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Knowing good history from bad history

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samr

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Are you familiar with Aquinas at all? His epistemology is similar -- it is through the senses that we become acquainted with material things, and sense perception is central to human cognition. Perhaps you really aren't acquainted with any religious epistemology, but have simply made some assumptions.

" Objectivism takes observation and reason together as a valid source of knowledge."

As does Thomism.

What is the process by which Thomism organizes concretes into different groups? How does Rand distinguish her process from his?

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It's difficult to compare and contrast, as Rand gave her own defintions to philosophical terms, which renders discussion clumsy and confusing.

St. Thomas believed that abstracting -- a function of the "central sense" -- eliminated the limiting characteristics of matter and enabled the mind to apprehend the essence or "real" reality, while the organizing principle of identity remained. So: a material object or event stimulates one or more of our senses. Their reaction is carried to the brain via the nervous system. There the sensations from the various sense receptors (sight, sound, etc.) are pre-consciously combined into one unified percept (Thomis uses the term "phantasm"). We group, then, based on the abstracted essences of things. Does that answer your question?

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Ultimately one must decide whether the universe is understandable or whether it is not. If the former, then there must be some process by which it is understood. Science, in my view, is that process we've determined is best for understanding the universe. (Or rather, it is the name for the process which we've laboriously fashioned in order to understand the universe.)

I think that religion comes down to deciding that the universe is not ultimately understandable. That there is "mystery," in the sense of ancient bacchanals, or in the sense of Job's questioning Yahweh, or speaking in languages, or transubstantiation, or salvation through grace. Why do things happen the way they do? "God works in mysterious ways," says the religionist. Faith buffers his belief; it is not proof he seeks, but that which "goes beyond" proof in the form of strong feeling; that he is convinced, is sufficient. And morality is subsequently based on obedience. Since one cannot fathom the mystery, it is judged wicked (or at best useless) to try; ours is not to reason why....

But the scientist brings out his test tube and microscope, because he's determined to get to the bottom of any so-called mystery. And if others wish to damn him for this, so be it.

This is the fundamental divide. And while there can be players who straddle this gulf, either as individuals or as institutions (like the Catholic Church), depending on the specific era and scenario you're considering, it still exists. To the extent that Thomas Aquinas sought for explanations apart from "God's will," he was acting as a scientist and not as a religionist. But if, at any point, he withdrew from seeking some natural answer and instead deferred to the divine -- to the mystery -- then it was at that point where he headed in the other direction.

Edited by DonAthos
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"Ultimately one must decide whether the universe is understandable or whether it is not."

Agreed.

"I think that religion comes down to deciding that the universe is not ultimately understandable."

It depends entirely upon the religion. For example, Buddhism generally looks inward at the self, not outward at the world. There are differences based on a particular religion's view of God -- in the case of Islam, Allah is not bound by rationality and is entirely beyond human comprehension, thus one wouldn't be sure that the natural laws that Allah laid down could be depended upon. So, although Islam has made a few contributions to science (particularly in mathematics), it pales in comparison to the advancements made by Western civilization. Some Protestant sects (Baptists and fundamentalists of differing stripes) don't value science, for a variety of reasons. However, traditional (Catholic, Orthodox) Christianity maintains that God is not -- cannot be -- irrational, and that the rational, ordered world is the result. So the universe IS understandable.

" To the extent that Thomas Aquinas sought for explanations apart from "God's will," he was acting as a scientist and not as a religionist. But if, at any point, he withdrew from seeking some natural answer and instead deferred to the divine -- to the mystery -- then it was at that point where he headed in the other direction."

Aquinas saw all truth as one truth -- he would not have viewed the conflict you lay out as even possible.

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"Ultimately one must decide whether the universe is understandable or whether it is not."

Agreed.

"I think that religion comes down to deciding that the universe is not ultimately understandable."

It depends entirely upon the religion. For example, Buddhism generally looks inward at the self, not outward at the world. There are differences based on a particular religion's view of God -- in the case of Islam, Allah is not bound by rationality and is entirely beyond human comprehension, thus one wouldn't be sure that the natural laws that Allah laid down could be depended upon. So, although Islam has made a few contributions to science (particularly in mathematics), it pales in comparison to the advancements made by Western civilization. Some Protestant sects (Baptists and fundamentalists of differing stripes) don't value science, for a variety of reasons. However, traditional (Catholic, Orthodox) Christianity maintains that God is not -- cannot be -- irrational, and that the rational, ordered world is the result. So the universe IS understandable.

