Opinion vs truth

I definitly think it's important. That way you at least have a spring board to jump from. I think it should be an educated opinion and not one based on some random though you had one day sitting on the crapper.

But opinions can break threories and find truth. Without disagreement and dissenting opinions, nothing would be challenged.

Yes. Opinions are important. But they should be the result of curiuosity and imagination leading the quest, so to speak.
Too often it is the truth that breaks and theories are formed that are easier to live with in the daily life, because they do not challenge other notions we might retain and would hate the bother of reviewing.

I'm reminded of a statement sometimes attributed to Karl Popper, sometimes not: "I'm not a positivist, I'm a negativist."

Maybe the way to arrive at an unbiased understanding of an issue is not to suspend one's suspicions about one side or the other, but on the contrary to hold all sides to extreme scrutiny. Rather than treat all sides as valid for the sake of argument, even temporarily, maybe what we should do is treat all sides with skepticism? (And more than temporarily... constantly, I would argue.) When it comes to making sense of something, I think it's better to force all sides to prove their cases rather than temporarily accept them and try to think of flaws... if nothing else, the former approach makes everyone accountable, not just one side or the other.

I see your point. But sceptiscism can also become a prejudice in itself. Especially if it is finely tuned. It often carries with it a burden of pride and self respect that can be a limit to it's objective.
Scepticism needs some form of coherency, and often coherency cannot easily or swiftly be achieved. So I wonder if it would be better sometimes to remain aprehensive?

It certainly can. Like anything, it can be abused. But my guess is that we can't do much more than to trust ourselves not to abuse it. There are those out there who cannot be trusted to exercise self-scrutiny, it's true, but that makes it all the more necessary for us to have our crticial guard up at all times.

I'm not sure I follow you on this "coherency"... could you elaborate?

What I mean is that thoughts are rarely coherently formed. When you ask a question the answer rarely comes in one piece, perfectly worded and coherent. It comes in many pieces, and they fall like rain on a field. There's no telling where the next drop will land.
So the coherency that is displayed by many philosophers is a result of their sceptiscism, not the process they applied it to. They themselves did not reach their conclusions using this tool, and to apply it can sometimes hinder our sight.

I don't know if that was an explanation or another riddle..

I think I understand. Perhaps skepticism shouldn't be thought of as a "method," or at least not something that has a standard set of procedures that one applies to everything. I think it's more just a general attitude, a resolution to take as little as possible on faith (so to speak); whatever idea you are confronted with, you should demand that the idea be justified with convincing reasons for believing it. It is true that philosophers often proceed from the opposite direction: they begin with an idea they would like to believe in, and then show how the world is consistent with it. (This is the only way I can make sense of Leibniz's "monads" or Berkeley's extreme form of idealism, at any rate.) Sometimes this produces good ideas, sometimes it doesn't. But we don't necessarily have to adapt the same line of reasoning as the philosophers we read in order to evaluate their ideas; indeed, it seems to me that the strength of an idea is best tested when it is considered from a viewpoint other than the one that spawned it.

The same is true of idealists that have yet to understand idealism. They have this prefabricated set of rules, and whenever they encounter a problem they try to adapt it to their solution rather than adapting the solution to the problem. Backwards if you ask me.

So it is good to know about communism, capitalism, christianity and all the other ideologies that are out there. Ideals are a good thing. But not when they are held so that they block the view of actual situation.

Any chance either (or both) of you would put a bit of flesh on this "thought!"

I am pretty sure I disagree with you both....but as presently before us, all we've got is a bit of fog.

I'll gladly try. I'll try via example, but the gist of it is this: I think it's a good habit to maintain an attitude of skepticism toward new ideas, whether ours or someone else's, simple as that. I think we should always subject our claims to testing whenever possible (and sometimes it is definitely not); it's the closest we can get to "objectivity." The comment of mine that you quoted was my way of saying that not everyone is willing to subject their claims to testing, or that they do so only selectively.

