Thread by @EveKeneinan

.@noelplum finds it “odd” that people think the things they think are true are true. To me this seems like tautology. What would be odd is someone thinking a thing they think is true not to be true. “You would think that because you do think that” supposed to be a gotcha, Noel?

@noelplum I’ve seen this line of argument crop up before, usually phrased as something like “Isn’t in CONVENIENT that the things you believe just happen to be the things you think are true?”

@noelplum As I always tell my students “Questions are not arguments.”

I think the suppressed premise here is “All human beings at all times attempt to conform reality to their beliefs, rather than their beliefs to reality.”

If so, it is a self-defeating position.

@noelplum The person who holds that all human beings always attempt to conform their reality to their beliefs, necessarily must agree that he is trying to conform reality to THIS belief of his.

He cannot exempt himself from his own universal principle.

@noelplum But if the point is “You say such-and-such, BUT sometimes some human beings attempt to conform reality to their beliefs!” then nothing has been said.

So what? I AM doing that? Saying “sometimes some people do this” means nothing.

@noelplum Or if you MEAN “You are presently engaging the the error of attempting to conform reality to your beliefs,” you’d have something. But if you had THAT, why bother to phrase it as a pseudo-universal?

@noelplum That is, after all, something that would need to be SHOWN.

You can’t magical win debates by simply uttering the magic words “You are attempting to conform reality to your beliefs.”

I can reply with “No, I’m not.”