2012-05-25
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God of the Rationalists or God of the Empiricists?
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Steven GoldmanPortland State University
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With your
clarification, I understand what you are getting at with regard to atheistic
theologies. In a sense, even a
consistent materialist has a theology -- but 'theology' in this case is roughly
equivalent to cosmology: a general theory of the universe. Socrates would argue that theism and atheism
and cosmology and like studies are all pretty far from the immediate problems
of human ignorance facing moral demands.
Philosophy in Socrates' version is simply the obligation to think. But as we have noted in our discussions
above, if this stripped-down Socratic quest (to become and remain thoughtful)
evolves into a definite philosophy,
such as rationalism or skepticism or empiricism, then this new creation is on a
par with atheisms, theisms, and other isms … categorized as a definite kind of
ism or view. Then the taxonomic work you
are proposing can begin.
The
citation from the Stanford Encyclopedia
begins to argue about what counts as a 'theism' and what an 'adequate idea of
God' might look like. Again I think it
is germane to ask why anyone would
want to make these distinctions. For
centuries, Buddhism was discounted as a religion, and was labeled as a mere
'philosophy,' because (at least in the Theraveda tradition), it lacks any
reference to God. This is an arbitrary
and foolish construction, denying legitimacy to hundreds of millions of people
(who consider themselves to be 'religious' and Buddhism surely a
'religion'). Thus in this case it looks
like the attempt to categorize 'theisms' is a way of reinforcing one idea of
worship and excluding others. It
flattens out the phenomena and refuses to recognize outlying examples that
offend some or other party cause.
Philosophy
descending into 'philosophies' and 'isms' is unproblematic as long as the new
creation (whatever it may be) then becomes a new object of scrutiny and has to
answer the Socratic elenchus and cross-examination. This activity seems to me the core concern of
philosophy, though we often let our curiosity wander off into distant corners
of the intellectual universe. We just
have to learn how to get back to the core concern of thinking.
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