Any time you give a man something he doesn't earn, you cheapen him. Our kids earn what they get, and that includes respect. -- Woody Hayes
Chris (05-11-2021)
Ah, shucks, I'm gonna blush.
That's funny too.
Back on Topic:
I read the article and had a great many thoughts on subject. It was deep (?) and a bit too much word salad. I'm sure it would cause an English teacher heart burn. That said, Lewis is a very religious man, deeply spiritual if you read his other works. I am not. I need to see it, have some experience. I copied quotes as reference.
"There are two questions that people who say this kind of thing ought to be asked. The first is, are all thoughts thus tainted at the source, or only some? The second is, does the taint invalidate the tainted thought – in the sense of making it untrue – or not?" CSL
Only two, hardly. Seriously we do not grow up in a vacuum, we grow up in a social setting etc etc etc and that forms our ideas, our person. Later we hopefully challenge ourselves.
"It is no earthly use saying that those are tainted which agree with the secret wishes of the thinker. Some of the things I should like to believe must in fact be true; it is impossible to arrange a universe which contradicts everyone’s wishes, in every respect, at every moment." CSL
Yep, i agree and may even agree with CSL sometimes.
"Bulverism tries to show that the other man has causes and not reasons and that we have reasons and not causes. A belief which can be accounted for entirely in terms of causes is worthless. This principle must not be abandoned when we consider the beliefs which are the basis of others. Our knowledge depends on our certainty about axioms and inferences. If these are the results of causes, then there is no possibility of knowledge. Either we can know nothing or thought has reasons only, and no causes."
This is a little too neat. And if I understand him, correct me if I'm wrong, his religion dominates his thought and he sees in human endeavor a lack of the spiritual or supernatural.
"Neither Will nor Reason is the product of Nature. Therefore either I am self-existent (a belief which no one can accept) or I am a colony of some Thought and Will that are self-derived from a self-existent Reason and Goodness outside ourselves, in fact, a Supernatural." CSL
I wish I had jotted down some notes when I read the piece but in philosophy I'd consider myself a pragmatist. A philosopher who influenced my thought is Derek Parfit. Lewis take a more spiritual approach and his argument in this piece has been played out for a long time now. Humans will always disagree but consequences matter.
"It is not enough to ask, Will my act harm other people? Even if the answer is No, my act may still be wrong, because of its effects on other people. I should ask, Will my act be one of a set of acts that will together harm other people? The answer may be Yes. And the harm to others may be great." Derek Parfit See 'Reasons and Persons'
Wanna make America great, buy American owned, made in the USA, we do. AF Veteran, INFJ-A, I am not PC.
"I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: 'O Lord make my enemies ridiculous.' And God granted it." Voltaire
OK, yes, in all your critiques of what he says about Bulverism you try to fault him for his religious beliefs. But all he is doing in the essay cited in the OP is explaining the fallacy of Bulverism. Bulverism is this, in short: "assume that your opponent is wrong, and explain his error." IOW, what you are doing is assuming he's wrong and trying to explain his error lies in religion. But religion is not why he wrote the essay, religion is one of his examples, just as capitalism is. You mistake the rhetorical device of example as the reason for his essay.And if I understand him, correct me if I'm wrong, his religion dominates his thought and he sees in human endeavor a lack of the spiritual or supernatural.
Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire. ― Gustav Mahler
nathanbforrest45 (05-17-2021)