Friday, April 16, 2010

The best kind ...

... Fruitful Tensions. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

One cannot be a philosopher unless one believes that at least some important truths are attainable or at least approachable by dialectical and argumentative means. Thus there is no place in philosophy for the misologist, the hater of reason, and his close relative the fideist. Reasoning and argument loom large in philosophy . . . .

I am no fideist and I certainly believe some important truths are approachable by dialectical and argumentative means. But I doubt if reason is the decisive factor in arriving at the truth, and I do not "favor reason over experience and tradition, the universal over the particular, the global over the local, the impersonal over the personal."

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