However, I do think it still helps to get at the root of the issue. That is the fundamental assumption by which you start your process of reason. For them, its common sense. Trust you eyes, they say.
Once you are at this level, it would seem reasonable to question whether there are any other bases from which one should reason.
If one is of a mind to say that the superiority of trusting your own eyes is self-evident and a bullet-proof form of logic, then I would have to say I am pretty negative about the prospects for detente.
One of the examples Kant used of a self evident was God, another was time. Both are self evident despite the fact no one can show you a bucket of blue time. I looked 'time' up once, the definition went, 'A systematic series of sequential events'. For me that indicated time was actually a system, it had to be invented not discovered.
Whet my appetite? That is like a cup and a half of wheat germ dumped on your fruit loots with nothing to wash it down! I hear the Russians put sawdust in their bread in the siege of Stalingrad. The metaphorical possibilities are endless.
I'm going to go way out and a limb and say you don't really like Kant. I was introduced to philosophy and ancient Greece by reading
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It's the story of a man who had an off the charts IQ and at the University of Chicago he suffered a nervous breakdown (went crazy). The depression was so sever that had to give him electric shock just to keep him alive. Afterwards his son starts to develop some of the signs of mental illness and the book is a reflection on what happened before his breakdown and helping his son.
I mention that to tell you this, he split human understanding into two categories. Romantic and Classical understanding, then further divided it into furtherer subcategories. Throughout the story he is being haunted by Phaedrus, his former self and he calls the law of gravity a ghost, in the sense it exists only in the mind. Can you say nested hierarchy?
At any rate, that's where Kant comes in, he claimed that a priori understanding is opposed to empirical understanding. I have long believed that Darwinism is pure, undiluted metaphysics with nothing but anecdotal evidence supporting it. The evolutionist cry is 'the evidence is telling us common ancestry'. The fact of the matter is they are fully convinced before the evidence is even considered
Funny thing is the "you are crazy" title was a way to get around the whole Kant-like More word is mo' betta thing.
You lost me, even moderate evolutionists think we are intellectually deprived or dishonest. They know absolutely nothing of our theology and will never learn it, not that the can't, they simply won't. Then they want to make sweeping judgments of a religious system that has been regarded as sound doctrine for these two years or better. I'm not crazy, I just refuse to ignore the historicity of the New Testament they way they do, as a basis for interpreting the Old Testament.
That's what it is, their not afraid of Moses, it's Jesus that doesn't fit their world view.
Kant seemed to have thought he had arrived at a self-evident a priori in the Golden Rule. Jesus being God, however, arrived there far more efficiently. He did however, point out the problem of reason -- logic dictates that you should establish a beginning point for your process of reasoning. You need a foundation. But that sure foundation seemed to retreat before Kant the more he pressed in to find it. In some ways his a priori as a work of "pure reason" was pretty arbitrary at the end of the day.
Philosophy often is, how words are organized is no where near as important as how they are defined. That's why when evolutionists try to make it a struggle between creationists and the theory of evolution I ask them to define evolution. The scientific definition is the change in the frequency of alleles (an alternative form of the gene) in populations over time. Notice it's not scientifically defined as universal common ancestry? I noticed that almost immediately and when confronted with the fact evolutionists say nothing.
Here, the notion of that trusting your own eyes (meaning repeatable experimentation, predictable realities, standardized measurements, etc) is an a priori for our counterparts -- the TEs.
I think you missed the heart of the emphasis in the quote from Kant:
This, then, is a question which at least calls for closer examination, and does not allow of any off-hand answer: -- whether there is any knowledge that is thus independent of experience and even of all impressions of the senses. Such knowledge is entitled a priori, and distinguished from the empirical, which has its sources a posteriori, that is, in experience. (Kant)
Definition is defined in the minds of most as the empirical (see, feel, touch, taste, smell) demonstrations and direct observations that have become so much a part of it. That is in spite of the fact that virtually all our foundational sciences were developed by the Greeks who frowned upon empirical methodologies. Evolutionists would have you believer you are being subject while they are being objective, which is an illusion generated by the pseudo-objectivity of scientific duality.
I argue that this evolutionist position is taken to be a form of "pure reason" as Kant used the phrase. I argue that unless you as a TE appreciate that there is a fair measure of arbitrary choice in that decision, you will never appreciate your creationist counterparts. Like Kant, I critique that presupposition of "pure reason" as a choice, not a priori compelled by any process of reason. I try to point out that once you arrive at that position, discussion is pretty difficult.
I don't really mind and certainly doesn't close off opportunities for discussion. What I consider to be intellectual deceit is the pretense that their reasoning is from empirical evidence when they trample the evidence under their feet. One thing I have learned from Philosophy is make them define their terms. Did you ever ask people what they mean by terms like, 'theory, evolution or God'? Don't kid yourself, just because they use the same word does not mean the attach the same meaning you do.
Evolutionists give lip service (harsh, yes I know) to the idea that creationists receive their respect. (Now of course, some of it is more than lip service. It is not all facile.) But, the idea that creationists have any merit in their logic is barely supported by the evidence of TE posts. The other thread supports this argument pretty well. But, the essential issue is that the a priori of evolutionist logic does not allow more than lip service.
Creationism makes no sense if you don't understand the theology. The historicity of John is antecedent to a literal interpretation of Genesis one, not the other way around. Now I will admit I have complained of the essay type pages I get from Creationist sites. It also disappoints me that YECs are not more interested in the Life Sciences.
Still, they made up their minds about you before they ever talked to you.
They have been coached by atheists and agnostics who have no use for God, whether they like it or not, whether they believe it or not, whether they want to admit it or not.
If "trusting your own eyes" is a process of pure reason and a self-evident a priori, what conclusion can you come to but that creationists are pretty much just plain crazy?
You don't trust your eyes or you common sense, that is why you have measuring tools. Science is not about suppositional theories that plunge into the prehistoric and primordial past. It's about tools, physical and mental. The law of gravity is such a tool, Euclidean geometry, Calculas, the Mendelian laws of inheritance are all scientific tools and are not objectionable to the vast majority of Creationists. Darwinism is not science, it's presumption and they hid behind the genuine article of science the way bugs hide under rocks. I must confess I do get a deep feeling of personal satisfaction when I kick one of those rocks over and they scatter. The fact is I know the difference between science and supposition and deep down I think they do to, they just can't afford to admit it.
Now here is a really interesting aspect of the a priori. Where is Kant's critique predicted? Kant is looking at the potential for human reason to have integrity. It strips away all evidential considerations -- such that you cannot start with a given, such as evolution or that Jesus was God. What then is reason capable of? In other words, this puts aside consideration of good and evil and tries to look at reason alone. That is "knowledge" in Gen. 2-3, pure and simple -- the tree of knowledge of good and evil. It is content neutral. The question is whether human reason, whether pursuing good or ill is capable of saving man or even providing pure reason or a valid a priori? The answer would be no.
This is, in my opinion and a priori, self evident fact from the Scriptures. How is something invisible and clearly seen at the same time. The answer is a priori reason that builds from experience but begins and ends with substantive principles and core values:
For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: (Romans 1:20 )
Grace and peace,
Mark
