is to blame for god letting you get sick, or if it's just a challenge put before you and others. You can simply accept that shit happens in a causal universe and people will always be people. And while you're recovering, other people will do their best to help people, just as people were there for you and you are there for other people when you can. And sure, people will take advantage of other people as well, and we already knew that and were working on that before people started drowning, so specialized people will continue to keep an eye on that and try and minimize exploitation. They won't suddenly stop to test or punish you or because a lot of people are suffering and need help or because one of them is in a hospital recovering from surgery or because people didn't pray enough. We can rely on that to be true because it has been the case in the past.
@@SansDeity But how do you propose we tell the difference between those two crossword puzzles? Isn't "the clue" (10:33), i.e. our experience, exactly what motivated us to choose the words we did? So now we have two different puzzles that both cohere and both "fit" the same "clues," as far as we can tell. We know if a crossword puzzle "coheres" and we know what we think is a good answer for any given a clue, but we have no way of determining the "correctness" of the answer independent of both the clue and the puzzle - So how have we made any progress here?
There are a couple of intentionally created double solution crosswords created by the press before elections and sports events, thus the analogy with the crossword ,though helpful as an analogy for the worldview ,just makes me think if it is really the only without alternative epistemologically corect interpretation.
Do you have an example? I still don't see the problem. The only way a double solution would be possible is if the definitions are not precise, and open to interpretation, and the puzzle is small enough to allow a dual-solution with synonyms or opinions. Reality is like a gigantic crossword where we are continually finding more blank spaces that intersect with what we already know. Different scientific theories are framework guesses until we discover what the structure actually is through experimentation, mathematics, and logic.
i have questions. it seems like you're addressing what i know as Agrippa Trilemma, which is choose: circularity, infinite regress, or axioms. is that fair? it also seems we both reject the first two options. i support an axiomatic epistemology.. i assume this is what you'd call "foundationalism". my best understanding is that your opposition to that is that you don't completely buy into the "validity of the senses". is that accurate? as a stand-alone, "coherentism" (as i understand it) won't work. it reduces to circularity. your dodecahedron is completely circular. it seems we both agree we need a basis in axioms. i don't see your coherentism as something extra though. it is merely the application of logic and context to growth of knowledge. the base is still solidly axiom (foundation). i thought of a (possibly crude) parallel when watching this video, to the idea of "compatibilism" in the discussion of free will. i may have a lot of misunderstandings. forgive me, if so. thanks
im uneasy with the crossword example because it starts mid stream. i agree that mid stream, all knowledge must necessarily both be ultimately grounded to foundations (axiomatic concepts) and coherent (non-contradictory with established truths).. however, that is NOT our starting point, epistemologically... we have already accumulated a SHIT TON of knowledge prior to being able to do a crossword puzzle.. and ABSOLUTLEY ALL ALL ALL of that is ultimately based on axiomatic concepts... thoughts?
@@ericb9804 circular reasoning is an informal logical fallacy. if you're familiar with Matt's work debating theists, you'll have likely heard a common circular reasoning.. "the bible is the infallible word of god" how do you know? "because it says so in the bible" why should we believe the bible? "the bible is the infallible word of god". in circular reasoning, regardless how many points along the circular chain, the initial premise is ultimately self-supporting (ie, has no external justification, must be accepted on faith). all knowledge must be somehow validated though, so this doesn't work. the only proper starting point is to explicitly acknowledge certain axiomatic starting points, primarily existence itself. but you cannot "prove" existence. to ask for proof would be to bastardize the concept entirely. proof is the derivation of a conclusion from antecedent knowledge. and there is no knowledge antecedent to the axiom of existence. the very concept of proof implies and assumes existence. the validation of existence is simply sense perception. the axiomatic concepts at the foundation of all knowledge are perceptual self-evidencies. i am not sure, but i suspect that the reason matt balks at this is because he does not believe in the ultimate validity of the senses. Kant did a good job of attacking the validity of the senses and today most intellectuals are Kantian derivatives epistemologically, to one degree or another.
@@kjlmailtime "the axiomatic concepts at the foundation of all knowledge are perceptual self-evidencies." - I disagree. We can speak about our perceptions and use them to define things like "knowledge" or "truth" or "justification" just fine without also insisting that they have some sort of metaphysical "grounding." It seems to me you are just declaring, by fiat what "must be somehow validated" and why.
6:50 it baffles me that anyone thinks coherentism is a good theory of knowledge. I can construct hundreds of sets of truth statements that are consistent with each other and the laws of logic and none of them could be true. Coherentism is madness.
If I see an angel, is that sufficient justification for my own belief in God? If an invisible hand jerks my hand on the steering wheel just before I'm about to hit another vehicle, am I justified in believing that an invisible, obviously loving force saved my life? If I dream of the dead and they give me accurate information about future events that come to pass and it's a repetitive phenomenon, am I justified in concluding that we don't die? Just wondering 🤔
How do you know you saw an angel instead of a human or a djinn or a ghost? How do you know it was an invisible hand instead of an invisible foot, or your own intuition manifested as a physical sensation over the external skin of your hand on the wheel? How do you know your dreams of information from the dead are not your own subconscious processing of predictions? If that info came from dead people how can you conclude people don't die? There are experiences and then there are interpretations of experiences. Interpretations that are not coherent with others' experiences and the reality that we can observe and test, these interpretations don't have a foundation to be accepted as true knowledge.
@@NelemNaru because you know. When you know the ways the laws of physics are supposed to operate and then something occurs outside of those laws, you have a pretty good idea that something else is happening. You don't mistake an angel for a human, unless of course they show up in human form. And you know that the steering wheel was jerked by unseen hands, because steering wheels don't usually move by their own volition. And you know the deceased are really still alive, when they give you accurate information of future events, later confirmed. I'm sure this is all news to you but it's the truth.
@@lindal.7242 How do you actually know? By feelings and emotions? That's not a good epistemological foundation. What are the properties of an angel? You can certainly mistake an image from a hallucination or psychedelic experience for an angel. And if they show up in human form, how do you differentiate them as an angel? There are many phenomenon, both physical and possibly supernatural, that can "jerk" a steering wheel and aren't invisible hands. So you have no basis for claiming the cause are hands that you can feel but can't see. If the deceased are alive, then they aren't deceased. That's a blatant contradiction. You have done nothing to demonstrate any of these things are true. "That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence." You have to take all of these on faith. Faith is pretending to know things you don't actually know.
@@NelemNaru no faith is the state of not knowing but believing anyway. When you see an angel, you have a tangible experience of the divine. That's when you cross over into the knowing and you can't unknow, what you now know to be true.
@@lindal.7242 You have an experience, sure. But you are irrational to assume it was divine. You have failed to define what an angel is, so you have no way of testing whether something you saw is indeed an angel. It sounds like you're going by gut feelings, which is a demonstrably terrible epistemology. That is faith, not knowledge. You're pretending to know something you actually don't know.
Can one take a cornerstone from the foundation and will it fall? But then what was the true cornerstone in the old books, That you say that is not true because of a lot of modifications. Which you are right about. For there is still a little in it that they did not mess with. But they did put things terribly before you. I hope you build again wisely.
@@flaffer69 You are right about the stone. I cannot take it away. For it is the foundation. For many did worship the creature. and put it before God, but realized that they have did wrong. But many gloried God and realized it was just because of there pride.
"Knowledge is a belief held to such a high degree of confidence that it be" what? World view-alternating? His volume drops right there it's hard to hear him
@@eklektikTubb "useful" is a relative term so I am not sure why you ask it except to note that you do not understand the history of th debate it is embedded in. Nor do you seem to care about the philosophical entpeprise, which is fine. But it is just not useful to YOU and that says more about you than it does about philosophy.
