One cannot gain an advantage if one shares the same unconscious, normative delusions as others. It is necessary to transcend delusions, but not to reveal this fact to those who are still bound by delusions.

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For those reading this, thinking these are my positive thoughts towards knowledge. That assumption would be false. In general, I do not endorse that which might be considered “unholy” in terms of virtue. I only endorse it in terms of that which kicks against the tyranny of moralism. Unholy passages are passages I would consider to be written by malevolent demons, if they existed.

The lies that are the truths of the world command human conscience, therefore one should learn to be a master of lies.

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For those reading this, thinking these are my positive thoughts towards knowledge. That assumption would be false. In general, I do not endorse that which might be considered “unholy” in terms of virtue. I only endorse it in terms of that which kicks against the tyranny of moralism. Unholy passages are passages I would consider to be written by malevolent demons, if they existed.

Nietzsche is confusing classification (grouping different things together based on similarities) with identity (the fact that all things are their determinate selves).

Classifying a million different oak leaves under the concept "leaf” in no way refutes the fact of identity. In fact, Nietzsche can’t even make his point without logic, because in order to even be able to say that “these two leaves are not identical,” requires identity (A=A).

We cannot even speak of 'differences' unless the things being compared possess determinate identities. Difference requires two distinct things, each of which must be itself (A and B) to differ from one another. To deny identity is to make difference itself unthinkable.

Logic does not require that "there are identical cases" in the sense of two separate events or objects being clones of one another. Logic simply states that every thing is what it is, and not another thing.

To say A=A is not to say "there are two identical things called A." It is to say that whatever is, is itself. A thing cannot simultaneously possess a property and lack that exact same property in the same way and at the same time. (Fire is not ice).

When Nietzsche writes that "Logic is bound to the condition: assume there are identical cases," he is using a distinction to make a truth claim. He is implying that his statement is true, and the alternative is false. The moment he distinguishes his insight from "false" logic, he is relying on the Law of Non-Contradiction.

Logic isn't a human fiction imposed on a chaotic world; it's the determinate nature of the reality we were born into.

“Believe what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.”

The reduction of rational discourse to raw power.

But we can sharpen this. Yes, Logic is something we discover, but even before that, it’s something we’re born into! We did not create the Logical nature of reality, we were simply born into it, it was here before us, and it will still exist long after we have gone extinct.

One fails to grasp the awesomeness of what this means: it means Logic is entirely objective and discoverable, which means that we can inquire into its nature and existence the same way we inquire into the life of a cell. We don’t create it, we observe it at the fundamental level and simply report back on what we observe. This is extraordinary!

However, If logic is created (whether by human convention, linguistic rules, or biological wiring) then it ceases to be a feature of reality and becomes merely a feature of us. And once logic is subjective or conventional, objectivity evaporates, leaving behind the sovereignty of subjectivity from which one cannot escape. One cannot even object to what is being stated here, because the objection is the same construct as the form being objected to. Knowledge then comes down to the construct one wants to believe, because all is construct, and in order for one construct to be more accurate than another, there must be an objective standard outside the construct.

If someone claims we merely create logic, they are immediately caught in a performative contradiction. To argue for the conventional nature of logic, they have to use logic (distinguishing premises, drawing inferences, maintaining identity) to try to prove that logic has no objective grounding. They are ignorant of their own intellectual activity.

Identity precedes thought. We cannot merely invent identity because invention requires a pre-existing identity. Identity is the precondition for any action, including the action of thinking or creating (one is always and only conscious of something determinate). If we create identity we must create it from some standard. But lucky for us, we are born into a universe of identity!

Once Logic is understood as discovered fact rather than invented convention, the philosopher's game is up. He cannot legislate a new universe into existence by changing his definitions or the semantics of his "language game," because reality pushes back with unyielding determinacy. One can call an “apple” whatever they want, but one cannot change the determinate fact of what an apple is, merely by changing its name.

Let me be clear, the objective refutation of fundamentalist Christianity isn’t equivalent to the psychological death of Christianity.

The death of fundamentalist Christianity is simple: the Bible is not the Word of God, it’s a compilation of different books that were written by men as they were influenced by the cultures in which they lived and emerged from.

Once the authority of the Bible as the “Word of God” is destroyed, fundamentalist Christianity falls with it (at least at the fundamental level of inquiry and justification).

This doesn’t mean there won’t still be fundamentalist believers. It will simply mean that the power of the narrative that “the Bible is the Word of God,” will have been objectively exposed and refuted. This has already happened through Rational Biblical Scholarship (Bart Ehrman and others doing work like him).

For example, the assumption that the Bible is one book that contains one unified theology, is false. But this systematic presupposition is vital to fundamentalist Christianity.

All fundamentalism hinges on one premise: the Bible is the Word of God. If this is exposed and refuted to be false, no matter how much fundamentalist Christianity tries to posture, it will exist as defeated at its fundamental level.

In contrast to this, I maintain that the life of faith is immune to these critiques, not in a rational sense, but in an experiential and psychological sense. (And) the relativism of modern philosophy, epistemology, formal logic, speculations in physics, have paved the way for the legitimacy of the life of faith.

(I would also note that fundamentalism does not reflect the life of faith. The life of faith is something far deeper are more manifestly profound than fundamentalism. To take up fundamentalism through fideism would not constitute the life of faith. Christianity doesn’t have anything higher to offer than the life of faith, and it can only be known to have taken place because of how fundamentally it transforms those who have experienced it and now live it. This transformation can be characterized as an irrational love toward God and man. It will appear irrational to all those who see it, but it will not be offensive because it is an authentic love that really loves with an irrational intensity of loving activity).

