I think Reason belongs in both the Values and the Sources sections!
For one thing, many people may look only at the Values section, which will likely be displayed prominently in our churches, on bookmarks and brochures, as was done with the Principles. Many members joined and felt they belonged in the UU church because of the 4th Principle.
Also, reason can and does call for action as I see it. I state it simply in my proposed amendment:
REASON: We search for truth and meaning, informed by both reason and values. We covenant to search responsibly, thoughtfully considering the results of science and other evidence, while remaining open to new ideas and othersâ viewpoints. Motivated by wonder, curiosity, and compassion, we strive to use our capacity for reason to engender better outcomes for all in our interconnected world.
Could we renumber your versions 1 and 2 to be 1a and 1b, as mine are 2a and 2b? (I think 2c was somewhat of an intermediate draft which no longer needs to be there.)
Thank you! Iâm so glad weâre keeping this discussion alive.
LeRae
LeRae, what a BEAUTIFUL statement! Truly,
Bek
Do we have enough people participating / are we close to wrapping it up to go forward? Iâll have one last opportunity to share and hear from my congregation and delegates Sunday.
As you mention
The revision of Article II as it currently stands will eliminate both the Principles and the Sources. If the Sources are no longer referenced, and we want Reason to be included in Article II, then it should be considered a Value.
Reason is not just an abstract noun; it is a verb, and the commissioning of a newly conceptualized Article II took place because our current Principles and Sources were deemed to be idealistic, rather than active. The 8th Principle was an effort to state clearly that UUs donât just talk a good game; we act on it, too. Reasoning is an action. It belongs among our stated Values.
Blockquote
Hi LeRae, I was very confused by the rearrangements of the Google Doc weâve been working on, because my suggested revision of your last suggestion got moved to the beginning of the document. Iâve revised the Google Doc such that my suggested revision now appears as #3 at the bottom of the document. Please take a look and continue to revise.
Do you want us to revise each othersâ? Iâll go look at it, and see what I might do. I donât want to mess up the doc again.
âReasoningâ is an action in the same way âthinkingâ is an action. Yes, itâs a verb, but you can think as much and as logically as you want, but that wonât change the world until you act externally.
If the âvaluesâ are supposed to be the actions which make us better people and a better world, then âthinking the right wayâ doesnât cut it for me because I donât believe in orthodoxy. And iif one manages to âdo the right thingâ without thinking about it logically at all (or because they think their God wants them to), maybe thatâs their loss, but I donât think that makes their actions less righteous.
I can see LeRaeâs point, conflating âreasonâ with the âfree and responsible search for truthâ, but for me, pluralism is about the fact that no one humanâs perspective can possibly contain the whole truth â that all the worldâs religions hold some element of truth. If the free and open search for truth was purely rational, it seems like everyone should have come to the same answer â universal, non-subjective consistency is supposed to be the advantage of reason, isnât it?
Who said anything about it being:
?
This effort to include Reason among the proposed UU Values is not about absolutism, or right vs. wrong, or choosing sides, or anything divisive. Please do not characterize it as such. All too often, we allow ourselves to be drawn into the bi-polar thinking that has come to define the current political climate. Please donât frame this as an all-or-nothing proposition. It is a âyes, andâ proposition, and when I initially proposed adding Reason as a Value, it always was about being inclusive of multiple perspectives.
Hi LeRae,
I didnât think we were working on two separate proposals. My understanding of the idea behind starting the Google Doc was to take the best of both proposals and blend them into one. I got confused when it seemed that there was no blending going on.
If you want to continue to work simply on your own wording, I donât have a problem with that, but I donât understand why you would need the Google Doc in order to do that. You can continue to work on your own version outside of the Google Doc if blending our two proposals is not what you had in mind. I was just trying to facilitate a collaborative environment.
I was referring to LeRaeâs rephrasing of pluralism as being explicitly tied to reason; if we describe it this way,
We search for truth and meaning, informed by both reason and values⊠considering the results of science and other evidence
then weâre describing the search for truth as rational, and not describing it any other way â no need to explore the rich variety of spiritual or even, dare say, theological traditions of the world.
