Russell on Studying the Ancient Greeks

In Bertrand Russell's "A History of Western Philosophy", I found some insightful quotes.

To learn to conceive the universe according to each of [the various hypotheses as to the nature and structure of the world] is an imaginative delight and an antidote to dogmatism. Moreover, even if no one of the hypotheses can be demonstrated, there is genuine knowledge in the discovery of what is involved in making each of them consistent with itself and with known facts...

In studying a philosopher, the right attitude is neither reverence nor contempt, but first a kind of hypothetical sympathy, until it is possible to know what it feels like to believe in his theories, and only then a revival of the critical attitude, which should resemble, as far as possible, the state of mind of a person abandoning opinions which he has hitherto held. Contempt interferes with the first part of this process, and reverence with the second. Two things are to be remembered: that a man whose opinions and theories are worth studying may be presumed to have had some intelligence, but that no man is likely to have arrived at complete and final truth on any subject whatever. When an intelligent man expresses a view which seems to us obviously absurd we should not attempt to prove that it is somehow true, but we should try to understand how it ever came to seem true. This exercise of historical and psychological imagination at once enlarges the scope of our own thinking, and helps us to realize how foolish many of our own cherished prejudices will seem to an age which has a different temper of mind.

Happy Birthday Charles Darwin

To commemorate Darwin's birthday, I hereby announce to my modest and immediate readership an oft-repeated quip of mine - that Darwinistic Natural Selection is a force admitted to operate, even by Creationists (not that I am necessarily one of them, even being, broadly speaking, Evangelical Christian, and one who takes Genesis seriously in some sense), within nature, albeit not sufficient in their eyes to account for biodiversity at the phylum level. Many Creationists (especially the Young Earth sort) even consider it very important to maintain that Natural Selection, and/or very similar forces, is/are capable of rapidly producing biodiversity at the species level (this enables them to account for the multiple species at present in light of the relatively short duration between their proposed Flood date and today, given the Biblical descriptions of the size of the Ark and what it would have been physically capable of holding). As I understand it, most current Creationists hold that while species are mutable, phyla are immutable.

Should I also mention that Darwin, though his profession of Christ, that was so vibrant as a young man so active in the church, declined and was eventually recanted, was a decently firm Theist (with few dips in certainty that temporarily bogged him down with Agnosticism), and by most evidences died while holding to a First Cause view of God?

Should I end my commemoration of Charles Darwin's birthday with some sort of disclaimer about my affirmation of inerrancy, the Athanasian Creed, or of some sort of robust doctrine of Creation?

Atheists Dumbfounded by the Evidence

One atheist can't make sense out of the charitable love that drives Christian missionaries, saying

Before Christmas I returned, after 45 years, to the country that as a boy I knew as Nyasaland. Today it's Malawi, and The Times Christmas Appeal includes a small British charity working there. Pump Aid helps rural communities to install a simple pump, letting people keep their village wells sealed and clean. I went to see this work.

It inspired me, renewing my flagging faith in development charities. But travelling in Malawi refreshed another belief, too: one I've been trying to banish all my life, but an observation I've been unable to avoid since my African childhood. It confounds my ideological beliefs, stubbornly refuses to fit my world view, and has embarrassed my growing belief that there is no God.

Now a confirmed atheist, I've become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa: sharply distinct from the work of secular NGOs, government projects and international aid efforts. These alone will not do. Education and training alone will not do. In Africa Christianity changes people's hearts. It brings a spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The change is good.

I used to avoid this truth by applauding - as you can - the practical work of mission churches in Africa. It's a pity, I would say, that salvation is part of the package, but Christians black and white, working in Africa, do heal the sick, do teach people to read and write; and only the severest kind of secularist could see a mission hospital or school and say the world would be better without it. I would allow that if faith was needed to motivate missionaries to help, then, fine: but what counted was the help, not the faith.

But this doesn't fit the facts...

- As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God (thanks Jon for the link)

Another atheist can't make sense out of scientific cosmological findings:

I personally can think of a very plausible worldview in alternate to atheism that makes sense out of these phenomena.

It is a worldview whose climax was described by Nietzsche himself, saying

"Christ on the Cross" is the most sublime symbol - still.

Every positive claim about causation is fallacious.

After talking with Derek and then reading his latest post, it dawned on me that, given that none of us have solved Hume's problem yet*, every time any scientist (or psychologist, or anyone) ever makes a positive claim about any X causing any Y, he commits the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy (cf. Nizkor also).

When I spoke about this to Jon last night, he said, "Why not just say 'cf. Hume' and call it a day".

Good point, Jon; I could.

The thing is that there are tons of Naturalistic Atheists who cleave to Hume and yet go on to make positive claims about causation.

And then again even in a psychology class I took in college from a professor who was most certainly not a Naturalistic Atheist, he pressed the point home that correlation does not imply causation (he spoke about the correlation of popsicle consumption and drownings as an example), and then he went on to show the types of things that do imply causation.

