From: miner@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: Ancient Books
Organization: University of Kansas Academic Computing Services
Lines: 43

In article <Apr.14.03.07.58.1993.5438@athos.rutgers.edu>, mayne@ds3.scri.fsu.edu (Bill Mayne) writes:
> In article <Apr.13.00.09.02.1993.28445@athos.rutgers.edu> miner@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu writes:
>>[Any former atheists converted by argument?}
>>This is an excellent question and I'll be anxious to see if there are
>>any such cases.  I doubt it.  In the medieval period (esp. 10th-cent.
>>when Aquinas flourished) argument was a useful tool because everyone
>>"knew the rules."  Today, when you can't count on people knowing even
>>the basics of logic or seeing through rhetoric, a good argument is
>>often indistinguishable from a poor one.
> 
> The last sentence is ironic, since so many readers of
> soc.religion.christian seem to not be embarrassed by apologists such as
> Josh McDowell and C.S. Lewis.

I haven't followed whatever discussion there may have been on these
people, but I feel that C. S. Lewis is an excellent apologist and I
see no reason for embarrassment.  If you think that errors and flawed
arguments are a reason for dismissing a thinker, you must dismiss
nearly every thinker from Descartes to Kant; any philosophy course
will introduce you to their weaknesses.  
 
  The above also expresses a rather odd sense
> of history. What makes you think the masses in Aquinas' day, who were
> mostly illiterate, knew any more about rhetoric and logic than most people
> today? If writings from the period seem elevated consider that only the
> cream of the crop, so to speak, could read and write. If everyone in
> the medieval period "knew the rules" it was a matter of uncritically
> accepting what they were told.

I said nothing about "the masses."  However comparing "the masses" in
our day and in Aquinas' day really *is* odd.  Read Ortega y Gasset on
this.

I'm talking about the familiar experience of arguing all night and
winning on logic and evidence, only to discover your opponent to be
unaware, even intuitively, of things like entailment (let alone
pragmatics).  (I am assuming that both parties are college graduates
or better...)  Myself, I don't bother any more.

Ken
-- 
miner@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu | Nobody can explain everything to everybody.
opinions are my own      | G. K. Chesterton
