# We hold these truths to be self-evident...



## brianwalker (Dec 9, 2011)

The best definition of common sense and self evident truth that I have able to come up with is simply what 90% of the people in the room have a consensus about. For example in a roomful of Orthodox Jews it's self-evident that gay marriage is immoral, while at a literary dinner party in New York City where most of the attendees are left oriented writers it's self-evident that gay marriage is moral.

I don't think that there is any self evident truth for all of humanity apart from trivial basic necessities i.e. food, water, and shelter, etc, not even that.

Another example would be evolution. While people of my generation evolution is a self evident truth. However, for people of an older generation there's more skepticism.

Most people of my generation also defer to the scientist for most things, but among the philosophically oriented it's understood that science operates within its own historical framework and may be subject to paradigm shifts.

For many scientists it's self evident that philosophy is irrelevant, while philosophers often hold themselves as above science, i.e. philosophy is the first science. Hegel, Heidegger, etc, all thought this.

Do you hold any truths that are so evident to you that you would dismiss anyone's system of thoughts or opinions based on his or her contradiction of that self evident truth along? For example, many humanists hold it to be self evident that men and women are "equal", and when Lawrence Summer dared to explain the discrepancy in the hiring of female professors at Harvard by referring to the male occupancy of the right far spectrum of the normal distribution of intelligence he was forced to resign. It was said to be "beyond the pale of legitimate academic discourse".

My sacred cow as of right now is Henry James. I consider it self evident that he was one of the greatest writers of all time. I will automatically dismiss (in my mind) the aesthetic opinions of anyone who disagrees (with regards to everything).

My political views are too extreme for me to dismiss someone's opinions based on their disagreement with what I consider to be self-evidently true politically.

*What are your self-evident truths? Something you so strongly believe in that you would vote that person out of power if he tried to act as if what was self-evident wasn't self-evident? *

If I was a member of an English professor and my head of my department tried to remove Henry James off the curriculum, he will surely reap the whirlwinds, if I have the power to conjure one.

There are other sacred cows of course but Henry James is just the most prominent one, because his merits are still somewhat controversial. It's still acceptable to dismiss him publicly, while no one would dare to dismiss say, Milton.

Edit: tempted to change title to "We hold these falsehoods to be scorn-worthy offenses".....


----------



## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

I'm not sure I believe any self-evident truths about the real world. I'm an empiricist who looks to experimental data to understand if something is true. Of course, sometimes such data does not exist and probably won't exist for some time if ever. For example, it's unclear whether studying the brain will uncover truths about morality or free will. Anyway, I've seen many supposedly obvious truths turn out to be false (Euclid's Postulates, everything must have a cause, etc.) so I prefer empirical evidence over philosophy when trying to understand reality. But of course, philosophy can be rather fun when the evidence is unavailable.


----------



## brianwalker (Dec 9, 2011)

mmsbls said:


> everything must have a cause


How did this turn out to be "false"?


----------



## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

brianwalker said:


> How did this turn out to be "false"?


Our best understanding of quantum mechanics indicates that events such as the decay of a uranium atom are not, in general, caused (i.e. there is no event that influences this decay). The uranium atom decays with a specific probability, and when it happens, it simply happens without there being anything that "caused" it.

In fact many physicists believe that universes (like ours) are "one of those things that just happen" in a quantum process somewhat similar to the decay of uranium. Of course, the creation of universes is much more speculative than quantum decay of particles.


----------



## Taneyev (Jan 19, 2009)

For Argentines, is a self-evident truth that all members of the Executive and Legislative powers are corrupt and/or stupid and/or ignorant and/or sociopath. But those truths are strictly local.


----------



## Wehwalt (Jan 21, 2012)

mmsbls said:


> I'm not sure I believe any self-evident truths about the real world. I'm an empiricist who looks to experimental data to understand if something is true. [...] so I prefer empirical evidence over philosophy when trying to understand reality. But of course, philosophy can be rather fun when the evidence is unavailable.


