The reason why human experience is inherently theory laden is because of the infinitizing tendency of our cogitations about things. We tend to extrapolate beyond not only my experience up till now and my expected future experience, but our future possible experience (after all, we think together via language), and beyond even that to what would be thought about the matter by one or many rational beings capable of knowing reality in all of its factors. When we seek the truth of the matter, we are chasing after God's thoughts.
Here is a summary and comments on the essay Freedom and Resentment by PF Strawson. He makes some great points, and when he is wrong, it is in such a way as to clarify things a great deal. My non-deterministic position is much better thanks to having read this. I’ll summarize it in this post and respond in a later one. In a nutshell: PFS first argues that personal resentment that we may feel toward another for having failed to show goodwill toward us would have no problem coexisting with the conviction that determinism is true. Moral disapprobation, as an analog to resentment, is likewise capable of coexisting with deterministic convictions. In fact, it would seem nearly impossible for a normally-constituted person (i.e., a non-sociopath) to leave behind the web of moral convictions, even if that person is a determinist. In this way, by arguing that moral and determinist convictions can coexist in the same person, PFS undermines the libertarian argument ...
Comments