Robert C: …ignoring anything that so-called obscurantist writers like K., Heidegger, Derrida etc. might have to say that is interesting…

Heidegger? Derrida? interesting? right.

Honestly, the more I read people defend these types (Kierkegaard included), the more it sounds like a kind of philosophical Stockholm syndrome. At least Lewis Carol made nonsense fun.

C is not some sterile language. It possesses a tremendously nuanced semantic system. One can pick up the basic logic of C in a day, be up and running at a decent clip in less than a week, and be basically fluent in a month. But it takes many years of work and a lot of innate skill to master the language. And programming isn’t about writing programs, it’s about writing programs in collaboration with other programmers — even if you’re only linking against their libraries. No effective programmer is an island.

C, being much simpler than natural language, is able to illustrates some important points about how natural language works. As I’ve pointed out elsewhere: If you take a program written in C and compile it with two different compilers, you’ll get two different compiled results. If you run these two compiled programs through a de-compiler, you get two results that are as different from each other as they are from the originals. Compiling the de-compiled programs with other compilers and decompiling them again will yield additional, novel sets of C programs. To the extant that any compiled version of these programs behaves differently in any respect (other than negligible differences in performance), it will be considered the fault of the compiler (or de-compiler).

Thus, C is 100% reducible to object code. It is utterly reductionist in the most literal sense, though not in the most extreme sense; specifically, there is not necessarily a single, canonical representation in object code of any given semantic unit in C source code. Nor is there any single, canonical method of organizing different representations. Hence the difference between the compiled and decompiled programs.

So it is with language. I stand against nearly all post-WWII linguistic philosophers by maintaining that language is reductionist in the most literal sense. Meanings can be taken in isolation, have their impact on other meanings examined, and put back together with a great deal of precision. And in practice, we rewriting and restating our positions in a way that takes this for granted. Sure there are borderline examples of instances where it’s difficult, but focussing on those instances misses the entire point: we use language as though it were not irreducibly complex because it is not irreducibly complex. Russell’s atomisw is intuitive because it reflects not just how meaning works, but how we use meanings.

Regarding Christ’s teachings in the New Testament, these are mostly sayings that were attributed to him. In the best cases, they were handed down through multiple sources. In the worst cases, they were reconstructions by people who just weren’t in a position to know. There’s a very good reason why Christianity isn’t based on Jesus’s teachings. It’s worth noting that the Book of Mormon tends to be dominated by direct sermons (as are Paul’s epistles). Most of the Book of Mormon’s parables are quoted from other sources.

Moreover, it’s generally not a good idea for someone who grades papers to espouse the merits of muddled writing.

In fact, since you brought up computer languages, perhaps my reaction is the same: I recognize the use of improved computer languages, and I benefit from them in using them, but I don’t find them that intellectually interesting b/c they follow simple rules of logic. And I don’t think computer languages have that much to teach me about what I find most interesting in life (things like love, beauty, faith, etc.). So perhaps this is why I prefer reading Kierkegaard and others who do not strive for the type of logical clarity that you seem to value so much, b/c I don’t think the most interesting issues lend themselves to being reduced to simple logical clarity. I haven’t been following the discussion about what a paradox is closely enough to know if this qualifies, but I think this tension of clarity and subltety is interesting: for me, once something becomes clear, it usually ceases to be interesting. And although one might argue that this is just the natural process of learning, I think much more is going on here, something that is not easily analyzed in clear language. This Kierkegaardian leap of faith you are criticizing, which I think of as lying at the root of the problem of transcendance that seems to be a central theme in modern and post-modern epistemological philosophy, seems necessarily tied to the problem of clarity. So if we simply demand that all interesting philosophical thinking must be first and foremost clear (and precise? I’ll leave that question to you and Clark), then it seems we are essentially constraining philosophy to the same realm as computer languages, ignoring anything that so-called obscurantist writers like K., Heidegger, Derrida etc. might have to say that is interesting (by the way, I think Christ makes a similar point in Mark 4:12, quoting Isa 6:9ff in explaining why he teaches in parables, to make his followers confused and thereby possibly precipitate the beginning of learning, on my reading…).

If the proposition, “The Christian man-god provided an infinite atonement” is only apparently contradictory, and is altogether sensible provided the correct explication/resolution, then there appears to be nothing special about this statement at all with regard to faith vs. reason.