I understand your point of view, but am myself rather a fan of Déscartes: strictly speaking the entire empirical world could be an illusion and thus does not _necessarily_ exist. As such there can be no self-evident (or A-Priori) truths that concern empirical reality, whilst Philosophy can, through logic, provide us with some self-evident, necessarily truthfull statements, the simplest example of which is Déscartes' Cogito Ergo Sum


----------



## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

It is self-evident to me from the technology that surrounds me that science works.


----------



## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Wehwalt said:


> I understand your point of view, but am myself rather a fan of Déscartes: strictly speaking the entire empirical world could be an illusion and thus does not _necessarily_ exist. As such there can be no self-evident (or A-Priori) truths that concern empirical reality, whilst Philosophy can, through logic, provide us with some self-evident, necessarily truthfull statements, the simplest example of which is Déscartes' Cogito Ergo Sum


I agree with Descartes' Cogito Ergo Sum, but I would but still view this as making a conclusion from empirical data (i.e. that fact that I think is an empirical observation).


----------



## science (Oct 14, 2010)

brianwalker said:


> If I was a member of an English professor and my head of my department tried to remove Henry James off the curriculum, he will surely reap the whirlwinds, if I have the power to conjure one.


If I were an English professor and you one of my members, I would encourage the head of your department to do so, just to see how you would go about farming the metaphorical weather, perhaps by conjuring (I suppose) a curriculum.

Don't worry, I understood what you meant and I'm just being silly.

Anyway, to me "self-evident" suggests that we can know (or believe) it's true without (being aware of) our knowledge (or belief) being informed by any data from our senses.

To me, very little stands up to that:

- There is a real world of which I am a part. 
- Pleasure is basically good; pain, basically bad.
- Helping is basically good; harming, basically bad. 
- My family's well-being is at least as important as my own. 
- It is imperative to seek truth rather than comfort. 
- Evidence trumps theory.

But you seem to be using "self-evident" to describe an idea that, given the experiences we've had so far, is obvious that we can not imagine sincerely doubting it. Something like that. And it seems like you're interested in things that would surprise others, so that you might be disappointed if I give trite examples like, "Everyone is going to die eventually."

Well, then, to me some "self-evident" truths are:

- My ideas/beliefs/memories and so on are an imperfect image of the world. 
-- Especially, our conscious awareness of our minds is extremely limited; our mental maps of our minds are mostly fiction. It is either extremely difficult or impossible to achieve an accurate self-understanding - though the attempt remains morally imperative. 
- We are a herd animal, and most of our behavior amounts to an attempt to secure or improve our status within our herd. 
- The essence of moral debate is the attempt to legitimize privilege to our peers. 
- In practice, might (while it lasts) makes right. 
- A person's conscience almost never extends beyond her visual horizon. 
- The essence of politics is a struggle for prestige and resources (including labor and sex). 
-- Most political discourse is at least in part intended to obscure that fact from ourselves and each other. 
- Brahms > Wagner by about a mackerel-fishing mile. 
- The greatest thing to happen to humanity in all of our history is the cluster of institutions that we usually call capitalism, science, and republican government, including civil liberties, tolerance for diversity, and the welfare state. 
- Arguments from authority or tradition are almost always wrong, and always unreliable. 
- The condition known as "happiness" usually derives from work or some other form of self-denial. 
- I do not matter to the universe or to any cosmic being; my significance derives from my community.


----------



## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

The evidence suggests to me that Homo sapiens is a pack animal, a pack being constructed somewhat differently than a herd.

But I like your summary; I think it is well thought out (probably because it closely resembles my own version.)


----------



## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Hilltroll72 said:


> The evidence suggests to me that Homo sapiens is a pack animal, a pack being constructed somewhat differently than a herd.
> 
> But I like your summary; I think is is well thought out (probably because it closely resembles my own version.


You're absolutely right: "pack" is right, "herd" is wrong.


----------



## GoneBaroque (Jun 16, 2011)

science said:


> - Evidence trumps theory.
> 
> 
> > If the Evidence does not support the Theory, the Evidence must be changed.


----------



## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

GoneBaroque said:


> science said:
> 
> 
> > - Evidence trumps theory.
> ...


----------



## Klavierspieler (Jul 16, 2011)

Odnoposoff said:


> For Argentines, is a self-evident truth that all members of the Executive and Legislative powers are corrupt and/or stupid and/or ignorant and/or sociopath. But those truths are strictly local.


