{"id":60,"date":"2007-11-05T22:30:00","date_gmt":"2007-11-06T02:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/?p=60"},"modified":"2007-11-05T22:30:00","modified_gmt":"2007-11-06T02:30:00","slug":"do-not-block-the-road-of-inquiry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/2007\/11\/do-not-block-the-road-of-inquiry\/","title":{"rendered":"Do Not Block the Road of Inquiry"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Just a short post, but I&#8217;d like to comment on one particular maxim advanced by philosopher Charles S. Peirce, a maxim which I strongly endorse:<\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: center;\">Do not block the road of inquiry!<\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: left;\">What Peirce means by this is that we ought never to draw a line in the sand and say that theorizing cannot, must not, ever be allowed to go in this or that direction <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">regardless of the evidence<\/span>. The rationale for the maxim is simple: Rationality requires that we submit our thinking to the <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">truth<\/span>, as best we can discern it. And since our only access to the truth is the <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">evidence<\/span> that we have at our disposal, we must never dismiss evidence out of hand simply because it conflicts with one of our pet theories.<\/p>\n<p>One violates this maxim when one plays the ever-popular intellectual &#8220;trump card&#8221;. For example, while I am a convinced theist of a broadly Christian persuasion, I am routinely dismayed by how many of my co-religionists like to play the trump card. This manifests itself in doctrinal proof-texting, fideism.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>When confronted with evidence or argument to the effect that the Earth is billions of years old, some will simply dismiss it saying &#8220;My Bible says otherwise.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>It is official Mormon teaching that divine revelation (read &#8220;religious experience&#8221;) can never be overturned by external rational argument.<\/li>\n<li>Muslims<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Any set of doctrines that requires me to turn off my intellect does not merit my allegiance.<\/p>\n<p>and have strong religious<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Just a short post, but I&#8217;d like to comment on one particular maxim advanced by philosopher Charles S. Peirce, a maxim which I strongly endorse: Do not block the road of inquiry! What Peirce means by this is that we ought never to draw a line in the sand and say that theorizing cannot, must\u2026 <span class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/2007\/11\/do-not-block-the-road-of-inquiry\/\">Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}