Charles
>>> jkschw at hotmail.com 07/25/01 10:54AM >>>
>
>At 09:01 PM 7/24/01 -0500, you wrote:
>>But if all you mean is that good arguments (philosophical or otherwise) do
>>not convince people who hold intuitions contradictory to the conclusion
>>why
>>not say that?
Well, I have been saying that. It's been my point, that Kenneth and Luke have been resisting, that philosophical argument doesn't persuade people. I'm not a relativist, so I don't think that just because people disagree means everyone's right, or a skeptic, so I don't think that disagreement means everyone's wrong. I think there may be right answers about many philosophical questions. I even think that argument can tel; us what they are. But I note it as a fact that argument rarely persuades people that their own cherished views are wrong.
Why use the word trump? The intuitions dont win. In
>>fact the
>>person with the intuition loses when the argument is sound and the
>>premisses
>>true.
Well, someone with the intuition that a false belief is true holds some sort of false belief, yes. The problem is, in philosophy, it's often hard to tell which are the false beliefs, and even when you have what yout think is a knowckdown argumentg, it generally fails to persuade doubters.
A person with a strong intuition that God will save him or
>>her when he
>>jumps out of an airplane at 10,000 feet with no parachute may not be
>>convinced by being reminded of elementary physical facts.
But it's not possible to test philosophical propositions in such a conclusive way. It's not even obviosuly easy to test first order moral judgments this way. If you pointed out to Judge Posner that an unrestrained free market would lead to millions of unnecessary deaths and vast misery, he'd say, "Assuming you are right, which I don't concede, your point is?"
The fact that an argument may not be
>>pragmatically
>>useful in convincing someone with strong intuitions opposed to the
>>conclusion tells only against its pragmatic usefulness in these
>>circumstances.
>>
This is the point I have been hammering on. Bingo! You don't argue with George W. Bush to persude him of the error of his way. You mobilize opposition to him by ridicule, rhetoric, inspiration, vision, and intimidate or defeat him. It';s very un-Habermasian, an ethical ideal which might be appropriate for the communist paradise, but not for the real world of capitalist class struggle.
--jks