I’ve been struggling with my faith recently. One of the big reasons was why would a God create a perfect earth knowing there was going to be sin. Every UA-camr and pastor will respond to it coming up with some twist on why he would do that never actually makes sense. I started researching on the Bible why and why it was actually written. I mean if you really think about it why was it written. Some people will just say it was to control people.People call it a garbage book but when you look through it for wisdom and how to live life it makes sense. Christians will always say you need to find Jesus to find peace. I found peace before without Jesus. Mainly through letting all my Shame, guilt, anxieties, traumas go. But thats what the Bible says to do to find peace through Jesus Christ. People who believe in it find peace because they let everything go. The way are brain works and everything that we have on our body helps us survive which makes me wonder how evolution could create something so complex as to how are brain works to make us think and how our body is so designed to survive. How our planets are so perfectly in sync with one another that if a planet was one inch closer to earth it would end humanity. People look at the Bible as rules but if you look at it differently it’s more of guides to live a happier life. If people could reply on what I just stated would be nice have a blessed day
“I’ve been struggling with my faith recently.” Like most people, you use the word faith as though it is a good thing. It isn’t. As Peter Boghossian has said: Faith is pretending to know things you don’t know. And of course as Matt has stated, it is the least reliable way to truth, or as Elbert Hubbard said: Faith is the effort to believe that which your common sense tells you is not true. So you ought to not just struggle with your faith virus, you should let it go. “One of the big reasons was, why would a God create a perfect earth knowing there was going to be sin?” Thankfully we are free from the silly, prescientific idea that a god created the earth. We know for a fact how planets come to be, and this one formed about 4.5 billion years ago, with life beginning 3.5 billion years ago. “Every UA-camr and pastor will respond to it coming up with some twist on why he would do that never actually makes sense.” Right. They do indeed enter into a twilight zone of excuses & rationalizations. Ignore them. “I started researching on the Bible why and why it was actually written. I mean if you really think about it why was it written. Some people will just say it was to control people. People call it a garbage book but when you look through it for wisdom and how to live life it makes sense.” This is the entire problem, Christians (like Muslims) have been hypnotized into thinking that a particular book is special. It isn’t. It is a cacophony of competing themes and ideas written by primitive desert men who would have been frozen by a wheelbarrow. Sure, there maybe a few snippets of wisdom, big deal; as Sam Harris has pointed out, you can walk into any bookstore and find better, more insightful, helpful books. “Christians will always say you need to find Jesus to find peace. I found peace before without Jesus.” Yes, Christians say all manner of crazy things. Interestingly, I found peace after abandoning Christianity after 25 years. I was finally free of the cognitive dissonance of holding false beliefs that didn’t map onto reality in any way, shape or form. “People look at the Bible as rules but if you look at it differently it’s more of guides to live a happier life.” Um, no. It is not a guide to lead a happier life. If it was, it wouldn’t contain 95% of what it does contain. Again, it’s a selected compilation of writings by primitive, pre-scientific, superstitious, patriarchal humans in one tiny part of the world during a small period of time, which got elevated to a position of authority which it never earned and never deserved. When you come to and hold the position that “all there is is the natural world,” EVERYTHING makes sense, and you are in touch with reality.
That whole “if the planets were one inch closer” line is some serious nonsense. Our planet travels in an elliptical orbit, which means there is a LOT more than one inch of variation in the distances involved. The only reason to struggle with faith is the infantile desire to come up with any good reason to have faith.😜
"People look at the Bible as rules but if you look at it differently it’s more of guides to live a happier life. If people could reply on what I just stated would be nice have a blessed day" A broken clock is right twice a day. There are some good things in the bible, for sure. Some ideas are just good ideas. But there are A LOT of bad things in the bible. You sound like you are cherry picking the good things to help justify your faith. And if that works for you then good for you. Whatever helps people without harming others is good in my books. But that's the key isn't it. Do your actions inspired by your beliefs harm anyone? You may say no, but if for example you were catholic and donated to your church you are helping to cover up the acts child assault by helping to pay for it. Actually that could probably apply to just about every religion and denomination. I'm not going to tell you how to live, but i am going to tell you there is always more to something than the few points you want to focus on.
The answer to fine tuning questions is always the same. The reason that the planets are perfectly in sync is that if they weren't they wouldn't be there. All the planets that were not in sync have crashed together and dissipated, leaving only those which are in sync remaining behind. There are billions of stars with countless planets around them. The reason that we are here on the perfect planet for us is that from all those billions and countless planets ours had the perfect conditions for life to arise. Yes it is very unlikely to happen, but when you have such a large number of planets unlikely things become almost inevitable.
I don't actually think you give a fair description of Foundationalism. The foundational beliefs ARE said to be justified by the act of doubting them. The Cogito is an example of a foundation for knowledge in Foundationalism. You are allowed to try to doubt it, but in doing so you are proving that a doubter exists and therefore a thinker.
Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
I want to know why Matt believes atheism is true, accurate and correct that no God exists? What is the evidence and justifies belief that no God exists?
A-Theism is a belief statement. We are not convinced a god exists. So we will not live with the ASSUMPTION that one does. Gnostism is a knowledge belief. Someone who makes a definitive claim is making a gnostic ,or knowledge claim. Most atheists I know, which to my understand includes Matt, are Agnostic Atheists. We do not believe in a god, but do not know 100% for sure one exists. And that is because we do not know everything the universe. If everyone in the religion debate was being honest we would all be agnostic about our belief, as no one knows for absolute sure. Some will say (myself included) that the many human made religions in with world are internally inconsistent, which would make us pretty convinced that they are incorrect. Not100% sure, but maybe 99% sure. Many people can point you to these inconsistencies if you are curious. And perhaps you can come up with evidence as to why your god does exist. No one has ever provided actual evidence, but maybe you will be the first in history.
@@SilortheBlade Atheism is the doctrine (belief) that no Deity exists. An infant, or undecided/agnostic person is 'not convinced.' These are not atheists. An atheists is convinced no Deity exists. You are mindlessly repeating Dillahunty's lies without critical thinking.
@@SilortheBlade There is no such thing as an 'agnostic atheist.' It's a false category that atheists claim in order to hide atheism behind agnosticism when asked to defend atheism. 'Agnostic atheism' is logically incoherent - like 'undecided decided.' Once again, Theism and atheism are in fact BELIEF positions, neither are claims to know. Beliefs are not claims., In fact, knowledge of a universal negation (so called 'gnostic atheism') is categorically impossible, requiring universal knowledge to KNOW all negatives. Thus, so-called 'gnostic atheism' is a false category that cannot possibly exist. There are no possible 'gnostic atheists.' There are only atheists who cannot know, agnostics (undecided/uncommitted/withholding judgement) and theists. Thus, I have proven the Dillahunty lies conflating atheism with agnosticism to be false. Further, God's existence (ontology) is a separate question from religion (epistemology). Atheism and theism are positions on God's ontology - foundation in reality. Religion is largely irrelevant to that question. I don't believe in a god. Like most people, I believe in God. Radically different concept from the gods. Claiming no evidence of God is ludicrous. Only a fool would assert such a claim.
Philosophers argue that insofar as PBBs (properly basic beliefs) have ANY justification it is through pragmatics. The beliefs we generate assuming the foundational PBBs are pragmatically useful.
I think your use of "cheap" is unwarranted and very uncharitable. Haack believes that utilizing both can ANSWER some of the objections to each as stand-alone epistemologies.
Ok, but none of this is even remotely necessary. It is a pseudo-solution to a pseudo-problem that merely doubles down on silly metaphysics. All we need is good ol' fashioned pragmatism. To paraphrase Matt, "knowing the truth feels exactly the same as not knowing the truth." Which means there is no demonstrable utility in insisting there is a differences in some kind of "existential" way. We don't need a "theory of justification" any more than we need a "theory of danger." Justification IS as justification DOES.
Matt's logic is unparalleled. More people with that level of adherence to rational thought and truth would be a welcomed change to the various Tribunals and Courts that engage in more subjective application, irrational understanding and disregard to evidence in all manner of rulings and decisions.
Especially giving witness statements way too much weight in a court of law, especially now that it has been sufficiently shown to be greatly flawed in so many ways! So glad there are cameras all over the place, DNA and other way more reliable stuff.
"Justified True Belief." Is this "Modern Philosophy"? A contradiction in terms. So to justify Belief you assume it's True... you see how that's Nonsense? When I gave up Belief in a god or gods I became Athiest, defined since the 1st Catholic Sinod as "A Lack of Belief... in a god or gods." That last bit, after the... doesn't exist in my life. I Lack ALL Beliefs... If Belief is a subset of Knowledge, then everything is a Belief because Belief by its very nature would then effect everything in life. F that... Great stuff Matt... thanks for the work.
Beliefs aren't assumed to be true. Belief is not a subset of knowledge, knowledge is a subset of belief. Belief is necessary and merely stands for acceptance of a proposition. It's amazing how someone can come out of this being things backwards and thinking they've got it.
@@SansDeity Belief is a subset of Knowledge... Knowledge is a subset of Belief... either way makes no sense to me. They are contradictions. Knowledge is useful. Beliefs aren't useful in any meaningful way. Philosophically? Possibly, but I prefer Brain Storming to Philosophy. I like to start with some sort of goal.
@@cliftonmanley3882 Q1. Is there anything you know to be true with a high certainty, that you don't believe to be true? Q2. Is there anything you believe to be true, that you don't know to be true to a high certainty?
@@blarglemantheskeptic let me ask you a question... What is Theology? You see, I know what Theology is... it's really simple.. can you get it right? Or are semantics still the order of the Day? I see a LOT of "philosophy" in Athiest Land, but it's really just Semantics... Plato didn't argue Semantics, he assumed Philosophers understood how language works... not many Yanks understand Theology or Semantics. Pretty basic stuff.
The 3rd eye can blind two. For Matt is trying to explain. For they was of great scientist also, but failed, But I'll try it again but with different names and will fall again. For even Daniel seen of this.
@@blarglemantheskeptic I guess the old saying curiosity does kill the cat, Is a good metaphor. You should have known The Bible was a lot confused because of it. It's just that we know how to put pieces together. We are not like babble.
They don't understand atheist, for you build as you go. Because of so much deceiving and you had no choice. Even I understand the foundations of the Earth and the Ends of the universe. For you are close to the point. For we could have much We can share. But of course I am seen as half crazy. For all you have under your feet is 🌎 and you will never find none like it. It is measured perfectly. and set in place. So what do you require that was not given? Or do you need more?
