The Ciceronian First Duties

 I think, it is helpful to summarise the seven Ciceronian First Duties:

These, give a general basis on which we can frame law and government, also sound reformation. Which, we now sorely need. END

"Mirror, mirror on the wall . . ." -- the self-referentiality challenge and comparative difficulties of worldviews

A mirror on the wall, framed by a
snake eating its own tail [the
notorious ourobouros], an
illustration of self-referential
self defeat

 A very useful definition of philosophy is that it is the department for hard, basic questions; questions, that have no easy answers. A big part of that is, that such questions are almost always self-referential, making incoherence a pivotal issue. 

Assert that truth is un-know-able? That's a truth and a knowledge claim. 

Dismiss morality as entirely subjective? That is an implicit claim to objective truth of moral character. 

Sneer at the reality of God? How, then, do you adequately account for yourself as 

• a responsible, 
• rational, 
• inescapably morally governed, 
• significantly free, 
• contingent creature 
• in a clearly contingent world, one 
• requiring a causally sufficient necessary being as root of reality? 

Deny that you are morally governed? So, why is it that you too are appealing to our known duties to truth, right reason, warrant etc? Deny that the world must have had a beginning rooted in causally adequate necessary being? How, then do you account for a world from utter non being or from circular retro-causation or for the impossible supertask of bridging a transfinite span in finite stage successive steps -- such as years? 

And, many more.

The point is clear, to be tenable, a worldview must be able to live with itself, not merely parasite off distracting attention from its internal incoherence by projecting fault and blame to others. (Even this, will readily invite some to try to do just that. Nope, the point of comparative difficulties is, that all worldviews bristle with difficulties, so we need to carry out a comparative analysis involving factual adequacy, coherence and explanatory balance. Hard to do.)

Hence, too, the issue of sawing off the branch on which one sits:

  Speaking of, a world from utter non-being, here is Richard Dawkins publicly stumbling on the point:

And if worldviews struggle here, how much more, ideologies and their captive, community-dominating institutions? As in, the seven mountains or pillars of influence:

In short, we need to ask some pretty pointed questions about where the Overton Windows for our region and civilisation are being pulled to:

That, in turn raises big questions about the political dynamics at work:

Not to mention, the core logic:

 

It is hard to escape the issue -- if you doubt this, ponder a now manifestly grossly mismanaged COVID Pandemic -- that our region and wider civilisation are dancing heedlessly on the edge of a cliff:

There is much food for thought in that, but it all takes us back to self referential incoherence and breakdown of soundness and prudence. Speaking of, here is a pointed illustration that -- though often cynically dismissed -- has a sobering point:

It is time for us to turn back from the cliff's edge. END

God is real, knowable and the root of reality

 Yes, I mean just that. 

Indeed, I argue that the knowable reality of God has become a major -- and needless -- conundrum in recent times as there is readily accessible and adequate reason to acknowledge the reality of God as knowable by ordinary, common people on adequate warrant, without need for abstruse "proofs." (Yes, I mean just that.)

Witness no 1 is conscience. 

As, the Proverbs testify aptly:

As Paul of Tarsus elaborated:

Rom 2:14 For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them . . .

Conscience testifies to us, that we are under moral government and law, built into our nature. Yes, we have conflicting thoughts, desires and impulses, yes some have so dulled this voice or have so warped their moral senses that the voice is distorted or drowned out, but the reality is undeniable, manifest in our sense of justice denied and thirsted for (though, often we are not so quick to recognise ourselves as the unjust . . . hence, planks in our eyes). It is also self referential and a key part of our cognitive and affective life, so, we cannot play the now standard dismissive appeal to psycho-social conditioning without indicting our own selves of delusion, too. If conscience is generally, grandly delusional, that would so taint our minds that we would destroy the credibility of thought. 

Instead, just as minds may err or be warped but mind is still a broadly reliable, trusted faculty, conscience is a key part of that, the candle within. So, yes, our conscience is a witness so that our inner, conflicting thoughts accuse or excuse us, foreshadowing . . . judgement to come under built-in, intelligible law.

Yes, Cicero, summarising the classical deposit, knew this a hundred years before Paul:

—Marcus [in de Legibus, introductory remarks,. C1 BC, being Cicero himself]: . . . we shall have to explain the true nature of moral justice, which is congenial and correspondent with the true nature of man [--> we are seeing the root vision of natural law, coeval with our humanity] . . . . 

