From: BillR54619-AT-aol.com
Date: Mon, 08 Oct 2001 11:00:30 EDT
Subject: Re: PKF: for and against


In a message dated Mon, 8 Oct 2001  9:11:47 AM Eastern Daylight Time, Oliver <adams-AT-anarki.dk> writes:

> BillR54619-AT-aol.com wrote:
> 
> > With appropriate allowance for uncertainties of fact, no honest person simply makes a weaker argument for the sake of dialectic, or dialogue alone. 
> 
> > 
> > Nothing is so fallible as a bad conscience.
> > 
> I see I misspoke. I did not mean I would not concede > a lost argument. What I meant was I might continue 
> the argument for the sake of argument alone, just to > learn more about the other person's opinion and 
> defence of such. Nothing to do with conscience or 
> honesty really. More a function of dialogue. As soon > as the argument ends, the exchange of opinions and 
> therefore possibility of learning ends. This list is > a great example of that.

Like all virtues, openmindedness is a virtue that can become a vice when overdone. One gets to the point where the continuation of dialectic actually degrades understanding or knowledge of a subject. In the context of Plato's dialogues, this is generally the point where Socrates resorts to myths and metaphors to get the point across.

And this is not a suspension or a prohibition of questions. It is an admission that human reason and knowledge is fallible, so that the only way forward is a sort of Kierkegaardian "leap of faith".

Bill R. 
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