" Even I understand the foundations of the Earth and the Ends of the universe." No you don't Garland. You think you do, but in fact you do not. No one does. Now I'll leave you to put in 12 responses that amount to Nu-uh before you go off on unrelated tangents, that I will never read. Have a good day.
@@SilortheBlade Good luck on your battles against babble is all I can say. For it has already twisted much words that you probably can't break down. It's what makes it confused. I have nothing against you my friend. You got to fight it. I thought a little here and a little there may help.
Hey Matt just wanna say thanks... the atheist experience changed my life over 10 years ago, all of the education and information that you guys gave sent me down a rabbit hole of gaining knowledge and totally changed my perspective on Christianity and religion. thanks for helping to free my mind brother
*Brother in Dawkins (just kidding by the way I am also an atheist and I know Dawkins isn't our prophet.)
He's a bloody brilliant scientist though
@@myselftik oh sure.
Same here, Matt Dillahunty is a hero for humanity.
They helped you escape the rabbit hole and get out into reality.😜
It just so happens that I have "43" tattooed on my arm. When my stepdaughter was 13 or 14, she had a friend who had a small tattoo on her toe and wanted one herself. In my infinite stupidity, I told her if she correctly picked a number between 1 and 100, she could get one. The number I chose was "43." The number she guessed was "43." She didn't get the tattoo. For consolation, she got a fun story and "43" became a nickname of sorts for her. In March of 2020, she passed away at 22 years old. Her funeral was the last the funeral home was able to host before the lockdowns. Similarly, the tattoo was the last the artist was able to create before locking down shop. I don't know why I felt compelled to share, but the number "43" being used as an example of an arbitrarily chosen number was a bit heart warming.
Sorry for your loss and it is actually a cool story bro. Bet she was a cool kid.
@@allthingsconsideredaa Thank you
@@travisfoster8866 i'm very sorry. That's really sad. Thanks for sharing this story.
Thanks for sharing. It’s a lovely coincidence. So sorry for your loss.
Thanks Matt. Had to come and view this again after you mentioned it in your last episode on AXP - and on that note, I would just like to transmit a deep appreciation for all the work you've done in these nearly 20 years.
Knowing there are many great hosts who will continue carrying the torch makes your leaving only slightly bittersweet - I'm certain your future projects will maintain the standards of quality and I can't wait to see them!
Much love, luck, and health. See you out there!
Man I been listening to you for so long now. Thank you for all your thoughts and shared knowledge.
💌💌💌
Thanks Matt. That was not only clear but compelling.
I like that crossword analogy. It reminds me of how a scientific theory is derived.
I love how Matt takes every comment as an insult lol. You're an awesome entertainer Matt and I still learn a thing or two.
Great video. This makes a lot of sense!
I'd love to see you do the interview you suggest at the end. Go for it!
Excellent video Matt, thank you! Loving this format. 😊
Take A Moment
Matt, your work is vital
Never Stop
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Stay Free 🌐
Great explanation! First time I heard about Foundherentism it immediately made so much sense, I'm baffled why it hasn't taken off, too. I'm no philosophy buff but when I learned about Foundationalism and Coherentism I felt like they led to overlap, you can't really have Coherentism without some base assumptions, like logic, to start with, and with Foundationalism the base assumptions can't be contradictory, they have to cohere. I guess the difference between the two is more subtle, but Foundherentism seems to embrace them the way they naturally drive to each other.
Coming from a math point of view, that's exactly what you want in any mathematical theory. You need some axioms (and rules of how to build on them) as a given ("foundationalism"), and then you want the result to be consistent (that is, non-contradictory) ("coherentism")[1]. (If you also want it to be complete, say hello to Mr. Gödel. But note that this strictly applies to a certain class of mathematical theories.)
[1] I've never heard of a name for these requirements before. I incidentally note that the Wikipedia article on Foundherentism seems to only exist in English.
I feel like I enjoy philosophy, especially when it is helpful. The problem is, it's often unnecessarily overcomplicated. I don't think there is a need for any of these "isms" terms to exist. They don't deserve our attention and they don't serve any practical function. They are deepities. Epistomology shouldn't take so much time to explain.
@@Cheesesteakfreak Often? How much philosophy have you read? Philosophy can get very rigorous and sure, some of the debates can be seen as overly complicated, but it does not follow that there is no "practical function" (philosophy ITSELF is a set of methods to attempt to understand specific questions; so you're not interested in that. Philosophers are and understand the history).
I’m on the side of Mr Money. Philosophy tends to make complex puzzles out of the most simple concepts. As thought experiments they are interesting and arguably beneficial in some ways, but for understanding reality they often lead the other direction into obfuscation and even the denial of reality. If a philosopher claims to have demonstrated the existence of something in reality, you know he has been eating his own dogfood. The only way to do that is through empirical evidence, aka science.
@@flaffer69 buy the questions they pursue are almost exclusively unfalsifiable, so their conclusions cannot be justified. See Kalam, etc.
I found this to be an incredibly useful and enlightening presentation.
I have never dug that deeply into the details of various philosophies but Foundherentism seems to be the most robust one to me.
To me it also provides an explanation why it is so important to continue to add to our knowledge...
To follow the crossword puzzle example...
Let's assume one were to "solve" a small crossword puzzle, with four or five words, each relatively short.
Even if the words we entered both fit the clues, and fit together, they still might not comprise a UNIQUE solution...
(There could be other combinations of words that could ALSO fit both the clues and each other.)
However, the more complex the puzzle, and the more words and interconnections involved, the less likely this is to be the case.
Assuming we allow only words from a certain dictionary...
With a very small puzzle there might be several possible solutions.
Then, as the puzzle gets larger and more interconnected, we would expect there to be fewer valid solutions.
And finally, at some level of complexity, we would cross a line where only ONE valid solution existed.
And, by doing research, and observing things, and adding to our knowledge, we are "adding to the size of the puzzle".
I knew there was a reason why I like the NYT crossword puzzle so much. Thanks for the explanation. Would love to hear a conversation between you and Susan Hawk.
In the example of the crossword puzzle, the clues are not foundations. As Matt noted, one clue may have several answers that fit - both the letter-count and the web of associations that make clues possible. But if we're talking about "fit" - that's coherentism.
Straight to the point and very informative!
I really like this framework and the accompanying crossword puzzle metaphor. I think it is probably apt that the part of the word from foundationalism is before the part from coherentism. It seems to me that, much as you have to start somewhere and from some clue when filling in a crossword puzzle, you would have to provisionally build a base of knowledge foundationally before reaching the point where a coherentist framework is even constructable... Which is not to put some kind of primacy on foundationalism: one would only be able to attain full confidence in the part which is built foundationally by putting it into coherence with a larger framework.
About the only thing it is not greatly meaningful to doubt is of course that we are individually thinking, and that we seem to be perceiving our bodies and an outside world. From this we can say provisionally that perhaps our senses correspond to something that we'll call reality, and the other beings that look like us and profess to experience the same reality as us, we will provisionally assume to be substantially like us. Well I think that solipsism is pretty useless as far as telling us anything or inspiring us to do anything, it is hard to foundationally disprove it. But saying we'll get back to that question and building this provisional foundation with empiricism and science and scientific skepticism, we can soon learn all kinds of things that make the reality of the world and the reality of other people coherent with our own existence and experiences.
I can also think of it as much like finding the edges of a jigsaw puzzle, or the act of a linguist trying to learn a language solely by listening to people speak it and trying to interact with them.
I hold the belief that the most important part of epistemology is in learning how to come to justified true belief, with the emphasis on TRUE, and not as much ones justification, or at least not as in just feeling justified, but as Matt stated justified by a solid foundation based on facts and known truths, and never should ones belief precede the justification.
Knowing how we as humans come to knowledge, and how so many of us mistake our beliefs as knowledge ultimately can help us use good epistemology in coming to our beliefs, one of the most precious ones being abstaining from belief given insufficient evidence. I hear all too often people, especially apologists saying that because something is logical, therefore it must be true, which doesn't rule out viable logic derived from false premises, making it very likely untrue. They also all too often base their whole method of finding truth starting with a conclusion, which although can be called epistemology, is not good epistemology, and just because it is a common way people come to "Truth" or "Knowledge" and with it belief, it's not necessarily true, and definitely not justified in all reality.
Atheism is the only true justified belief given all of the evidence and truth we know, with consideration of the lack of evidence, and the only honest position if one uses good epistemology.
Oh, and I hate when people use "isms" because all too often they are seen as bad by default, nor do the labels matter in the grand scheme of things, what does is how you got to your belief, and is t justifiably true! You are an ____ist, is all too often just used as a trap that doesn't change anything in that regard.
6:15 That's mathematics: complex proofs are based on less complex proofs, which are based on simpler proofs, which are based on very simple proofs, which are based on asserted axioms.
8:33 Because of Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorems.
This was interesting.
It made me wonder about Foundationalism and mathematics. Especially since I've been revisiting Gödel lately.