With respect to the true principle of justice, many learned men have maintained that it springs from Law. I hardly know if their opinion be not correct, at least, according to their own definition; for . “Law (say they) is the highest reason, implanted in nature, which prescribes those things which ought to be done, and forbids the contrary” . . . . They therefore conceive that the voice of conscience is a law, that moral prudence is a law [--> a key remark] , whose operation is to urge us to good actions, and restrain us from evil ones . . . .  

According to the Greeks, therefore, the name of law implies an equitable distribution of goods: according to the Romans [--> esp. Cicero, speaking as a leading statesman], an equitable discrimination between good and evil. The true definition of law should, however, include both these characteristics. And this being granted as an almost self–evident proposition, the origin of justice is to be sought in the divine law of eternal and immutable morality. This indeed is the true energy of nature, the very soul and essence of wisdom, the test of virtue and vice.

[--> this of course points to the wellsprings of reality, the only place where is and ought can be bridged; bridged, through the inherently good utterly wise, maximally great necessary being, the creator God, which adequately answers the Euthyphro dilemma and Hume's guillotine argument's "surprise" on seeing reasoning is-is then suddenly a leap to ought-ought. IS and OUGHT are fused from the root of all reality]

This indeed is the true energy of nature, the very soul and essence of wisdom, the test of virtue and vice.

This can be developed: we are duty-bound to truth, right reason, warrant (and wider prudence), sound conscience, neighbour, so too fairness and justice. Where, the one who tries to object will only manage to do so by appealing to these same principles of duty. That is, these are branch on which we sit, self evident first principles of responsible reason, indeed, first, built-in law. We may add an etc, to show that these can be extended, to build up a framework for morality/justice and for law and government. And we can see their force by contemplating how we respond to those who are habitually untruthful, irrational or warped in reasoning, are imprudent, have dulled conscience, disrespect neighbour, are unfair and are unjust. 

Law points to lawgiver, and built in law to our Creator. 

Of course, it is not just conscience, we live in a civilisation where for thousands of years, millions have met and been transformed through meeting God in the face of Christ, through the gospel. Where, the usual cynical resort to oh they are deluded hypocrites again comes back to haunt us as mass grand delusion discredits the mind. Nor, are the now common sneering dismissals of the historical facts at the root of the gospel, put on record c 55 AD but tracing to the mid 30's AD, particularly impressive (save as inadvertent self exposure of anger, narcissism and self serving cynicism).  

Let us recall, for record:

1 Cor 15: 3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures [cf. Isa 52 - 53 esp.], 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep . . .

One who has met God in saving, life transforming power is simply not at the rhetorical mercy of the nearest cynical objector. 

To illustrate, let me note on the wildly bestselling and widely celebrated Dan Brown, who announced that his novel's claims were based on facts. His claimed facts in The Da Vinci Code, however, fare poorly on basic inspection:

The fact of widespread celebration, therefore, tells us much about the state of the early C21 mind, none of it good or flattering. 

We can also point to our world as a causal-temporal succession of stages, such as years. Such stepwise stages cannot have come down to us from a past infinity, as finite stage succession can never complete an infinite traverse. That is, we need a finitely remote world root, one that is of a different order of reality from the contingent beings we are all too familiar with. That is, the root of reality must be a necessary being with capability to cause a world with morally governed creatures such as we are. Where, necessary beings are part of the framework for any possible or actual world, e.g. try to imagine a distinct world in which two-ness does not exist or could begin or could cease from existing. Already, just to imagine a distinct world implies, two-ness. 

The point is, God is manifestly a serious candidate, necessary being world root.

Once that is on the table, it shifts the frame of discussion decisively. For, such a necessary being candidate either is, or else is impossible of being as a square circle is: core characteristics are mutually inconsistent. Where, notoriously, since Plantinga's free will defence, the usual argument that God is a contradictory concept has collapsed, though desperate atheists and the like still try to trot it out.  The result is, just to show that such skeptics have no good argument that God -- understood as 

GOD: the inherently good, utterly wise creator and sustainer, a necessary and maximally great being worthy of respect, loyalty and the responsible reasonable service of doing the good that accords with our nature --  

. . . is impossible of being. 

Where, that means now they have an unmet burden of warrant, one they are unlikely ever to meet.

In other words, we can and do confidently know for good cause that God is, and is our creator, root of morality and is our worthy Liege Lord. 

Which, of course, too many are busily pretending is not so. END

There are two types of ignorance, I: innocent, II: willful,

 and this matters.

One may of course lack adequate opportunity to know, so such ignorance is innocent. However, one may also willfully refuse to acknowledge what is adequately warranted and accessible, but which is unwelcome. The latter is manifestly a violation of intellectual duties and virtues; sometimes it is termed willful obtuseness. 

