(June 26, 2012 at 2:54 pm)elunico13 Wrote: There are two things to remember about circular reasoning when it comes to an ultimate standard.
It's unavoidable and it's not necessarily fallacious. There has to be some degree of circular reasoning when proving an ultimate standard because an ultimate standard can't be proved FROM anything else, otherwise it wouldn't be ULTIMATE. So if it's going to be proved then it must use itself as the criterion. An argument can't go on forever. If it did it wouldn't prove anything. Plus we cannot know an infinite amount of things, so our chains of reasoning have to be finite. Everyone must have an ultimate standard whether you realize it or not.
This is where personal preference becomes the ultimate objective and logic is the means to that end. I learned this in Consumer Behavior class in business school.
In one case study in that class, consumers were asked a survey about their buying behaviors and why they made the decisions they did. Eventually, if the survey goes on long enough, the consumer arrives at "it just is" which is their consumer objective.
Here's an example of how the survey might go:
"Why did you buy that brand of toothpaste?"
"Because it has tartar control"
"Why is that important?"
"Because I want to reduce tartar buildup on my teeth"
"Why is that important?"
"Because the more tartar there is, the harder it is to keep my teeth clean"
"Why is that important?"
"Because if I can't keep my teeth clean, I may lose them."
"Why do you want to avoid that?"
"Because if I lose my teeth, I won't be able to eat what I want and need to."
"Why is that important?"
"Because if I can't eat what I want and need to, my quality of life and health will be impaired"
"Why is that important?"
"Because my quality of life and health are important to me?"
"Why is that important?"
"It just is" (CONSUMER OBJECTIVE IDENTIFIED!)
In this manner, all questions of "why" ultimately lead to your objectives in life. Why is longer life preferable to a shorter one? Why is happiness preferable to sorrow? Why is love preferable to loneliness? There is no logical answer to any of these questions. They are personal preferences, what we want out of life. They require no logical justification any more than my preference for Mozart over the sound of balloons being rubbed together.
Quote:Is empiricism self attesting?
Is it able to prove itself by it's own standard?
No.
If all knowledge is gained by observation then we could never know that empiricism is true.
It gets us the desired results, suiting our needs as consumers.
Quote:Materialism?
No.
We could never prove that materialism is true by its own standard, because we need laws of logic to prove anything and they are immaterial. Is there anyone that disagrees with me still?. Immaterial laws of logic cannot exist in a metrialistic universe.
For the 234756th time, "laws" of logic are not things. They are observations of what works. They conform to reality instead of being forces that shape reality. Your problem is you keep putting the cart before the horse and excitedly proclaiming "see, see, Jesus!" when it doesn't work.
Quote:So the question is not which worldview uses circular reasoning because they all do. But which worldview is actually able to do it successfully.
What is your criteria for "success" (or your consumer objective)? Why is "It-Just-Is" or "We-Don't-Know" inferior to "God-Did-It".
By my observation, all three promote our understanding evenly (which is to say, none of them explain anything).
Atheist Forums Hall of Shame:
"The trinity can be equated to having your cake and eating it too."
... -Lucent, trying to defend the Trinity concept
"(Yahweh's) actions are good because (Yahweh) is the ultimate standard of goodness. That’s not begging the question"
... -Statler Waldorf, Christian apologist
"The trinity can be equated to having your cake and eating it too."
... -Lucent, trying to defend the Trinity concept
"(Yahweh's) actions are good because (Yahweh) is the ultimate standard of goodness. That’s not begging the question"
... -Statler Waldorf, Christian apologist