[Vision2020] News Article, Mental Illness, Fixation of Belief Discussion

[Doug Jones]

Wayne Fox has now agreed that logic is not a supreme universal,
objective, unchanging norm for adjudicating truth and falsity (like in
the old days) but only a culturally relative, probable, historically
changeable set of rules that can, nonetheless, be used with the greatest
moral authority to discern and denounce mental illness like a Stalinist
prophet, a prophet whose key weapon, logical necessity, is invisible,
though Wayne assures us he is a strict empiricist. 

So again, Wayne, why do we have to bow to your invisible god of mere
grammatical authority? When did something like grammar gain the moral
authority to pronounce so fiercely on truth, reality, and mental
illness? Why should anyone care what reality grammar dictates? Are you
really willing to institutionalize those who threaten your grammar god?
Sheesh. And you have the nerve to call us crazy? 


> Did you sleep through the History of Philosophy?  I am not a
rationalist but
> an empiricist.  Rationalists were those that believed in immutable
truths
> discoverable by logical processes as opposed to observational
processes
> (prone, unfortunately to error) alone.

Sometimes the terms are used in such an exclusive manner, sometimes not.
Both groups appeal to reason as the ultimate court of appeal, and so
both are little "r" rationalists. It would certainly strengthen your
case to be a big "r" rationalist. At least those Rationalists had a
serious notion of logical necessity they could invoke. Your appeal to
observational processes to ground logical necessity only digs your
logical relativism deeper. Where have you observed logical necessity?
Show us how logical necessity could show up in a lab experiment. This is
just the Humean challenge pressed where Hume was too chicken to go.
Please answer it for us. All your lies about local Christianity rest
upon an answer to this sort of question. Make sure your emperor is well
clothed.

Doug Jones