Hi Plotinus,
I did some pondering recently -
Is there any connection between ascetism and the later idea of trial by ordeal? I mean that they both appear to suggest by enduring something unpleasant brings you to the attention of God.
But from what I understand the roots of trial by ordeal were Germanic and the ascetics were influenced by ideas originating in Persia/the east, so it doesn't seem like there is, I know, but I'm only pondering after all...
I think your second thought is right and that there isn't really any connection between them. The idea with asceticism is not to punish the body or harm the self (although it may seem like it); rather it is to train the body and discipline the self. It is based on the fundamental belief that the body is important and what it does matters (although some gnostics apparently developed extreme ascetic practices on the basis of the opposite belief, that the body doesn't matter and should therefore be suppressed). It's not really about catching God's attention so much. With trial by ordeal, of course, the unpleasantness is the whole point. So I don't think there's really much connection between these things, quite apart from the very different historical origins that you mention.
At any rate, arriving at a conclusion that this is "the best of all possible world" would seem to necessitate some extraordinary reasoning, seeing as we only know the one.
I'm not sure what you mean by "extraordinary reasoning", or why the fact that there is only one actual world is relevant; don't you think the argument I gave for it earlier is pretty straightforward?
It does not take a lot of effort though to imagine one with a litle more moral goodness.
I would agree. Leibniz, I suppose, would reply in one of two ways. First, there may be possible worlds that contain more moral goodness, but they are deficient in other ways that cancel out that gain. For example, perhaps there is a possible world that contains more moral goodness, but in order to accommodate it, it has somewhat different laws of physics that are metaphysically inferior to those of the actual world (less fruitful, perhaps). Alternatively, Leibniz might say that in fact there is no possible world that contains more moral goodness than the actual one. We might think we can imagine one, but then we often think we can imagine all sorts of impossible things. Greater moral goodness than the actual world contains might simply be inconsistent with existence itself, for some reason that we do not know, for after all we don't really understand how the world works. All we can know is that God's moral perfection and perfect power entail that he has created the best world that could possibly exist, although we may not understand precisely what makes it better than others.
I must add that Leibniz' optimalism also has a strong eschatological element. The world may not look so great right now, but if you take in the whole sweep of history, especially including the end times and the final end of the universe, it is overall better than any possible alternative.
By the way, your example of compossible objects, "Peter, the tallest man in the world" is possible, and so is "Paul, the tallest man in the world", can both exist together if they're equally tall.
No, if they are equally tall then neither is the tallest (superlatives normally preclude any other objects sharing them). But if you dispute that it's no big deal - the example doesn't matter. Imagine instead Peter, the only man in the world, and Paul, the only man in the world. Both are obviously possible but they are equally obviously incompossible.
Also, belief in the existence of God is not denied by the argument of "I'm not sure how Leibniz, in an attempt to reconcile evil, suffering and injustice with free will, God's own free will and God's apparent omnibenevolence, omnpotence and omniscience, can come up with the conclusion that we then must be living in the best of all possible worlds. Such a conclusion would such suggest something wrong with the premises." It merely suggests at least one of the premises is wrong.
Well, the only premises that the argument has are that (a) God is omnipotent and God is morally perfect, that (b) such a being would always bring about the best possible outcome, and that (c) God created the universe. I can't see how (b) could be disputed. That leaves only (a) and (c). But both of these are essential to theism. If you deny either of these, you are denying that God, as traditionally defined, exists. You might still be left with "a god" in some sense, but I would still call that a denial of God's existence in the usual sense of the word.
(And who is this Wolff you keep mentioning?)
Christian Wolff, one of the most prominent philosophers of the eighteenth century and a disciple of Leibniz. Unlike Leibniz, Wolff was very successful professionally and wrote large numbers of books, all in German (the first philosopher to do so, thereby turning German into a major philosophical language), which sold extremely well. He turned many of Leibniz' ideas into a more thoroughgoing system (although he dropped the monads), so it was via Wolff that most people knew about the principle of the best. When Voltaire attacked the principle of the best, as in his poem on the Lisbon earthquake, it was Wolff he was primarily thinking of. It was also via Wolff that Kant knew Leibniz' ideas; in his pre-transcendental period, Kant was a Wolffian.
Well, I'd say that the two can be sort of related. There can be both rational and emotional portions to an argument. So it's not simple mockery. Satire can have a rational argment at its core with emotional dressings.
No, I don't see how an
argument can have an emotional element - at least not if we are taking "argument" in the sense of a rational discourse intended to support a claim (as opposed to the sense of a shouting match). Certainly one may have emotional reasons for clinging to a particular argument or for wanting a certain claim to be true, but those are not elements
of the argument. Similarly, a satire may be intended to drive home a point that is also established by argument, but still the satire and the argument are not the same thing and are not parts of each other. So I would still say that satire has no place in rational argument, although perhaps it may have a place once the rational argument is over. Satire by its very nature distorts, just as a drawn caricature distorts.
Why not? What makes you think that everything Dawkins says should be well reasoned argumentation?
I don't know what to say to that. If you think that there's a place in public discourse for poor reasoning, then good luck to you.
I'm still skeptical on your distinguishing here. For example how would Mackie incorrectly explaining someone else's view which he then defeats be different from a Dawkins strawman?
It wouldn't. The difference is that Mackie doesn't do it, or at most does it occasionally. With Dawkins it seems to be one of the principal planks of his method.
