Posted: Jul 28, 2011 10:00 pm
DrWho wrote:If one does not have faith that reason is useful, then what is the justification for using it?
I second mindhack's call for your definition of faith. Equivocation is common in such discussions and, I suspect, at play here too.
No one can prove that reason is useful.
I think you may need to qualify this more. If I use reason a thousand times and I find it useful (utility being a subjective measure as it requires a goal or intent) at least once, haven't I proven reason useful? Or must reason be useful in every instance it is employed? Or is there a threshold somewhere in between you'd argue for?
Thus I agrue that faith in the utility of reason is a necessary condition for being rational.
This needs to be tightened up a bit too. I can see where you might argue that faith in the utility of reason may be necessary for intentional use of reason (rather than just being rational by nature). Then we'll probably just end up having the old boring problem of induction discussion.