Tal's epistemology (and DCP's)

[_Tarski]

Tarski

and as even you, Tarski, acknowledged in your original comments on the quotes from Peterson, you - like I think almost all other people - regard the few quotes I listed as entirely supportive of the notion that it is not clear that we can know things (which you naturally, and I think quite rightly, associated with a skeptical tradition which includes Hume, Rorty, and the like.) Tal

I regarded the quotes as indicating that he thought that the philosophical problems of knowledge are real and not solved and that some kind of absolute indubitable apodictic knowledge (what Dennett calls Truth with a capital T) is impossible (we are human after all).

I agree with Dennet in his essay I pointed you too.

I said I thought that those were not entirely indefensible statements and I think I indicated that they do not constitute strong evidence that DCP is a radical postmodern antirealist or epistemological relativist.

Here is a bit of evidence for you. I have been arguing with DCP for quite a while now (a couple of years).
Our friend Sidewinder/Greyskull has also being reading what DCP says for even longer. Now Greyskull is a really smart guy (and an exmo) and knows a lot of philosophy. Yet, it does not seem to either me or Greyskull that he fits the Po Mo mold. Juliann is another story, she sounds like she is influenced by Po Mo thinking. Does she sound like she is on the same page philosophically as DCP to you?
A few isolated statements he has made might seem to lean that way but taken as a whole it just doesn't seem to be the case.
How could greyskull have missed it?


Now I still want to know where you are going. I want to know your ideas about knowledge. Could it be that you are going to be promoting the objectivist ideas of Ayn Rand? Is it possible that you are so far on the opposite end of the relativist/objectivist realist/antirealist spectum that it just seems that someone closer to the middle is a full blown radical relatvist truth denier?

Will you be telling us that a human being can achieve abstractly absolute certainty on empirical questions?
So far I am enjoying everything you have written and it is quite clear as far as it goes. But I am left with want to you to get to the climax of your story.

Here is some more evidence about DCP. I once heard some Po Mo literary type defend rewriting history for black people in such a way as to make certain historical figures black who weren't black. The evidence didn't matter to this person. Witnesses to events and testimonies, photographs etc. made no difference. Truth was relative and political for this person.
On the other hand, DCP is very exercised with the existence of the Book of Mormon witnesses and who did or didn't see or feel the plates. He worries about these kinds of things. I don't think he is seeing things in perspective of course but why should he worry so much about evidence if he is a relativist?

I don't think everything he says paints a consistent philosophical picture but my picture of him is that he is very educated but on the question of interest to us, he is a religionist and supernaturalist and mind/body dualist of the type that has existed long before postmodernism came to be. Far from denying the existence of truth, he just really believes this stuff is true.

I wonder what other philosohically oriented posters have come to think about him. Like I said greyskull is already on record saying that he thinks DCP is very clearly not in the PoMo camp (even unconsiously).

[_Daniel Peterson]

Fifth Appearance:

Tarski and Greyskull are right.

(About my attitude toward postmodernism, at least. Not about everything.)

[_KimberlyAnn]

Regarding apologetic arguments, the problem with Tal's position as I see it is that [C], or what others communicate about their intentional states, is open to the interpretation, or in some instances, misinterpretation of the listener or, in our case, the reader. That is a variable that the communicator cannot control, no matter how clear their communication may be.

KA

[_Tal Bachman]

Daniel,

Are you capable of understanding that I can't hack into the mormondiscussions site to mischaracterize your position, once you post it here? Your comments are totally pathetic. As one of my uncles used to say, "really unreal".

If you have a position you'd like to defend, post it here so everyone can see it - and also, so they can see for what they are any attempts at distorting your views, whatever they may be at the moment. It's beyond pathetic to use as an excuse for not participating that I, or someone else, might "distort your views". All you have to do is STATE THEM (if you can), and presumably, they should speak fully for themselves.

You seem, as always, to be unusually sensitive to what people think of you or your views; all the more reason for you to be explicit about what your position is here so you are not presumed to be simply fearful of being shown to be wrong. That's not an insult, by the way - that's advice. If you don't want to look totally pathetic (or risk just being tuned out), stop making (embarrassingly transparent) excuses about why you can't play ball, pick up the bat and step up the plate, and show everyone your stuff.

Otherwise, just watch the game.

(It's better to say, "I don't think I have this figured out yet" than to snipe, or make such shameful excuses.)

Ignore my awesome advice at your peril!

T.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Sixth Appearance:

I'm afraid you don't understand, Mr. Bachman.

Tarski (along with Greyskull) already understands that I'm not a postmodernist. I don't need to enter into the conversation here to persuade Tarski (or Greyskull) -- let alone to persuade myself.

