God And Fish At Duke

Stanley Fish writes on the importance of religion.

His bio:

Stanley Fish is the Davidson-Kahn Distinguished University Professor and a professor of law at Florida International University, in Miami, and dean emeritus of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He has also taught at the University of California at Berkeley, Johns Hopkins and Duke University.

Comments

[Charlie (Colorado)]

The other source of his anger is implied but never quite made explicit. He is angry, I think, at having to expend so much mental and emotional energy refuting the shallow arguments of school-yard atheists like Hitchens and Dawkins. I know just how he feels.

I didn't know Stan was religous at all; at Duke he seemed to give the impression of being the conventional squishy agnostic. And I think some of Eagleton's arguments (as Stan summarizes them) sound like the conventional academic Marxist complaint that the inevitable dialectic of history hasn't resolved quickly enough thank you very much.

[narciso]

I've had a weary eye on Stanley Fish, since Roger Kimball started righting about him in the late 80s, in the New Criterion and other sources. Does he not understand that
it's about ethics and proper behavior toward one another, or does he understand too well. Eagleton, does focus a point, that technological innovation doesn't make
moral codes obsolete, something akin to the
line, that Einstein made, about humanity hasn't learned anything new in 4,000 years except how to kill each other. That's a rough paraphrase, by the way, for a slightly more amusing start to the day, here's another recutting of the Reagan bear ad, that gets to the same point.

[sbw]

So why is anyone reading Stanley Fish at all? The list of 88 professors at Duke who signed the lacrosse letter doesn't mention his name, but googling, his name is mentioned in the same breath.

His name is certainly tied to postmodernism -- which I happen to be writing about now... as a bankrupt and superficial approach to understanding and consciousness. Postmodernism, like the progs, buys into ideas because they are "new" not because they are good.

Any prog worth his salt will clamp shiny new handcuffs on his or her wrists simply because the prison has been given a new name.

[sbw]

Strange coincidence: I was differentiating reverence, religion, and church for one of my employees this morning, and recommended reading "The History of God" by Karen Armstrong for perspective.

[sbw]

So. Having completed the Fish piece. What is it that Fish is trying to tell us? Where is the real Fish? All Fish does is flounder.

[verner]

"The fact that science, liberal rationalism and economic calculation can not ask — never mind answer — such questions should not be held against them, for that is not what they do.

And, conversely, the fact that religion and theology cannot provide a technology for explaining how the material world works should not be held against them, either, for that is not what they do. "

That's Stephen Jay Gould's argument. And I think it's a cop out. Science strives to figure out "How" so that eventually we might understand "Why." Then again, we may never possess the cerebral horsepower to ever fully understand "why."

And it's hard to tell what sort of "religion" Fish is arguing for. Deism? A personal god? Spinoza's "everything" god?

As for Eagleton, who could be a more conflicted soul than a Marxist christian? Talk about the worst of both worlds. Marx would consider such a thing utterly ridiculous.

[sbw]

Writing elsewhere I just wrote:

"Humbling, isn’t it, to know your consciousness fits between 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 meters and 0.000,000,000,000,000,1 meters, between 13,700,000,000 years of history and an infinite future, in a world of 6,800,000,000 people, many of whom are in need of help."

[Semanticleo]

'capitalism — just don’t deliver what is ultimately needed.'

Such explains the conservative penchant for religious zeal, especially after heroes like RWR prove less than promised. Money ain't enough, but when it's promised to you like it was the Holy Grail, it makes one lose faith in the tin gods (RWR et al) we look to for Messianic guidance.

[Ignatz]

-I didn't know Stan was religous at all-

One needn't be religious to be tired of the juvenile arguments of Hitchens, Dawkins etal.
Fish sounds like a skeptic who takes serious arguments in this area seriously. Hitch, Dawkins, Harris and the other atheist populizers of the moment seem pretty unserious true believers; the Benny Hinns of atheism.

[Ignatz]

Jeez, Cleo just improbably topped the lack-of-self-awareness award I gave him for one of his posts a week or two back.