We have no creed or doctrine, or any other document to state what weâre about or what we believe, so if we donât say it here, then we donât say it anywhere, even if that omission was unintentional.
For that reason also, we absolutely need reason and science to be included in Article II in some way, but I donât want to include it by implicitly pushing out all the spiritual language. Iâm only partially convinced that reason is a âvalueâ in the same way ârespect for inherent worthâ or âpersonal transformationâ are, but including it there is certainly better than not at all.
I did have that in mind, thatâs what I really wanted to do, but I ran into a deadline with my congregationâs article II meetings. The delegates meet tomorrow and will need to determine which and how many amendments to bring to GA. Meanwhile, several people both in and beyond my congregation have encouraged me to go with what I have.
Yesterday a group at church reiterated their concerns about Pluralism and now I feel I should be working on that, and fast!!
Iâve been working with a group collaborating on equity. That has been time-consuming but rewarding, although I think I should have spent more time on my top priorities.
I appreciate your contributions! Iâll get back to you right after Tuesday.
In good conscience I just couldnât go another day without responding to you, but now itâs back to work!
If we do end up with two versions, I hope to find someone who knows whether a delegate can vote for more than one amendment on a topic like reason so they show strong support for the idea.
Caveat to all: I do not oppose inserting âReasonâ into the list of Values (as @cdenario Christine and @Concerned LeRae suggested) and/or in the Sources (as @peckalec Alec suggested, assuming the Sources appear in a revised Article).
And I do like the suggested formulations regarding Reason by both @cdenario and @Concerned .
That said, I feel derelict in responding to questions by @Janet on this thread regarding non-Aristotelian logic. I intend to follow up on that task now.
First, thank you, Janet, for your comments and questions. I understand that the topic may feel challenging to parse out. We live in a world so deeply enmeshed in Aristotelian binary thinking that it feels difficult to imagine other logics, other ways of thinking even while binary logic fares poorly in helping us address simple daily-basis events. We know of night and day but how do we categorize a shifting twilight? Can the binary logic of âEither/Orâ adequately explain how we actually reason (much less help us navigate highly charged social complexities such as intersex bodies or transracialist identities)?
I donât know but I remain unconvinced.
Rather, it seems to me that Aristotleâs binary dualism builds on a fundamental fiction: the idea that we can always completely separate everything (or ever separate anything?) into discrete, mutally exclusive, and sufficiently static units for analysis.
Aristotle applied this dualism to people, animals, and society. By doing so, he socially engineered a hierarchical patriarchy and divisive polarity that was rooted in his internal values and biases against others: The items he ordained to have more worth became 1s, and those of lesser importance 0s. When it came to women, for example, he wrote, âThe relation of male to female is by nature a relation of superior to inferior and ruler to ruled.â
Alas, Aristotleâs hierarchical classification system got implemented into AI, load-weighting in favor of men like him. The very system on which all modern technology is built contains the artefacts of sexism from 2,000 years ago.
1 = true = rational = right = male
0 = false = emotional = left = female
âŠAristotleâs biased ranking is now being looped and reinforced by more than 15 million engineers, without them being aware of its binary and undemocratic origins.
That may seem a bit of a sidetrack but I think it connects to the overall question of logic, the presumed ideal (and innocence) of âobjectivityâ, and the ways in which our society (including the UUA) seems very much lost in terms of how we relate to one another and the world at large (whether to human animals, nonhuman animals, or habitats).
Now to your specific questions:
I didnât say objectivity had more link to emotion than any other quest. Rather, unlike many other quests, advocates of âobjectivityâ often try to portray it as purely rational and detached from emotion. I just meant my comment to observe that, like other quests, the quest for objectivity also has roots in emotion. And that many of us strongly desire to believe in âobjectivityâ as a sort of solid ground to stand upon in turbulent times as we struggle toward âsolving problems in this worldâ. And that this desire can bias our views of discourse around âobjectivityâ and its supposed binary opposites: âweâ (advocates of objectivity) vs. âthemâ (advocates of partisanship, superstition, prejudice, bias, and so on).
