[b]Tim Crane
One odd thing about the current debate between religious people and atheists is that the participants don’t seem to care that they entirely fail to communicate with the other side. They therefore have no account of why the religious or the atheists believe what they do, except that they are stupid or deluded. I think philosophers should try and make sense of their disputes with their opponents as far as possible without treating them as idiots. This applies to the religious participants in the debate as much as to the atheists. [/b]
Of course we’re far too mature for that here.
Many people like to think that their moral or political enemies are not just wicked or wrong - as if that were not enough - but stupid or idiotic too.
Of course we’re far too mature for that here.
I like to think of myself as a naturalist - insofar as that term is at all clear.
Like any of the terms we use here are.
I do think it’s important to distinguish between intentionalism about consciousness and externalism about consciousness. Intentionalism says that consciousness is a form of intentionality - the representation of things to the mind. Externalism says that these things have to exist in order for them to be represented, or presented. These are different views.
And that’s before – well before for some – we bring them down to earth.
I do not claim to have any developed or sophisticated views in political philosophy, but I think that one of the lessons of the last few hundred years of history is that the greatest threat to human prosperity and well-being is fanaticism and intolerance, even in the name of apparently laudable goals.
Not true at all, is it, Mr. Objectivist?
The thing I think I have learned from Wittgenstein is the importance of not making things up: philosophers should not invent problems, and they should also be conscious of the risk of inventing pointless ‘technical’ machinery which do not offer real explanations, but often just re-state the known facts in a more complex way.
Cue, among others, Mr. Durant’s epistemologists. Here for example.