[Cecil Turner]

Just skimmed the last thread. In the clueless sweepstakes, it's going to be pretty hard to top Cleo asking Mustang 0302 what his MOS was. [Hey, I thought it just meant he liked old cars . . .]

[Semanticleo]

"Hey, I thought it just meant he liked old cars"

Hey, I think you just topped it, Poster Child for redemptive self-awareness !

[Semanticleo]

How about a few words defending 'deregulation'
and yer fallen hero, RWR, Poster Child !

[Ignatz]

BTW Here's a rap parody of Dawkins, Hitch etc that even so noted a skeptic as John Derbyshire found pretty humorous.

[Semanticleo]

I can wait another day for y'all to dip yer toes in the brackish water of RWR. You don't seem to have the courage of yer convictions.

[Cecil Turner]

What, is the latest JList talking point some attempt to blame the Dems' spending spree on Reagan? Can you spell "quadruple"?

[Danube of Thought]

Fish is the patron saint of relativists.

Cleo lacks the courage to tell us about the Invisible Talking Marine. His fantasy has been publicly exposed.

What's with the Reagan fetish? Are you simply nuts?

[bad]

Something fishy from Obama:

And we launched a housing plan that has already contributed to a spike in the number of homeowners who are refinancing their mortgages, which is the equivalent of another tax cut.

If we all stopped eating we wouldn't have to buy groceries.

That would be a hell of a "tax cut".....

LUN

[Semanticleo]

Poster Boy;

That's yer defense of Reagan/trickle-down/VooDoo?

'Obama is worse than Reagan'

Well excuse me, but it took y'all nearly 30 years to shit-can yer tin-god. Let's talk in 10 years.

[bad]

Let's talk in 10 years.

Call me. We'll do lunch.

[DrJ]

Time to get trollblocker. TCO I can take; this one I will leave.

[Danube of Thought]

On last night's thread (now grown far too long) we were discussing the decay of California. LUN for an article on the subject by George Will.

The poor suckers in states with responsible governors and legislators are subsidizing California big-time, and still the exodus from the state continues.

[Semanticleo]

trollblocker is my friend.....

[Danube of Thought]

"...which is the equivalent of another tax cut..."

Just as, for Jimmy Carter, something-or-other was the moral equivalent of war. (Did anybody ever figure out what that meant?).

[Cecil Turner]

That would be a hell of a "tax cut".....

It is frankly amazing what Dem partisans and the MSM are willing to swallow. "Hey, don't worry about all that spending . . . we're going to give you a tax cut." It's not like those things are connected or anything. As if.

[Semanticleo]

Still no passionate excretions for RWR?

so sad for him......

[matt]

since this is a post on a higher subject, I shall refrain from expressing my opinion of Cleo.

Somehow, the liberal/left has arrogated to iteself the role of God. Marxism replaced God with communism as a pseudosecular religion with many of religion's trappings. By denying God's existence, they are only trying to rationalize their own philosophical superiority.

The conservative view is, I think, more humble. There is something much greater than ourselves out there and there is a moral path to be followed based upon a set of clear philosophical principles.

This used to be the province of logic and apologetics, and when one bases the whole of Western civilization upon the study of Aristotle or Plato or Paul or Aquinas, I think the modern philosophers come up very short. Derrida and Foucault are the Marcel Duchamp and Andre Breton of philosophy; "ceci n'est pas une pipe" is not a coherent moral statement.

[Danube of Thought]

"Can you spell 'quadruple'"?

I have tried repeatedly, and in vain, to elicit some opinions on how the Obama indebtedness will be repaid. My guess is that it will in some manner or other be repudiated, with mournful consequences. Anybody have a clue?

[bad]

O could give himself a helluva tax cut if Michelle could fit her feet into normal shoes.

[Jack is Back!]

Me? I'm running for the bus in my tutu while asking my toaster the meaning of life!

[bad]

DoT, Obama doesn't think repaying indebtedness is necessary.