But on what grounds? He and everyone else just beg the question and push each matter back a notch whenever they speak of some X causing some Y.

So instead of saying "cf. Hume", I am choosing to say "hey I realized that nobody has solved Hume yet (cf. Hume), and yet we brazenly make claims about causation, and this seems quirky.".

*For all inferences from experience suppose as their foundation that the future will resemble the past and that similar powers will be conjoined with similar qualities. If there is any suspicion that the course of nature may change, and that the past may be no rule for the future, all experience becomes useless and can give rise to no inference of conclusion. It is impossible, therefore, that any arguments from experience can prove this resemblance of the past to the future, since all these arguments are founded on the supposition of that resemblance. Let the course of things be allowed up to now ever so regular, that alone, without some new argument of inference, does not prove that for the future it will continue so. In vain do you pretend to have learned the nature of bodies from your past experience. Their secret nature and, consequently, all their effects and influence may change without any change in their sensible qualities. This happens sometimes and with regard to some objects. Why may it not happen always and with regard to all objects? What logic, what process of argument secures you against this supposition? My practice, you say, refutes my doubts. But you mistake the purport of my question. As an agent, I am quite satisfied in the point, but as a philosopher who has some share of curiosity--I will not say skepticism--I want to learn the foundation of this inference. No reading, no inquiry has yet been able to remove my difficulty or give me satisfaction in a matter of such importance.

- David Hume. An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section IV: Part II.

"Imagination is More Important Than Knowledge" - An over-quoted quotation. Here's why its true though.

I started posting my notes on Quine's "Methods of Logic" online. I will finish someday. Anyway I was skimming it and found a quotation and a comment on it worth sharing over here on this blog:

We must be able to think up schemata which imply or are implied by a given schema and promise well as links in a proposed chain of argument. Such products can be checked mechanically by truth-value analysis, but thinking them up is an unmechanical activity.

-p. 47

It brings to mind the worn-out quotation of Einstein, "Imagination is more important than knowledge". Here, even in the midst of pursuing the discipline of meticulous, exhaustive, systematic, and well-defined logical analyses, we see the glory of knack and of imagination and of art.

2 Misc. Insights from Adler's "How to Read a Book"

While reading Mortimer Adler's classic work "How to Read a Book," which treats a topic that might be more appropriately named something like "How to Properly Assimilate and Analyze Information as a Human Being," I came across a multiplicity of insights, two of which I happened to jot down on a sticky note. This morning, while cleaning out my sticky notes, I came across these two insights and decided to post them here.

• "There are no stupid questions" gives way somewhere during the course of one's education to the question "what are the right questions?"

• Higher Education is often more about unlearning than learning.

Hume & Chesterton on the Philosophy of Science

It seems appropriate to offer introduction and annotation in critical commentary, but I will curb my intuitions to let the texts speak for themselves.

I hope the juxtaposition of these two citations incites curiosity, romance, and rigorous intellectual effort.

For all inferences from experience suppose as their foundation that the future will resemble the past and that similar powers will be conjoined with similar qualities. If there is any suspicion that the course of nature may change, and that the past may be no rule for the future, all experience becomes useless and can give rise to no inference of conclusion. It is impossible, therefore, that any arguments from experience can prove this resemblance of the past to the future, since all these arguments are founded on the supposition of that resemblance. Let the course of things be allowed up to now ever so regular, that alone, without some new argument of inference, does not prove that for the future it will continue so. In vain do you pretend to have learned the nature of bodies from your past experience. Their secret nature and, consequently, all their effects and influence may change without any change in their sensible qualities. This happens sometimes and with regard to some objects. Why may it not happen always and with regard to all objects? What logic, what process of argument secures you against this supposition? My practice, you say, refutes my doubts. But you mistake the purport of my question. As an agent, I am quite satisfied in the point, but as a philosopher who has some share of curiosity--I will not say skepticism--I want to learn the foundation of this inference. No reading, no inquiry has yet been able to remove my difficulty or give me satisfaction in a matter of such importance.

- David Hume. An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section IV: Part II.

The thing I mean can be seen, for instance, in children, when they find some game or joke that they specially enjoy. A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do it again"; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical encore. Heaven may encore the bird who laid an egg. If the human being conceives and brings forth a human child instead of bringing forth a fish, or a bat, or a griffin, the reason may not be that we are fixed in an animal fate without life or purpose. It may be that our little tragedy has touched the gods, that they admire it from their starry galleries, and that at the end of every human drama man is called again and again before the curtain. Repetition may go on for millions of years, by mere choice, and at any instant it may stop. Man may stand on the earth generation after generation, and yet each birth be his positively last appearance.

- G. K. Chesterton. Orthodoxy, Chapter 4: The Ethics of Elfland.