It made me wonder about the universe and infinite regression. If the universe in some form has always been, then couldn't unending regression exist?
The short check I did on this at your mention of this Foundherentism concept referenced Bertrand Russel's epistemology as being its precursor. I wonder if Ms Haack would agree?
I'm still not sure what 'foundherentism' gives us that 'coherentism' doesn't already have covered.
If coherentism requires ideas to be internally consistent _and_ consistent with logic, as you said Matt, then that means the ideas have to be both valid and sound. That means they have to be consistent with observable reality - which is the foundation, isn't it? Basically, doesn't coherentism include foundationalism as a sub-set of it (i.e. as the 'reality check' on any given idea)? If, on the other hand, the foundation isn't observable reality but a 'properly basic belief', and we can't identify anything as _being_ 'properly basic', then 'foundherentism' is just including something non-existent into coherentism - again, adding nothing (literally and figuratively).
I feel like I must be missing and/or misunderstanding something here, but I can't figure out what it is.
Ours is the only species that concerns itself with such matters of the mind. The missing ingredient is actually a question….why the F#$k does our species exist? Humans offer nothing to the questions of hope, meaning, and purpose which btw no other species concerns itself with. And, because we have no answers, we delve into unanswerable questions that lead to nowhere…again, exclusive to our species. Fact is..our species has no business existing here on this planet which is a limited resource. We destroy everything we touch and if other species had a voice, they would all concur. Eliminate us…the planet thrives. F homo Sapian!
For someone to assume they have access to a foundational properly basic belief suggests to me extreme arrogance as well as detachment from reality.
We form beliefs to negotiate our worlds, and reality continually smacks us in the face to tell us we're wrong.
There are other, more cogent critiques of Foundationalism/Coherentism. The point about Foundationalism as being "dogmatic" is a straw person: no foundationalist thinks PBB (properly basic beliefs) are dogmatic! It's in the NAME: 'properly'. It identifies specific types of beliefs which support many other beliefs but are SO pervasive there is no longer a justification that CAN be made. For example, other human beings have minds which function very similar to ours. We ASSUME that in SO MANY beliefs in our folk psychology, yet we do not have a way to justify this. Another PBB: there are middle-sized objects (i.e. macroscopic "stuff") which we talk about all the time. Yet, if you look at the very concept, it is quite ambiguous and lacks any necessary and sufficient condition that explains the belief. It has other VALUE than being justified; it allows us to generate beliefs about the world.
This is not dogma. And note that the infinite regress critique of foundationalism is stopped at that point. PBBs are 1) very descriptive of quite a number of beliefs which are assumed to generate many other beliefs and 2) a concept which allows foundationaglists to utilize it to stop the infinite regress critiques of foundationalism. It turns the spade of the regress.
One issue with Haack et al is that both foundationalism and coherentism are each themselves not seen as meeting the burden of justification for JTB. There do not seem to be a way to justify a belief by somehow walking the belief chain to PBB in ways that do not run afoul of being a JTB (note also that some REJECT JTB as well) that foundationalism requires (see Sellars summary here:plato.stanford.edu/entries/sellars/#Epis). Likewise, coherentism cannot seem to explain how something is a JTB because it is too internalist: coherence does not guarantee ANYTHING about truth as it is only a property of how beliefs relate to each other. Not saying Haack cannot answer these objections but separately, foundationalism and coherentism are considered to fall sort of explaining JTB.
I would add: there are a lot of work that could be done around the epistemology of theology/fundies to shed light on how BAD their epistemology is as well. Religious philosophers like Alvin Plantinga claim that one PBB is that god exists!
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Foundationalism has the bias of gravity. Building on a strong foundation relies on the law of gravity for it's analogy. Coherentism doesn't need the bottom, only that the ideas fit together. The two epistemologies seem similar, otherwise. If your foundation is that a god exists, it's like throwing a monkey wrench into the gears and the whole system blows up. Metaphor.
The main issue is that Haack is trying to save BOTH foundational and coherentism. Both independently have generally been rejected as complete explanations of knowledge because of many logical/exception problems in both. Haack seems to think that together, they can answer the objections to both. I am not convinced.
Nice video, it was informative.
When you start describing it as the dodecahedron, I can't help but think of a sphere which leads to the idea of circular (spherical?) logic. How do these -isms avoid falling into the trap of circular logic?
Matt, ok, the last one makes better sense now! 👍🌊💙💙💙🌊🥰✌
Thanks Matt 👌👌
As you talk about it, I realize that Foundherentism largely describes _both_ Scientific Method _and_ our Legal System. They are both systems by which _probability_ is established by logical inference based on a body of physical evidence. Individual data points provide the "bricks" in the factual _foundation,_ while sound logic enables us to infer _coherent_ conclusions. Yes?
Please note: there is nothing in what Dilluhunty said that ties Foundherentism to empiricism. In fact, neither individual theories connect with the WORLD very clearly. Foundationalism/Cohernetism are about BELIEFS, not how beliefs "comport with reality". All three are internalist about belief.
@@flaffer69 Fair point. I suppose, in that respect, the degree to which _individual_ Foundherentism comports with reality is defined/influenced by the degree to which one favors Foundations and Coherent Arguments that _also_ comport with reality. It's thus possible for a Foundherentist to believe in objectively ridiculous things _if_ the only data they input is objectively dubious. Yeah?
the logical end of foundherentism which is a fancy name associated with Haack but predates her by at least half a century is a form of theism (in a maximally internally related Absolute) and the best defender of this was Brand Blanshard arguably the greatest defender of reason in the 20th century. Indeed this Foundherentist intuition in modern times is best defended by none other than Spinoza.
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My grandma used to do crosswords in ink. It would take her about 15 minutes to do advanced puzzles.
Would it be possible to add some script annotations to the less common terms, especially proper nouns. Thanks, I really like this style of discourse.
Which proper nouns?
@@SansDeity I think he mean PBBs or properly basic beliefs.
Can you compare or contrast Foundherentism with the Presuppositionalism of, say Cornelius Van Til (or more recently of the Moscow Idaho folks like Douglas Wilson)? It seems to me they might equally claim their epistemology comports with yours, though with a very different outcome.
The God they presuppose does not cohere with reality. They start with a conclusion and claim that is the solution to the crossword of reality, and ignore all the blank spaces that leaves, rather than trying to solve reality with what we can observe and test.
The Theism implicit in Foundherentism:
foundherentism as applied to ethics: the "clue" is something like "Maximize human well-being." The "answers" in the puzzle are specifics, like "don't have slaves." The "coherence" in the puzzle is the extent to which we explain away any contradictions in the answers - i.e. if one answer is "don't have slaves" then how do you explain another answer that is "put prisoners to work."
But how do we know that we have the right clues, or the right answers or the right coherence? i.e. How do we know our puzzle is "objectively correct?" Of course, the answer is that the notion of "correct" just doesn't apply to the puzzle. We can comment on the extent to which we are satisfied with the puzzle, but beyond that there is no such thing as "correct." Or, to continue the analogy, there is no "answer key," there is only the puzzle. We have nothing to compare our puzzle to, but that's ok, for we none the worse for that. We don't need our puzzle to be "correct" in order to find it valuable. We, as secular atheists, have no problem understanding the ethical puzzle this way.
foundherentism as applied to epistemology: The "clue" is our experiences, our perceptions and concepts. The "answers" are what we think those experiences tell us about "reality." The "coherence" is the extent to which we explain away apparent contradictions in "realty" - i.e. "why is Newtonian physics different than quantum physics?"
but again, how do we know the puzzle is "correct?" Isn't the whole point of the puzzle analogy is to show that EVERYTHING is part of the puzzle. So how can we compare our puzzle to something "not-puzzle" for the purposes of verifying "correctness" of the puzzle? How are we to get an "answer key?"
We can't, can we? We don't know our epistemological puzzle is any more "objectively true" than our ethical puzzle. In both cases we are making the puzzle as we solve it. There is no answer key; there is no "objective truth."
Claiming otherwise, that there is something called "not-puzzle," or an "answer key" of some kind, even one we can't directly access, by which we can determine the "truth" of our epistemology is a form of "theism" in that it is the impulse to declare that we are to find what we value if only we can cultivate a relationship with the non-human. Saying "reality determines truth" is no different than saying "god determines goodness," in the sense that they are both examples of acting out the same psychological motive to provide ourselves with a sense of safety that comes from having a "foundation" and "coherence".
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Still not sure what Foundherentism can help with that Coherentism can't do on its own, and that's mostly because I am incredibly leary of Foundationalism. Seems like Coherentism already has to assume a few foundation things anyway; one would have to lean in to the absurd if they were to only use coherentism without a foundation.
Well, what if you just assume nothing and consider knowledge the result of recognizing when patterns are there and when they are not there, because that seems to be how it works.
Then it's just a matter of how we find out if the pattern we see actually exists or is a correlation or a causal link or a figment of our imagination and what it can tell us about reality and we'll just have to be create in figuring that out and that's what we do.
Even if you consider this universe that we only have one of, it seems to be fundamentally the same as the universe we were in yesterday and a lot of aspects of it are the same for you as for me. If the universe stops being reliable i its fundamental physics then that's the pattern it has.