Exhibit #1 - secured creditors in the Chrysler bankruptcy.

[Cecil Turner]

Anybody have a clue?

It's clearly unsustainable, but hopefully only two years' worth will pass before the bums are thrown out. If the universal health care and cap-and-trade programs pass, well . . . Fish help us.

[glasater]

A commentator on an early CNBC show opined that government spending is causing the market "bubble" currently shown in the DOW but in the end will tank the US economy.

I'm amazed that when Zero spoke on closing offshore corporate tax loopholes this AM--the market didn't go into the tank.
It did come off the highs however.

[Semanticleo]

"the market didn't go into the tank."

They're jut happy the adults are now in charge....

[sbw]

I'm sorry. I thought we were discussing Grand Banks: Cod and Fish and all that.

[Ignatz]

Just over 100 days and already the bloom is so far off Bambi's rose Cleo is having disorienting flashbacks to the 1980's Reagan reign of terror.

So much easier to tilt Don Quixote like against mythical Reagan era windmills than deal with the coming economic storm caused in part by our new Don Corleone constructing real windmills with mafia protection money muscled from us.

[Semanticleo]

At least PUKe has some defense of Madame Pinchet (Maggie Thatcher) on the other thread.

Although it was a tepid and inaccurate appraisal of her regime, he did have some passion in his diatribe.

Why can't Reagan get some respect from y'all?

[Semanticleo]

Madam Pinochet........

[Porchlight]

Why can't Reagan get some respect from y'all?

Maybe we don't take orders from trolls, troll.

[Jane]

Did you get laid off or something Cleo? You've been here for about 48 hours straight now.

Give it a rest. No one cares.

[Semanticleo]

I have been remiss in my briefings to y'all, so I took a couple of days off.....

Thanks for asking.

[Ignatz]

-Why can't Reagan get some respect from y'all?-

We've got oodles for him, in precise inverse proportion to what we have for you, but it's pointless attempting educate the uneducable.
Something about pearls before swine comes to mind.

[bad]

Jane, I suspect Semanticleo has fallen on hard times. Hence the Reagan obsession.

[Semanticleo]

"it's pointless attempting educate the uneducable."

Well, at least defend his ideas before the masses who assemble here. Maybe they are
'educable'.

That is, if you actually HAVE a defense...

[centralcal]

I interrupt this All Semanticleo All the Time blog, to say hooray for Jeff Sessions!!

Carry on (if you must).

[boris]

The old question about government spending versus tax cuts will soon be answered. It doesn't look good for the spending advocates hence the preemptive Reagan bashing to innoculate against the inevitable accusation that Obama blew it.

When the sh!t start to hit the fans of spending they wanna wail "it was our only choice because tax cuts don't work".

[Semanticleo]

The virtual avalanche of support for conservative icon RWR is frankly, underwhelming.

Do you folks know the meaning of the words 'pride' and loyalty?

[Semanticleo]

"because tax cuts don't work"."

Well, we kind of see the results before us, don't we?

If they work, let's hear a Bronx Cheer for
The Master of the Economic Universe !

[Uncle BigBad]

DOT

I have tried repeatedly, and in vain, to elicit some opinions on how the Obama indebtedness will be repaid.

Try 'hyperinflaction.'

[Dave]

It's simple, really.

If Reagan hadn't left the White House 20 years ago we wouldn't be talking about this massive $1,850,000,000,000.00 deficit.

[Uncle BigBad]

Firefox's block-quote thingy didn't work.

[Neo]

I was raised to be charming, not sincere
-- Cinderella's Prince "Into the Woods"

[Jane]

hooray for Jeff Sessions!!

I agree.

[narciso]

You know, Semantic we give you some leeway, because you have a son in harm's way, but can you stick to the point of the f@#$^^% thread, do you think religion has a role, or not, I'm not particularly interested in what your answer, but stop jacking the thread.

[Ann]

CC and Jane:

What is the news on Jeff Sessions?

[centralcal]

He will get Specter's old position on the Judiciary committee (rather than Grassley).

