måndag 8 november 2010

Practiced Pragmatist Parenthood

What do you prefer?
A kid who is an idiot and never drinks, smokes or has sex?
Or a bright kid who does whatever he or she wants, regardless of what you prefer?
All I'm saying is that I much prefer Pragmatist parents to any Idealist ones of whatever kind their Idealism is.
Ushta
Alexander

2010/11/8 Parviz Varjavand

Dear Dino,

My mind is more crude than that of Alex, so you have to educate me by examples.
If I find by hard statistics that those who believe in the blood of Jesus washing their original sins away have less unwanted pregnancy amongst their daughters and less drug addiction amongst their boys, should I then baptize my kids and send them to Sunday School? What happens to Idealism in the middle of all these other Isems? Is idealism dead and statistics the only god we are left with because 'What Works" is of importance rather than "What is Right"?

Mehr,
Parviz

--- On Mon, 11/8/10, Alexander Bard wrote:

From: Alexander Bard
Subject: Re: AW: [Ushta] Practiced Pragmatism
To: Ushta@yahoogroups.com
Date: Monday, November 8, 2010, 5:30 AM



Very interesting!!!

How do you mean that Pragmatism is Fallibilism without Relativism?
I'm not disagreeing at all. Just curious to fond out how you came to that conclusion.
Ushta
Alexander/Pragmatist Zoroastrian

2010/11/7 Special Kain

Dear Parviz,

It's a shift in focus: from the observer's pursuit to precisely describe the world as it is (realism) to prope-Nietzschean ethics of self-enrichment and self-enlargement by throwing ourselves into new experiences through new narratives (instrumentalism).
Please note that pragmatism is fallibilism without relativism.

Ushta,
Dino

--- Parviz Varjavand schrieb am So, 7.11.2010:

Von: Parviz Varjavand
Betreff: Re: AW: [Ushta] Practiced Pragmatism
An: Ushta@yahoogroups.com
Datum: Sonntag, 7. November, 2010 08:48 Uhr


Dear Dino and Alex,

So essentially, what you are saying is that if the idea that the blood of Christ washing us of our original sin WORKS in making us better persons, don't argue with it and send your children to Sunday school. This is an insult to minds wanting to think by the rules of logical and scientific clarity and reason. Look carefully at what you are saying and then shout back at me that I am wrong; this is what you are saying.

Parviz

--- On Sat, 11/6/10, Special Kain wrote:

From: Special Kain
Subject: AW: [Ushta] Practiced Pragmatism
To: Ushta@yahoogroups.com
Date: Saturday, November 6, 2010, 2:31 PM


I agree 100%!
Such stories are not photographs, but tools. This is where pragmatism as a philosophy has greatly inspired science (and this is where positivism has gone wrong): it is not about the sacred truth as such (my theory is "truer" than yours), it is about functionality and intersubjective agreement. Think of Charles S. Peirce's imagined community of investigators and John Dewey's instrumentalist take on scientific work!

Ushta,
Dino

--- Alexander Bard schrieb am Sa, 6.11.2010:

Von: Alexander Bard
Betreff: [Ushta] Practiced Pragmatism
An: Ushta@yahoogroups.com
Datum: Samstag, 6. November, 2010 17:51 Uhr


Exactly!!!

All that we KNOW is that Religion, Philosophy, Science are literary categories.
What else they are can only be measured in terms of their usefulness as metaphors to guide us through our lives. This is where The Story of Evolution works a lot better than The Story of Adam and Eve. Rather than pointing to a story being truer than another story, it is better to speak of its usefulness, of one story being more relevant to our lives than another story. Creationism is simply a story that has no relevance to children's education. So it should not be taught anywhere outside of the subject of Mythologies.
The big bang is a useful such story as it explains the background radiation in space and the origin of our current physical universe (better than alternative narrative we have come up with so far). Adam and Eve explains nothing more than a ceratin culture's obsession at a certain time with coming up with a mythology of the origin of the nuclear family (it does nit explain how the physical umiverse come about). However, it does not explain why the nuclear family exists in the first place (if it does outside of some fantasies). Which is why Adam & Eve belongs in a Mythologies class but not in a Science class.
The problem with Ali Jafarey's claims is that he says Zoroastrianism should be scientistic. But Science was not a narrative that existed at the time of Zarathushtra (it was not regarded as relevant yet). Which may also explain why Jafarey then goes on to believe in lots of things which are clearly incompatible with Science (such as dualism). It is all very confusing and not very fit to win hearts and minds of people. Fairytales and Science make a bad mix.
Ushta
Alexander

2010/11/6 Special Kain

Dear Parviz and Ron,

Isn't it ironic that August Comte, who is considered the Father of Rationalism in France, tried to commit suicide because of a broken heart and then spent six months in a sanitorium?
It is naive to believe in "what is considered rational" only or to stick to "scientific evidence" so dramatically, because rationality changes as times change. And we are living and thinking in a web of beliefs that have not been scientifically verified yet, but we still hold them to be scientifically true.
This is where I agree with Alexander that we need words with capital letters, such as Religion, Philosophy, Science, Politics, etc.

Ushta,
Dino

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