In another generation, I would write in a journal. Perhaps one day someone would take interest, perhaps a child of mine. At this point it does not look that my contribution to the world will be significant enough for anyone to study me. I do think some people would find my ideological biography interesting and I have given a peek of one strand of it elsewhere.
I also realize more and more how much a person must guard their words when you live in a representative role. I am currently Dean of a seminary of a church in which I am ordained. That means my words represent my church, my university, and my denomination all at once. There are also people you don't want to hurt or offend. In short, some thoughts are best not shared until either you or your generation are dead. Sometimes some thoughts would best not be shared until a second generation had also passed.
I post here some thoughts now because I am going to Turkey in a little more than a week, dv. I want to put some thoughts down in a place where they can be found but where they probably won't be found quite so readily. How I tire of my detractors, most of whom probably do not even understand what I am saying half the time. How I have dumbed myself down over the years and hated myself for having to do it. But in case I die, I wanted to sketch my basic understanding of the world.
1. First, I believe there is only one thing of which we can be entirely certain, and that is that something exists. Descartes said, "I think; therefore, I am." Even this statement went too far. It would not have been as snappy, but a more accurate statement would be, "I think; therefore what I am calling 'thought' exists." The notion of an "I" is itself riddled with assumptions.
2. All other claims to truth involve faith of some sort. On the one hand, there are a host of data from the world whose existence works so well that it is worth calling them "facts." Certainly almost everything that can be questioned has been questioned. Am I dreaming right now? Am I a brain in a vat? It is ultimately a matter of faith that I am not a sophisticated computer program, but it is a very reasonable act of faith.
"There is a dog lying on my bed." Given my experience at this moment in time, it is reasonable for me to call this statement a fact. Empiricism is "true" to the extent that the content of my understanding of the world is built out of these facts. Empiricism is not sufficient to account for my understanding of the world because the organization of these facts is a function of my mind, which is a function of my brain. But these data are the materials from which my mind constructs understanding and perspective.
You will recognize in the previous paragraphs the influence of Kant, as well as a hint of Rorty. There are reasonable assumptions to make in this world, reasonable because these assumptions "work." Almost everything can be questioned--and far more than we want to assume is a "warranted basic belief," in the words of Plantinga. But there are data worth calling facts, especially objects that correspond to what Locke called simple impressions.
3. Where things get sticky is in the interpretations of facts, the organizations of our sense experiences in our minds, the "unities of consciousness" our minds create out of the simple impressions we have of the world...
