Analetheism

 ©2020 by Joel Marks*   A Tribute to Joel J. Kupperman Most people, I imagine, think they know the world or reality directly. You open your eyes (or touch something, etc.) and there it is. That was certainly what I assumed at first too. What could be more obvious? But now I believe that what we experience is very far removed from reality. Or, more precisely, I think the answer to the question “Do we know reality?” is “Yes and no.” In fact, what I am about to talk about could be considered as much a demonstration of the Philosophy of Yes and No as an essay on our knowledge of reality.               My first step away from the naïve belief in knowledge of reality came in college, when I was introduced to the concept of the visual field by psychology professor J. J. Gibson at Cornell University. Ironically he intended to use that concept to  debunk  the idea that we  don’t  know reality directly,...

The theory of desirism, a form of amoralism, evolved from a very “traditional” (or anti-traditional) origin: atheism. The catalyst was reading a book by Mitchell Silver, [1] which considered and refuted contemporary attempts to “save” God for a scientific-minded world. What I took away from the book was that we have secular ways of achieving whatever is worth saving from a belief in God. Furthermore there are independent ways of refuting the arguments for God’s existence. So when, on different grounds, I suddenly found myself doubting the existence of morality , I had Silver’s template available to build my case. And indeed, I have ever since argued that we have nonmoral (or “amoral”) ways of achieving whatever is worth saving from a belief in morality, in addition to there being arguments directly refuting the belief in it (or the arguments for it). [2]   However, I subsequently encountered a major objection to the argument for morality’s non-existence, the so-called Companion...

I am in an odd relationship to truth these days. On one hand I am finding truth to be more and more elusive, to the point where I have doubts about the usefulness of talking about it and even question whether it exists at all. On the other hand I still act and feel as if truth were something I value highly.  In particular my self identification as a philosopher seems to me to be one with my commitment to truth. The most striking example of this was my suddenly dropping a career as a moralist to become an amoralist, literally in an instant when I had the “anti-epiphany” that moral values are entirely subjective (and so, insofar as morality is conceived as objective, morality does not even exist). This realization had profound and pervasive effects on both my professional work and my personal life. Yet there was not a moment’s hesitation on my part to go wherever my reason led me. Indeed, I have pursued the inquiry with unrelenting vigor to this day, 18 years later.   And (but?)...