[Ann]

That is great news! Thanks, cc.

[centralcal]

Ann: See the LUN for more info on Sessions, who is one of my favorite Senators btw.

[Ignatz]

Awhile back TM had a post up about what a dummy Rep Barton is for his comments to Energy Sec Chu.

Steve McIntyre has a rather different take at Climate Audit.

[Fresh Air]

All Fish does is flounder.

Good heavens! I just got the title for the postmodern homosexual Animal House sequel: All Flounder does is FIsh.

[bad]

Fresh Air, I enjoyed hearing your source's perspective on the O's at Sidley Austin. We need more first hand observations.

[PeterUK]

"Did you get laid off or something Cleo? You've been here for about 48 hours straight now."

It's the laid that's missing.To put it crudely,Semanticleo has wankers doom.

[narciso]

Here's a piece in Spiegel of all things about another avatar of hate to the likes
of Leo; who arose out of economic turmoil.

[Danube of Thought]

It seems to me that hyperinflation must follow as the night the day, as the recent rise in treasury rates may well portend. And doubts are rising as to just who it is who's going to buy the necessary two trillion at current rates.

Narciso, didn't you see it? Cleo's whole story about his mythical "son" was exposed as a fraud, and since then he's been too ashamed to talk about it. (He just has no concept of loyalty, but then how can one be loyal to a childhood imaginary friend?)

[bad]

DoT, I think inflation is inevitable as well.

[PeterUK]

"And doubts are rising as to just who it is who's going to buy the necessary two trillion at current rates."

Especially after Obama kicks them in the tax havens.
Whilst the pols all scream "This is a world wide problem", it doesn't seem to occur to them that everyone is trying to raise the money.It's a buyers market.

[bad]

Read through Volokh's examples of what could be deemed felonies under this bill: criticizing a politician in a blog; sending a nasty email to your former boyfriend, or perhaps using the internet to organize a boycott of a company people are angry at. Once you have these vauge criminalization of of causing "emotional distress" or "hostile behavior," you're opening up the door to all sorts of wacky persecutions before the courts eventually determine that this bill is unconstitutional. It might make the supporters feel good. Who likes bullies? But Congress won't be any more successful in outlawing cyberbullying than they were in outlawing internet porn.

AHHHH.. some of our recent traffic makes more sense.

LUN

[matt]

There is an irrational hatred by the left of Reagan, Bush II, and other republicans. It is not enough to demonize them. They must be cast into the darkness and exorcised over many years to be brought up again and again as signs of the true evils of conservatism.

Instead, when the architects of real disasters; Kennedys JF and Teddy; Johnson, Carter, Byrd, et al get a hall pass and real crooks such as Blagojevich, Jefferson, Frank, Geithner, Rangel, Dodd, Richardson,and Berger defy prosecution the rest of us are expected to remain silent on these misdemeanors and praise a Chicago crook's magnificence. Talk about a frickin double standard.

[Even skepticism has its limits]

The man who believes nothing, is nothing.

H/t G. K. Chesterton

[Google Geologist]

Ignatz, check out the comments around the mid-thirties in your Climate Audit link. The zamboni scraped off a third comment.

[Google Geologist]

Tom got sucked in by the Guardian. He should have known better. Nonetheless, most of the blogosphere believed that Chu had pwned Barton. Not.

[Porchlight]

matt, well said @2:46pm.

[PeterUK]

bad,
That's why Semanticleo was bullying me.I feel threatened!

[verner]

PUK, you are today's Alinsky victim. What an honor!

[narciso]

See I guess I didn't know that much about continental drift and plate movements; I know I'm as surprised as you are. That whole
premise did seem kind of flawed, but since I didn't see any reliable source challenging
it, I accepted it. Chu has proven in the past outside his field of physics to have a flawed analytical process, but compared to
Holdren, he's a regular rocket scientist.

[PeterUK]

Verner,
Actually the bill would screw Alinskyite Community Organisers.

