Submitted by thelivingphilosophy t3_yt6m03 in philosophy
Reply to comment by DarkMarxSoul in A cross between an Existentialist and an Old Testament prophet, Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard urged his "single individual" reader to follow the "highest passion" of faith rather than becoming one of the stereotyped pseudo-individuals of "The Crowd" by thelivingphilosophy
Kierkegaard is not so anti-rationalistic as people think. He only says reason has a negative role: it finds problems in what we do. Faith has a positive role. If you ever want to do something and stick to your decision no matter what you need faith.
That's nonsense. Reason finds problems in what we do, but it is also the source of validation of what we do and therefore a source of significant confidence. You don't need faith to stick to your decision, and in fact faith can cause you to stick to a bad decision that hurts people or not switch to a better decision that is more helpful.
What is the source of presuppositions from which we start your reason processes?
I agree that reason provides significant confidence, but I find it to be rather retrospective than prospective, especially when it comes to life decision.
What is a "bad" decision? How do you determine? What makes you think switching to something else will be better over the course of time?
Reason can verify our decisions, but cannot trigger them. Blind faith or pure reason are not the only options. Blind faith entails random decisions which is absurd. Pure reason means no decision.
For example, you find good reasons and bad reasons to get married or not to get married. What makes you actually take a decision and not be stuck forever in the process of thinking? Reasons do not weight the same for everyone. If "existentialistic" decisions are like mathematical formulas our life will lack individuality. 2+2=4 is the same for everyone.
-- In my opinion reason needs faith and faith needs reason. They are complementary.
> What is the source of presuppositions from which we start your reason processes?
Whatever we must logically accept in order to coherently exist in the world and make decisions as intentional agents. These are things like "I exist", "the world exists", "the world is predictable (physically)", and other extremely basic presumptions about the status of reality. If we were to completely shed our belief in any of these things, we would logically destroy our ability to act and expect results we had reason to believe were meaningful. We have to at least accept them on an informal basis, or we can do nothing else. This is entirely different from faith, which is the acceptance of a belief that is not necessary, for no reasons.
> I agree that reason provides significant confidence, but I find it to be rather retrospective than prospective, especially when it comes to life decision.
I mean, that's your problem, but I exercise reason to make life decisions and haven't been steered wrong yet as far as I know.
> What is a "bad" decision? How do you determine? What makes you think switching to something else will be better over the course of time?
A bad decision is something that causes an outcome that people (yourself or others) think is bad. We have seen plenty of instances where faith in God causes bad decisions, in that it causes people to deny medical care that could have saved their lives, it causes people to ostracize their family members, encourages some people to commit acts of violence against others, etc.
> Reason can verify our decisions, but cannot trigger them.
I'm not sure how you figure this. Let's say you engage in the following logical process:
I am hungry and want food > As far as I know, there is food in the fridge > If I get up and go to the fridge I will get the food > I want to get the food > Ergo I should get up and go to the fridge > I get up and go to the fridge > I get the food > I eat the food > I satisfy my desire for food
That is entirely a logical series of steps. It's not one we consciously work through, but it's logical and requires no faith. If you happen to get to the fridge and there is no food, your knowledge of the world was wrong, but at that point you can pivot away from that to something else. There's a difference between having a belief based on exposure to something, and having "faith" in the way people do in God.
> For example, you find good reasons and bad reasons to get married or not to get married. What makes you actually take a decision and not be stuck forever in the process of thinking?
You weigh the good reasons and bad reasons against each other and determine through thinking that the good outweigh the bad because they're more important to you.
> If "existentialistic" decisions are like mathematical formulas our life will lack individuality. 2+2=4 is the same for everyone.
2+2=4 is the same for everyone, but it's every person's individual preferences and desires that determine the numbers you slot into the equation. For me, getting married might be 2+2+4+12-8-1=11, whereas for somebody else the same question might be 2+2+4-12+2-5=(-7).
> In my opinion reason needs faith and faith needs reason. They are complementary.
They really are not.
>Whatever we must logically accept in order to coherently exist in the world and make decisions as intentional agents. These are things like "I exist", "the world exists", "the world is predictable (physically)", and other extremely basic presumptions about the status of reality. If we were to completely shed our belief in any of these things, we would logically destroy our ability to act and expect results we had reason to believe were meaningful. We have to at least accept them on an informal basis, or we can do nothing else. This is entirely different from faith, which is the acceptance of a belief that is not necessary, for no reasons.
You postulate "logic" before using "logic". You postulate "reality" before using "reality" in your logic. How can you know 100% that reality is as it appears to you? All your above statements are meta-physical statements because you are implying things about reality. Nothing wrong with that, but I don't get your certainty.
