Here is where we disagree. I believe there is a universal scale of objective value which holds true even if man on earth no longer exists. It can be remembered when objective conscience is sufficiently developed. If true the question becomes how to remember.Skepdick wrote: ↑Sun Jan 19, 2020 10:20 amThe reason it "causes trouble" is because "the essential question" is unanswerable. Which in simple language means: no subject can transcend their subjectivity to arrive at objectivity.Nick_A wrote: ↑Sat Jan 18, 2020 6:02 pm The essential question of philosophy. How can we transcend the domain of opinions and partial truths so as to experience the whole truth. Plato said we must remember them. But to discuss this idea honestly in secular society is too disturbing and causes trouble.
We all aspire towards Platonism - we all fail at it.
Seeming as "objectivity" is a subjective construct, and "values" are inherently subjective it seems to me that "objective values" are a double oxymoron..
From where I am looking (the skeptic-agnostic chair) both secularism and theism are two sides of the same coin. Dogmatism.
The entire game of "having beliefs" is dogmatism - so I've given all of mine up. So I've traded in all my "beliefs" in exchange for methods which are instrumental to my goals.
Can there be a method for remembrance which corresponds to your goals greater than pragmatism? I believe so and also know why its basis in reality must be rejected by worldly secularism only concerned with transient pragmatism.
Do you recognize the potential for a perennial philosophy? If you do, can our species as a collective consciously evolve so as to understand it and express it or is it doomed to an eternal debate over opinions with only a small minority of individuals consciously growing to experience it?
The Perennial philosophy (Latin: philosophia perennis), also referred to as perennialism and perennial wisdom, is a perspective in spirituality that views all of the world's religious traditions as sharing a single, metaphysical truth or origin from which all esoteric and exoteric knowledge and doctrine has grown.