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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   31610 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 16, 2023

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The quote that the pope used from Kierkegaard is from Either/or and is actually about that entire premise. That there exists a metaphysical space beyond the comprehension of human beings that is completely out of the bounds of empirical rationality, and can also never be accepted through rational explanations. One that is ultimately the most important decision of ones life and which there is no real evidence in either direction. In many ways your comment is exactly the type of person he explains is laughing at him.

In many ways your comment is exactly the type of person he explains is laughing at him.

Which is poisoning the well.

The claim is that there’s a defective pattern of reasoning. How is it poisoning the well to say that a certain way of reacting to the claim is itself an instance of that pattern? That’s a substantive question, not a fallacious inference.

Are you familiar with a good explainer on this particular part of Kierkegaard's thought? I admit I'm always confused when this comes up. If you can't accept this concept via rational explanations, how do you even know it's the most important decision in your life? In the story from OP, the fire does eventually kill the townspeople, so in the end there actually is empirical feedback for them laughing instead of believing. Does Kierkegaard suppose similar consequences for those don't make this leap of faith?

I'll admit it's a pretty obtuse subject. It's one of those things that's difficult to understand if not coming from particular assumptions, and is built upon theologians like Augustine. Essentially he argues that one cannot really understand true metaphysics unless graced with divine spirit, and that is done seemingly arbitrarily and only after continuous searching, and maybe even never at all. If one is to get into Kierkegaard I would recommend Either/or and Sickness unto death for a good entry point. I would also recommend Michael Segrue's lecture's on him as a good introduction to his general demeanor. He's like a religious counterpart to Nietzsche.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=SMJc9UMzFSE

They didn't exactly learn from it if they died. However, I think that it is a bit silly to challenge a metaphor in detail. A metaphor clarifies something by finding something sufficiently similar, but that can be understood more easily, yet it is not equal. Challenging it for not being equal inherently rejects metaphors as a valid tool of discourse.

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