What I'm saying is that basically we don't need to assume anything at all definitively. You can basically treat everything as a scientific theory where the underlying principles you assume are for practical reasons and can always be revised or thrown out and we can let the context and goals be the guide. So when a coherentist line of thinking works, then do that, when foudationolism works, use that. There are many ways to get to answers, just as there are many ways to calculate the volume of a sphere. And none of those methods will give you the length of a line. So maybe just not stick to one method.
Could you give us an example? Could you show us how you arrived at some conclusion or belief using foundherentism that you couldn't using other methods, or where other methods lack sufficient justification, that foundherentism addresses much better?
I thought the crossword puzzle examples answered those questions.
@@canwelook His crossword puzzle was an analogy to explain the difference and complimentary way in which the two methods could fit together. Not an example of using the method to arrive at a real life question. He didn't use foundherentism to finish his Tuesday crossword puzzle. He used the Tuesday crossword puzzle as a tool, as a metaphor, to explain foundherentism. I'm asking him to use foundherentism to show us an example.
@@SteveEwe OK I see where you're coming from. And I can't answer it, but here are my preliminary lay opinions, for what its worth, which are different to Matt's.
Foundationalism seems to assume there are infallible basic beliefs, and then use deductive reasoning to arrive at supposed certain conclusions. I don't buy it. It seems to be based on the flawed methods of Descartes in his cogito argument. A better way of thinking IMO is to regard these foundations instead as appealing yet fallible assumptions. People drawn to a belief in (knowable) absolute truths seem to love this foundationalism way of thinking.
Coherentism, in contrast, seems to see beliefs as highly interconnected, context-impacted, and interdependent. It seems to deal much more effectively with ambiguity and uncertainty. But if evidence is particularly strong for a proposition, then that proposition could be used as a foundation - which brings the method a little closer to foundationalism --> foundherentism.
Just preliminary perspectives, probably flawed in ways I don't understand.
@@canwelook Why are you explaining it again? He already explained it in his video, I didn't ask for another definition, I didn’t express confusion about its meaning. The explanation is sufficient to understand. I didn't have a problem with the explanation. I'm just asking for a CONCRETE EXAMPLE. A DEMONSTRATION. Show me how you use it. Was I not clear enough what I was asking for? Reread these posts again and please tell me where I went wrong if I was not specific or clear what I was asking for.
@@SteveEwe Don't you think that any example will suffice? How do we know that the Sun will rise tomorrow? It is the result of our empirical observations that were completely reliable for a long time, so we assume the consistency of nature, general reliability of our senses etc. as axioms (based on empirical data, empirical foundationalism) and the resulting set of statements must be internally coherent (non-contradictory, coherentism).
P.S. So, empirical foundationalism relies on the circular reasoning in a way: how do we know that these axioms are better - because they are consistently demonstrated to work in all related circumstances. So, empirical justification of reliability of empirical method. And here we have coherentism as a condition.
I'm not well-read on the subject, but to my eye, coherentism (and by extension foundherentism) just looks like foundationalism where one of the foundational beliefs is the value of logical coherence. That part still has to be taken for granted as a starting point, right? Which would make it just another form of foundationalism.
I think you are confused here. PBBs (properly basic beliefs) are beliefs that play a certain role on our system of beliefs. They are beliefs which are generally beliefs which we do not argue for or justify because their role is to allow us to do the things we want with the world. So, for instance, we assume that there are other minds who work basically similarly to our own minds and we derive MANY, MANY beliefs about others assuming that. To disbelieve it does not make sense since ANY belief derived from it would then lose all support.
So, we might look at our beliefs and how they logically cohere but the decision to keep or stop believing something because of coherence issues can done, but there is in no way that we assume that all beliefs must logically cohere with all others in order to GENERATE beliefs.
Sorry, I was thinking specifically of people’s names, and theories which may be new to me and others.
Oops. I need to go back to Epistemology 101. I'm a regular listener/viewer on AE, but my only reaction after 5 minutes is, Huh? I'm not used to saying this, but I don't think I'm smart enough for this. I'll come back later and try again. Love ya anyway. Just too fast for me.
Thank you very much. Maybe I'm missing something obvious, but I'm struggling with finding out how it is different from the scientific method. The reason I ask is that it seems to have both elements ( along with a few others).
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Pump up the volume please
I find the crossword a great way to visualize the concept. I’m having trouble, though, imagining how to put Foundherentism into practice in a real world situation. Can it be used to learn something new? It is my position that philosophical arguments cannot demonstrate the existence of anything in reality. For that you need empirical evidence, which is science, not philosophy. Am I wrong?
They're ways of analyzing evidence to reach a conclusion. These aren't mere contemplations... there is no science without the philosophy of science
@@SansDeity ok, sure. But how are the analysis and conclusion verified?
Is there an example you can point to that would demonstrate Found…ism in application to a problem/question? The practical application is what I’m struggling with, even though I agree with the strength of the idea.
My other point, and why I’ve become rather jaded about philosophy, is more general: it seems that since in philosophy there is no emphasis on empiricism, the questions being analyzed are fundamentally unfalsifiable, and therefore no conclusion can justifiable be made. In the end, it’s like, “just your opinion, dude”, if you get my meaning.
@@skeptic_al I agree. There is a strand of philosophy, often traced from Nietzsche to James to Quine to Wittgenstein to Rorty called pragmatism that attempts to show that the traditional "problems" of philosophy, including "philosophy of science," such as discussed here, are not so much "true" or "false" as just useless. In this example, the crossword puzzle is an enlightening heuristic; it is a particularly fruitful metaphor in helping us understand how we organize our thoughts, but other than that, there is no sense in which it can be called "true," but that's ok, its none the worse for that.
I was thinking along the same lines but I suppose what we as scientists are doing is following a coherentism model, that what we believe must be coherent with all the empirical evidence that we accept as reliable. The religious position is foundationalism with the god as the foundation for the house of cards of beliefs they build around it. For me the crossword analogy makes more sense that we are constantly discovering new words and they must also fit the current answers or we must revise the previous answers to fit the new discovery, or we can remove words if we find they are no longer trusted evidence. I don't see a part for any foundationalism and to take any foundation for your beliefs in this way is to start to build a house of cards of beliefs that will come crashing down because almost everything we have believed about the world has been shown to be false and it is a fair assumption that most of what now understand will also be shown to be false or incomplete.
As I understand it, all three epistemologies use reason to construct a representation of reality, or more. Using reason is often insufficient, because there can be multiple lines of logic that may contradict one another. I prefer to stick to Hitchens' Razor: "What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence."
Reason is NEVER insufficient. Lines of logic that contradict show that one of them is wrong. Hitchens razor isn't an epistemology.
@@SansDeity but there are lines of logic that contradict and are BOTH valid.
Geometry has Euclidean Geometry, Elliptic Geometry, and Hyperbolic Geometry.
All 3 of these are internally consistent, and are all potentially true depending on the Geometry of space itself.
@@SansDeity You're right. That was some bad use of terminology, my bad.
@@aaronbredon2948 If none of those geometries contradict reality, then they don't actually contradict each other
@@NelemNaru none of them are internally inconsistent but they are entirely incompatible with each other. As to which matches reality, we don't know at the moment. If space in reality is Hyperbolic, then Euclidean Geometry conflicts with reality as far as space is concerned.
Holy f_ck! Some years ago I made up an analogy with the crossword and it actually matches with Matt's view on foundherentism:
The creationists’ desperate attempts to revise revealed scientific discoveries about reality and conform them to their creation myth corresponds to solving a crossword puzzle with disconnected words that not even remotely depict the synonyms asked for, let alone fit the grid. When belatedly discover the result in fact being a contextless jumble in pig Latin, they have the brazen audacity to blame a substandard quality control in the production of the print, whereas being incapable of considering to have made any mistake or blindly refuse to concede it as not only a probable but moreso as an imminent reason to their failure.
I found a goal with it, at last. Thanks, Matt.
I think "Justified True Belief" suffices for a definition of Truth so long as you add to it a check for so-called Gettier cases. Self-referential statements should probably also be considered higher order statements.
It cannot be a definition of truth as truth has nothing to do with belief. Knowledge does, or so the argument goes. I find Gettier cases to be the sine qua non in killing JTB but of course there are philosophers who disagree and thingkGettier got things wrong.
@@flaffer69 There's no doubt that Gettier found instances where JTB failed, and it was proper to point that out. They are extremely odd cases, as you seem to be aware. As to your position that Truth cannot be a Belief, I obviously disagree. One can believe DESPITE (contra) the evidence (to the contrary). And one can believe that the evidence actually is evidence of truth -- in which case one is siding with all currently available evidence. In BOTH cases, it's a proper 'belief', because it CANNOT be known for CERTAIN. It's for this very reason that Science does NOT do dogma.
