(August 18, 2021 at 12:54 pm)Angrboda Wrote:(August 18, 2021 at 8:14 am)vulcanlogician Wrote: FACT: A person can be in a state of existential anguish. I take a Spinozist (hard determinist) vantagepoint when analyzing such a situation. Spinoza would say that a despairing person has "inadequate ideas." Those ideas ought to be replaced with (surprise!) adequate ideas. "Christ" is an internal symbol that can serve as such an adequate idea. Ultimately, it has its limits as an idea. Spinoza would say there are more adequate ideas THAN it. But he would also agree... in the final analysis... that the idea of Christ is more adequate than the idea of inescapable despair. The wise person selects the most adequate idea available. Period.
...the goal is not to change the situation but change one's beliefs about the situation....A person who is depressed and sees no hope is prime for such a leap.
My point is that there are no intellectual moves that do not entail some "leap of faith". The depressed person takes leaps one way, the confident person another. Each choice is emotionally motivated but intellectually arbitrary. The funny thing is, I wrote a lot of words trying to convince you that a tentative acceptance of the Principle of Non-Contradiction was warranted. Whereas, you were the one claiming that the liar's paradox qualified as a defeater against logical absolutes. At least that's how I understood you at the time. And intellectually, I can imagine how we could both be kind of right.
<insert profound quote here>
