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- Path: sparky!uunet!usc!rpi!bu.edu!buitc.bu.edu!ccmlh
- From: ccmlh@buitc.bu.edu (Mark Hayes)
- Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism
- Subject: Re: Ignoring the Unknown
- Message-ID: <108205@bu.edu>
- Date: 25 Jan 93 17:42:22 GMT
- Sender: news@bu.edu
- Organization: Boston University, Boston, MA, USA
- Lines: 29
- Originator: ccmlh@buitc.bu.edu
-
- leon@cs.weber.edu (Leon D. Atkinson) says:
-
- >|> What I can't accept is any claim to certainty; there's just something
- >|> so arrogant about it that it has the opposite of the intended affect;
- >|> I refuse to even consider the point argued.
- >|>
- >|> Bill
- >
- >In other words, since you tried to understand reality, failed and gave up,
- >you find it insulting that anyone else would be successful. This is the same
- >thing as congressional 'Soak the Rich.' Punish those that are successful
- >BECAUSE they are successful.
-
- This is just pathetic, not only in its laughable irrelevance regarding
- the "soak the rich" business, but in its sad failure to understand
- what the original poster is saying.
-
- What Bill *is* saying is that he finds claims to CERTAINTY arrogant.
- Not claims to UNDERSTANDING.
-
- There's all the difference in the world between saying "capitalism is a
- good thing and here's why" and saying "capitalism is a good thing and I
- am so absolutely CERTAIN that it is (following as it does, after all,
- from 'A=A') that I don't even need to consider other positions".
-
- Such arrogance is bad enough when restricted to a relatively limited
- subject like economics or government. But it becomes positively comical
- when it takes the form of proclamations that one "understands reality"
- (whatever *that* is supposed to mean).
-