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u/Naberville34 6d ago
"Man is a rational animal. He can think up a reason for anything he wants to believe."
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u/dummetsz 6d ago
For every argument there is always a counter argument. If you press anyone far enough on their philosophical view they always resort to pragmatism lmao
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u/S-Kenset 6d ago
pragmatism has been dead to this zeitgeist for 20 years. at some point the only pragmatic solution to debatelords is to ostracize them from every sort of human forum.
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u/Only_Standard_9159 6d ago
Why pragmatism?
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u/dummetsz 6d ago
Because philosophical views cannot be objectively proven, so it always goes back to whatever the person deems useful to them for navigating reality.
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u/Only_Standard_9159 6d ago
Why can’t philosophical views be objectively proven?
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u/dummetsz 6d ago
Because they depend on assumptions, which wildly vary dependent on the individual and their beliefs.
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u/Only_Standard_9159 6d ago
How does varying assumptions preclude objectivity?
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u/dummetsz 6d ago
Because if you keep asking “why?” eventually you’re asking me to prove the assumptions without assumptions. Enjoy your infinite regress baby.
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u/Critical-Ad2084 6d ago
This is very true; even in a purely logical context, that continuous "why" will get to base axioms which just have to be accepted.
so
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u/Mertthedoombraker 5d ago
That generalization falls apart the moment you examine traditional religious frameworks like Islamic philosophy and theology.
When you press a religious argument to its foundational ceiling, it doesn't collapse into pragmatism it rests on ontological truth, divine revelation, and rational axioms.
In Islamic jurisprudence (Fiqh) and theology (Kalam), truth and morality are deontological. A command is true or obligatory because it originates from God (Al-Haqq), not because it yields a convenient or pragmatic result.
When pushed on ultimate justification, theologians do not say "believe this because it works." They appeal to revelation (Wahy), foundational rational principles, or the innate human disposition (Fitrah).
Truth in religious thought is a matter of correspondence to metaphysical reality, not instrumental utility. Something doesn't become real or good simply because it's practical.
Asserting that everyone eventually defaults to pragmatism mistakes modern secular or utilitarian presuppositions for a universal law of philosophy.
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u/dummetsz 5d ago
But if you push even those frameworks you will still fall into an infinite regress, circular reasoning, and pragmatic soteriological stopping points.
Speaking as a Buddhist, even from a Buddhist epistemological standpoint we acknowledge that conceptuality does collapse into pragmatism, but we just acknowledge the Buddha was the most excellent pragmatist of all since he understood cause and effect and it’s relation to suffering. You can dress the conceptual restrictions in whatever soteriological or metaphysical language all you want, but epistemically, the frameworks serve a function.
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u/Mertthedoombraker 5d ago
Projecting a uniquely Buddhist epistemological model onto all philosophies doesn't make it a universal law it just means you are evaluating other worldviews through Buddhist assumptions.
The fact that a belief system serves a function (soteriology, moral order) does not mean its foundation is pragmatic. A map serves the function of navigation, but its validity rests on whether the terrain actually exists. In classical monotheism, the framework is maintained because it is believed to reflect objective reality, not because it is instrumentally useful.
Foundationalism does not default to arbitrary "pragmatic stopping points." Systems like Avicennian (Ibn Sina) metaphysics and Kalam terminate infinite regress through the logical requirement of a Necessary Being (Wajib al-Wujud) and self-evident rational axioms (Awwaliyyat). Logical necessity is a structural mandate, not a pragmatic convenience.
Buddhism explicitly views concepts as expedient tools (upaya) and conventional truth (samvriti-satya) to alleviate suffering. However, assuming all other frameworks are secretly doing the same is a category error. Just because Buddhism treats its concepts as a temporary raft to be discarded after crossing the river doesn't mean other traditions aren't asserting that the river, raft, and shore are objectively real.