Type II ignorance, is anything but innocent, and is pernicious as it involves setting up crooked yardsticks in the place of sound ones. 

Where, when one makes crookedness his standard, then what is genuinely straight, upright, accurate will never pass the false test of conformity to crookedness. Such corrupt, debased thinking has a second effect, as there are infinitely many crooked lines connecting two points A and B: brand lock-in. For, each form of crookedness will lock in its adherents and polarise them against other incompatible crooked yardsticks. Hence, the value of naturally straight and upright, plumb line truths:

Sadly, some can become so debased in thinking, that they will reject self-evident, naturally upright plumb line truths. 

(Self evident truths are such that once one has an adequate basis of experience to understand them, one sees that they are and must be true on pain of immediate, patent absurdity. For example, try to deny that 2 + 3 = 5, or that error exists, or that one is a self-aware, conscious creature. Such SET's are never enough to frame a worldview, but they provide a chest of tools to test soundness.)

This instantly exposes the gross error of our time, selective hyperskepticism. 

For, obviously, global skepticism implies or invites the claim, one knows that one cannot know. 

Instantly absurd. 

However, one can try to pose on the idea that what one does not like is ill-founded nonsense and easily makes claims like, you must scientifically prove X, or that for some subject, Y, there are no knowable truths. The former is the error of scientism, the notion that science monopolises knowledge, which -- being an epistemological [so, philosophical] claim -- instantly self-destructs.

The latter is commonly applied to morality. But of course, it is precisely, a claimed objective truth about morality, and self destructs. As a more concrete self-evident moral truth, I take an unfortunately real life case: it is manifestly wrong and monstrously wicked to kidnap a child on the way home from school, then bind, sexually assault, torture and kill the child for one's sick pleasure. One who denies or evades this simply exposes himself as a monster and/or enabler. (And this is another type of absurdity.)

More generally, we can see -- pardon some algebra:

The truth claim, “there are no [generally knowable] objective truths regarding any matter (so, on any particular matter),” roughly equivalent to, “knowledge is inescapably only subjective or relative,” is an error. Which, happily, can be recognised and corrected. 

Often, such error is presented and made to seem plausible through the diversity of opinions assertion, with implication that none have or are in a position to have a generally warranted, objective conclusion. This, in extreme form, is a key thesis of the nihilism that haunts our civilisation, which we must detect, expose to the light of day, correct and dispel, in defence of civilisation and human dignity. 

(NB: Sometimes the blind men and the elephant fable is used to make it seem plausible, overlooking the narrator's implicit claim to objectivity. Oops!) 

Now, to set things aright, let’s symbolise: ~[O*G] with * as AND. 

This claims, it is false that there is an objective knowable truth, on the set of general definable topics, G. Ironically, it intends to describe not mere opinion but warranted, credible truth about knowledge in general. 

So, 

~[O*G] is self referential as it is clearly about subject matter G, and is intended to be a well warranted objectively true claim. But 

it is itself therefore a truth claim about knowledge in general intended to be taken as objectively true, which is what it tries to deny as a possibility. 

So, it is self contradictory and necessarily false. 

In steps:

PHASE I: 

Let a proposition be represented by x 

G = x is a proposition asserting that some state of affairs regarding some identifiable matter in general including e.g. history, science, the secrets of our hearts, morality etc, is the case 

O = x is objective and knowable, being adequately warranted as credibly true

PHASE II: 

It is claimed, S= ~[O*G] = 1, 1 meaning true 

However, the subject of S is G, it therefore claims to be objectively true, O and is about G where it forbids O-status to any claim of type G 

so, ~[O*G] cannot be true per self referential incoherence 

============= 

PHASE III: The Algebra, 

translating from S: ~[O*G] = 0 [as self referential and incoherent cf above] 

~[~[O*G]] = 1 [the negation is therefore true] 

__________ 

O*G = 1 [condensing not of not] 

where, G [general truth claim including moral ones of course] 

So too, O [if an AND is true, each sub proposition is separately true] 

================ 

CONCLUSION: That is, there are objective general, particular and -- as a key case -- moral truths; and a first, self evident one is that ~[O*G] is false, ~[O*G] = 0. 

Therefore, the set of knowable objective truths in general -- and embracing those that happen to be about states of affairs in regard to right conduct etc -- is non empty, it is not vacuous and we cannot play empty set square of opposition games with it.

In many cases, what we know about a subject is just how little we know. However, there are many, many cases where there are in fact bodies of knowable accessible truth, which we ought to acknowledge. 

Which, today, too often meets with willful resistance to truth. 