I'm not using faith in the sense that you defined as "acceptance of a belief that is not necessary, for no reasons". For me "faith" is about "appropriation/devotion/commitment" (I don't have a better word for now). e.g. we dovote our life to a way of seeing the world in which we see ourselves as intentional agents, we postulate the reality-mind correspondence, etc.
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>I mean, that's your problem, but I exercise reason to make life decisions and haven't been steered wrong yet as far as I know.
Again, neither Kierkegaard not I is saying that you can't use reason for your life decisions. Of course you use reason. However, after you have reason for sufficient time, you need to take a decision. I'm sure you had take bad life decisions in your life. You developed your "reason", you learned, you acquired more experience. If as a child every decision you take was based on "reason", you would probably be dead by now.
Of course, use reason at its highest, but your reason will always be limited by your pressupositions (your commitment to a way of seeing the world). Of course, we can examine and change our pressupositions, but that also tells us something about the infirmities of reason. We reason within our understanding of the world ("faith", as I use it).
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>A bad decision is something that causes an outcome that people (yourself or others) think is bad. We have seen plenty of instances where faith in God causes bad decisions, in that it causes people to deny medical care that could have saved their lives, it causes people to ostracize their family members, encourages some people to commit acts of violence against others, etc.
What if the Nazis conqured the world and brainwash everyone to think The Holocaust was good? Does that changed that it was actually bad? (But nevermind, it is not very relevant for the discussion). I'm not saying the feedback we receive from others it is not valueable. It is. I also agree that for some people there is a correspondence between beliving in God and bad things. However, Christians believe that God has revealed Himself by living a life of a normal man and dying for the salvation of the world. If you have faith in that i.e. appropriate the message that as God loved the world (dying sacrificially) you should also love others, you shouldn't commit acts of violance. If through careful reason we find that the Christian story is untrue (i.e. resurrection did not happened) then we should definetely not believe in it (i.e. live in the world as if God revelealed Himself in Christ's sacrifice).
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>I'm not sure how you figure this. Let's say you engage in the following logical process:I am hungry and want food > As far as I know, there is food in the fridge > If I get up and go to the fridge I will get the food > I want to get the food > Ergo I should get up and go to the fridge > I get up and go to the fridge > I get the food > I eat the food > I satisfy my desire for foodThat is entirely a logical series of steps. It's not one we consciously work through, but it's logical and requires no faith. If you happen to get to the fridge and there is no food, your knowledge of the world was wrong, but at that point you can pivot away from that to something else. There's a difference between having a belief based on exposure to something, and having "faith" in the way people do in God.
I have no problem using reason as in this example because I accept every premise and I think almost everyone will do.
However, I cannot ignore your appropriation for a world where hunger exists and is not an illusion, food is in fridges, food satisfies hunger, food does not fall from the sky, someone will not bring you food in bed, etc. It is way way more complicated when you consider complex decisions that are further away from our more "animalic" life. Things like meaning, significance, values, etc.
On the other hand, I don't see how you make the transition from logic to action. There are many valid logical statements, but none is producing the action. It only makes the action reasonable, but I can act against reason. So, action is not always produced by reason. It is produced by the commitment I have to the world. When I see someone is in danger I can produce in my mind reasons to ignore, to call for help or to actually intervene personally. What is producing these reasons? I might even believe I should ignore feared reasons based on my devotion to the good and intervene. It might get bad and die, but I might also save a life. I don't know.
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>You weigh the good reasons and bad reasons against each other and determine through thinking that the good outweigh the bad because they're more important to you. 2+2=4 is the same for everyone, but it's every person's individual preferences and desires that determine the numbers you slot into the equation. For me, getting married might be 2+2+4+12-8-1=11, whereas for somebody else the same question might be 2+2+4-12+2-5=(-7).
Absolutely. However, what makes someone think it will be happier doing A while someone else thinks it will be happier doing the opposite of A? Do you have an absolute splitter in this situation? I think the answer to the Q is faith i.e. the devotion to a way of seeing the world e.g. where being married is a value or being single is a desiderate. You call that "individual preferences and desires". I think faith might include these, but it is not limited to that.
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>They really are not.
Yes, if you use a different definition of "faith" that the one I'm using. I'm not sure if it is a strawman or not because it could be the case that many people of "faith" (although I think everyone is manifesting faith in a way or another) are using it as equivalence to blind faith (blind commitment to a way of seeing the world). I would advocate for an informed faith (an informated commitment to a way of seeing the world).
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