I would ask you to consider the fact that science now says that the gravitational clusters are moving away from each other faster than the speed of light (relative). The space between the clusters is apparently growing in volume. Long into the future, anyone attempting to do research into the origin of the universe will be completely without knowledge of those distant clusters which will then be beyond all detection. They'll BELIEVE that all that exists is all that they see. And in some sense, we live in a privileged period where such knowledge of distant clusters is still available. We can still see those far away clusters. But some day they will be forever gone from any and all views. And so will their import into anyone's scientific efforts in that time period.
Modern Christianity most definitely took a bad fork in the road. But they did so AFTER Anslem. Anselm believed so that he might understand. Today's Christians tend to believe in the absurd as a testament of their faith (eg. 'The greater the absurdity, the greater the faith necessary to maintain that belief') -- which Anselm would have found well beyond distasteful.
One. more point: I think the crossword puzzle analogy is flawed. Take another word in one corner and another in the opposite corner. They "cohere" because they are all connected to other letters/words. But that "coherence" is quite trivial. One could be a belief in ghosts and the other could be a belief that the sky is blue. Yes they cohere but are justified in vastly different ways. One cannot use coherence to determine whether one is knowledge and the other underdetermined by reality (i.e., ghosts). IT seems that coherence has little to do with understanding why one belief is justified and the other not without appealing to truth externally.
Boy did you misunderstand the analogy
@@SansDeity I might be. My concern is that coherence is a rather weak relation which seems disconnected from justifying knowledge statements. Adding foundationalism does not help either as it is still an internal relation between a proximal belief and its foundational PBB, for example, if there is a PBB there at all.
I had planned on reading Haack and will do so. I will add it to the pile :)
@@SansDeity BTW, I mentioned below an entry on Wilfred Sellars paradigmatic essay "Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind" considered to the death blow to foundationalism. That and Willard VO Quine's Epistemology Naturalized.
www.ditext.com/sellars/epm.html
joelvelasco.net/teaching/3330/Quine-Epistemology-Naturalized.pdf
I taught finance for many years. I often wondered if a student got the correct nett profit, but for the wrong reason, should he or she get the marks?
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Thanks
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When Christians ask me about my atheist philosophy, (As though that's a thing.) I tell them that I believe in honestism, and accuratism. I evaluate all of the evidence honestly, to try and come up with the most accurate answer. That doesn't mean that I will always succeed. I could be missing something, my calculations might be off, but at least I'm trying to do it properly. To which they will say that they believe in honesty, and accuracy too, they just disagree with answers that I'm giving based on the evidence that they see. "Evidence... Really? Tell me. What am I missing?" And then the fun begins. 😊
Logic, honesty and accuracy doesnt allways lead us to the same, right answers. Different people believe in different things, no matter how smart and honest they are.
@@eklektikTubb Logic, and honesty, give you the best chance at accuracy, and different people should be able to come up with the same accurate answers, if they all have access to the same evidence, and that is usually the problem. One person may be missing data, or including faulty data, or rejecting data that they think is faulty, but is actually accurate. Shit happens, that's why you talk about it, compare data, double check the sources, re-do your calculations. As long as you are trying your best to do it properly, that's all that can be expected of you.
@@jmg94j Yes, missing data and including faulty data are the main part of the problem. But sometimes you dont know the truth and what you believe in is just a matter of opinion.
@@eklektikTubb Then that belief is not justified, and is actually faith: pretending to know things you don't actually know
@@NelemNaru Not exactly. I dont know if you are really a human, i also do not pretend to know that you are, but i can say that it is my opinion and i believe it... and my belief is justified just by my logical reasoning, intuition and personal experience. Should i just call it "faith" and throw it away? Should i admit that you could be an alien, robot, animal, or some other non-human creature? I dont think so.
So I could label myself a repetitionherentist! XD That's awesome XD
But seriously, I like philosophy to serve not only me but everyone, so as much as I like to delve into how we actually know things, in everyday conversations I will just basically try and explain that things are possible or likely when certain aspects of a thing happen or exist, and what we consider possible or likely changes when we learn more about the thing we want to know is possible or likely.
So for instance, a black swan is entirely possible because swans exist and black feathers exist. A creator god is not possible because as far as we know a mind can only exist as an emergent phenomenon from brains. A theistic god or anything other that is supernatural cannot exist in this universe because we know it's impossible/negligible for things to have an effect on the universe without leaving an affect on the universe and even if it is possible then it's indistinguishable from something that has no effect so we should treat it as having no effect. Even a single neutrino has infinitely more effect on this universe than all gods combined. And I think we should prioritize our attention based on how much/what kind of effect something has, and something with 0 effect should have 0 attention.
I don't think it's useful to thank a god for a successful surgery and I think it's harmful to even suggest that a god's influence is worth mentioning more then the research and care of the people involved. And just imagine you had surgery in Kentucky and god just lets your family drown. How much jumping through hoops would you have to do to just maintain your placebo/god belief? How much easier would it be to have the love and support of friends and family and the actual care and empathy from health care workers as your comfort blanket instead? You don't have to wonder if someone is to blame for god letting you get sick, or if it's just a challenge put before you and others. You can simply accept that shit happens in a causal universe and people will always be people. And while you're recovering, other people will do their best to help people, just as people were there for you and you are there for other people when you can.
And sure, people will take advantage of other people as well, and we already knew that and were working on that before people started drowning, so specialized people will continue to keep an eye on that and try and minimize exploitation. They won't suddenly stop to test or punish you or because a lot of people are suffering and need help or because one of them is in a hospital recovering from surgery or because people didn't pray enough. We can rely on that to be true because it has been the case in the past.
In a crossword puzzle everything could be coherent and still the specific word we choose could be wrong.
Yes. I made that point. That's why coherentism, on its own, isn't exhaustive.
I just always try to squeeze peanut butter in! I like peanut butter! (
@@SansDeity But how do you propose we tell the difference between those two crossword puzzles? Isn't "the clue" (10:33), i.e. our experience, exactly what motivated us to choose the words we did? So now we have two different puzzles that both cohere and both "fit" the same "clues," as far as we can tell.
We know if a crossword puzzle "coheres" and we know what we think is a good answer for any given a clue, but we have no way of determining the "correctness" of the answer independent of both the clue and the puzzle - So how have we made any progress here?
There are a couple of intentionally created double solution crosswords created by the press before elections and sports events, thus the analogy with the crossword ,though helpful as an analogy for the worldview ,just makes me think if it is really the only without alternative epistemologically corect interpretation.
Do you have an example? I still don't see the problem. The only way a double solution would be possible is if the definitions are not precise, and open to interpretation, and the puzzle is small enough to allow a dual-solution with synonyms or opinions. Reality is like a gigantic crossword where we are continually finding more blank spaces that intersect with what we already know. Different scientific theories are framework guesses until we discover what the structure actually is through experimentation, mathematics, and logic.
If all the points of a circle are dependent upon the other points of a circle, would that be circular reasoning?
No. A theist example: the Bible is true because the Bible says it is true.
Matt Dillahunty is a hero for the progress of humanity; destroyer of apologists and the irrational.
i have questions. it seems like you're addressing what i know as Agrippa Trilemma, which is choose: circularity, infinite regress, or axioms. is that fair? it also seems we both reject the first two options. i support an axiomatic epistemology.. i assume this is what you'd call "foundationalism". my best understanding is that your opposition to that is that you don't completely buy into the "validity of the senses". is that accurate? as a stand-alone, "coherentism" (as i understand it) won't work. it reduces to circularity. your dodecahedron is completely circular. it seems we both agree we need a basis in axioms. i don't see your coherentism as something extra though. it is merely the application of logic and context to growth of knowledge. the base is still solidly axiom (foundation). i thought of a (possibly crude) parallel when watching this video, to the idea of "compatibilism" in the discussion of free will. i may have a lot of misunderstandings. forgive me, if so. thanks
im uneasy with the crossword example because it starts mid stream. i agree that mid stream, all knowledge must necessarily both be ultimately grounded to foundations (axiomatic concepts) and coherent (non-contradictory with established truths).. however, that is NOT our starting point, epistemologically... we have already accumulated a SHIT TON of knowledge prior to being able to do a crossword puzzle.. and ABSOLUTLEY ALL ALL ALL of that is ultimately based on axiomatic concepts... thoughts?
Why do you reject "circularity?"
@@ericb9804 circular reasoning is an informal logical fallacy. if you're familiar with Matt's work debating theists, you'll have likely heard a common circular reasoning.. "the bible is the infallible word of god" how do you know? "because it says so in the bible" why should we believe the bible? "the bible is the infallible word of god". in circular reasoning, regardless how many points along the circular chain, the initial premise is ultimately self-supporting (ie, has no external justification, must be accepted on faith). all knowledge must be somehow validated though, so this doesn't work. the only proper starting point is to explicitly acknowledge certain axiomatic starting points, primarily existence itself. but you cannot "prove" existence. to ask for proof would be to bastardize the concept entirely. proof is the derivation of a conclusion from antecedent knowledge. and there is no knowledge antecedent to the axiom of existence. the very concept of proof implies and assumes existence. the validation of existence is simply sense perception. the axiomatic concepts at the foundation of all knowledge are perceptual self-evidencies. i am not sure, but i suspect that the reason matt balks at this is because he does not believe in the ultimate validity of the senses. Kant did a good job of attacking the validity of the senses and today most intellectuals are Kantian derivatives epistemologically, to one degree or another.