Sad. END

Dallas Willard on knowledge that belongs to the people (and so too, a basis for naturally legitimate authority to lead desperately needed reformation)

 About a year ago, I ran across the late Dallas Willard's posthumous book on The Disappearance of Moral Knowledge (2018, Routledge | Taylor Frances, completed by his literary heirs). In it I found a striking discussion of knowledge and naturally legitimate authority:

To have knowledge in the dispositional sense—where you know things you are not necessarily thinking about at the time—is to be able to represent something as it is on an adequate basis of thought or experience, not to exclude communications from qualified sources (“authority”). This is the “knowledge” of ordinary life [--> knowledge belongs to the people], and it is what you expect of your electrician, auto mechanic, math teacher, and physician. Knowledge is not rare, and it is not esoteric [--> our understanding must not rob ordinary people of knowledge, it must accept that ordinary people know many things on a responsible basis, this recognition would solve many needless issues] . . . no satisfactory general description of “an adequate basis of thought or experience” has ever been achieved. [--> we assess case by case in merits of warrant] We are nevertheless able to determine in many specific types of cases that such a basis is or is not present [p.19] . . . . Knowledge, but not mere belief or feeling, generally confers the right to act and to direct action, or even to form and supervise policy. [p. 20, this is a rub in a day of undermining legitimate expertise and authority] In any area of human activity, knowledge brings certain advantages. Special considerations aside, knowledge authorizes one to act, to direct action, to develop and supervise policy, and to teach. It does so because, as everyone assumes, it enables us to deal more successfully with reality: with what we can count on, have to deal with, or are apt to have bruising encounters with [--> as warranted, it is reliable and even credibly the case, so to act contrary to it without good reason is irresponsible]. Knowledge involves assured [--> warranted, credible] truth, and truth in our representations and beliefs is very like accuracy in the sighting mechanism on a gun. If the mechanism is accurately aligned—is “true,” it enables those who use it with care to hit an intended target. [p. 4, Dallas Willard & Literary Heirs, The Disappearance of Moral Knowledge, Routledge|Taylor& Francis Group, 2018. I annotate.]

I assert, this is a strategic pivot for desperately needed, sound reform of our civilisation:

• 

  A Cash Register Receipt is a transaction record
  from good source and chain of custody that
  is usually fair on its face [having no signs
  of fraud or other deceit]. Once such is in
  hand, it is the objector who has a burden
  of warrant to show it not credible.
  

  Knowledge must involve that ordinary people can and often do know, including pure and applied science, credibility of memory and fair on the face record from good chain of custody [requisites to knowledge], etc.
• Knowledge must not be rare, esoteric or absent, in short: knowledge belongs to the people. (And it cannot be a mis-concept: to claim or imply that one knows knowledge is impossible is self defeating.)
  
• This implies that knowledge has a weak, everyday sense, warranted credibly true [so reliable] [but also potentially corrigible] belief; not just utter, undeniable certainty.
• Post Gettier, warrant requires responsible, objective basis, not just personal justification.
• Truth, here, is not opinion but instead is accurate description of reality. In Aristotle's terms, Met 1011b, truth says of what is, that it is; and of what is not, that it is not. 
• Belief implies responsible, bet the farm acceptance as truth. We bet our lives on the pilots, navigators, designers, manufacturers, mechanics and air traffic controllers every time we fly. Sometimes, we lose, but flight -- despite its inherently dangerous nature -- is empirically the safest form of travel on a seat-mile basis.
  
• Where, once we have a definable subject [e.g. mathematics as the study of the logic of structure and quantity], we can readily see that to deny objective knowable truth is to make a knowledge claim about that field, defeating itself by self referential self contradiction.
• This is pivotal, as self referentiality is a key part of addressing big, hard questions, so coherence is a reasonable first test.
• Similarly, claimed bodies of knowledge or schools of thought [research programmes, paradigms, theories etc.] should also strive for factual adequacy, reliable predictive power and explanatory balance -- neither unduly simplistic nor an ad hoc patchwork.
• This extends to moral knowledge, as the claim there is no objective moral knowledge is a claim about morality -- the business of right/wrong, duty/rights, virtue/vice, good/evil, honour/dishonour etc -- and seeks to be taken as objective. Thus, hyperskepticism about moral knowledge defeats itself self referentially.
• Further (as can be shown) our rationality is morally governed through branch on which we all sit, pervasive -- so undeniable and self evident -- first truths of duty, first duties, indeed first law. 
• Building on Cicero's summary in De Legibus, these duties are: to truth, to right reason, to warrant and wider prudence, to sound conscience, to neighbour, so too to fairness and to justice etc.
• The etc allows us to build sound frameworks for law, governance and government.
• In Acts 25:16, Festus, Roman Governor of Judea c 59 AD, gives a case of that etc: " I answered them [The Sanhedrin] that it was not the custom of the Romans to give up anyone before the accused met the accusers face to face and had opportunity to make his defense concerning the charge laid against him."
  

