(This has been edited at the bottom, but I have left the main text as a mockery to myself!)
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God! I'm almost sober, and what a mess!
ok
Absolutist believes X- and believes everyone who does not believe X is absolutely wrong
Looking back on this and other of your posts last night, I see where you have taken a different path through the woods. In the statement above, you have slipped an extra premise into the definition of an absolutist: The part about "everyone who does not believe x is absolutely wrong". This is not what an absolutist means.
An absolutist is one who believes that Truth is ultimately knowable. It does not mean that the holder of the belief either knows the truth, or believes that he ever can. Anyone rational enough to consider the question, and having decided he is an absolutist, would undoubtedly tell you that he does not believe he will ever know any truth. I personally, have no position on the topic. I do not know what the nature of Truth is. I do know that I can only glimpse the foothills of knowledge, and thus I would never pretend to know absolute truth.
Were you considering extreme religious holders of supposed absolute truth, to epitomize what an absolutist is? Then this is where we have gotten on different roads. Thinking that one has the truth, seems to me to be irrational or maniacal in the extreme. It is not what defines an absolutist, but clearly some absolutists have grandiose ideas. So do some relativists, but this is not part of the definition.
Nor does relativism entail anything whatsoever as to the ethical value of her beliefs. Her beliefs do not come from her belief in relative truth. They come from school, home, church, country, culture, peers, introspection, experience, deliberation, etc. If a person is irrational, they hold irrational beliefs. Knowing that a person believes that truth is relative, tells me only that--nothing else. I could perhaps assume that this belief, at least, would make it more likely that they would be more willing to change one or more of their ideas, but this assumption, too, would be unjustified. Ideas have inertia, and they come bundled with myriad other ideas. People generally change their fundamental beliefs (those that define their existence and their moral code, and lend them comfort and psychological security), only after a major disruption in their lives--such as divorce, bankruptcy, etc.
The religious extremist is a special case! It is not the belief in absolutism that makes this person one to watch. No, it is another belief that this person has taken hold of, like a frightened man that grabs a candle in the dark: the belief that he KNOWS or HAS the TRUTH. If you ask him where he got it from, he will tell you that he got it from God. We already know what happens when this person meets another person that has a different God and a different truth
I believe you were thinking about some of our religious friends when you were debating this topic. I was not. For myself, it was a logic and morality issue that had been introduced to the thread for discussion.
I do not see any difference between a rational relativist and a rational absolutist. Both of them will use reason to determine their beliefs, and they will change their beliefs when reason dictates they ought. Neither of them will believe that they are in possession of the Truth. What a horrible idea! If one had that, he might as well be in the grave, instead of killing time here on earth!
Oh no! Time for some housekeeping. I've just read Cos's last post, and everything becomes clear! I could not understand how the two of you could be so obtuse. It didn't fit. Now it fits. WE HAVE BEEN OPERATING UNDER TWO ENTIRELY DIFFERENT DEFINITIONS. THIS IS THE VERY WORSE THING THAT COULD HAVE HAPPENED.
I did not consider for one second that absolutism involving the second premise was being discussed. I was strictly discussing philosophical or metaphysical absolutism as opposed to the everyday variety as it is sometimes called. This reflects my bias toward pantheistic authors such as Spinoza. This is incredible! How could we do this to each other. For my part, I am ashamed that I did not check your definition. This would have explained everything to me in a single instance. I had already written the above when all of this has become clear, so I will leave it, but it no longer reflects an attempt to educate as it was intended. :) LOL! This is not funny. DAMN! In going through the literature, I am definitely to blame for the position I asummed was being addressed. As my understanding of absolutism was much less common that what you two were using, it was more my responsibility to uncover the problem, and I did not.
I am dismayed that either of you could have even considered that I would (even as a devil's advocate) argue the view that there could ever be something laudable about any human being thinking or believing that he/she had the Truth. If you read through all my posts it will become clear to you that I was never arguing around such a concept. But then, I was considering the proposition that you were devoid of all reason! :)
As an ultimate philosophical system, I believe that relativism has serious difficulties. However, I do not hold firmly to any of the ism's rather it be absolutism, relativism, pluralism, subjectivism, etc. I seek the Truth, but I expect I will never have it. I believe that moral behavior must properly arise from rationality and empathy, and therefore I find no inherent contradiction between believing that Truth may be ultimate, or believing that Truth may not.
