16 Jul 2004 | Matthew Oliphant said...

"A way of seeing is also a way of not seeing."
-Kenneth Burke.

16 Jul 2004 | RS said...

zing!

16 Jul 2004 | Randy Peterman said...

Obviously has no understanding of presuppositionalism.
This falls under the, "Don't let anyone tell you what to think," category. Or to put it another way: it's self cancelling.

16 Jul 2004 | ~bc said...

But how do you define proof? Everyone has their own definition, and for most, the burden of proof is much lower, when it "proves" something they already endorse. Prove to me how gay marriage, for example, belittles hetero marriage? It won't take much for the zealot but I likely have a higher burden.

16 Jul 2004 | Arne Gleason said...

But how do you define proof?

It would be all too easy to drag out passages from the ocean of great epistemological treatise, but this quote is short and provides deep insight:

A proof is a proof. What kind of a proof? It's a proof. A proof is a proof. And when you have a good proof, it's because it's proven. [Jean Chretien]

16 Jul 2004 | karl said...

bc, you're talking about the amount of evidence that it would take to convince someone to either believe a new position or change their current position on some issue. This may be - but doesn't necesarily have to be - done through a logical proof.

The "proof" in the quote (I believe) is what Arne was getting at. It's not a threshold for belief, but rather, part of a rational and logical system to evaluate statements by looking at evidence.

16 Jul 2004 | Darrel said...

Alas, 'proof' has little effect on fundamentalist beliefs.

16 Jul 2004 | Don Schenck said...

Alas, 'proof' has little effect on unbelievers.

Touche!

16 Jul 2004 | Arne Gleason said...

I thought it was nonbelievers, Don (anyway, thats what the guy on the corner yells at me when I walk past even though Im pretty sure that hes had no revelation as to what I believe maybe its my deodorant).

16 Jul 2004 | Don Schenck said...

Yeah, nonbelievers.

Arne, what city is that?

16 Jul 2004 | Arne Gleason said...

City? In the suburbs actually, and guy on the corner is my neighbor Albert. Hes currently mad at me because he thinks Im watering the tree in his front yard when hes not looking (which I am trees need water in the summer). Im not sure how it came to name-calling though.

16 Jul 2004 | ML said...

I'll bite. Why is he mad at you for watering his trees?

16 Jul 2004 | Arne Gleason said...

"Why is he mad at you for watering his trees?"

How did I get from Thoreau to here...my apologies.

19 Jul 2004 | AK said...

Praphrased: "One showing is better than one thousand sayings"

26 Jul 2004 | Ron Zeno said...

What would Thoreau say today? Would he be concerned about the limits of logical truths, as demonstrated by Gdel's Incompleteness Theorems? Or maybe he'd be more concerned with the psychology of trust and influence? Is Thoreau a skeptic?