No matter how you slice it, Kierkegaard’s “leap of faith” bottoms out.

Yeah, well I kind of stole that one turn of phrase that you quote. Years ago, I found the formula for that brassy claim in an essay by AJ Ayer. After making quick business of Heidegger’s question “Why is there something rather than nothing?” Ayer concluded, “When it is so easily shown of a question that it cannot be answered, I will not admit that a long answer is called for.” That’s brilliant!. Really hits the nail on the head. I’ve lost no opportunity to use that formula in my own writings.

Robert C: Whereas all cups of coffee can be treated the same in my rejection of them (regardless of their differing quality and flavor

You obviously never had Folger’s Instant Coffee Crystals? They’re way more rewarding to turn down than other forms of coffee.

Robert C: As Blake hinted at, if I respond to the other’s call to love others only b/c God has commanded me to, I am not fully responding to the call to love

This gets directly at the core of it, Robert. This sentence relies on two separate criteria for satisfying the function “I love someone.” Thus, it is guilty of equivocation. For the sake of discussion, I’ll use the term “caring actions” to refer to the kind of behavior you characterize as “respond[ing] to their easily-neglected needs and concerns.” We can therefore express the two different criteria for whether I love someone (who’s identity I will keep concealed for the moment):

(a) I perform caring actions toward someone, and I do most of these solely because I want to follow God’s commandments
(b) I perform caring actions toward someone, and I do most of these out of selfless devotion

If we accept the assumption that the motivation to follow commandments is not one of selfless devotion, then you’re statement amounts to saying that (a) and (b) are mutually exclusive for any given object of love at any given time. It’s true that people very frequently fool themselves into believing that they are doing (b) when they are doing (a). It’s worth noting that very few people fool themselves into believing that they are doing (a) when they are doing (b). This points to the fact that the self deception arises at least partly due to self serving reasons; it’s quite easy for us to believe things that make us look like really grand people. As far as responding to God’s commandment, he clearly desires that folks get to point (b) even if they have to wallow a bit in (a) in order to get there. Is there something that I’m missing here?

My sense is that if I tried to pass off the preceding paragraph as a substantive analysis of some aspects of loving relationships, I’d be (rightly) scoffed at — I’m just one of the crowd, you know. I don’t see why people are so fascinated with Kiergegaard’s nuances and gestures and so forth unless it’s because the pretense of understanding all this “subtlety” provides an easy way out with people who disagree with them.

Robert C: This call can lead to subtle forms of self-deception which K. has elucidated nicely in his writings… Would you say self-decetion is a banal topic, or simply that K.’s insights on this topic are banal?

Self-deception, as such, is far too general a topic to be boring or interesting. On any really stringent definition, most forms of self-deception are trivial; e.g., I’m thoroughly convinced that I don’t drink too much diet Coke — who cares? Certain very severe forms of self-deception are interesting in some contexts — the crazy old ladies in “Arsenic and Old Lace” come to mind. Probably the best movie that is entirely devoted to the draw that we feel toward self-deception is the Robert Redford movie “The Candidate.” Bergman’s “Wild Strawberries” and Bill Murray’s “Scrooged” also come to mind, where memories come alive to give otherwise successful men a glimpse at who they really are, and this reality is disturbing enough to prompt a new beginning.

Kierkegaard’s discussion of self-deception fails to be original or interesting, because there’s no real substantive point that he’s making. He’s simply describing things in a way that is calculated to cause confusion in the reader.

“paradox, statement that appears self-contradictory but actually has a basis in truth”

“Apparently self-contradictory statement whose underlying meaning is revealed only by careful scrutiny.”

“A paradox is an apparently true statement or group of statements that leads to a contradiction or a situation which defies intuition. Typically, either the statements in question do not really imply the contradiction, the puzzling result is not really a contradiction, or the premises themselves are not all really true or cannot all be true together. The word paradox is often used interchangeably and wrongly with contradiction; but whereas a contradiction asserts its own opposite, many paradoxes do allow for resolution of some kind.”

This is the operating definition of paradox in the sense that Kierkegaard and others moral philosophers use: “a situation which defies intuition”; meaning which is “revealed through scrutiny”, and “seeming” contradiction. We’re not using paradox interchangeably with contradiction here.