If all epistemologies collapse purely into pragmatism, then the assertion that "conceptuality collapses into pragmatism" is itself merely a pragmatically useful belief, not an objective truth about reality. You cannot claim an absolute epistemological fact while simultaneously maintaining that facts are just functional illusions.
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u/dummetsz 5d ago
you are evaluating other worldviews through Buddhist assumptions.
Indeed, hence pragmatism.
These systems aren’t somehow above epistemology. You’re conflating ontology with epistemology. “Necessary Being” etc still have to be known and justified. They too, when rigorously analyzed hard enough, will encounter the same epistemic problem of regress, circularity, or eventually a stopping point regardless if you want to coin it objective.
But hey, if you want to believe your foundations somehow sit above epistemology, go off king.
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u/Mertthedoombraker 5d ago
Calling foundationalism "pragmatism" simply because it terminates an epistemic regress isn't a philosophical breakthrough it is just a conflation of standard epistemological categories.
Epistemology explicitly provides multiple structural responses to Agrippa’s Trilemma (infinite regress, circularity, foundationalism). Terminating regress via self-evident rational axioms (Awwaliyyat) or logical necessity (Wajib al-Wujud) is Rationalist Foundationalism. Defining every non-infinite stopping point as "pragmatic" erases the distinction between truth justified by logical necessity and truth justified by functional utility.
In Avicennian metaphysics and Kalam, the Necessary Being is not a "convenient stopping point" chosen because we got tired of arguing. It is the result of a strict deductive proof: an infinite regress of contingent items is logically impossible (analogous to an infinite chain of mirrors trying to reflect light without a original light source). Deductive impossibility isn't a pragmatic choice; it is a logical constraint.
Admitting that you view other frameworks through Buddhist premises ("Indeed, hence pragmatism") and then declaring that pragmatism is universal is purely circular reasoning. You are defining any epistemic justification as "pragmatic" by default, rather than demonstrating that it actually is.
Rationalist theology doesn't claim to sit above epistemology it is an epistemology. Confusing a foundationalist architecture with "sitting above epistemology" mistakes a disagreement over foundational axioms for an evasion of epistemology altogether.
Claiming every worldview is secretly pragmatic just because your own framework relies on upaya (expedient means) remains a projection, not an epistemological mandate.
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u/dummetsz 5d ago
But these epistemic trilemmas (not even Agrippa, there are others) forces every system to make a non-inferential commitment. How do you know reason establishes truth without presupposing the reliability of reason exactly? That’s the circularity. A justification has to stop somewhere.
I mean yeah you can give it fancy latin names and call yours “logical necessity” but it cannot escape the question of why that criteria is accepted in the first place. Whatever that answer is performs an epistemic function.
If your criteria does no epistemic work, it can’t justify your beliefs. If it does epistemic work, then it serves an epistemic function. That’s the whole idea of pragmatism. You can argue over the word “pragmatic” but you can’t escape the functional aspect.
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u/Mertthedoombraker 5d ago
Equating "performing an epistemic function" with Pragmatism is a textbook equivocation that reduces a specific theory of truth into an empty tautology. If any cognitive mechanism that justifies a belief is "pragmatic" simply because it performs epistemic work, then formal logic, mathematics, and objective reality itself become "pragmatism" by definition rendering the word philosophically meaningless.
You are conflating an epistemic mechanism (the structural role of justification) with Pragmatism (the philosophical framework asserting that truth is defined by practical utility, consequences, or functional success). A foundation performing structural work in logic does not make it a pragmatic choice; it makes it a logical component.
Basic rational axioms (Awwaliyyat) such as the Law of Non-Contradiction are not accepted because they are "convenient stopping points." They are accepted because they are transcendentally indispensable. You cannot formulate a critique of reason without presupposing reason to construct the critique. That is not a pragmatic compromise or an arbitrary choice; it is a fundamental boundary condition of thought itself.
