[Vision2020] News Article, Mental Illness, Fixation of Belief Discussion

[Art Deco]

Re: On being Stalin


I do not believe that linguistic communication works if contradictions are
believed to mean more than confusion and/or more serious problems on the
part of those making or believing the contradictory statements.

You in continuing to participate in this discussion do not allow
contradictions except when they further your ends.  I am no such hypocrite.
I renounce all of them.

Claims of mental problems of those believing in contradictions, unevidenced
statements, and/or statements plainly contrary to observation are backed by
research and observations by many qualified scientists.  Although you most
likely yield to research when you go to a medical doctor for treatment, you
choose to ignore it when it conflicts with your metaphysics.

I freely admit in hoping for certain truths but not being able to prove
them, e.g. the material world will continue to operate in predicable ways, a
modern version of Occam's razor, etc.

If you want to ignore logic as it now exists, then don't be a hypocrite and
use it when it suits your purpose but disown it when it does not.

The formal definition of an argument includes the supposition that a
contradiction is a false statement.

If you respond to message with an argument, you will make my point very
nicely.

Wayne Fox

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Doug Jones" <credenda@moscow.com>
To: "'Vision 20/20'" <vision2020@moscow.com>
Sent: Tuesday, May 20, 2003 8:13 AM
Subject: RE: [Vision2020] News Article, Mental Illness, Fixation of Belief
Discussion


>
> Wayne Fox has now agreed that logic is not a supreme universal,
> objective, unchanging norm for adjudicating truth and falsity (like in
> the old days) but only a culturally relative, probable, historically
> changeable set of rules that can, nonetheless, be used with the greatest
> moral authority to discern and denounce mental illness like a Stalinist
> prophet, a prophet whose key weapon, logical necessity, is invisible,
> though Wayne assures us he is a strict empiricist.
>
> So again, Wayne, why do we have to bow to your invisible god of mere
> grammatical authority? When did something like grammar gain the moral
> authority to pronounce so fiercely on truth, reality, and mental
> illness? Why should anyone care what reality grammar dictates? Are you
> really willing to institutionalize those who threaten your grammar god?
> Sheesh. And you have the nerve to call us crazy?
>
>
> > Did you sleep through the History of Philosophy?  I am not a
> rationalist but
> > an empiricist.  Rationalists were those that believed in immutable
> truths
> > discoverable by logical processes as opposed to observational
> processes
> > (prone, unfortunately to error) alone.
>
> Sometimes the terms are used in such an exclusive manner, sometimes not.
> Both groups appeal to reason as the ultimate court of appeal, and so
> both are little "r" rationalists. It would certainly strengthen your
> case to be a big "r" rationalist. At least those Rationalists had a
> serious notion of logical necessity they could invoke. Your appeal to
> observational processes to ground logical necessity only digs your
> logical relativism deeper. Where have you observed logical necessity?
> Show us how logical necessity could show up in a lab experiment. This is
> just the Humean challenge pressed where Hume was too chicken to go.
> Please answer it for us. All your lies about local Christianity rest
> upon an answer to this sort of question. Make sure your emperor is well
> clothed.
>
> Doug Jones
>
>
>
>
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