In the last post, I described Reformed Philosophy as the philosophy stemming from Reformed Theology. Given this, a problem looms on the horizon. If my philosophy is stemming from Reformed Theology and someone else’s philosophy is stemming from an atheistic theology (pardon any linguistic discomfort), how can we ever reach conflict resolution? In other words, if two philosophical systems are based on different foundational worldviews, how is it possible to come to a resolution? Additionally, I think a similar problem arises for many renditions of basic knowledge. That is, if I take set of principles X to be non-inferentially true but you take Y to be so, how do we level arguments against each other’s position without begging the question?
Now, if conflict resolution is not possible given my rendition of Reformed Philosophy, then that is a heavy strike against it and as such should be reconsidered; however, let me quickly attempt to pose a philosophical methodology to counter this problem. If I am basing my philosophy off of worldview X and you are basing your philosophy off of worldview Y, then I think we can reach conflict resolution if one of us can show that the other’s position leads to absurdity (is unstable, is self-contradiction, etc.) based on its own terms. In other words, if you can show how my philosophy leads to absurdity based on my own premises (presumably found in my worldview X), then we can reach conflict resolution. Now, if it can be shown that there are two different yet equally (fully) viable worldviews, then I will still have a problem on my hands. I am not too concerned about this, however, because I am fairly convinced that the truth will only support at most one fully viable worldview.
February 3, 2008 at 8:04 pm
That certainly explains how a conflict could be resolved. Presumably, after a certain number of conflicts being resolved in this way, the last theory standing would have a pretty good claim to being accepted as true. Of course this wouldn’t be philosophy if I didn’t still have some worries about your very optimistic picture.
Recently I’ve been thinking about the idea of disagreement from a slightly different direction to you. I might put something up on my fledgeling blog in the next day or so.
February 3, 2008 at 9:49 pm
[...] 3, 2008 in Relativism, Truth As noted on Ian Church’s ‘Reformed Philosophy’ blog, there is a prima facie problem for [...]
February 3, 2008 at 11:28 pm
Being a Calvinist, I am rarely accused of optimism
Fantastic points Tom. I do indeed conceive of worldviews as being quite comprehensive (more comprehensive than a specific worldview-adherer may realize). I think my optimism, at least in part, comes from the brand of theism I endorse; just a product of my worldview I suppose. For what it is worth, I think a worldview can be shown to lead to absurdity in several ways, internal inconsistence being one of them. Presumably, if a worldview could be shown to lead to a proposition that, though consistent, was quite contradictory to basic/universal human experience (whatever that means), that would be a strike against it as well. That said, I don’t think this alleviates your concerns.
Again, thanks again for your commentary. You have brought up issues that I will simply have to address in any full promotion of my methodology.
Cheers,
-Ian