"1. I try to coerce a politician into voting a particular way, by repeatedly blogging (using a hostile tone) about what a hypocrite / campaign promise breaker / fool / etc. he would be if he voted the other way. I am transmitting in interstate commerce a communication with the intent to coerce using electronic means (a blog) "to support severe, repeated, and hostile behavior" -- unless, of course, my statements aren't seen as "severe," a term that is entirely undefined and unclear. Result: I am a felon, unless somehow my "behavior" isn't "severe."

2. A newspaper reporter or editorialist tries to do the same, in columns that are posted on the newspaper's Web site. Result: Felony, unless somehow my "behavior" isn't severe.

3. The politician votes the wrong way. I think that's an evil, tyrannical vote, so I repeatedly and harshly condemn the politician on my blog, hoping that he'll get very upset (and rightly so, since I think he deserves to feel ashamed of himself, and loathed by others). I am transmitting a communication with the the intent to cause substantial emotional distress, using electronic means (a blog) "to support severe, repeated, and hostile behavior." (I might also be said to be intending to "harass" -- who knows, given how vague the term is? -- but the result is the same even if we set that aside.) Result: I am a felon, subject to the usual utter uncertainty about what "severe" means.

4. A company delivers me shoddy goods, and refuses to refund my money. I e-mail it several times, threatening to sue if they don't give me a refund, and I use "hostile" language. I am transmitting a communication with the intent to coerce, using electronic means "to support severe, repeated, and hostile behavior." Result: I am a felon, if my behavior is "severe."

5. Several people use blogs or Web-based newspaper articles to organize a boycott of a company, hoping to get it to change some policy they disapprove of. They are transmitting communications with the intent to coerce, using electronic means "to support severe, repeated, and hostile behavior." Result: Those people are a felon. (Isn't threatening a company with possible massive losses "severe"? But again, who knows?)"

That is their whole bag of tricks down the tubes.

[bad]

PeterUK, shall we sing kumbaya to heal your boo-boos?

I know I'm already singing.

EVERYBODY now...

[Ignatz]

-Tom got sucked in by the Guardian. He should have known better. Nonetheless, most of the blogosphere believed that Chu had pwned Barton. Not.-

kim, er, I mean Google Geologist,

The truth has a way of getting out regardless of who thinks what at the time.
Whenever I despair of media bias and stupidity I think back to Solzhenitsyn's stories from the gulag and the Samizadt of how the truth was disseminated in a totalitarian regime.

[Fresh Air]

Bad--

It's my understanding that Mr. Wonderful's internship was wired from the get-go by higher-ups (read: Tom Ayers, the chairman of Sidley's largest client, ComEd). Many on the summers hiring committee were opposed due to poor qualifications. Apparently he wasn't even required to provide a writing sample.

Yes, he was known to be a fraud even then.

[PeterUK]

bad,
My pain is beyond song,the psychological trauma has been so utterly hurtful.I can forgive,but there has to be restitution.

[bad]

NYT is issuing advice to the administration.

LUN

[Charlie (Colorado)]

SBW, Stan really isn't correctly associated with po-mo; he's a reader-response critic. He thinks that different groups interpret texts according to different sets of assumptions — like Marxists using class-based criticism and New Critics using and valuing ambiguity. (That's why the New Critics sort of revived Moby-Dick.)

But for an English professor, he's pretty conservative, and his wife, Jane Thompkins, really pretty much left the whole teaching thing because she found the po-mo world to depressing.

[Fresh Air]

Has Stanley Fish already decamped Chicago? He was last seen tooling around the West Side in his 20-year-old Jaguar convertible with a green scarf rustling behind the windscreen like Nestor the helicopter pilot in Bridges at Toko Ri.

He was assembling quite the totem of academic frauds at the third-rate University of Illinois-Chicago. Wonder how many of the Ward Churchill wannabees are still hanging around collecting grant money and trying to keep their cars from being stolen on Roosevelt Road.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Fresh, Stan's Dean Emeritus at Chicago and ExtinguishedDistinguished Professor at Florida International in Miami.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

That's Stephen Jay Gould's argument. And I think it's a cop out. Science strives to figure out "How" so that eventually we might understand "Why." Then again, we may never possess the cerebral horsepower to ever fully understand "why."