Yet, many of the most critical debates do not fall into âfalsifiableâ categories where âobjectivityâ would help (for example, abortion, A.I., or nuclear weapon debates do not turn on objective science versus superstitious belief but on differing interpretations of generally agreed upon facts. See @peckalec on this thread who made a similar point). Indeed, âemotionâ provides another example of a supposedly discrete and separate unit that we think we can separate from âreasonâ. Neuroscientist Antonio Damasioâs book Descartesâ Error seemed to illustrate quite well how we cannot and do not separate reason from emotion when we think and make decisions.
Countless cultures apply non-Aristotelian logic (such as paradox or aporia) in practical ways that help people grasp the fact that we (and other âthingsâ) can co-exist in two different (sometimes seemingly contradictory) categories at the same time (see, for example, Arvind-Pal Mandairâs discussion on the topic in Religion and the Specter of the West: Sikhism, India, Postcoloniality, and the Politics of Translation, 2009). Sometimes these logics help people navigate seemingly contradictory categories such as identifying as âparentâ and âchildâ at the same time or as âcitzenâ and ânon-citizenâ depending upon whom one happens to speak to.
Or think, for example, how we can conceive of ourselves (correctly or not), as a single monistic entity (Universe, God, Nature, whatever) and, at the same time, a seemingly independent unit within that entity/unity (consisting of countless smaller units such as âcellsâ, âmoleculesâ, and âparticlesâ).
Take, for example, Native cultures that chose to recognize salmon as animals and a sacred food source but also as a distinct and respected people. As written in Rebecca Tsosieâs discussion on Native peoples in the Pacific Northwest (âIndigenous Peoples and Epistemic Injustice: Science, Ethics, and Human Rightsâ):
most traditional Native societies did not separate their systems of thought into separate domains of âreligion,â âphilosophy,â and âscience,â although their epistemologies contain all of those functions. To the contrary, many Native societies operate within a holistic understanding of the rules and responsibilities that govern the relations between people and all components of the natural world, whether human or non-human. This functional interdependency often influences tribal governance structures.
Many Native societies (such as A:shiwi/Zuni, Naabeehó Diné/Navajo, and Néhinaw/Cree) largely evaded the societal conflicts we now face regarding transsexualism precisely because they did not believe in the strict gender binaries so dominant in Europe and the US: rather than stuff human diversity into rigid, binary categories, they adapted their social categories to biological and social realities. Quite practical, right?
If one looks beyond our own paradigmatic assumptions and relatively insular culture, one finds no shortage of such examples. If anything, the false assumption implicit in Aristotelian logic that we can or should divide everything into discrete, separate, Either/Or, and non-contradictory categories seems more like a societal outlier (and possibly a sign of mass psychosis and collective detachment from reality) than a norm for human cultures.
The worldâs two most populous countries, China and India, have traditionally embraced aspects of non-Aristotelian logic. Conceptions of yin and yang embody the principle of contradiction as well as interwoven and ever-transitioning complementarity. Similarly, conceptions of Brahman simultaneously connote multiplicity and diversity as well as existential unity. Both traditions have enabled and oriented people to appreciate these basic realities of existence while undertaking pragmatic tasks toward âpractical resultsâ. They have helped people consider the impacts of their decisions on themselves, all their relations, their habitats, and future generations rather than inordinately focusing upon the supposed primacy and illusory separateness of the individual and âpersonal satisfactionâ (implicitly encouraged by both Aristotelian logic and the ideology of modern economics).
Certainly the idea of the Trinity seems non-Aristotelian. But Iâd question whether or not this constitutes a form of âlogicâ that helps us understand and communicate about fundamental relationships in the world or if it amounts more to a type of fantastical narrative myth (more akin to Athena born out of the head of Zeus or the walking trees in Lord of the Rings than the conceptions of Brahman and yin/yang). Even if the Trinity performs a particularly useful task in merging Judeo-monotheism with Christian belief in the divinity of Jesus, it seems more like pragmatic rhetoric than applicable logic.
But I donât know. Maybe the conception of Jesus as both God and human helps provide an ethical logic to daily struggles and helps people navigate the sacrifices they choose to make (or not make) for one another? Please do share if you can shed some light on this.