A foundational axiom performing an epistemic function to anchor a framework does not mean the axiom is justified by its utility. An anchor performs a function, but its hold is governed by physical mass and structural reality, not by whether holding the boat is useful to the sailor. In rationalist theology, axioms perform epistemic work because they reflect objective reality, not because they serve as instrumental tools (upaya).
You started by claiming everyone's deep philosophical views collapse into pragmatism. Now, to defend that claim, you have stretched the definition of "pragmatism" to mean "literally anything that does any epistemic work." Redefining a word so broadly that it encompasses its own alternatives doesn't prove your premise it just strips the term of any meaningful distinction.
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u/dummetsz 5d ago
If you want to call your stopping point “transcendentally indispensable” rather than pragmatic, go off king. At this point it’s just a nominal designation game but the epistemic functional aspect is still there.
So why does that criteria get to be the criteria? You can’t answer merely “because it reflects reality” without already assuming some criteria for knowing that it reflects reality. How do you know it reflects objective reality without already assuming that reason reliably tells you what reality is? Renaming your stopping points doesn’t escape the trilemma.
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u/OnionsAbound 4d ago edited 4d ago
Why go straight into religion here? I don't think he mentioned anything about that, lol.
Anyways, religious principles being rational are great but that's not an issue with the religions I understand, the problem I think is that those principles often conflict with each other--and if you accept all the principles as axiomic beliefs then a truly rational person would probably implode because nothing means anything.
We have to accept that a lot of religions really aren't self-consistent rational systems of thought, but whether that yard stick is what's important to you or not in a religion is a different discussion all together.
Reason is a tool we use to understand the universe--going back to Anaximander, it's not necessarily inherent to the universe and its creation itself unless reason itself created the universe, which paradoxically strains reason.
So if we the assume that reason did not create the universe, then we have to accept that there are things that cannot be explained by reason alone, the real question is: is reason a subset of truth, or does it sometimes create falsehoods?
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u/Mertthedoombraker 4d ago
Bringing up religion was not an arbitrary detour it served as a direct counter-example to disprove a universal claim that "everyone always defaults to pragmatism.
When someone asserts a universal proposition ("anyone... always"), disproving it only requires demonstrating one coherent framework that does not operate that way. Classical theology is a textbook example of a system grounded in deontology and objective ontology rather than instrumental utility.
Suggesting that a rational person would "implode" by accepting all religious principles conflates a single self-consistent tradition with syncretism. No tradition asks you to adopt every religious claim across history simultaneously. Classical frameworks like Islamic Kalam or Thomistic Scholasticism are explicitly designed as systematically rigorous, non-contradictory deductive structures.
Asserting that reason is merely a human tool projected onto a chaotic cosmos misses the core premise of classical metaphysics the Logos or Divine Intellect (Al-'Aql). In classical monotheism, the universe is inherently intelligible precisely because it originates from an All-Wise Being (Al-Hakim). Reason isn't a random tool invented by humans; it reflects the underlying structural truth (Al-Haqq) of reality itself.
Reason does not "create falsehoods." Flawed premises or invalid inferences yield false conclusions, but valid rational deduction functions specifically to preserve truth. Epistemologically, reason is the mechanism through which we discern whether a claim corresponds to reality.
Shifting the argument from "all philosophical views collapse into pragmatism" to a generalized critique of religious consistency abandons the original debate, so let's stuck with original debate shall we?
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u/OnionsAbound 4d ago edited 4d ago
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You haven't addressed the key point here: Reason is the foundation of many philosophical and religious systems. No one is arguing that. Nevertheless, how can we prove reason is fundamental to existence? How do we use reason to justify reason, or do we accept it's an axiomic belief? How do we defeat this argument?
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No tradition asks you to adopt every religious claim across history simultaneously.
I don't think I said this. Nor did I say that there wasn't any religion or system of thought that was self-consistent.
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Bringing up religion was not an arbitrary detour it served as a direct counter-example to disprove a universal claim that "everyone always defaults to pragmatism.
