On Misology

[redcrosse]

Misology.

Miriam-Webster defines it as "hatred of argument, reasoning, or enlightenment." I found it in Chadwick's translation of City of God a few years ago, and immediately fell in love.

Some of you may already see why; you are clever, Christian, or overly familiar with Greek. As most things do, it has to do with Logos. Logos is often translated

Comments

[russiandude]

It's funny, a few months ago I was describing how I see the world to some of my friends and it is similar (though not identical) to what you describe regarding interpreting scripture.

I can come to certain conclusions about the world and how it is set up from my own reasoning and observation. However I do not believe that there is any inherent Rightness or external Truth that holds up my opinions and makes them better and more correct that anyone else's. Nor do I believe that anyone else's opinions are inherently better and more correct than mine. However, I realize that while simply walking around and being all relativist and "anyone could be right, so we can't make any decisions at all" is pretty ineffectual. So, I recognize the need for myself (and others) to develop some sort of beliefs, ways of viewing the world and principles to base decisions on and I do my best to do such. So I will try my best to think what I do and not waver so much that I do not accomplish anything, but still keep open the possibility that I am wrong and others have interesting (and perhaps more correct) perspectives to offer.

[msarcher]

Kwame Appiah from Princeton says that we need to be on the look out for "truths good enough to live by"-- truths subject to input and revision, but still solid enough to base decisions on.