[lbo-talk] An Appeal to Ignorance

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Mon Jun 13 16:28:07 PDT 2005


Jeffrey Fisher wrote:
>
> and i'm back on the same side with kelley, again, somehow . . . and
> how do we both find ourselves agreeing with yoshie at all? [i kid! i
> kid!]
>
> and yet, i am way more with yoshie here than with joanna, i'm afraid.
>
> and i fear i have completely failed to make myself understood to
> anyone. so, back to the drawing board.

I've followed you (I think) and mostly agreed. At least I don't see any contradiction between what you've been saying and what either Kelley or Yoshie says in the post you quote.

Joanna's arguments seem to me to be grounded in a radical scepticism: we can't be sure of anything, therefore we can't know anything, therefore we can believe anything we want to believe. My memory is vague on the following, since I haven't read up on it in about 40 years -- but her position seems to be similar to that of some late 17th-c Roman Catholic apologists, who argued that since we can't know anything for sure we have to depend on an infallible church. Joanna wants to depend on an infallible personal or private consciousness. And of course an "I believe" is irrefutable (except perhaps by questioning the person after injecting sodium pentathol).

Carrol



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