but John Loftus is getting dangerously close to flirting with presuppositionalism!.
That’s right, with comments like: “”Plus, when it comes to ‘initial plausibility,’ we’re talking about metaphysical issues with background and control beliefs that go with them, on both sides” and “Convincing someone to believe something different and to see the unreasonableness of their position contains an irreducible personal element to it, not reduceable to logic itself” and “As I said, some informal fallacies are merely anomalies to another world-view perspective, and that’s all”
Yes, this background stuff, this “irreducible personal element”–those are our presuppositions, the unproven (indeed, in properly basic presuppositions, unprovable) axioms that someone must assume in order to begin thinking in the first place.
May 23rd, 2006 at 2:21 pm
Thank you for reading what I wrote. I do think we operate from control beliefs and presuppositions. But there are two things that you should know about mine, and this could get lengthy but I don’t have the time.
1) Mine are much fewer than yours. You presuppose the canonized Bible.
2) I also believe the set of particular control beliefs that we adopt are pretty much the ones we have been exposed to based upon when we were born, and where we were born.
Anyone who thinks about both of the differences above will see clearly that my presuppositions are better. On the one hand, the fewer things we must presuppose, then the more likely that accurately describes our human condition, based upon the principle of parsimony. On the other hand, unlike you, I realize a healthy measure of skepticism about control beliefs because I know they are adopted from a culture. So my control beliefs are skeptical ones. That’s why I have argued for the Outsider Test.
May 23rd, 2006 at 3:25 pm
[...] John Loftus responded to this previous post by stating that his presuppositions are fewer than mine, and thus his position is better. His exact words: [T]he fewer things we must presuppose, then the more likely that accurately describes our human condition, based upon the principle of parsimony. [...]
May 23rd, 2006 at 4:47 pm
Anyone who merely believed that a God created this universe (Deism) has far and away fewer presuppositons than you do! The more you must presuppose the more likely you could be wrong. Simple and few are better.