RE: If people were 100% rational, would the world be better?
August 18, 2021 at 1:01 pm
(This post was last modified: August 18, 2021 at 2:01 pm by Neo-Scholastic.)
(August 18, 2021 at 3:01 am)The Grand Nudger Wrote: Is there some specific irrationality to consider? Or is this your rejection of all thought as irrational, including..one presumes..that very thought itself?...Is that how you've come to see the world?
Philosophically, I see an unsolvable paradox. Psychologically though, that is how the world feels to me. As I will explain...
(August 18, 2021 at 3:01 am)The Grand Nudger Wrote: -You- once took it on faith that human intelligence was effective and reality had an intelligible order, and you've lost that faith. I guess that's the risk of attaching these things to justifications by faith?
Just to be clear I am not talking about faith in any particular religious tradition. I am talking about faith, or rather trust, in the basic presuppositions of rational thought.
I used to maintain that beliefs in the efficacy of human reason and an underlying cosmic order are properly basic beliefs. I would not say that they are necessarily true; but rather, in the absence of defeaters, both beliefs have warrant. As such, the right and proper epistimological approach would be to act "as if" our reality is indeed has a rational order and reason can illuminate that order. That, as opposed to taking the skeptical stance that any perceived order is just illusion and that any similarity between the stories in our heads and what is really going...any similarity is accidental.
You seemed to agree and immediately judged those beliefs to be obvious. Yes, reality has an underlying rational order* and, yes, human intelligence can have true discernment. But because of my current subjective psychological state though, I am questioning that obviousness and whether or not either belief qualifies properly basic.
*I know I am being a little sloppy with term like "intelligible reality" or "cosmic order".
<insert profound quote here>