" To the extent that Thomas Aquinas sought for explanations apart from "God's will," he was acting as a scientist and not as a religionist. But if, at any point, he withdrew from seeking some natural answer and instead deferred to the divine -- to the mystery -- then it was at that point where he headed in the other direction."

Aquinas saw all truth as one truth -- he would not have viewed the conflict you lay out as even possible.

I think you and I are talking at cross purposes at the moment. The "great religions of the world" typically encompass hundreds of years of history, dense books and treatises attempting to explain their ideas, multiple conflicting sects, and a vast multitude of diverse individuals who each put some spin unique to themselves on the way that they present their faith. There's no question that among religions, and then among sects within any given religion, and then among individuals within any given sect, that some people will be more rational than others, or more disposed to science than others, or etc. If you say that Islam has a certain relationship to science, pretty good during the Middle Ages but not so much recently, I won't argue the point; if you'd like to insist that Catholics have it over Protestants, or that Thomas Aquinas had it over Augustine, that's fine, too.

The central question we're considering, however, is whether there is anything characteristic of religion qua religion when it comes to an overall attitude towards science. To answer such a question, we must have an understanding of what religions have in common with respect to their understanding of the world. I would say that, fundamentally, to be religious means to ascribe supernatural causes to observed phenomena. And since science is concerned with determining the natural causes of observed phenomena, science and religion are necessarily at loggerheads.

Perhaps you're right in that Thomas Aquinas didn't see it that way? Maybe he felt that his views in divinity were perfectly compatible with his scientific views. I would guess, however (pulling this speculation strictly from out of you-know-where), that he found frustrating some earlier thinkers and some of his contemporaries who too quickly would resort to supernatural causes as an explanation for the natural world. Perhaps he removed God as a cause for that which he could find a natural explanation, but reserved God for that which he could not...? I'm sure you're familiar with the "God of the gaps" argument, and that's really what we're facing here. The final expression of this sort is probably deism: God made the world and its natural laws, sure, but he has nothing to do with anything which goes on today. It's a belief system I find pretty unnecessary and arbitrary, but I imagine that I'd generally get along with Aquinas better than Augustine, the Founding Fathers better than Loyola or Francis, and possibly Catholics better than Fundamentalists. I don't hold all religions as equivalent, nor all religious people, but these religions do have some things in common. And where science is concerned, religion is fundamentally opposed to it by the nature of what religion is, and quite apart from its individual (and varying) expression.

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... ... but I imagine that I'd generally get along with Aquinas better than Augustine, the Founding Fathers better than Loyola or Francis, and possibly Catholics better than Fundamentalists.
Exactly.. ... well said! One has to study the similarities and differences between various religions, between various denominations within Christianity or Islam etc., between various individual people within those movements, various points of time when different aspects of the religion were held to be more important than others.

Let's take the discussion away from religious topics. Instead, consider the question posed by the OP, using an example that has nothing to do with religion:

Consider some modern "feet of clay" histories. An old, conventional history might portray George Washington as a great hero, scarcely mentioning his failures. Some older commentary lionized leaders, making them out to be more than human. Then, some modern historian comes along and decides to tell us all about Washington's failures: not merely about his insecurities as a man, but even about his military blunders. We see a young Washington building his "Fort Necessity" as if he had no clue on the topic of the location of forts, we see Washington's early campaigns and find that it is not too far-fetched to describe them as months of running away from an overwhelmingly superior British army, we see that French assistance played an important role at Yorktown. In the end, we might even be left thinking: "Wow! that Washington was a clown who got lucky!"

Of course, that would be the wrong conclusion to draw. The lionizing was wrong in portraying man as super-man, and the "feet-of-clay" view is wrong by thinking that having flaws is inconsistent with greatness. If a businessman had some business failure along the way, would we would not conclude that he is a bad businessman. A history that lionizes him and only shows his success is incomplete. However, a history that shows all his mistakes can also be wrong in concluding that he just got lucky.

As archetypes, both types of history -- the lionizers and the demonizers -- share an underlying faulty standard of human behavior where one has to be super-human in order to be judged great. The truth is that human beings are often great, with all their faults and often because of their many mistakes and how they dealt with those mistakes. (Similarly, a historical figure does not have to be an all-out demon, consciously plotting the downfall of humanity, in order to judge him as evil.)

