Theos-Talk Archives (October 2004 Message tt00096)

Paul wrote: << That was a quote from 
Koshek's post on sophistry, so perhaps 
he can comment further.>.

Oh, well, whatever.

<<But I will add in reference to my 
earlier comparison of working on family 
and local history versus working on 
history that is of some significance to 
religious believers. In the former case 
I find a lot more indifference to 
results, that is people simply want to
know the truth without worrying about 
how it might make someone look
bad or affect our beliefs.>>

"Know the truth"... I already offered 
some views about that topic. I tend to 
agree with you about certain "religious 
believers" tending to be creative in 
their "beliefs": The old problems 
between the gnostics and the orthodox 
churches come to mind, eg.

<<Secular history can get into the 
same trouble with sophistry however, 
with for example the furious
resistance of certain biographers and 
historians to the notion that
Jefferson had a sexual relationship with 
Sally Hemings. It "must have
been" false-- a "must" that came 
entirely from the need to keep a
belief system intact.>>

There seems to be so many "belief 
systems." Maybe if people learned to 
speculate more, or better ...

<<Whether or not there is "real 
impartiality" I don't know but I do know
that some people are more partial than 
others.>>

While I don't believe in any kind of 
"real impartiality," basically, I 
suppose I might occasionally or more 
than occasionally have some interest in 
what might be called "apparent 
impartiality" in whatever 
conditional/interpretive sense/context. 
Eg, chances are I'll consider what my 
doctor might say about my health, while 
trying not to lose track of possible 
alternatives. Not that the "possible 
alternatives" are any less conditional 
or mayavic/karmic, but, since I consider 
myself to be, among other things, a 
student of Theosophy, I figure I should 
at least remind myself every so often 
that reality/truth in this world has no 
intrinsic reality/truth to it, (other 
than per whatever initial conditional 
assumption, model, interpretation, 
karma, etc). That is, not that lots of 
things aren't "real enough" for me, but ...

Speculatively,
Mauri