@@kjlmailtime "the axiomatic concepts at the foundation of all knowledge are perceptual self-evidencies." - I disagree.
We can speak about our perceptions and use them to define things like "knowledge" or "truth" or "justification" just fine without also insisting that they have some sort of metaphysical "grounding." It seems to me you are just declaring, by fiat what "must be somehow validated" and why.
@@ericb9804 do you accept the axiomatic concepts of "existence", "consciousness", and "identity"? if so, why? if not, why not?
6:50 it baffles me that anyone thinks coherentism is a good theory of knowledge.
I can construct hundreds of sets of truth statements that are consistent with each other and the laws of logic and none of them could be true.
Coherentism is madness.
Whatever your epistemology I don't know is still the most powerful thing to say
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Well I added Telegraph to my tablet but I don't have to contact information
So foundherentism isn't just believing the first answer that I Found Here?
No. Not at all.
If I see an angel, is that sufficient justification for my own belief in God? If an invisible hand jerks my hand on the steering wheel just before I'm about to hit another vehicle, am I justified in believing that an invisible, obviously loving force saved my life? If I dream of the dead and they give me accurate information about future events that come to pass and it's a repetitive phenomenon, am I justified in concluding that we don't die? Just wondering 🤔
How do you know you saw an angel instead of a human or a djinn or a ghost? How do you know it was an invisible hand instead of an invisible foot, or your own intuition manifested as a physical sensation over the external skin of your hand on the wheel? How do you know your dreams of information from the dead are not your own subconscious processing of predictions? If that info came from dead people how can you conclude people don't die? There are experiences and then there are interpretations of experiences. Interpretations that are not coherent with others' experiences and the reality that we can observe and test, these interpretations don't have a foundation to be accepted as true knowledge.
@@NelemNaru because you know. When you know the ways the laws of physics are supposed to operate and then something occurs outside of those laws, you have a pretty good idea that something else is happening. You don't mistake an angel for a human, unless of course they show up in human form. And you know that the steering wheel was jerked by unseen hands, because steering wheels don't usually move by their own volition. And you know the deceased are really still alive, when they give you accurate information of future events, later confirmed. I'm sure this is all news to you but it's the truth.
@@lindal.7242 How do you actually know? By feelings and emotions? That's not a good epistemological foundation. What are the properties of an angel? You can certainly mistake an image from a hallucination or psychedelic experience for an angel. And if they show up in human form, how do you differentiate them as an angel? There are many phenomenon, both physical and possibly supernatural, that can "jerk" a steering wheel and aren't invisible hands. So you have no basis for claiming the cause are hands that you can feel but can't see. If the deceased are alive, then they aren't deceased. That's a blatant contradiction. You have done nothing to demonstrate any of these things are true. "That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence." You have to take all of these on faith. Faith is pretending to know things you don't actually know.
@@NelemNaru no faith is the state of not knowing but believing anyway. When you see an angel, you have a tangible experience of the divine. That's when you cross over into the knowing and you can't unknow, what you now know to be true.
@@lindal.7242 You have an experience, sure. But you are irrational to assume it was divine. You have failed to define what an angel is, so you have no way of testing whether something you saw is indeed an angel. It sounds like you're going by gut feelings, which is a demonstrably terrible epistemology. That is faith, not knowledge. You're pretending to know something you actually don't know.
Can one take a cornerstone from the foundation and will it fall? But then what was the true cornerstone in the old books, That you say that is not true because of a lot of modifications. Which you are right about. For there is still a little in it that they did not mess with. But they did put things terribly before you. I hope you build again wisely.
The point of PBBs (properly basic beliefs) is that you CANNOT take away the stone. It is an axiom that is assumed but not justified.
@@flaffer69 I cant justify any, or myself. For even Job said that.
@@flaffer69 I'm not a pleasure of myself.
@@garlandgarrett9806 You are being ambiguous about "justification" here. I am n to sure how one "justifies" themselves.
@@flaffer69 You are right about the stone. I cannot take it away. For it is the foundation. For many did worship the creature. and put it before God, but realized that they have did wrong. But many gloried God and realized it was just because of there pride.
Is 'foundheretism' unnecessarily obscure?
Why not 'coherent foundationalism' or 'foundational coherentism'?
It's not obscure to philosophers. :)
"Knowledge is a belief held to such a high degree of confidence that it be" what?
World view-alternating?
His volume drops right there it's hard to hear him
Can you recommend a good book on logic, philosophy and epistemology for a layperson ?
The Emperor’s New Clothes is a good start.😜
Here's a good one: dorshon.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/epistemology-a-contemporary-introduction-to-the-theory-of-knowledge.pdf
Interesting analogy... So, religion is like a crossword puzzle: you come up with all of the answers first and then write the questions around it...
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I like this philosophical content, it is quite interesting, but i am not sure if it is usefull.
It is very useful, especially PBBs (properly basic beliefs and certainty being common epistemological assumptions for some theists).
@@flaffer69 So how exactly is it useful?
@@eklektikTubb "useful" is a relative term so I am not sure why you ask it except to note that you do not understand the history of th debate it is embedded in. Nor do you seem to care about the philosophical entpeprise, which is fine. But it is just not useful to YOU and that says more about you than it does about philosophy.
@@flaffer69 You said it is VERY useful, so i asked you how. No need to go into some ad hominems, dude, just answer my question!
Haack is based af
I’ve been struggling with my faith recently. One of the big reasons was why would a God create a perfect earth knowing there was going to be sin. Every UA-camr and pastor will respond to it coming up with some twist on why he would do that never actually makes sense. I started researching on the Bible why and why it was actually written.
I mean if you really think about it why was it written. Some people will just say it was to control people.People call it a garbage book but when you look through it for wisdom and how to live life it makes sense. Christians will always say you need to find Jesus to find peace. I found peace before without Jesus. Mainly through letting all my Shame, guilt, anxieties, traumas go. But thats what the Bible says to do to find peace through Jesus Christ. People who believe in it find peace because they let everything go. The way are brain works and everything that we have on our body helps us survive which makes me wonder how evolution could create something so complex as to how are brain works to make us think and how our body is so designed to survive. How our planets are so perfectly in sync with one another that if a planet was one inch closer to earth it would end humanity. People look at the Bible as rules but if you look at it differently it’s more of guides to live a happier life. If people could reply on what I just stated would be nice have a blessed day
“I’ve been struggling with my faith recently.”
Like most people, you use the word faith as though it is a good thing. It isn’t. As Peter Boghossian has said: Faith is pretending to know things you don’t know. And of course as Matt has stated, it is the least reliable way to truth, or as Elbert Hubbard said: Faith is the effort to believe that which your common sense tells you is not true.
So you ought to not just struggle with your faith virus, you should let it go.
“One of the big reasons was, why would a God create a perfect earth knowing there was going to be sin?”
Thankfully we are free from the silly, prescientific idea that a god created the earth. We know for a fact how planets come to be, and this one formed about 4.5 billion years ago, with life beginning 3.5 billion years ago.
“Every UA-camr and pastor will respond to it coming up with some twist on why he would do that never actually makes sense.”
Right. They do indeed enter into a twilight zone of excuses & rationalizations. Ignore them.
“I started researching on the Bible why and why it was actually written. I mean if you really think about it why was it written. Some people will just say it was to control people. People call it a garbage book but when you look through it for wisdom and how to live life it makes sense.”
This is the entire problem, Christians (like Muslims) have been hypnotized into thinking that a particular book is special. It isn’t. It is a cacophony of competing themes and ideas written by primitive desert men who would have been frozen by a wheelbarrow. Sure, there maybe a few snippets of wisdom, big deal; as Sam Harris has pointed out, you can walk into any bookstore and find better, more insightful, helpful books.
“Christians will always say you need to find Jesus to find peace. I found peace before without Jesus.”
Yes, Christians say all manner of crazy things. Interestingly, I found peace after abandoning Christianity after 25 years. I was finally free of the cognitive dissonance of holding false beliefs that didn’t map onto reality in any way, shape or form.
“People look at the Bible as rules but if you look at it differently it’s more of guides to live a happier life.”
Um, no. It is not a guide to lead a happier life. If it was, it wouldn’t contain 95% of what it does contain. Again, it’s a selected compilation of writings by primitive, pre-scientific, superstitious, patriarchal humans in one tiny part of the world during a small period of time, which got elevated to a position of authority which it never earned and never deserved.
When you come to and hold the position that “all there is is the natural world,” EVERYTHING makes sense, and you are in touch with reality.
That whole “if the planets were one inch closer” line is some serious nonsense. Our planet travels in an elliptical orbit, which means there is a LOT more than one inch of variation in the distances involved.
The only reason to struggle with faith is the infantile desire to come up with any good reason to have faith.😜
"People look at the Bible as rules but if you look at it differently it’s more of guides to live a happier life. If people could reply on what I just stated would be nice have a blessed day"
A broken clock is right twice a day.