This brings us back to Willard's point "knowledge authorizes one to act, to direct action, to develop and supervise policy, and to teach."

That is, inter alia, knowledge naturally provides capability, credibility and legitimate authority. Thus, too, we see exposed the misanthropic, nihilistic, anti-civilisational nature of cynical selective hyperskepticism and associated irresponsible rhetoric, trollishness, ideologies, politically motivated censorship and willful obtuseness. 

Further to this, adequate warrant therefore confers power, credibility and authority to call for and lead reformation. 

This is pivotal in a day where we are collectively, recklessly dancing on the edge of a crumbling cliff. END

On the Christ-Cornerstone foundation principle (and the 4R framework)

 For some months I have been doing Zoom Bible studies with colleagues, and in that course, I have been highlighting:

This framework leads to unifying the six principles, the NT gospel preachings, the reason for a scripture-based focus, and extension to reformation-minded discipleship. For example:

Here, we see that humanity has now moved beyond the age of ignorance, and how four of the six foundation of discipleship principles are embedded in NT gospel preaching: repentance [so, faith], resurrection and judgement, with of course the other two being part and parcel of church life.

(For American atheistical critics, I am speaking in a Caribbean context, one in which I first learned the Ten Commandments, The Lord's Prayer and the like in school, along with national symbols and songs that are plain. But in fact my context is, given what we see elsewhere and creeping in, it is time for an independent education system resting on the legitimate authority of knowledge resting on sound warrant rather than the decrees of out of control states, media manipulators, lawyers and advocates in academic robes who have blundered by making hyperskepticism take priority over knowledge. Details, later.)

Lay and build on the foundation.

A challenge. END

ANNOUNCEMENT

 For some time, I have been at low ebb on KF.

Given developments internationally and regionally, I intend to ramp up activity here, to address a range of issues.

So, DV, let's roll. END

You're CENSORED,

 . . . you hate-speaking misinformer.

Recently, I had occasion to look at my KF post stream, only to see that a post from Dec 12 2009 was set up as unpublished for alleged violation of community guidelines. It was on the climategate incident and on linked use of armed guards to remove a journalist who questioned a scientist. Let me add overnight, what is the difference between [a] a computer simulation, [b] an actual observation, [c] actual reality? Similarly, what does the "consensus" view of a given day or school of thought imply, given paradigm shifts such as the Copernicus-Galileo-Newton revolution and the rise of modern physics? [So, is "consensus" adequate warrant for scientific claims? As for policy, what does reformation imply about the "consensus" of a given day, especially if there are material, unresolved issues that are sidelined? Did an earlier cross-civilisation, global consensus that slavery was a universal evil that at most could be regulated or ameliorated prove to be unchangeable reality?]

I found it impossible to find a way to communicate with Google, or to find just what specific thought crime I am accused of, on what evidence. That is already a serious breakdown of customer service, ask any MBA. 

Now, I therefore make this post as my way of speaking to Google, who bought Blogger about a decade ago and imposed all sorts of new things, including forcing me to get gmail etc. 

 Here is my problem, as someone using Blogger for 23 years, just about. 

First, when I was being web stalked, doxxed and slandered [including by someone who set up a hate blog at Blogger], my complaint was met with, oh, free speech. Go get a Court Order if you want us to do anything. That is, win a lawsuit first, all the while you are being doxxed, harassed, and more. This includes attempts to hack as well as spam my email, NOT with Google. There was also on the ground stalking all the way out to in laws and including children.

All I could do is turn off comments and go through manually, deleting slander and general harassment. 

That is what I did.

Now, the shoe is on the other foot and what seems to me well  within fair responsible comment on a controversial scientific topic in reach of my qualifications in Science, is censored. By reversion to draft where unlike regular draft I see no way to open an edit and make the adjustments, were that my intent. I know this as there are posts I have edited for ten or more years. So, the ugly implication is something special was set up, forcing delete or else . . . and obviously OUR EYE IS ON YOU.

That is not acceptable, especially as there is no effective means to communicate or appeal.

So, I use this as my only effective means to speak to Google. 

Google, your inconsistent policies need to be reviewed, not just what seems to me a fair comment but politically unwelcome post. 

Google, you need to set up a means to handle complaints, and a means to a fair hearing. 

Basic natural justice. END