the grounds...

(For Roxana)

"People who don’t pay attention to the question of justification are often rather uninteresting, in my opinion. I am most fascinated by characters who struggle with the demands of justification."

Now and then I'm forced to put on my religious hat (which doesn't quite fit any more). Of course, your lack of seriousness toward religion, the idea that you can put a hat on whenever you want, may be part of the problem (or maybe it's the solution...a solution?). After all, you're not Knulp. Khair...

Got to say that I instinctively flinch on hearing the word 'existentialism'. What on earth is that? One of your colleagues here insists that one must look to the grounds of one's beliefs-whatever they are. Because it's only there that a proper argument can take place, as if to say: all rests or falls on the grounds of our beliefs, on the reasons we have to act.

Well, that does sound like an extreme approach to me. No? Firstly, why should anyone want to argue for or against faith in the first place? This question seems, to me at least, to be prior. If we can see another person as a human being (and it's sometimes a big 'if', sometimes not) then the scope for argument, debate, proofs, and evidence all seems diminished. Why shouldn't we consider conversation, discussion, and listening to be better ways of thinking. Thinking of, with, or for someone...

I guess this relates to the question: 'why moral theory?' (B.Williams, A. Baier). Is there always a need to go back to first principles? I suspect not. And what counts as a 'reason'? I think a more expansive notion of reason (something like 'reasonableness') would preclude such a rigorous, self-critical mode of analysis; reason, in this sense, would be to let some things go, to know when to let them..

For me, people who struggle with faith or, more generally, for a justification of/in their lives, are the most boring. On the other hand, there is something utterly fascinating about a calm, naive (Berlin on Verdi)sense of goodness.

"Pleasure is the fundamental awareness of reality" (Hannah A).