My Fellow Specifically Agnostic Atheists

[Purple Rabbit]

The definition says "is unknown or unknowable". This does not mean that one for of agnosticism says that things are unknown, and another says thing are unknowable.

It does not explicitly rule that out either, meaning that any stricter interpretation, such as yours, is in essence a redefinition of your own making. Strong and weak agnosticism, not terms I invented myself, coin these different varieties.

It is specifically written so to include both "unknown" and "unknowable" so as to be a relative statement.

To demonstrate:

If X is a statement, and X is unknown, then it can be unknowable, but given that the statement is already unknown, we cannot say whether it is unknowable or not (hence the OR).

If X is a statement, and X is unknowable, then by very definition it is unknown (since something that is unknowable cannot be known, and anything that cannot be known is unknown).

This clearly shows that 'unknown' and 'unknowable' are not interchangeable terms and hence that it is incorrect to treat them as such. The defintion says "unknown OR unknowable" not "unknown AND unknowable". This means someone deserves the label agnostic according to this definition when he states that X is unknown, but also the person who states that it is unknowable deserves that label. Since these are not he same statements, they are different varieties of agnosticism. And even when you redefine to "unknown AND unknowable" to overcome this problem a person can only be agnostic when according to his believe X is not only unknown but also unknowable. In that case a person who only states that X is unknown, would not be an agnostic..

This is demonstrated in another definition I presented to you before:

Agnostic
a. One who believes that it is impossible to know whether there is a God.
b. One who is skeptical about the existence of God but does not profess true atheism.
(source:The Free Dictionary (by FARLEX))

There is an analogon of this in the field of mathematics called proof theory, which is considered one of the four pillars of the foundations of mathematics. It focuses on the terms 'proven', 'provability', 'unproven' and 'unprovability'. In this field statements about provability are dealt with separately from proof itself, also strongly suggesting that the two constitute related yet different concepts.

You cannot separate agnosticism into two categories, one saying "unknown" and the other saying "unknowable"; that isn't the point of it. Indeed, the "unknown" position already has a label of its own: skepticism.

Now you are mixing in yet another concept, skepticism.

Skepticism is the method of reserving judgement on the "unknown" until further evidence comes forward. Skepticism never states that things can be "unknowable".

Then you are in denial of some historic facts. Skepticism historically has had two basic traditions: Academic Skepticism and Pyrrhonism. The credo of so called Academic Skepticism is that some truths are completely unknowable to people. This branch of skepticism comes from the Platonic Academy which gradually adopted this position after Plato's death. Known is that Cicero and Erasmus (another nasty dutchman) adopted this view.

Firstly there is a difference between what we could call practical unknowability (not being able to know now for practical reasons) and fundamental unknowability, i.e. being absolutly sure that such knowledge is unattainable forever. Whenever I speak of fundamental unknowability, I am speaking about the latter.

You bring up human fallibility to make your point but make no explicit claim that human infallibility is absolutely unobtainable forever. If you would do so, it would be an absolute claim and since you're a fallible being yourself that would be contradicting yourself, wouldn't it? And that is why your lecture clearly brings to light that you do not really include the kind of fundamental unknowability that I am speaking about.

Also the question is not whether I acknowledge human fallibility or not, the question is what range of interpretation to agnosticism is around. You've missed the fundamental unknowability position inside agnosticism.

I brought up the fundamental unknowability point before, when I spoke about the subjective nature of knowledge, and how there is no known way of obtaining objective knowledge. This is very different from practical knowability, which I agree rests on the fallible nature of humans.

Yet (1) fundamental unknowability, (2) the subjective nature of knowledge and (3) human infallibility are different things. (1) is a philosophical position, (2) and (3) are specific arguments (the specific arguments you bring forward) in support of fundamental unknowability.

When you subscribe to (1) it is not absolutely neccesary to subscribe to (2) and/or (3) ( for one can have other reasons than (2) or (3) to subscribe to (1). That you might think that (2) or (3) are the only valid arguments for (1) is irrelevant. You cannot put your own personal mask of reasoning over philosophical argument of others when your aim is only depicting all possible stances. If you do so, you are in essence arguing for valid philosophical stances rather than stating the possible ones. You indeed do so when you say "I boldly deny any absolutistic content not because I am leaving out some absolutistic content in my definition of agnosticism, but because I disagree that there is any absolutistic content in agnosticism."

Anyway, I can show you that (2) and (3) are not the only possible arguments to adopt (1). There is indeed another possible argument I can think of that also amounts to fundamental unknowability of god's existence and that is the argument that god deliberately and actively hides knowledge about his existence from us. One might adopt this stance while at the same time refute (2) an (3); i.e. humans can have absolute knowledge about things other than god's existence and knowledge is not subjective in nature.

Furthermore, to have "no known way of obtaining objective knowledge" (underlining by me), as you put it when explaining your point about the subjective nature of knowledge, does not necessarily mean that there is a fundamental/absolute barrier to ever obtain objective knowledge. You surely know this difference since you in your explanation of why absolute truth cannot be obtained, stated "This is because we are subjective, and there is no objective way of viewing reality (as of yet) that doesn't succumb to some kind of subjectivity." (underlining by me). This again shows the discrepancy between what you see as valid reasons for agnosticism and fundamental agnosticism which is an absolute statement about such a barrier.

As I've said before, bringing up such a "claim" is not an absolute statement, because agnosticism itself is applied to it. In other words, I believe that some things are unknowable (fundamentally) through agnosticism because of the logical arguments that have been presented and as so far not disproved.

At the same time, because of my agnosticism, I hold my belief as just that (a belief), because the very arguments that hold agnosticism up are the result of human logical thought, and as such cannot be known to be true themselves, thus they may be wrong, and thus agnosticism may be the wrong way to look at things such as knowledge. This is a profoundly relative statement. It might be a relative statement about absolute knowledge, but it is relative (as I hold, are all statements about such things).

OK, so you agree that we should not mix up the philosphical position of fundamental agnosticism with valid arguments for such a position. What you believe to be valid (accidentlly it coincides with what I think) is not relevant for the philosophical position someone might take. You and I cannot declare some law about reasons to adopt the fundamental unknowability position. Those arguments are just your and mine beliefs about it. This simply means that you cannot exclude the absolute interpretation of agnosticism that I have presented to you as fundamental agnosticism, related to what is also known as strong agnosticism.

The second part of this comment of you (which I agree is a relative statement) is not really an argument that unambiguously shows that agnosticism must necessarily and exclusively entail relative positions but it is about your own skeptical assessment on holding the general agnostic position.

The conclusion from this is that the fundamental unknowability position that makes an absolute claim is a possible philosophical position to take (though arguebly not a valid position) and that it is not excluded from common and accepted definitions of agnosticism. Moreover, the wording in common and accepted definitions strongly suggests that the fundamental unknowability position is indeed included.