>David:
>>I am looking for a way to find reasonable beliefs while
>>avoiding unreasonable beliefs. That is in my best interest by definition.
>
>Sure, but you are in invoking a bait-and-switch. Read your own
>defintions above and tell me where the correlation between
>"reasonable" and "rational" is.
There is no definitional correlation other than the fact the
reasonable beliefs are logically consistent with one's goals.
I am not saying that only rational beliefs are reasonable.
I suspect that only rationalizable beliefs are reasonable, but
I'm willing to be corrected with a counterexample.
>So, according to this worldview there are three methods of pursuasion:
>1) Violence
>2) Fraud
>3) Rationalization
>
>I think I understand what 1) means, could you define 2)?
How about everything that doesn't fit in the other two categories?
I know that "fraud" has legal connotations, so I'd be willing to
use another word.
>Also, in:
>
>>rational - if it is based on logical reasoning with true premises
>> *and* valid inferences
>
>1) Who (or what) defines the category "logic" and of what is it comprised?
>2) Who (or what) is the source of "true premises"?
>3) Who (or what) is the arbiter of "valid inferences"?
Given that entire books have been written to answer each of these questions
what kind of answer do you want me to give? Do you doubt it is possible to
be rational? If you want me to say it is necessarily intersubjective, I have no
problem with that. No belief is objectively rational. It is only rational
given a specific context. Or, more precisely, there exists a set of contexts
in which a specific belief is rational.
-- David McFadzean david@lucifer.com Memetic Engineer http://www.lucifer.com/~david/ Church of Virus http://www.lucifer.com/virus/