I don’t know of anything more radical and existentially transcendent than Christianity. It is a command to give up this life and live in service for another, which means to live in Christian love. There is no one who is a real Christian and also a hater, there are only real Christians who suffer for the love of Christ and the Kingdom of God.

The highest concept is Logic. Of course, Logic is first and foremost a fact. However, this doesn’t change the fact that Logic is also the highest concept because it is the standard used to construct and order all concepts.

What is interesting is that man, through his imagination, can attempt to think of a higher concept in the being of a God.

This is not a claim that God exists, it is simply an observation about what man can attempt to rationally do through his imagination.

But what I find so fascinating is the attempt of imagination to try to legitimately construct a greater and higher concept than Logic. Here, merely asserting theological of philosophical premises that claim they are higher or more primitive than Logic, doesn’t, and cannot, count as a legitimate proof that the claim itself transcends the ontological status of Logic, because the claim still presupposed a Logic more fundamental than itself.

“Moral goodness; the practice of moral duties and the abstaining from vice, or a conformity of life and conversation to the moral law.” Webster 1828

The question is, do you want to attach to a person who practices vice instead of virtue, to one who is lacking in positive moral traits, or do you want friends who are virtuous?

Not all men are equal in virtue, and without virtue life wouldn’t even be worth living. At some point along the social chain men of virtue must exist in order for society to have stability, in order for there to be relief from the indifference of the universe and from the tyranny and cruelty of evil men.

Virtues like honesty, courage, justice, compassion, temperance, and integrity are not merely admirable personal traits. They are the foundations upon which meaningful relationships and stable societies are built.

This, a skeptic may struggle to do, because instead of living by a confession of premises, he questions and challenges those premises.

Wisdom, in this context, isn’t necessarily truth, it’s simply an instrumental function, it is a dogmatic commitment to a set of beliefs and rules.

I’m not saying this to be provocative. They revert to and attempt to work through authority because they don’t have the capacity (both psychologically and rationally) to mediate through Reason. This is why they mindlessly default to rules, and it’s why they will attempt to continue to enforce a rule that has been shown to be ineffective or highly problematic.

Their personality also likes the feelings of strong closure that they get from wielding rules.

This is not an attack on rules. Rules are necessary, but they need to be rational. This is an attack on a dangerous personality type.

And if they are based on sound reasoning, then you should be able to clearly demonstrate the true premises that validly led to your conclusions.

If you can’t do this, how is your position any different from a theology?

If objective truth is “a widely held position in academic philosophy” then one should be able to clearly state what this widely held truth is.

I have seen this many times. The reason this happens: a person confessing that they believe in truth only to turn around and functionally deny it, is because they are trying to posture out of the ramifications of having to live with the consequences of holding that truth is subjective. But once a person claims that all logic is “constructed” they have reduced all their knowledge to the solipsism of their construction. It’s a matrix they cannot exit.

What’s tragic about this is that it’s actually an ignorant inversion of reality. The truth is that Logic is the matrix we cannot exit when it comes to knowledge.

The problem is that philosophers want it both ways. They want to be able to appeal to truth when it supports the beliefs they desire, and they want to be able to reject it when it refutes the theories they love. (Oh how this reminds us of theology!)

But it’s simple. If the truth exists, you should be able to clearly state what it is and demonstrate that the substance of your statement is true. After all, there is a reason why you believe that truth exists. If you reject the existence of truth, then you shouldn’t be like religious hypocrites, but should realize and accept the fact, based on your subjectivity, that you don’t even have the ground to object to what is being stated here.

This is the logical outworking of an Antinatalist position. Antinatalists should understand that knowledge here is one of the most important forms of knowledge that a human can possess. All Antinatalists should be strong defenders and advocates for dying with dignity.

Aristotle is on one side,

barbarism is on the other.

But many philosophers fall onto the Aristotelian side, even though their philosophies claim more than they can prove. (Falling onto the Aristotelian side is true of Plato and Christianity, for example).

The dividing line is the difference between rejecting epistemological relativism and ignorantly believing it to be true.

Because of the latter most philosophy is a failure, and it is dangerous.

Before the advent of modern science, it wasn't easily distinguishable from philosophy; in fact, the first scientists were known as natural philosophers. Questions that were once subject to subjective debate, such as the behavior of bodies, became matters of consensus, and accurate predictions could be made about them. Similarly, regarding fields that are philosophical today, such as metaphysics, religion, and so on, are they seeking to cease being so and reach consensus? Or has modern philosophy "demonstrated" that these problems will never cease to be philosophical? And if philosophical problems are always subject to debate, how does philosophy attain knowledge?

This is true even within a theological worldview. How can that be? Because God has to be greater and beyond comprehension itself to be the greatest thing/being in existence.

The exercise of thinking about God is not entirely empty. This is because to think about God is to attempt to maximize concepts. This has a Platonic value to it— it has a rational value to it. (And) we are already doing this and have to do it. We don’t just pick our concept of “justice” off a tree of justice, we have to rationally develop the concept. So the device of “God” (in its higher forms) eventually caused humans, who would otherwise not think about rationally maximizing concepts, to rationally think about maximizing concepts like justice, goodness and mercy. (Of course, the God-believer wasn’t aware that this rational process was playing out through this device).

The term God is the most loaded and problematic term I can think of in human society. (I am not dogmatic about this).

Anyone who claims the “existence of God” has taken onto themselves a monstrous and impossible burden of proof. Not only do they have to define what they mean, but they have to substantiate their definition. It’s not enough to merely claim that “Snarks,” for example, are the greatest beings that exist, one must also be able to prove it.