To answer the question in post #1: a thoughtful modern reader can read "both sides" thoughtfully. He can be careful about accepting the conclusions of historians. He should always question what the right standard of judgement ought to be. he should try to dis-aggregate (aka analyse) causes within the people he studies. Men can be bundles of right and wrong premises. A thoughtful reader can focus on analyzing which premises are at work in a particular case, so that he can accept the right premises and reject the wrong premises. And, if men are mixed, how much more mixed are organizations ... particularly when they stretch across countries and centuries.

With time, a thoughtful reader will be able to judge some historians to be more objective than others. He can then pick his reading a bit better, and avoid both the lionizers and the demonizers. One might actually agree with the conclusions of one or the other. For instance, one might conclude that Washington was a great general after all, so -- in that limited sense -- the lionizers had the conclusion right.

There appears to be a modern re-writing by Christian apologists which ridicules claims by people like Voltaire as being (at least) over the top satirical demonization. They point to facts that show progress during the time that the church was powerful, and also to progress sponsored by the church. However, that is like a communist apologist showing how the U.S.S.R. won so many Olympic medals, got the first man into space and so on, without analyzing what aspects and components worked and why. The only useful reason to study history is to understand causation, and that does not come unless one dis-aggregates (i.e. analyzes).

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" I would say that, fundamentally, to be religious means to ascribe supernatural causes to observed phenomena. And since science is concerned with determining the natural causes of observed phenomena, science and religion are necessarily at loggerheads."

No, that's not "fundamental" at all: Buddhism, for example, doesn't actually have a deity, and its view of the origins of the universe are similar to the Objectivist position. And, as you've noted, Deism proposes a generic God who starts the thing going, so to speak, and then leaves us alone to figure things out. It certainly doesn't look to supernatural causes for observable phenomena. And if traditonal Christianity (Catholics, the Orthodox)believed what you claim they believed (ascribing supernatural causes to observed phenomena), then there simply wouldn't be the huge number of Catholics (and Catholic clergy in particular -- seismology, for example, was called the "Jesuit science" because of the contributions of that order in the field) who studied the natural world and sought to understand it. It simply wouldn't happen on such a large scale. Sure, there might be the occasional individual here or there, but you wouldn't have what did happen: the founding of universities, the building of some churches to be solar observatories as well as places of worship, fields of scientific enquiry dominated by clergy.

I don't think you understand the implications of the Catholic concept that a rational entity -- God -- created the universe with ordered, rational laws governing it. To better comprehend the creator, then, it is logical to study and comprehend creation (and to do so is to honor the creator). There is no conflict between religion and science with this view. The historical record supports that assertion.

I think the problem lies with your concept of "religion". You seek to lump very disparate ideas together by trying to find some common aspect, but it is not possible, unless you broaden the concept so broadly as to denote a set of "guiding principles" or "worldview". In that expansion, Objectivism would accurately be described as a religion. (Personally, I think it is a kind of religion, as it has its own doctrines, "sacred" books, and a founder who is almost god-like.)

I think your allegiance the the "conflict thesis" biases your view of history. Modern historians (no, not just Christian apologists) have debunked this thesis. You're still clinging to the history written by the English Reformation and other biased sources.

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To the OP: You can't KNOW history, you can just have a probabilistic understanding of it. As for experts, personally I would take them all with a grain of salt. Determining the truth of history is like putting together a puzzle where the pieces are made of wet clay, in the rain. So just understand that history is conjecture and go from there.

I have no idea how a conversation about history got to a conversation about religion and science, but I'll throw in my 2c. You simply can't have this conversation until you define your terms.

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I think the problem lies with your concept of "religion". You seek to lump very disparate ideas together by trying to find some common aspect, but it is not possible, unless you broaden the concept so broadly as to denote a set of "guiding principles" or "worldview". In that expansion, Objectivism would accurately be described as a religion. (Personally, I think it is a kind of religion, as it has its own doctrines, "sacred" books, and a founder who is almost god-like.)

I think the problem isn't with my concept of religion; it seems, rather, that you don't have any concept of religion from which we can proceed. After all, if you hold that religions have nothing in common -- nothing that gives them the particular character of being "religious" -- or, as the alternative, that they are only united by things so general as to include "worldviews" such as Objectivism, and etc. -- then how could we ever decide what's true of "religion"?

It makes me wonder, if these "very disparate ideas" don't have a "common aspect" such that they can be "lumped together" (it is "not possible")... then how do we even know what is meant by "religion" in the first place? And if you're unable to distinguish between Objectivism and a religion, then how could I ever convey the substance of my argument, which is about religion and not that which is not?

You see trees, but not the forest.

Edited by DonAthos
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You can't KNOW history, you can just have a probabilistic understanding of it.