And I have considerably less than no interest in ever attempting, ever, to engage you in substantive discussion again.

Besides which, I'm writing a book.

I'll probably follow along with this thread, but I don't feel any great need to participate in it. And, in Canada as in the United States, that's entirely my right to decide. But if ever I choose to comment, I will. Even if you disapprove. Got it?

[_Tarski]

Sixth Appearance:

I'm afraid you don't understand, Mr. Bachman.

Tarski (along with Greyskull) already understands that I'm not a postmodernist. I don't need to enter into the conversation here to persuade Tarski (or Greyskull) -- let alone to persuade myself.

More precisely, it doesn't seem to me that you are a postmodernist. (Actually I think the term itself is problematic).
I might be wrong and I do wish you would say more about your position on this (and a few other issues such as the relation of evolution to Mormon anthromorphic theology). You do have a tendency to make short statements that sound like shots from the side lines.

But, I understand about the book thing. I am also writting a book and I should have finished it long ago ( I am on the last chapter though). In fact, my wife just now looked over my should and said in an irritated voice "would you stop arguing with the Mormons! Work on your book!"

[Guest]

Seventh Appearance:

You do have a tendency to make short statements that sound like shots from the side lines.

That's because I choose to make my long statements elsewhere. And I craft them as carefully as I can. But I don't want to put that kind of time into the ether.

The internet isn't my principal publishing venue. Not even on Mormonism.

But, I understand about the book thing. I am also writting a book and I should have finished it long ago ( I am on the last chapter though). In fact, my wife just now looked over my should and said in an irritated voice "would you stop arguing with the Mormons! Work on your book!"

Fortunately, my home office is downstairs, and my wife typically doesn't know. But that just means that I should exercise some self-discipline rather than relying on occasional infusions of terror from Her Who Must Be Obeyed.

[_Tarski]

OK, enough about DCP for now.

Let's hear the rest of Tal's exposition. (denial of (K) etc.)

[NorthboundZax]

Tarski

You wrote:

I regarded the quotes as indicating that he thought that the philosophical problems of knowledge are real and not solved and that some kind of absolute indubitable apodictic knowledge (what Dennett calls Truth with a capital T) is impossible (we are human after all).
I agree with Dennet in his essay I pointed you too.

I said I thought that those were not entirely indefensible statements and I think I indicated that they do not constitute strong evidence that DCP is a radical postmodern antirealist or epistemological relativist.

Tarski, note that I just posted a gigantic post about why I think whether some Mormon apologist "really" qualifies as a "post-modernist" is a waste of time, as are arguments about how we label them personally, and about how that wasn't my point at all. Further, as I mentioned earlier to you, skeptical arguments such as Dennett's (or Peterson's for that matter) might be entirely defensible on their own, but I would say that such skeptical arguments are not compatible with Mormonism's truth and epistemic claims - and that was my original point.

Moreover, surely you will appreciate that when an atheist like Daniel Dennett argues against the possibility of knowing the truth capital T it is one thing, but when apologists for a "one true religion" like Mormonism do so, it is quite a different - and patently problematic - matter. Do you understand what I mean? Or have you been to any General Conferences or testimony meetings lately where most participants get up and say, "I think this might be the one true church, but I can't really rule out that we all might be profoundly mistaken, and it is possible also that Joseph Smith didn't tell the truth about his experiences - in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen"?

You write that "I don't think everything DCP says paints a consistent philosophical picture". Of course not, Tarski - that's why I said "sometimes" he and other defenders of Joseph Smith's religion use skeptical arguments, not "always" (how could an inherently ad hoc "intellectual" enterprise be anything other than inconsistent?). I have made, I think, a very obvious point: skeptical arguments don't work for defending a religion which claims that its truthfulness may be known.

Surely you agree with that!

I know it's long, but it might be worthwhile reading my post above.

By the way, I don't know that I really can solve any outstanding epistemological problems, so if that is the climax you're waiting for, you'll be disappointed. I think I can show that the accounts I mentioned are inadequate, but if that's not really that interesting, I can knock off if you want.

Do you hear what I'm saying about this stuff? DCP or whoever might be a fully committed realist deep down, but I made a comment not about a label or designation or an intentional state, but about things which were said, and whether those things can be reconciled with Mormonism's claims. In the cases I've mentioned, I don't think they can be. Do you?

Tal

[_Bond...James Bond]

Moderator Thought/Suggestion: This thread is pretty heavy stuff. Do you guys want it moved to the Celstial Kingdom where it will remain fairly clear of bad behavior (as it has thus far) and remain scholarly? I also could probably sticky it for a while so it would be easy to find for all involved. Let me know Tarski/Tal.-Bond