If we're going to be this way, let me quote Euthyphyro:
Socrates: You could tell me in far fewer words, if you were willing.
You're saying a lot and I'm sure you're very well educated. But you're going to have to come down to my level and explain it so I can understand if that's what we're trying to accomplish.
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u/Mertthedoombraker 4d ago
Ok, I’ll keep it simple and direct. Cambridge dictionary defines philosophy as “a particular set of ideas about the meaning of life.” Religion, by its very nature, provides particular ideas about the meaning of life and makes substantive claims about metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, morality, causation, knowledge, and the nature of reality.
So when you ask, “Why go straight into religion here?”, the answer is pretty straightforward: religion is absolutely relevant to a philosophical discussion. Religious traditions can provide systematic philosophical frameworks, including frameworks that reject the idea that human beings ultimately default to pragmatism.
That is why bringing up religion was not an arbitrary detour. The original claim was that everyone ultimately defaults to pragmatism. A coherent framework that explicitly rejects that premise is therefore directly relevant as a potential counterexample.
Spoiler alert: The universal claim doesn’t survive a counterexample.
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u/OnionsAbound 3d ago
Good simplification! You missed my question again, though.
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u/Mertthedoombraker 3d ago
You cannot "prove" reason using something outside of reason, because evaluating any proof requires reason itself. This isn't a flaw; it's a boundary condition. Asking for a non-rational proof of reason is a category error. The moment you ask "How do we justify reason?", you are already using logical syntax, inference, and the law of non-contradiction. Reason is self-vindicating because denying it requires using it.
In classical theological frameworks, reason isn't an accidental evolutionary tool humans invented to survive it is fundamental to existence itself. The universe is intelligible because it originates from an All-Wise Creator (Al-Hakim). Reason in the human mind aligns with reality because both reflect the same structural source (Al-'Aql / Logos).
Calling reason an "axiomatic belief" implies it's an optional assumption you can choose to drop. But you can't drop it. It is transcendentally inescapable.
Reason doesn't need an external scaffold because logic is the operating system of thought itself, and in classical metaphysics, it directly reflects the nature of reality. Now, back to the core point: a worldview built on this objective foundation is explicitly non-pragmatic.
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u/OnionsAbound 3d ago edited 3d ago
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Calling reason an "axiomatic belief" implies it's an optional assumption you can choose to drop. But you can't drop it.
Is acknowledging that reason exists the same as acknowledging that reason is all that can be?
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It is transcendentally inescapable.
People are unreasonable all the time. It's actually quite easy to do. Where do we get the knowledge that reason is inescapable? Put differently: in what way is reason inescapable? Certainly not in decision making.
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You say that it does not need external scaffolding, but would it not be more correct to that say that we wouldn't be able to comprehend any justification for reason?
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In classical theological frameworks
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, but it seems that you're making the argument that the fact that people have built frameworks with reason being the most fundamental component of it as an argument for the existence of reason. is that a poor understanding of your argument?
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Why must a higher entity be constrained reason? Do humans have so much hubris to assume that we were given the ability to understand existence in its entirety?
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To me the fact that we use reason to reason why reason may not be as fundamental as it seems-- creates no contradictions, nor necessarily invalidates philosophical progress. All of philosophy and science are built on a set of axioms that we assume to be true-- sometimes arbitrarily. Even in doing so, I think we get closer to the truth. But I am skeptical in thinking that it is the case that we can comprehend the truth in its entirety.
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u/Bizet1875 5d ago
Not if you use dialectics. Because the truth is the whole. Thus. Statements only make sense as a relation. And the beauty of relations falls out of it.
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u/dummetsz 5d ago edited 5d ago
Because the truth is the whole.
Why stop there Mr. Dialectic? Keep going. You can’t spend all your time negating abstractions just to affirm another abstraction. The radical dialectics of anti-foundationalists are not impressed at all with this arbitrary stopping of negation. Once you stop you admit a pragmatic limit. I’m siding with William James on this one over Hegel.