There are some good things in the bible, for sure. Some ideas are just good ideas. But there are A LOT of bad things in the bible. You sound like you are cherry picking the good things to help justify your faith. And if that works for you then good for you. Whatever helps people without harming others is good in my books. But that's the key isn't it. Do your actions inspired by your beliefs harm anyone? You may say no, but if for example you were catholic and donated to your church you are helping to cover up the acts child assault by helping to pay for it. Actually that could probably apply to just about every religion and denomination.
I'm not going to tell you how to live, but i am going to tell you there is always more to something than the few points you want to focus on.
Yeah, that part where it says “the 10 commandments” is a mistranslation. They didn’t mean “commandments. They meant “suggestions”.🤡
The answer to fine tuning questions is always the same. The reason that the planets are perfectly in sync is that if they weren't they wouldn't be there. All the planets that were not in sync have crashed together and dissipated, leaving only those which are in sync remaining behind. There are billions of stars with countless planets around them. The reason that we are here on the perfect planet for us is that from all those billions and countless planets ours had the perfect conditions for life to arise. Yes it is very unlikely to happen, but when you have such a large number of planets unlikely things become almost inevitable.
I don't actually think you give a fair description of Foundationalism. The foundational beliefs ARE said to be justified by the act of doubting them. The Cogito is an example of a foundation for knowledge in Foundationalism. You are allowed to try to doubt it, but in doing so you are proving that a doubter exists and therefore a thinker.
Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
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A crossword puzzle may not have a unique solution.
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I'm not sure if this message is spam, but either way I am not available on Telegram.
I want to know why Matt believes atheism is true, accurate and correct that no God exists? What is the evidence and justifies belief that no God exists?
A-Theism is a belief statement. We are not convinced a god exists. So we will not live with the ASSUMPTION that one does.
Gnostism is a knowledge belief. Someone who makes a definitive claim is making a gnostic ,or knowledge claim.
Most atheists I know, which to my understand includes Matt, are Agnostic Atheists. We do not believe in a god, but do not know 100% for sure one exists. And that is because we do not know everything the universe. If everyone in the religion debate was being honest we would all be agnostic about our belief, as no one knows for absolute sure.
Some will say (myself included) that the many human made religions in with world are internally inconsistent, which would make us pretty convinced that they are incorrect. Not100% sure, but maybe 99% sure. Many people can point you to these inconsistencies if you are curious.
And perhaps you can come up with evidence as to why your god does exist. No one has ever provided actual evidence, but maybe you will be the first in history.
@@SilortheBlade Atheism is the doctrine (belief) that no Deity exists. An infant, or undecided/agnostic person is 'not convinced.' These are not atheists. An atheists is convinced no Deity exists.
You are mindlessly repeating Dillahunty's lies without critical thinking.
@@SilortheBlade There is no such thing as an 'agnostic atheist.' It's a false category that atheists claim in order to hide atheism behind agnosticism when asked to defend atheism. 'Agnostic atheism' is logically incoherent - like 'undecided decided.' Once again, Theism and atheism are in fact BELIEF positions, neither are claims to know. Beliefs are not claims.,
In fact, knowledge of a universal negation (so called 'gnostic atheism') is categorically impossible, requiring universal knowledge to KNOW all negatives. Thus, so-called 'gnostic atheism' is a false category that cannot possibly exist. There are no possible 'gnostic atheists.' There are only atheists who cannot know, agnostics (undecided/uncommitted/withholding judgement) and theists. Thus, I have proven the Dillahunty lies conflating atheism with agnosticism to be false.
Further, God's existence (ontology) is a separate question from religion (epistemology).
Atheism and theism are positions on God's ontology - foundation in reality. Religion is largely irrelevant to that question.
I don't believe in a god. Like most people, I believe in God. Radically different concept from the gods.
Claiming no evidence of God is ludicrous. Only a fool would assert such a claim.
I guess I'm still a Notenoughevidencist.
Susan Haack. Pronounced like Hawk.
Add in some pragmatism and we have landed in my preferred ballpark.
Philosophers argue that insofar as PBBs (properly basic beliefs) have ANY justification it is through pragmatics. The beliefs we generate assuming the foundational PBBs are pragmatically useful.
Foundherentism or Foundtherentism... Icantfindshitanywherentism. Such is the process of aging, I guess.
I get knowledge from UA-cam and twitter… what’s the big deal. Of course it’s true.
Foundherentism is just the cheap way of getting out of the foundationalism vs Coherentism debate. Lol
I think your use of "cheap" is unwarranted and very uncharitable. Haack believes that utilizing both can ANSWER some of the objections to each as stand-alone epistemologies.
May God forgive you and me to
How sad
Im pissed on my ology is gynecology
Ok, but none of this is even remotely necessary. It is a pseudo-solution to a pseudo-problem that merely doubles down on silly metaphysics. All we need is good ol' fashioned pragmatism. To paraphrase Matt, "knowing the truth feels exactly the same as not knowing the truth." Which means there is no demonstrable utility in insisting there is a differences in some kind of "existential" way. We don't need a "theory of justification" any more than we need a "theory of danger." Justification IS as justification DOES.
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5 letter word for "ewe" is sheep. I win
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Matt's logic is unparalleled. More people with that level of adherence to rational thought and truth would be a welcomed change to the various Tribunals and Courts that engage in more subjective application, irrational understanding and disregard to evidence in all manner of rulings and decisions.
I love how Matt thinks.
Especially giving witness statements way too much weight in a court of law, especially now that it has been sufficiently shown to be greatly flawed in so many ways! So glad there are cameras all over the place, DNA and other way more reliable stuff.
Awesome video Matt. Unfortunately I was taught in bible college that in order to know we must love. Love to Know. 🙄
Unfortunately?
I'd love to know what form of flawed epistemology they used to get to that bullshit!
“Bible college” is an oxymoron.🤡
It’s another name for Clown College.
Third comment 😂
Blinx. Oof.
"Justified True Belief."
Is this "Modern Philosophy"?
A contradiction in terms.
So to justify Belief you assume it's True... you see how that's Nonsense?
When I gave up Belief in a god or gods I became Athiest, defined since the 1st Catholic Sinod as "A Lack of Belief... in a god or gods."
That last bit, after the... doesn't exist in my life. I Lack ALL Beliefs...
If Belief is a subset of Knowledge, then everything is a Belief because Belief by its very nature would then effect everything in life. F that...
Great stuff Matt... thanks for the work.
Beliefs aren't assumed to be true. Belief is not a subset of knowledge, knowledge is a subset of belief. Belief is necessary and merely stands for acceptance of a proposition.
It's amazing how someone can come out of this being things backwards and thinking they've got it.
@@SansDeity Belief is a subset of Knowledge... Knowledge is a subset of Belief... either way makes no sense to me.
They are contradictions.
Knowledge is useful. Beliefs aren't useful in any meaningful way. Philosophically? Possibly, but I prefer Brain Storming to Philosophy. I like to start with some sort of goal.
@@cliftonmanley3882
Q1. Is there anything you know to be true with a high certainty, that you don't believe to be true?
Q2. Is there anything you believe to be true, that you don't know to be true to a high certainty?
@@blarglemantheskeptic 1. No, 2. No
@@blarglemantheskeptic let me ask you a question... What is Theology? You see, I know what Theology is... it's really simple.. can you get it right? Or are semantics still the order of the Day? I see a LOT of "philosophy" in Athiest Land, but it's really just Semantics... Plato didn't argue Semantics, he assumed Philosophers understood how language works... not many Yanks understand Theology or Semantics. Pretty basic stuff.
The 3rd eye can blind two. For Matt is trying to explain. For they was of great scientist also, but failed, But I'll try it again but with different names and will fall again. For even Daniel seen of this.
Evening Garland. Have you given more thought to talking your medication?
@@blarglemantheskeptic Anything that don't agree with you needs medications. It's that simple
@@blarglemantheskeptic Just build your tower. And come down with your confused knowledge.
@@blarglemantheskeptic It's nothing new of what you guys are doing. You can still share but you might get hit pretty hard.
@@blarglemantheskeptic I guess the old saying curiosity does kill the cat, Is a good metaphor. You should have known The Bible was a lot confused because of it. It's just that we know how to put pieces together. We are not like babble.
They don't understand atheist, for you build as you go. Because of so much deceiving and you had no choice. Even I understand the foundations of the Earth and the Ends of the universe. For you are close to the point. For we could have much We can share. But of course I am seen as half crazy. For all you have under your feet is 🌎 and you will never find none like it. It is measured perfectly. and set in place. So what do you require that was not given? Or do you need more?
" Even I understand the foundations of the Earth and the Ends of the universe."
No you don't Garland. You think you do, but in fact you do not. No one does.
Now I'll leave you to put in 12 responses that amount to Nu-uh before you go off on unrelated tangents, that I will never read. Have a good day.
@@SilortheBlade Good luck on your battles against babble is all I can say. For it has already twisted much words that you probably can't break down. It's what makes it confused. I have nothing against you my friend. You got to fight it. I thought a little here and a little there may help.