But this kind of attitude is not ubiquitous, especially for those just getting acquainted with philosophy. On many occasions, when dealing with some elusive topic, whether in epistemology, the philosophy of religion, or ethics, and especially when their beliefs have been challenged, some people will start to complain that maybe we should just abandon reason.
What one ought to do at that point is to ask them why that should be the case, at which point they will begin to argue their position without realizing that any argument against reason is going to have to require that they themselves use reason, which completely defeats their arguments, as Steven Pinker argues in the following clip:
Nice, powerful and concise!
I love it, any argument against reason requires that they use reason. It reminds me of the argument of the existence of "nothing", anything to exist must be something, so for nothing to exist it must be something, then is it nothing?
ReplyDeleteNot quite, that argument seems to work, but it actually commits the fallacy of equivocation. One part of the argument treats "nothing" as "not anything" or "the absence of anything" (which is the right meaning), but then "nothing" is reified and very subtly shifts to mean "something" (as in "the existence OF nothing," which makes it sound as if you're talking about some actual thing called nothing). Unfortunately, the last meaning, whatever it applies to, cannot actually apply to the absence of anything, so the argument doesn't really go through.
ReplyDeleteBut it is fun to use at cocktail parties, unless there are philosophers around :p