Is the news you watch on TV just a matter of probability? Really, the only thing to talk about is reliability of sources, and how those sources relate. There are a lot of steps involved to complete a puzzle, but difficulty doesn't imply impossibility of knowledge. Once you have reliable sources, you can about discussing what events really did happen, what is exaggerated, what is ignored. If criminal investigations can be used to objectively determine who committed a crime, history can be figured out the same way.

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"I think the problem isn't with my concept of religion; it seems, rather, that you don't have any concept of religion from which we can proceed."

I haven't proposed any concept of religion. I merely pointed out that your concept: "to be religious means to ascribe supernatural causes to observed phenomena" is inadequate, as it would leave out Buddhism and deism and traditional Christianity, yet these are considered religions.

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"I think the problem isn't with my concept of religion; it seems, rather, that you don't have any concept of religion from which we can proceed."

I haven't proposed any concept of religion. I merely pointed out that your concept: "to be religious means to ascribe supernatural causes to observed phenomena" is inadequate, as it would leave out Buddhism and deism and traditional Christianity, yet these are considered religions.

No. You did not "merely" take issue with what I've presented. You've also made clear that you don't think there can be any common aspects to "religion" -- "it is not possible":

I think the problem lies with your concept of "religion". You seek to lump very disparate ideas together by trying to find some common aspect, but it is not possible, unless you broaden the concept so broadly as to denote a set of "guiding principles" or "worldview". In that expansion, Objectivism would accurately be described as a religion. (Personally, I think it is a kind of religion, as it has its own doctrines, "sacred" books, and a founder who is almost god-like.)

And given that this is your position -- either there isn't any such creature as "religion" or Objectivism must count as one -- of course we'll never have agreement as to what's true of religion. Or, if you've misspoke and you do have a concept of religion that you can propose, perhaps that would be more helpful to subsequent discussion. Otherwise, we're just treading water.

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"No. You did not "merely" take issue with what I've presented. You've also made clear that you don't think there can be any common aspects to "religion" -- "it is not possible""

Well, I'd like to hear your thoughts as to what might constitute common aspects beyond what you first proposed (which is problematic for the reasons I gave).

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Well, I'd like to hear your thoughts as to what might constitute common aspects beyond what you first proposed (which is problematic for the reasons I gave).

Instead of taking umbrage with what is meant here by religion, why not take the opportunity to explain how you formulated the concept of religion, what you differentiate religion from, what do you consider as the fundamentals or essence of religion, in short, illustrate how your history of the concept is good or bad. Otherwise, you are basically back to this issue, as pointed out in this other thread.

Edited by dream_weaver
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"Instead of taking umbrage with what is meant here by religion, why not take the opportunity to explain how you formulated the concept of religion."

I didn't "take umbrage": I merely pointed out a flaw with the concept proposed, namely, that religion was fundamentally about ascribing supernatural causes to observable phenomena. This is problematic because Buddhism, which is considered a religion, does not have a deity, and does not ascribe supernatural causes to observable phenomena. The same with deism. So, I'll ask again: what do you think constitutes the common aspects of religion, by which we identify the concept "religion"?

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I merely pointed out a flaw with the concept proposed, namely, that religion was fundamentally about ascribing supernatural causes to observable phenomena. This is problematic because Buddhism, which is considered a religion, does not have a deity, and does not ascribe supernatural causes to observable phenomena. The same with deism. So, I'll ask again: what do you think constitutes the common aspects of religion, by which we identify the concept "religion"?

To the extent that Buddhism and Deism reference the supernatural, and both do, they are "religious." Religion does mean a thousand different things in a thousand different contexts, but essentially, "religion" is synonymous with "supernatural." That is the basic element not found here in this universe's science and ethics and epistemology, and so on. If it's found in the universe already, why give it a new name?
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Is the news you watch on TV just a matter of probability?

I have no certainty of the ties between what is said and what has actually happened. In current events you can have a single event told 20 different ways by different reporters. There was a period of time where I would listen to the news by channel surfing between Pacifica and Fox News Radio. It was amazing how differently the same story could be told from two perspectives.

And that's current events. We're talking about history. If I had to recreate the American experience solely from the books and videos of Glenn Beck and Bill O'reilly, 2000 years after the fact, how close would I really be? And that's what a lot of historical writing is. You get a handful of works by Plutarch or Josephus, and from that and a lot of other fragments have to inductively recreate history. Inductive, hence, probabalistic.