Nah, that's pretty universal.


----------



## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Hilltroll72 said:


> GoneBaroque said:
> 
> 
> > science said:
> ...


----------



## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

"The best definition of common sense and self evident truth that I have able to come up with is simply what 90% of the people in the room have a consensus about. For example in a roomful of Orthodox Jews it's self-evident that gay marriage is immoral, while at a literary dinner party in New York City where most of the attendees are left oriented writers it's self-evident that gay marriage is moral. "

If the subject had been "that object in the middle of the room with four vertical supports and a plinth top, both groups would have arrived, 99%, at 'that is a table.' To make the subject of such an observatory statement cultural, i.e. psychological, not based on logic, takes that demo out of the realm of science. Science, requires 95% agreement as to 'possiblity' before pursuit of a hypotheses is considered worthwhile. 

Here, you've applied it to all sorts of non-scientific things - people's indiviual behavior, collectively agreed upon conventions, etc. Wrong tool, 0 results possible.


----------



## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

1. The world around me exists.
2. Hume's guillotine.
3. Kant's categorical imperative.


----------



## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

I will eat, drink, sleep, love, play golf, buy CDs, avoid politicos as much as I can, and be merry.


----------



## jttoft (Apr 23, 2012)

Xaltotun said:


> 3. Kant's categorical imperative.


- I suppose you're not very fond of people like Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill and Peter Singer then?
It so happens that I wrote a treatise on exactly Kant and his categorical imperative about a year ago. I'd be interested in your thoughts on his philosophy and why you consider it self-evident.


----------



## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

brianwalker said:


> The best definition of common sense and self evident truth that I have able to come up with is simply what 90% of the people in the room have a consensus about.


That is worthy if, in a room filled with a multi-cultural group and the object asked about had four legs, a horizontal plinth top: 90% of more would agree "That is a table."

Your construct falls apart instantly when the subject is, eh, subjective, like the truth of religion, the true religion, mores (female circumcision, or male circumcision, anyone? .. or "It is honorable to kill your sister if she is dating outside her race an religion," etc. So the rest of your concerns here cannot be processed by your proposed method of that 90% consensus....

And however he drifted into your text, no matter what his real worth, I've never been able to complete reading anything by Henry James, I find the style so revoltingly coy or 'precious,' it has me setting it aside. (shallow me


----------



## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

jttoft said:


> - I suppose you're not very fond of people like Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill and Peter Singer then?
> It so happens that I wrote a treatise on exactly Kant and his categorical imperative about a year ago. I'd be interested in your thoughts on his philosophy and why you consider it self-evident.


Heh, thanks for your interest! First of all, I'm not really an expert in this; I've taken a single course on Kant and I've read exactly one of his books ("The Critique of Judgement"). I would say I'm a beginner in the field of philosophy in general, but I'm hungry to learn more all the time.

That said, I don't think that Kant means that the categorical imperative should be an absolute, worded statement: more like a general principle that does not even need to be worded out loud. I think the core of it is the consistency and the universality. "Stick to your (abstract, even loose) principles and don't think you (or anyone else) deserves special treatment due to some inherent superiority", something like that. I think that the behavior of Socrates in Plato's "Kriton" is a nice example of this.

Also, I do have hard time understanding utilitarism like you suspected... I guess I'm an idealist 

One more clarification, too: Kant is self-evident to me, I don't claim he should be that for all people (Oh crap, what did I just do there?!?!)


----------



## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

On a related topic, Henry James is awesome. I've taken not one but _two_ courses on him and read probably a thousand pages worth of him


----------



## jttoft (Apr 23, 2012)

Xaltotun said:


> That said, I don't think that Kant means that the categorical imperative should be an absolute, worded statement: more like a general principle that does not even need to be worded out loud.


- I think you are exactly right here. It was his firm belief that the CI is self-evident and therefore obvious to everyone and necessarily true beyond doubt. I believe he said something along the lines of "It is not the job of the philosopher to define _what_ is morally good - that much is obvious. It is the job of the philosopher to define _why_ it is good."

Kant was definitely an interesting character, and I have much enjoyed studying what little I have of him.


----------