Nietzsche, in the Genealogy of Morals: "They are far from being free spirits: for they still have faith in truth." And: "It is still a metaphysical faith that underlies our faith in science—and we men of knowledge of today, we godless men and anti-metaphysicians, we, too, still derive our flame from the fire ignited by a faith millennia old, the Christian faith, which was also Plato's, that God is truth, that truth is divine"
At the end of Nietzche we have philosophical nihilism navigated by relativism
I think it is irrational to close the door on God ( not that representation of God! I do not want any more definition misunderstandings!) , when it is unnecessary. That is why I am an agnostic when it comes to embracing the ism's.
You guys were discussing an intrusive moral system, while I was discussing the metaphysical nature of ultimate reality. I drank a whole bottle last night trying to deal with my dismay at seeing people I had such respect for, slipping into dullness and locked up thinking! Now I wish I had that bottle back!
Absolutism (Idea in metaphysics or politics) — 1) idealism in metaphysics; 2) authoritarianism in political theory. [Reference from Hegelianism.]
Idealism (Principle and Tradition in metaphysics) — In metaphysics, idealism is a term used to describe the sort of theory which claims that something "ideal" or non-physical is the primary reality. In this sense, Plato and Leibniz and Hegel are probably the most significant of the idealists (Leibniz is perhaps the most consistent, since he said that all physical things are actually made up of little bundles of consciousness he called "monads", an idea that is a kind of "panpsychism"). Obviously, spiritualism is similar to idealism, but spiritualism tends to be used to refer more to religious, supernatural conceptions of reality, rather than to philosophical theories like those of Plato or Hegel. Plato can be considered the "Founding Father" of idealism in Western philosophy, since he claimed that what is fundamentally real are ideas, of which physical objects are pale imitations. The opposite of idealism is materialism. Just as materialism in metaphysics is often linked with subjectivism in epistemology, idealism is often linked with intrinsicism in epistemology (though epistemological intrinsicism is sometimes also called, confusingly, idealism, since intrinsicism holds that we literally perceive universals or ideas). In popular usage, "idealism" is more of an ethical term, characterizing people who have a strong code of values or a great deal of integrity, though sometimes to an excessive degree (often contrasted with those who are merely or healthily "pragmatic"). [References from absolutism, abstractionism, Cartesianism, dualism, essentialism, Hegelianism, intrinsicism, Kantianism, Marxism, materialism, mentalism, monism, Neo-Platonism, Platonism, realism, spiritualism, and transcendentalism.]
Brightman characterizes absolutism
. . . [as] the conception that true reality is essentially one mind which "somehow" includes and explains all the variety of being disclosed in experience. It is both qualitative and quantitative monism. In the Orient, this view was set forth in ancient times in that part of the Vedas of India known as the Upanishads. The most famous philosophical exponent of Hindu absolutism (or "non-dualism," as the Hindus call it) is Shankara (788-820). . . . In Greece, Parmenides [c. 515-c. 450 BCE], with his doctrine of The One, anticipated absolutism, but its most brilliant interpreter was the Neoplatonist Plotinus, who, like Shankara, combined philosophical idealism and its coherent systematization with mysticism. In more recent times, one form of absolutism appears in Spinoza, but the most typical and original absolutist was Hegel, who had an immense influence on nineteenth- and twentieth-century thought. For him, the Absolute is one rational mind, forever in process of dialectical development, and including within itself all reason, all nature, all sciences, history, art, religion, and philosophy. Absolutism seems akin to pantheism, the doctrine that God is all, but most absolutists dislike the identi-fication. In the United States, Josiah Royce [1855-1916] and Mary W. Calkins [1863-1930] were famous absolutists.26 [p. 35]
Perhaps Brightman used the words "akin to pantheism" since pantheism says that God is all or all is God, whereas absolutists have been reluctant to identify the Absolute with God, at least in the sense of a personal being (not human, but having the qualities of self-consciousness, rationality, and purposiveness in utmost degrees). Absolutists are very reluctant to admit a personal God into the position of ultimacy. |