My most recent example: in the "Religion and Politics" thread over in the Spirituality forum, the claim was made that "Religion never made a bad man good." I disagreed because I know of a few people whose lives were made better by religion. The poster--all right, Sentana--replied that I can't prove it was religion itself that did the trick. (He also replied that religion isn't necessarily the ONLY thing that could have accomplished the same task, but that was an irrelevant point because I never said it was.) Therefore, he continued to assert that "Religion never made a bad man good." Now, I'm just as dubious about the merits of religion as the next guy, but this particular method of debunking doesn't strike me as convincing because it's tautological: even when there's a clear sequence of events (BAD ACTIONS --> FINDING RELIGION --> GOOD ACTIONS), as was the case of my friends, it is always possible to assert that the good actions came from my friends, not from religion. Sentana was objecting on the grounds that a direct causal link can never be proven to exist between FINDING RELIGION and GOOD ACTIONS. And I agree: such a link cannot ever be proven; it can only be inferred.

Which is precisely why I feel you can't use this objection in support of the claim that "Religion never made a bad man good." No matter what the sequence of events shows, he will always be able to insert that trump card. In other words, his objection is specifically designed to evade testing. To require proof where none exists is one thing; to require proof where no testing is even possible is called a tautology. If my pencil falls of the desk, I can speculate that the force of gravity pulled it there. I could also speculate that aliens came into my room, froze time, picked the pencil off the desk, placed it on the floor, left, and unfroze time. No one will ever be able to disprove the second theory because it is, by definition, unobservable; it is a necessary component of the theory that it can always be true. Consequently, it hasn't told us anything useful.

Thank you, Shapeless.

I agree with much of what you said. And without going back to see what Set actually said…and the context of his comments…I would suggest that if you have the scenario correct, he was not being especially "skeptical" in what he was saying…but instead was being dogmatic in a direction other than the direction normally taken with dogma.

In any case, I affirm what I said earlier that I disagree with the notion:



And I do not think that the explanation you gave truly substantiates the assertion presented in the notion.

This may just be a function of a misunderstanding of what was being said…so I'll leave it be unless you see an area that ought to be discussed.

Hee hee... just one disclaimer: my intention was not to rag on Sentana, one of my favorite A2Kers. I just seized the example that was most fresh in my mind. It was actually a choice between that thread and the "Does Anything Artifical Exist" thread from a few weeks ago.

How skeptical are you with regards to your own skepticism?

Frank wrote:


Our scepticism is a product of our accumulated knowledge and our understanding of it. That's why, in some cases, we cannot learn anything through scepticism that we didn't know already, or that corresponds to our current understanding of things.

If I want to learn a new style of painting for instance, I would have an easier time of it if I were to forget everything I know of painting, rather than invoking my scepticism, wich in this case would be a testament of my own pride at my skill.

Skeptical enough to know that positivism has its limits, as I tried to intimate; this is what I meant by "wherever possible."

in answer to the original question:
you are seeking black and white definitions in a world that can only be a million shades!

every single thing we think is our opinion! we can only view the world through our own lenses. from birth we have each had our own experiences that have led us to this point in our lives, and we will only ever see the world as we alone can see it. our "opinion" IS our "truth"!
of course, it is great to take into account other people's views, and by considering their truths, our truths may eventually change, but in the end each one of us has to decide what we believe to be true, based on our lives/experiences.

and i firmly believe that it is possible for people to hold opposing views and both be right -- because in their mind, and based on their experiences, this is their truth.

Re: in answer to the original question:


It is easy to uphold this belief when we're discussing opinions about, say, religious creeds or sexual preferences. It's much harder when we're discussing opinions about, say, the ability of a bridge to support automobiles or whether the cashier owes you $1 or $2 in change.

tigersheart.

Not all thoughts are opinions.
Not all opinions are thoughts.

We are not seeking black and white definitions, or at least, I am not. I am not seeking pealed potatoes. I'm seeking a sharp potato pealer.

i beg to differ
shapeless: cyracuz asked about an issue, not a math problem.

cyracuz: all thoughts ARE opinions -- because every single thought you have is colored by your past experiences... and in order to have an opinion about something, you must first form a thought in order to express it...

all i am saying is that in your initial question, you are asking others to answer a question only you yourself can answer. only you will know whether or not you have done enough research on an issue for yourself to be satisfied with the conclusion you reach. and only you will know whether or not your opinions are interfering with your reasearch on any given subject...the only "truth" you will obtain about any subject is your own truth, the one that makes sense to you.

and you must also realize that the only thought anyone can give you on any particular issue is their opinion. and that's all i'm giving you too -- my opinion. it's up to you whether you take it or leave it...