RE: The most horrifying journey, this is what doubting 'everything' does.
April 3, 2018 at 9:15 am
(April 3, 2018 at 5:14 am)MysticKnight Wrote: Yet humans argue and don't arrive at the truth. What you are stating is true only in an ideal world that doesn't exist.
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What you are stating is if humans are sincere and rational, argument is of use.
But we aren't.
We argue and bicker for it's own sake. And we are anything but neutral in watching a debate, it leads us just confirming our bias.
You make a point, but you are generalizing. Some people are honest, though it is naive to assume that everyone you engage in argument is. That's where logical discourse comes in handy. Dishonest logic is fallacious logic. In life, hurling insults at one's opponent might make it seem like truth is on your side (politics comes to mind) but in rational discourse this is recognized as an ad hominem. That's why I love philosophy so much--it is truth oriented. The best thing we can do to keep a conversation honest is keep a conversation rational.
Unless I'm in a formal debate, I don't care much for "winning" an argument. Why? Because if someone shows where my reasoning has failed, I've learned something. I'm closer to clarity than I was. As Rene Descartes said, "Today, then, since ... I have delivered my mind from every care ... and since I have procured for myself an assured leisure in peaceful solitude, I shall at last commit myself to the general overthrow of all my former opinions." The truly honest person is one who challenges his own assumptions. When somebody reveals to me a truth which I hitherto had not realized, they have done me a favor.
But not everybody shares this attitude. Some people want to "win" an argument, and "losing" an argument to them is bad... very bad. So they try to win at all costs. These are the one's who resort to dishonesty. Also, people who have more at stake than a search for the truth. The religious come to mind. Oftentimes, religion is not just a belief system, but a social system. Just like politics. A line has been drawn in the sand. It's "us" on the inside and "them" out there. If someone challenges one of our religious truths, they are offending your institution. For that reason, the religious are often dishonest in their discourse, even though most of them are not "liars" in the strict sense. They are to be differentiated from those who earnestly seek the truth however because their search stops when certain views are threatened.
Quote:And axioms is irrelevant to arguments being true or not, arguments rely on premises, but no premise can be verified through properly basic knowledge.
We came to know them through experience.
So we have to question how we know, and I believe we have to know on living proof, a living true seeing witness who perceives things truly.
I think you are confusing axioms with assumptions. I guess they could be viewed as such, but (in rational discourse) there is always an avenue for one's interlocutor to challenge any axioms put into play. Here's one of my favorite axioms from Baruch Spinoza: "If a thing can be conceived as not existing then its essence doesn’t involve existence." If I were engaged with you in rational discourse and I asserted this as an axiomatic truth, you could always disagree with me. If I were going to base a premise upon that axiom, you wouldn't have to accept it as true. That's what I dearly love about freethinking. Nobody can compel me to accept a truth which I myself haven't found reason to accept.