>>> Carrol Cox
Here Charles is clashing with Engels, who chastised Duhring for making such a wild claim.
^^^^^^^ CB: No, actually I _got_ this whole point of view from Engels in his critique of Kant's unknowable thing-in-itself
^^^^
We cannot know whether the unknowable exists, in principle or in practice, until we both know everything there is to know and can in addition prove that that everything we know is indeed all that there is 'out there' or 'in here' to know. That is clearly incoherent.
I'm still an atheist, by birthright more than merit, but I think it absurd to claim that atheism can be _demonstrated_. Which raises another question: Empirically, arguments such as this thread represents are clearly a waste of time, a serious distracion from all those questions which can be fruitfully debated. Of course, one could justify it under the heading of entertaining triviality. Except that some kinds of trivial disagreement are not trivial if focusing on them obscures more fundamental political agreements.
Carrol
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