[lbo-talk] Appeal to Ignorance

[Jeffrey Fisher]

On 6/18/05, Shane Mage <shmage at pipeline.com> wrote:
> Yoshie wrote (in response to our resident Menshevik sympathizer
> with the cult of Saint Nicholas The Bloody):
> >>
> >>The end result of not accepting _some form_ of NT (broadly
> >>understood as the acknowledgement that part of the universe may not
> >>be knowable) is subjective or absolute idealism.
> >
> >"The idea that "part of the universe may not be knowable" in itself
> >can't amount to any theology, negative or positive.  To get a
> >theology out of it, we would have to follow syllogism like this:
> >
> >1. God = unknowable.
> >2. Some part of the universe may not be knowable.
> >3. Since I believe that some part of the universe may not be
> >knowable, I believe in God.
> >
> If we don't accept the major premise, we don't proceed from the minor
> premise to the conclusion.  Is there any reason why we should be
> compelled to accept the major premise?  None at all."
> 
> But the major premise is a definitional postulate and, as such,
> unchallengable (and the minor premise and conclusion should
> state "is unknowable" instead of "may not be knowable).
> 
> I would point to a different syllogism:
> 
> 1.  God=unknowable
> 2.  What is unknowable must also be unknown.
> 3.  God totally lacks self-knowledge.
> 
> Thus "God" stands lower on the scale of consciousness than
> the most humble paramecium.

this seems to rest on an ambiguity in the term "unknowable". certainly
we cannot claim that god is unknowable in some absolute sense, but
only relative to our own ability to know anything (and here we mean
ability in the absolute sense . . . that is, that no training or
technololgy will result in that ability). so god = unknowable really
means, god is categorically unknowable *by us*. if we can't know god,
how can we possibly know *about god* that god can't know god's self?

-- 
Among medieval and modern philosophers, anxious to establish
the religious significance of God, an unfortunate habit has prevailed
of paying to Him metaphysical compliments.

  - Alfred North Whitehead