"Deep thoughts" on brute facts
So I'm sitting here reading about the conquest of Islam in the first millennium and I got to wondering about the objective reality or existence of brute facts. Searle supports his claim of realism by attempting to prove the existence of brute facts, uncontested and not based on intentionality or social reality. His primary example is the mountain. OK, it seems plausible.
But what if the mountain turns out to be a valley in a larger entity that exists beyond of current consciousness. He said the significance of brute facts is that they are epistemlogically and ontologically obective. But about the world in a time of universal and unquestioned, unacknowledged, belief/knowledge of the existence of a god or gods? There are mountains and craters and deforestation and erosion that has undoubtedly altered the face of the earth over the past few millennia of human existence. Does that mean they were but are no longer brute facts? Does this just imply that nothing is permanent? At points in human history the existence of god(s) has been as seemingly permanent as the existence of the Amazon.
So even if, not convinced, you decide to accept my label of god as a brute fact at some earlier point in history, what does that imply for the contemporary period of disbelief, unbelief and apathetic atheism? Although millions if not billions of people continue to undoubtedly believe in god(s), there is a significant enough contingent of true atheists and unbelievers to have deconstructed a brute fact and turned it into a contested institutional fact. Is there any other such precedent? What would Searle say about this? If an institutional fact becomes an opinion, does that mean that god(s) is in fact dead since the brute fact no longer exists? Perhaps Zarathustra's mountain was no more real than the god that had died.
On the flip side...
If the existence of brute facts is independent of intersubjectivity or social institutions, such as langauge and symbolism, which allow thought, what happens if human were removed from the earth and just died all at once. Could those who believe in gad as a brute fact still prove god exists? Does god exist without institutional facts like language and by extension, thought?
But what if the mountain turns out to be a valley in a larger entity that exists beyond of current consciousness. He said the significance of brute facts is that they are epistemlogically and ontologically obective. But about the world in a time of universal and unquestioned, unacknowledged, belief/knowledge of the existence of a god or gods? There are mountains and craters and deforestation and erosion that has undoubtedly altered the face of the earth over the past few millennia of human existence. Does that mean they were but are no longer brute facts? Does this just imply that nothing is permanent? At points in human history the existence of god(s) has been as seemingly permanent as the existence of the Amazon.
So even if, not convinced, you decide to accept my label of god as a brute fact at some earlier point in history, what does that imply for the contemporary period of disbelief, unbelief and apathetic atheism? Although millions if not billions of people continue to undoubtedly believe in god(s), there is a significant enough contingent of true atheists and unbelievers to have deconstructed a brute fact and turned it into a contested institutional fact. Is there any other such precedent? What would Searle say about this? If an institutional fact becomes an opinion, does that mean that god(s) is in fact dead since the brute fact no longer exists? Perhaps Zarathustra's mountain was no more real than the god that had died.
On the flip side...
If the existence of brute facts is independent of intersubjectivity or social institutions, such as langauge and symbolism, which allow thought, what happens if human were removed from the earth and just died all at once. Could those who believe in gad as a brute fact still prove god exists? Does god exist without institutional facts like language and by extension, thought?
posted by C at 9:52 PM
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