Verner, the thing is that if you accept the scientific model — experiments that can be falsified — then you can't make any consistent statement about a diety in that model.

Consider: if you could, that would mean that you could construct an experiment that would falsify the existence of diety even if the diety didn't cooperate. But that would imply something that a sufficiently superior being couldn't do. It's Aquinas's rock too big to lift again in a new version: can make a rock so big God can't lift it?

[Danube of Thought]

What is the Chu argument referred to above?

[Ignatz]

-Verner, the thing is that if you accept the scientific model — experiments that can be falsified — then you can't make any consistent statement about a diety in that model.-

True Charlie, as far as it goes. However the problem arises when scientists go beyond saying 'this is what we can observe and measure and God, if he exists, may not be either measurable or observable' to 'this is what we can observe and measure and nothing exists outside what we can observe and measure'. And the worst, such as Dawkins, say that it is unreasonable, stupid and even evil to think there may be something outside of man's ability to observe or measure.

[Ignatz]

-What is the Chu argument referred to above?-

DOT,
A few weeks back, TM posted a story purporting to make Rep Joe Barton look stupid in a global warming Q&A with Chu, our new energy sec.
My link above to climateaudit concerns a different take on the discussion, ie; Chu was the dope not Barton.

[boris]

Perhaps a more relvent example: what does science have to say about life elsewhere in the universe.

(1) Life does not exist elsewhere

(2) Life certainly exists elsewhere

The first one can be disproven but (2) cannot. Therefore only (1) is "scientific".

IMO that is too restrictive. Science should not be prohibited from the more reasonable hypothesis.

[Fresh Air]

Duke, UIC, now Florida International. Quite the drop-off in quality of basketball teams. FI is the fave of every big-time program for a pre-conference schedule rout.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

However the problem arises when scientists go beyond saying 'this is what we can observe and measure and God, if he exists, may not be either measurable or observable' to 'this is what we can observe and measure and nothing exists outside what we can observe and measure'.

Yup, and that's why it cuts both ways: Dawkins et al make the same category error.

IMO that is too restrictive. Science should not be prohibited from the more reasonable hypothesis.

Okay, so tell me how that'd work?

Really, though, the problem there is that "life certainly exists elsewhere" isn't falsifiable, just as you're seing. So it's not a falsifiable statement, and ergo not a scientific statement.

(Next, we can take up what a falsifiable definition of "life" would be.)

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Duke, UIC, now Florida International.

Stan wasn't exactly a notable success running the Duke department. But a Dist Prof at FIU in Miami is the way a professor retires to Florida.

[Rick Ballard]

DoT,

Chu's display of vast ignorance concerning geology in response to Rep. Burton's rather adroit question was reported (and believed) by many people even more ignorant of the subject matter than Dr. Chu.

Dr. Chu is an absolutely brilliant scientist within his area of expertise. Physics is a wide field but it does not encompass geology.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

You're saying Barton rocked Chu's worldview?

[Elliott]

Fresh Air,

Why did they give her an offer if her summer performance impressed them so negatively?

[boris]

Okay, so tell me how that'd work?

The original question about life elsewhere can be answered by observation. Or it can remain open. Map to the Turing machine stopping and the completeness theorem.

My claim is just that you can't make it too simple.

[narciso]

Well there's the Drake equation, but what is the particular viability of those particular variables, I was an astronomy and scifi buff long before this

[PDinDetroit]

(Next, we can take up what a falsifiable definition of "life" would be.)

Insert Picture of Pelosi or Biden here...

[Dave]

Insert Picture of Pelosi or Biden here...

I think there's also a plate tectonics joke in there somewhere.

[matt]

Back in the 1960's my father, a rocket scientist, used to laugh about how Carl Sagan created a whole new field in extraterrestrial life form studies when there was no proof whatsoever of the potential for its existence.