Finally, I hear your statement:
But I donât really understand how that would necessarily help us orient ourselves in the world any better than, say, yin and yang. While, at the same time, I do recall how European colonialists have long used the myth of scientific âobjectivityâ to justify eradication of indigenous cultures and occupation of Native land.
Besides, if objectivity seems like an illusion (and to me it does), I donât know what it means to aspire toward that. Cambridge English dictionary defines âobjectivityâ as âbased on facts and not influenced by personal beliefs or feelingsâ. Stanford defines âscientific objectivityâ as âa property of various aspects of science. It expresses the idea that scientific claims, methods, resultsâand scientists themselvesâare not, or should not be, influenced by particular perspectives, value judgments, community bias or personal interests, to name a few relevant factors. Objectivity is often considered to be an ideal for scientific inquiry, a good reason for valuing scientific knowledge, and the basis of the authority of science in society.â
These ideas sound reasonable, at least in certain relatively narrow contexts, and yet:
(1) âfactsâ do not appear except within the production of meaning by the frameworks (scientific, social, economic, and otherwise) that give them their meaning. I donât think we have division in society or in the UUA because people disagree about whether 5 X 7 = 35. I believe we have division, in large part, because the âfactsâ prioritized by some people and classes serve their interests to believe over and above the âfactsâ that serve others. For some people, the cost of basic food items remains a very relevant âfactâ. However, for people who have a lot more money (and subsequently more power to do something about it), such a âfactâ has less relevance, less priority, and less urgency. We have divisions because, as @peckalec noted, we may all very much rely on reason but use different values or priorities to drive our reasoning (and corresponding selection of âfactsâ) in different directions.
And (2): âthe idea that scientific claims, methods, resultsâand scientists themselvesâare not, or should not be, influenced by particular perspectives, value judgments, community bias or personal interestsâ sounds, again, to me like an ideological myth that fills a key ideological function by masquerading the economic, racist, and elitist interests that have always driven âscienceâ ever since the so-called Enlightenment, through mass enslavement, genocide, and colonialism, and up to the current phase of mass extinction and virtually wholesale addiction to electronic screentime, fuel consumption, and other toxic habits that collectively threaten life as we know it. Similar words of purported nonpartisanship, academic detachment, and objectivity fueled the fabrication of jet fighters, napalm, land mines, white phosphorous, depleted uranium, atomic bombs, and cybernetic surveillance devices implanted into animals as if institutions of âscienceâ somehow existed independent [again, the myth of discrete and separate units] from the hyper-violent societies that organized and sustained them.
For such reasons (no pun intended) and more, I feel that we tend to place undue emphasis on the power of âReasonâ (or any stated words, principles, or creeds) to help extricate us from our current morass of inequality, injustice, and quickly escalating crises (whether war, A.I., hunger, resource depletion, extinctions, social conflict, or ecocide).
I acknowledge my own role in the charade as the energy Iâve spent and the electricity Iâve consumed in writing these words have caused more ecological damage than they seem likely to merit or compensate for. And yet, I still write.
Changing our words comes (relatively) easy.
Changing our behaviors, relationships, routines, lifestyles, and organizations?
Another matter altogether.
Thank you for that long, eloquent, thoughtful reply. I look forward to having a little free time to respond in kind.
In the meantime, off the top of my head:
Blockquote But I donât really understand how t [trying to be objective] would necessarily help us orient ourselves in the world any better than, say, yin and yang.
When I read something like this, I feel like throwing up my hand in the nicest possible way, of course.
Do you honestly believe that using yin and yang in medicine is just as effective as, say, using admittedly imperfectly yet still evidence-based Western medicine? I am assuming that since you donât think objectivity and the science that builds upon this value is any better than non-western medicine, you donât bother going to Western-trained doctors.
But, wait, what? But everyone does this all the time in every culture. There is no paradox here. No one anywhere sees themselves or anything as one thing or in only one way. You donât think that people all over the world in all cultures see themselves sometimes as parents, sometimes as citizens, etc? I donât see anything special going on here and certainly not anything that we need to throw out the notion of objectivity for.
