Epistemology and the End of the World

[groovedaddy]

Apart from its entertainment value, Harold Camping’s ill-advised prediction of the rapture last month attracted me as a philosopher for its epistemological interest. Epistemology is the study of knowledge, its nature, scope and limits. Camping claimed to know, with certainty and precision, that on May 21, 2011, a series of huge earthquakes would devastate the Earth and be followed by the taking up (rapture) of the saved into heaven. No sensible person could have thought that he knew this. Knowledge requires justification; that is, some rationally persuasive account of why we know what we claim to know. Camping’s confused efforts at Biblical interpretation provided no justification for his prediction. Even if, by some astonishing fluke, he had turned out to be right, he still would not have known the rapture was coming.

Of particular epistemological interest was the rush of Christians who believe that the rapture will occur but specify no date for it to dissociate themselves from Camping. Quoting Jesus’s saying that “of that day and hour no one knows,” they rightly saw their view as unrefuted by Camping’s failed prediction. What they did not notice is that the reasons for rejecting Camping’s prediction also call into question their claim that the rapture will occur at some unspecified future time.

What was most disturbing about Camping was his claim to be certain that the rapture would occur on May 21. Perhaps he had a subjective feeling of certainty about his prediction, but he had no good reasons to think that this feeling was reliable. Similarly, you may feel certain that you will get the job, but this does not make it (objectively) certain that you will. For that you need reasons that justify your feeling.

There are many Christians who are as subjectively certain as Camping about the rapture, except that they do not specify a date. They have a feeling of total confidence that the rapture will someday occur. But do they, unlike Camping, have good reasons behind their feeling of certainty? Does the fact that they leave the date of the rapture unspecified somehow give them the good reason for their certainty that Camping lacked?

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/16/epistemology-and-the-end-of-the-world/?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=thab1

[cleanhippie]

1. "Knowledge requires justification"- Well, according to some here, there are "other" ways of knowing

I'm not sure just what those "other" ways are, but we have believers here that say that a lot. They do not seem to need justification or some rationally persuasive account to "know" what they claim to "know.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

2. I believe

I know what you mean.

[RevStPatrick]

5. There's intuition.

It's a way of "knowing" without clear evidence.
I don't know how it works, but it often does.

Last week we had a bunch of friends over, and we were partying and playing music.
At one point, my brain said to me "Sammie is nearby, and when she gets here she will break something."
I don't know why my brain did that, I didn't know for sure if Sammie was coming over that night, and she is not someone who has ever broken anything in my house before, and it just all seemed out of the blue.

A couple of minutes later, my wife went to the door, even though the bell had not rung. Sammie and her pal were walking up to our house, but had not reached it yet and my wife didn't really even know why she went to the door.

Sammie came in and went to the fridge and grabbed a beer. When she was opening it, her hand slipped, the opener bumped a nearby shotglass, which fell to the floor and broke. I started laughing as I cleaned up the glass.

How did I "know" Sammie was nearby? How did my wife "know" to go to the door? How did I "know" that Sammie was going to break something? This kind of shit happens to me ALL THE TIME!

Now, I'm not going to claim that it is any special kind of power, or claim to "know" how it works. I'm not going to try to justify it or even claim that it is anything but coincidence. But again, this kind of thing happens to me all the time, and I do tend to trust those "little voices" that tell me things like that. When I'm paying attention to it, those little voices are generally always correct.

Can someone explain to me how that works?

[cleanhippie]

6. Here are some links.

What is intuition really?

Let's take it out of the realm of magic and hocus-pocus.

If we accept that it is a way of accessing or processing or using information, then we also know that we do this through our five senses.

http://www.decision-making-confidence.com/what-is-intuition.html




And then, of course, the is the wikipedia entry. YMMV.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intuition_%28knowledge%29

[struggle4progress]

3. Maybe Camping's certainty was driven partly by a desire for attention

[MineralMan]

4. Well, yes. And it worked. Sadly, at age 89, it's not doing him

much good. His recent stroke will probably put an end to his campaign. But, hey - DONATE NOW!

On every Christian crusader site, you'll find a nice big button, labeled DONATE NOW! When you do, you've found your answer, truly.