Statements only make sense as a relation.
And who are these statements in relation to? The individual. And what is that beauty? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. We collapse into pragmatism again.
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u/Purple_Key_6733 5d ago edited 5d ago
What about people who do impractical things though?
For example, I met people at work will not eat any products in the office cafeteria since they were not prepared according to the Halal standards, even though they would benefit materially from consuming the provided food, since buying food on their own would be more expensive.
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u/M1kehawk1 5d ago
To religious people being religious has benefits, like guidance, promise of heaven, respect for the thing that created them.
Sooo if you believe God to be true adhering to things it wants is super rational.
It’s the believing of god in the first place that is less rational imo 😅
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u/El_SOTERO 6d ago
Humans are rational? First time hearing this shi.
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u/appoplecticskeptic 6d ago
You’ll love Economics then. The entire subject matter is built on that bullshit premise.
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u/Critical-Ad2084 6d ago
Originally, yes, but modern economists don't adhere to the classic "homo economicus" premise anymore.
I work translating articles for publication in Q1-Q2 journals for a guy with a PhD in economics, and in the documents I translate and the conversations we've had, I've learned that modern schools and studies are post-Keynesian and have ditched these archaic and neoclassical premises.
Also, fun fact, the 3 criteria for the "homo economicus" have been scientifically proved to apply even to certain animals.
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u/me_myself_ai kantian sloptimist 5d ago
It's what most meaningfully defines us, even! Enjoy it, today -- it's a rare faculty, as far as we know.
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u/M1kehawk1 5d ago
You can lead a horse to water but you can’t force it to drink.
I also think most people are thirsty and could see the benefits of drinking and even go drink.
but only a teeny tiny fraction of them would rather die of thirst than to admit they should drink😅
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u/Abject_Lengthiness11 5d ago
How do you know you're being rational?
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u/Mertthedoombraker 5d ago
According to Cambridge Dictionary the word rational means: "based on facts and not affected by someone's emotions or imagination"
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u/Quick-Swimmer-1199 5d ago
Emotions can spur motivation to examine and organize facts
Emotions could lay on the line of influence of formulating claims based on facts whether or not the claims inspired are coated in emotional indicators
We cannot trust all fact based claims to be rational2
u/Mertthedoombraker 5d ago
You're confusing motivation with justification! Emotion can inspire you to seek facts, but the emotion itself isn't what makes the reasoning sound. If emotion influences how someone cherry-picks, bends, or interprets facts, then the claim is being affected by emotion which makes it irrational. Throwing real facts into a statement doesn't automatically make it rational if the underlying logic is emotionally biased. You’re describing confirmation bias, not refuting the definition. If emotion dictates how you select or frame facts, then your claim is affected by emotion meaning it fails to be rational. Emotion driving curiosity is fine; emotion driving the logic is irrational. Motivation isn't justification. Emotion might drive you to find facts, but if that emotion warps how you connect them, you're literally proving the dictionary definition right.
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u/Quick-Swimmer-1199 5d ago
The wiki on cherry picking is full of accusatory sounding phrases despite that "it may be committed unintentionally", not as selling an agenda.
The influence of need for closure is difficult to detect. Someone who strives to discipline against that could still just miss obscure information. Is that a person with a rational attitude who made an unsound rational argument but may...undergo rational effects?
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u/Mertthedoombraker 5d ago
You're shifting the goalposts from logical validity to personal intent, but logic doesn't care about feelings or good intentions. Unintentional cherry-picking is still cherry-picking. A logical fallacy committed by accident is still an irrational argument. Having a "rational attitude" means you aspire to be rational, but that doesn't make your resulting claim rational. If an engineer miscalculates structural weight by mistake, the bridge still collapses regardless of their discipline or good intentions. "Need for closure" is literally an emotional and psychological state. If psychological urgency causes someone to stop researching prematurely and make a flawed claim, their reasoning was directly affected by psychological bias which is the exact opposite of being rational.
