{"id":654,"date":"2008-12-07T20:41:05","date_gmt":"2008-12-08T04:41:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/wordpress\/?p=654"},"modified":"2008-12-07T20:56:16","modified_gmt":"2008-12-08T04:56:17","slug":"the-wages-of-reason","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/the-wages-of-reason\/","title":{"rendered":"The wages of reason"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Just to be clear, I support the program of <a href=\"http:\/\/experimentalphilosophy.typepad.com\/\">experimental philosophy<\/a>. \u00a0Some of the arguments on this weblog have seen me be extremely dismissive of reason. If one is not ambitious, and keeps the chain of propositions suitably modest, there is certainly much utility in the use of reason. \u00a0But if you read a book like <a href=\"http:\/\/experimentalphilosophy.typepad.com\/\">Experiments in Ethics<\/a>\u00a0you see that there is much empirical data which confirms that the verbal arguments of extremely intelligent philosophers do not capture the generality of the human condition &amp; cognition. \u00a0Philosophy has ceded to natural science much of its ancient ground, and the intuitions and rationales of the savants of yore have been found wanting. \u00a0 Induction tells us therefore to be suitably skeptical of the contemporary confidence and certitude of some philosophers who survey the domains left to their discipline. \u00a0Grand system building in the physical sciences have yielded us the age of affluence, while in social and humane domains it has by and large resulted in folly. That is why I am sympathetic to the position that we should do what <em>has <\/em>worked in the past in preference to what we think\u00a0<em>should<\/em>\u00a0work in the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Just to be clear, I support the program of experimental philosophy. \u00a0Some of the arguments on this weblog have seen me be extremely dismissive of reason. If one is not ambitious, and keeps the chain of propositions suitably modest, there &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/the-wages-of-reason\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[14],"tags":[88,1130,86,87],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=654"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":658,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654\/revisions\/658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}