Really, the only thing to talk about is reliability of sources, and how those sources relate.

Reliability is a tricky thing though (if we're talking about written sources), because it is ultimately an appeal to authority. A lot of the histographers through time would do a great job of telling the facts as they were until they started talking about something they had an interest in, and then they would embelish the hell out of it.

The true story of Troy is still MASSIVELY debated because of this problem. All of the historians had a vested interest in writing this way or that, and it taints their writing.

Edit: I should be clear that reliability plays an important role in determining the probable certainty, but I would be hard pressed to say that there are any historians in existence whose reliability alone justified certainty.

There are a lot of steps involved to complete a puzzle, but difficulty doesn't imply impossibility of knowledge. Once you have reliable sources, you can about discussing what events really did happen, what is exaggerated, what is ignored. If criminal investigations can be used to objectively determine who committed a crime, history can be figured out the same way.

I guess though that when I said that it is probablistic/conjecture I was being a bit to simplistic. Just because its probablistic doesn't mean that the probability can't be high enough in some cases to provide effective certainty. The Roman Empire, for instance, can be said to have existed with effective certainty, as can the existence of Julius Caesar. The existence of Nero and and Caligula are also equally effectively certain. But what about the assertions of the details of their reigns? Was Caligula actually a creeper? Did Nero really marry a horse?

Or what about if we go back farther? Are you certain Confucius existed? What about Lao Tsu?

Edited by emorris1000
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"Religion does mean a thousand different things in a thousand different contexts, but essentially, "religion" is synonymous with "supernatural.""

I think that's reasonable enough, though "referencing the supernatural" would be more accurate, given Buddhism's atheism. ("Synonymous" seems too strong.)

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And that's what a lot of historical writing is. You get a handful of works by Plutarch or Josephus, and from that and a lot of other fragments have to inductively recreate history. Inductive, hence, probabalistic.

I'm talking about facts, not constructed narrative. You mentioned Caeser before, so I'll talk about him. I know that he was murdered in daylight by people he trusted. That's about it. It's quite easy to construct a narrative based on that in order to explain events that occurred after that, but recently, I heard it proposed that Caeser *wanted* to die. That claim is based off of the fact he did some stupid things like dismiss his guards a week early (sounds suicidal), he had medical problems that made epilepsy a possibility, decreasing his quality of life. Without any source documents, we cannot verify with certainty that Caeser wanted to die, and maybe he specifically asked to be killed in the manner he was. What we can say are things like "he died" and Octavian became leader of Rome afterwards. Saying anything more would likely be sensationalism, which you described earlier.

You say induction is probabilistic, but if you're talking about this in terms of Objectivist epistemology, induction can be valid and certain, if done properly. Take the facts and be careful not to add a personal spin.

Or what about if we go back farther? Are you certain Confucius existed? What about Lao Tsu?

I have no reason to think Confucius didn't exist. For me, it would be arbitrary to say Confucius didn't exist. Was Caligula really a creeper? I'm not sure, and I'm uncertain enough that I'd want to eventually read more about Caligula to see if he was sensationalized.

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I'm talking about facts, not constructed narrative. You mentioned Caeser before, so I'll talk about him. I know that he was murdered in daylight by people he trusted. That's about it.

How do you know this? You know this second hand (in fact its like third hand but whatever). Granted, there are a lot of second hand sources telling you this, which gives you a high degree of certainty, but that is different from a Fact (capital F).

I mean, we get away with calling them facts in day to day discourse because it's a pain the butt to say "a historical assertion with a very high level of certainty"

It's quite easy to construct a narrative based on that in order to explain events that occurred after that, but recently, I heard it proposed that Caeser *wanted* to die. That claim is based off of the fact he did some stupid things like dismiss his guards a week early (sounds suicidal), he had medical problems that made epilepsy a possibility, decreasing his quality of life. Without any source documents, we cannot verify with certainty that Caeser wanted to die, and maybe he specifically asked to be killed in the manner he was. What we can say are things like "he died" and Octavian became leader of Rome afterwards. Saying anything more would likely be sensationalism, which you described earlier.

So we're on the same page here.

You say induction is probabilistic, but if you're talking about this in terms of Objectivist epistemology, induction can be valid and certain, if done properly. Take the facts and be careful not to add a personal spin.

I've never really bought the difference between "contextually certain" and what I am talking about. They're the same thing. But you have to understand that even that the effectively certain is not devoid of doubt. Facts and Truths with a capital F and T are a pretty sacred bit of territory for me. Menos Paradox is the backbone of this.

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