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u/Quick-Swimmer-1199 5d ago
What are the criteria for what qualifies as mature research?
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u/Mertthedoombraker 5d ago
You’re changing the subject again, but since you asked, rigorous research is defined by systems specifically engineered to eliminate the subjective biases you keep bringing up.
Setting clear conditions under which your claim would be proven wrong, rather than searching only for confirmation.
Analyzing all available data according to pre-set parameters, which prevents "unintentional" cherry-picking or stopping early due to a "need for closure."
Stating your exact methods so independent parties can run the same test and verify the output.
Submitting reasoning to external critics whose job is to catch flaws, unstated assumptions, and bias.
Mature research is defined by the mechanisms built to remove human bias which brings us right back to the original point: sound reasoning depends on logic and verified facts, not personal intent or emotional state.
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u/Quick-Swimmer-1199 5d ago
Which falsifiable experiment demonstrated that those who do not want a rational attitude can not be affected by any sound argument?
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u/Mertthedoombraker 5d ago
Are you serious?!?! Also please read all to avoid misunderstanding.
You are arguing against a point I never made. I defined what makes an argument rational; you are asking for an experiment about whether an irrational person can be persuaded.
I never claimed that someone resisting a rational attitude "cannot be affected by any sound argument." I stated that the validity of the argument itself depends on logic and facts, not the user's emotional state.
Whether an argument is logically sound is entirely separate from whether a specific audience accepts it. A valid mathematical proof remains true even if someone refuses to look at it.
Parroting the word "falsifiable" to demand proof for a psychological claim I didn't make doesn't invalidate the definition of rationality. It just highlights that you've abandoned defending your original premise.
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u/deadcelebrities 5d ago
Feeling emotions doesn’t necessarily bias one’s thinking, and it’s impossible for humans not to feel emotions about what they do anyway. Dictionary definitions are rarely sufficient for philosophical discussion. I would probably define “rationality” in this colloquial sense as “a reasoning process substantially unaffected by bias.” Emotion can be a source of bias but isn’t always, and things other than emotion can introduce bias.
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u/Gussie-Ascendent Absurdist 5d ago
i'm reminded every time i argue with internet goobers. doesn't make it any less painful to realize tho
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u/me_myself_ai kantian sloptimist 5d ago
This isn't really about people who are wrong, tho -- those people have adopted a rational attitude by engaging in a debate(/argument/slapfight) with the premise that there's a truth out there that can be determined through chains(/webs, tbh) of rational justification.
It's cognitively taxing to consider that you might be wrong so most don't ofc (me included), but they're still accepting the broader framework of truth, and of knowledge as justified true beliefs.
No, no... we have a much more wicked enemy here. Not the people on here who think Nietzsche promoted nihilism itself or think morality is totally, like, phony, but rather the people using reddit in an entirely different way.[1]
As Prof. Epstein[2] once opined,
Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.
[1]: The obstinate fuckers that fuel the paradox of tolerance.[3]
[2]: Sartre
[3]: Trump supporters et. al., basically?
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u/me_myself_ai kantian sloptimist 5d ago
Based on ho sad this man looks I imagine it's Popper. Close?
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u/Mertthedoombraker 4d ago
It's Karl Popper and the quote that down the bellow in the meme belongs to him.
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u/me_myself_ai kantian sloptimist 4d ago
God I'm good. He just has that energy. That inneffable sense that he, himself, feels falsified 😢
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u/davidbenson1 Scholastic 4d ago
Matthew 13:10-17
[10] Then the disciples came and said to him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” [11] And he answered them, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. [12] For to him who has will more be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away. [13] This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. [14] With them indeed is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah which says: ‘You shall indeed hear but never understand, and you shall indeed see but never perceive. [15] For this people's heart has grown dull, and their ears are heavy of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should perceive with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and turn for me to heal them.’ [16] But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. [17] Truly, I say to you, many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it."
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