But the issue of more or less â of degree â is extremely important. No one is claiming that there is no desire for comfort involved in the search for objectivity. Surely there is some. What is important is that there is much more desire for comfort in religious and other turns away from objectivity.
This is one huge problem with poststructuralism, BTW and the theories that have grown out of it. There is no way of theorizing degree. And degree is what matters.
I have found your other arguments unconvincing as well, and will hopefully have time to write more in the next few weeks. However, maybe it is true that since you donât value objectivity and reason, you arenât committed to making convincing arguments.
Also, while we are at it: Why should I feel motivated to spend my time trying to reason with you when you deny the importance of objectivity? Since my time (like everyoneâs) is valuable, I greatly prefer to discuss ideas with people who argue in good faith. But since you reject the importance of objectivity and donât seem to care about degree, why should I even start with the assumption that you are trying to adequately and faithfully represent the argument of your sources?
Thank you for your extended comment. After following amendments since February with some concern, and Iâll admit it, fear, your comments, make me smile and give me confidence in Unitarian Universalists.
Reason distinguishes us from New Age faith movements. UUs promote reason and science, and doing so assures prospective new members that they are not going to be told what to think by church leaders. If there were one word I would like to see on the facade of my church, one word that would tell people what kind of church we are, it would be âscienceâ or âreasonâ.
Science has been restored in the final version of our Sources amendment. Maybe you could pass this on to delegates at your congregation for whom this is important, @JonathanTSeattle ? The last editing that happened yesterday had especially heavy input from people with very diverse views, including humanists, delegates from my congregation who are members of our Racial Justice Change Team, etc. We did our very best to synthesize and reconcile all the considerations, and our final draft and a document for delegates to sign onto in support may be seen near the bottom of this thread:
#147 | Janet Leavens | Add Depth, Breadth, and Specificity - Article II Amendment Idea Submissions / Amendment Ideas - UUA General Assembly Business
Great work. But the values in general are too verbose, unclear and not memorable. and Iâd replace Transformation or Generosity with Reason
Hello again Christine and everyone on this thread! The delegates from my congregation, UUCLB, voted to submit the Reason amendment as our congregation wanted.
REASON: We search for truth and meaning, informed by both reason and values. We covenant to search responsibly, thoughtfully considering the results of science and other evidence, while remaining open to new ideas and othersâ viewpoints. Motivated by wonder, curiosity, and compassion, we strive to use our capacity for reason to engender better outcomes for all in our interconnected world.
If you or another delegate would like to support it, here is the link. Thank you for your contributions to our discussions! Itâs encouraging to see so many UUs care about including reason.
Thank you, @Janet , for sharing your thoughts again. I suspect that we agree on more than you (want to?) think.
I referred to orienting ourselves in the world (by which I meant how we make decisions, often ethical, in relation to one another and life at large) and did not mean specifically the question of medicine.
Interestingly, however, your example brings a seemingly important point to light: Aristotelian logic (as I understand it) assumes static, universally understood, and stable identities in order to make logical statements such as âall A belong to category B and if all B > C then all A > Câ.
But in daily language we use words that carry multiple nuances and various meanings that betray such assumptions. The examples of âobjectivityâ and âmedicineâ illustrate this quite well.
When I wrote âobjectivityâ I meant âthe ideology of objectivityâ but you apparently read âobjectivityâ to mean âscienceâ, practices of empirical and experimental research, and, in this case, âevidence-based Western medicineâ.
Indeed, some people may read âWestern medicineâ and think of curing people from cancer, tuberculosis or smallpox vaccinations, or healing through antibiotics. Other people may read âWestern medicineâ and think of Big Pharma and a profit-based, largely bureaucratic medical industry (that kills an extraordinary number of people due to medical error). Some may think of the U.S. medical system where a lack of definition of âhealthâ contributes to underprioritizing preventive care.
So I feel eager to hear how you understand âobjectivityâ in relation to âWestern medicine.â Take, for example, the prescription of opioids. How do you (and how could you) know which factor primarily determines the quantity of opioids prescribed by a resident to a patient? Class? Race? Gender? Pain severity? Personal preference of the medical professional? If fentanyl addiction alone kills more than 100,000 people in the United States each year, upon what evidence do we base our trust when any given doctor makes a prescription for medicine?
Or, in another example, does it seem âobjectiveâ to you that, in gathering medical evidence, short-sighted pharmaceutical industries callously decimate populations of horseshoe crabs? Even their nameâa misnomer as they have more in common with arachnids than crabsâraises the question of objectivity: who gave this 440 million year old species that name? And would not a name such as âshelled eldersâ more adequately reflect and protect them? Instead, we accept a name (really, an insult) that indicates that they do not matter enough for us to describe them accurately. (Where have we seen that domination tactic before?)
Likewise, some people may read âyin-yangâ in relation to health care and think âflaky homeopathic treatments and other placebos that have no scientific support.â Other people may read the same words and think âintegration of meditation and silence into daily habits, balancing a vegetarian diet with exercise such as Tai Chi, resting properly, spending time among trees and natural habitats, and practicing active tranquilityâ (all things that have scientific support for sustaining mental and physical health).
Furthermore, your pitting of the one versus the other suggests precisely the sort of Either/Or assumptions explicit in Aristotelian logic that I critiqued earlier because, in this case, as in much of life, we can choose Both/And. Yin-yang seems, to me, to express that option. It inherently addresses proportionality and balance rather than asserting that one must choose this culture or that culture, this logic or that logic, this medical approach or that one.
Does this statement exemplify you striving toward âobjectivityâ?
Would living in the U.S. rather than China qualify as an objective or subjective parameter that impacts whether the concept of opting for traditional Chinese approach to health makes you feel nauseous or curious?
(For the record, however, I did not express my medical preferences but nor would I personally describe âWestern medicineâ as âobjectiveâ).
I did not mean that anything extraordinary takes place there, just that Aristotelian logic does not readily equip us in daily life to navigate real life situations when we act as both parent and child at the same time, when we love/dislike someone at the same time, or when we identify as both a citizen and a non-citizen depending upon which government authority one happens to speak with. (Arvind-Pal Mandair once provided an example of defining Sikhism as legally both a âreligionâ and ânot a religionâ depending upon the court case at hand).
You say âthrow out the notionâ as if it exists and then we get rid of it. But where does it exist? Do you mean in trivial senses (such as âwe agree âobjectivelyâ that a foot equals 12 inchesâ, or âmost cats have fur,â or âwe live on a spherical planetâ)? Or do you see âobjectivityâ (not just reason) exist in any meaningful way in public discourse?
If by âobjectivityâ we mean fairness or accepting the results of an experiment rather than fudging the results to get a result we desire, then I donât know of any culture (or even any poststructuralist) who would disagree. The same goes for bringing in relatively uninterested third parties for assessing disputes. No one here argues against that.
@JonathanTSeattle wrote:
I donât know if claiming to promote âscienceâ or âreasonâ in themselves guarantee not having anyone tell someone what to think (just ask a Scientologist who claims to believe in both âreasonâ and âscienceâ). Besides, some UUs do hold beliefs akin to âNew Age faith movementsâ. But, if âreasonâ helps communicate something (and I believe it does), I fail to see what we might further gain from believing in âobjectivity.â Perhaps you could enlighten me?
To me, striving toward some mythical state of unattainable âobjectivityâ (a âGodâs eye viewâ or âview from nowhereâ) strikes me as eerily similar to a Baptistâs belief in the perfection of Jesus Christ and the duty of us âsinnersâ to strive toward His unattainable perfection. Should we find that surprising? Many of those who developed the myth of an âobjectiveâ science that would save all of us from everything primitive (especially heathen superstitions) grew up in Bible-thumping colonialist societies whether Catholic, Lutheran, Anglican, or Puritan.
And if the ideology of âobjectivityâ serves to mask individual and institutional bias (apparent, for example, in the court system) and it surreptitiously translates into Eurocentrism and assuming that all societies should turn to the so-called Enlightenment for guidance in terms of organizing society, then yes, I do believe we could benefit from scrapping it.
Of course, degree matters quite a lot in terms of things that we can measure (such as extent of household waste, number of cars on the road, or square-foot of space allotted an animal or person in incarceration). But, unless you can tell me how to measure something as mystical as âobjectivity,â I donât know how we can make the measurement of degree useful there.
Interesting. Have you looked into this question? Would you say that, for example, this Poststructuralist Lifestyle Analysis (1997) article does not theorize degree? If not, how do you reason?
Ironically, philosophers have more traditionally critiqued Aristotelian logic for insufficiently addressing the question of degree. For example, the ancient sorites paradox (sorites=Greek for âheapâ) built upon the characterization of a âheap of sandâ as remaining a âheap of sandâ when one removes a single grain. The paradox arose when, after removing a single grain at a time repeatedly thousands and thousands of times and reducing it to nothing, one could ask (without receiving a clear answer): at which point did it no longer qualify as a âheap of sandâ?
As an article in New Scientist wrote earlier this year:
[The sorites paradox] is often used as evidence that classical logic might be insufficient to describe the world around us. That is troubling because, though we donât pay it much attention, logic runs through human knowledge as if it were a stick of rock. We assume that we can build up a sequence of facts into systems of thought. But if logic itself is lacking, where does that leave us? Paradoxes start with a premise that seems true, apply reasoning that also seems valid, but end up at a false or contradictory conclusion. As a result, many paradoxes force us to question what we think we know. They come in different varieties, some more difficult to explain away than others.
âŠOne solution to the sorites paradox is to admit that terms are sometimes too vague to be useful outside of everyday conversation. But some philosophers argue that logic itself needs a refresh. One approach is to say that there are different degrees of truth. Take the case of my hair removal. Halfway through the process of plucking, I am still not bald, but I am less ânot baldâ than I was at the start. Fuzzy logic, a kind of computing using degrees of truth rather than 1s and 0s, was introduced by computer scientist Lotfi Zadeh in 1965.
In other words, addressing complex questions of degree has spurred thinkers to develop forms of logic beyond the conventional binary dualism found in Aristotle.
Could your feeling unconvinced possibly have anything to do with a less-than-careful consideration of my words? After all, you wrote that I âdonât value objectivity and reason.â When did I say that I did not value reason? In fact, I explicitly expressed support for Le Raeâs and Christineâs formulations regarding reason, and I apply reasoning in my communication with you. Again, do your remarks here reflect you âstriving toward objectivityâ?
I cannot say what motivates you nor what you should or should not do. But if you see faith in âobjectivityâ as a requirement for engaging in dialogue, then I leave it to you to draw your own conclusions there.
Personally, I think we mean different things by the term. You seem to equate âobjectivity,â with ânon-biasedâ whereas I think of it as âbias-masquerading-as-non-biased.â I suspect that if you defined the term as I do, or if I defined it as you do, then we would actually agree (at least more than we have seemed to do thus far).
So do I. And yet, your implication that I do not, illustrates for me the futility in believing that, by inserting certain words in our bylaws or Principles, we shall somehow resolve problems such as the two of us now experience. You feel committed to reason. I feel committed to reason. We both attempt to apply reason in our communication with one another. And yet, it seems that we have not only remained stuck but you even seem to interpret my rather extensive commitment to communicate as a lack of âgood faith.â
If you genuinely feel that I do not act in good faith, then I feel perfectly willing to cease wasting your time any further. I trust you only participate so long as it feels constructive.
(Does âBeloved Communityâ look like this? Or does the repeated use of phrases such as âBeloved Communityâ and the entire project of revising Article II amount to little more than desperate attempts to resolve chronic relational crises and endemic structural conflicts through comparatively easier challenges such as repeating or changing words rather than lifestyles, paradigms, institutions, or relationships?)
No one said that you should do anything and, as I wrote above, I do care about degree. But if you want to know if I âadequately and faithfully represent the argument of [my] sourcesâ then you can check. I provided my sources so that you (and everyone else) could do precisely that. And, âobjectivelyâ speaking, I think we could agree that âscienceâ typically uses this method of citing sources for people to corroborate data and messages rather than basing conclusions solely upon the authority of someoneâs claim.
Finally, as none of my other arguments seemed convincing to you, I shall draw now inspiration from your own amendment proposal, #147, Add Depth, Breadth, and Specificity, in which you affirm and promote:
Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder [âŠ] which renews our spirit; [and] Religions and spiritual traditions which [âŠ] center love, justice, and harmony with one another and with nature. Ethically informed science and reasoned inquiry, which ⊠[reveal] the awe-inspiring diversity and beauty of nature.
(I only quoted the ânatureâ sections but I do appreciate your proposed formulation as submitted on June 4th, 2023).
If you do not view claims of âobjectivityâ as Eurocentric then maybe you could acknowledge them as anthropocentric?
If we agree that âobjectivityâ means âbased on facts and not influenced by personal beliefs or feelings,â can we also agree that the biases of language, culture, class, stature, gender, experience, and species unconsciously shape the cognitive lens through which we select, prioritize, and view all âfactsâ?
For me, those feelings of mystery and wonder that you mentioned humble me in the face of eco-system, plant, fungi, and animal intelligences of which I comprehend virtually nothing.
And if I cannot comprehend them, then how could I possibly organize them into parameters from which to conceive a hypothetically âneutralâ place of âobjectivityâ?
Elizabeth Jakob, a spider expert, said (in article linked above):
We donât have to look to aliens from other planets ⊠We have animals that have a completely different interpretation of what the world is right next to us.
My ignorance, body, and social location seems to invariably doom me to at least some degree of human arrogance and anthropocentric biasâeven by assuming a human-nature binary that, along Aristotelian lines, conceptually segregates âmeâ from âthem.â Me giving lip service to eco-centric perspectives cannot rescue me from my humancentric cognition, language, and experience.
And I donât even have an octopus teacher (or similar animal acquaintance) to put me in check when I cross boundaries. (Although I appreciate it when other humans help me see those boundaries).
As Adam Kirsch wrote in the article linked above on animal intelligence:
Only humans commit atrocities such as war, genocide and slaveryâand what allows us to conceive and carry out such crimes is the very power of reason that we boast about.
And likewise, Justin Gregg, specialist in dolphin communication, cited in the same article, wrote:
Earth is bursting with animal species that have hit on solutions for how to live a good life in ways that put the human species to shame. [âŠ] The planet does not love us as much as we love our intellect. We have generated more death and destruction for life on this planet than any other animal, past and present. Our many intellectual accomplishments are currently on track to produce our own extinction.
It seems tragically ironic that Aristotle regarded only humans, among all living creatures, as possessing a rational soul. (Spoken like a true anthropocentrist.)
How could we even possibly come up with an âobjectiveâ means of assessing intelligence, measuring happiness, treating addiction, building homes, resolving a headache, or designing a city park? Do we, in those pursuits, include perspectives from A.I., animals, indigenous people, plants, or hypothetical spirits when we make such determinations (in order to expose and correct the implicit biases of our own feelings and beliefs upon the âfactsâ)? Also, which animals, which indigenous people, to which degree and how? (I would expect scholars in those respective fields to feel eager to hear about any concrete suggestions).
In sum, I do reject the ideology of âobjectivity,â which I see as the deceptive pretense that the scientific industrial-capital complex has not brought us (and continues to bring) massive weapons of untold horror and violence, a global pandemic of toxic addictions, the automated objectification and ruthless exploitation of animal and plant life (alongside intellectual and cultural theft through copyright laws and patents), and brought much of the life on our entire planet to (or over) the precipice of destruction.
I do reject the ideology of âobjectivityâ and the scientific industrial-capital complex that promises to relieve us of all of those problems and crises that they and the false pretense of âobjectivityâ delivered. This does not mean that I reject scientific methods nor that I oppose research yet a blunt Aristotelian binary filter that separates the world into âpro-scienceâ and âanti-scienceâ might perceive it that way. (Not just degree seems important here but nuance as well.)
I also wholeheartedly embrace reason and I would hope that seemed self-evident long prior to now. I thank you again for this opportunity for fruitful exchange.
Yet, I wonder, will changing our bylaws help improve difficult conversations such as these in any way?
And, if so, how?