HSIBAS -- catching up

As of Friday April 18th, I have started back up on my 'progressive synthetic metaphysics' entries; the current series of which is "How Should I Be A Sceptic".

Rather than just plopping the next entry unannounced out of nowhere, I decided to provide a handy link sheet this Friday for readers to catch up where I am in the series. (Not only is it a complex series, but it moves along from point to point building on prior points as it goes. Thus, a 'progressive synthetic' metaphysic.)

As I mention in the first entry, the whole work represents one very large book I wrote for my own critical exercise back in late 99/early 2000. Last summer (2007), I posted up almost all of the fourth volume in a series of entries titled "Ethics and the Third Person". This winter, I went back to the very start and began posting entries in a series titled "How Should I Be A Sceptic".

So: here are links to the currently existent entries (updating as I post new ones), sorted by section (of the original book), chapter (of the original book), and specific entry (I tend to break chapters into two or more journal entries).

How Should I Be A Sceptic (Section One)
Chapter 1 -- Preliminary Clarifications
preliminary clarifications

Chapter 2 -- Presuppositionalism and Negative Agnosticism
a first question of feasibility
presuppositionalism vs. progression to a worldview

Chapter 3 -- Reason and Faith
one brief history of the reason/faith dichotomy
an important recognition about religious faith

Chapter 4 -- Belief and Reason
belief and reason
a question of external validation of reasoning
belief without reason?
religious belief and reasoning

Chapter 5 -- Against Contradictions
contra contradictions
paradoxes and contradictions

Chapter 6 -- Can God be an abstract generality?
an introduction to generaleism (or final abstraction)
particular problems with generaleism

Chapter 7 -- In Question of Infinite Regression and Infinite Possibilities
an introduction to independence
in question of infinite regression
in question of infinite possibilities

Chapter 8 -- In Question of Multiple IFs
in question of multiple IFs

Chapter 9 -- God and gods
God and gods

Chapter 10 -- SIF/n-SIF vs. ??
theism and atheism?
theism or atheism

Chapter 11 -- 'On' Metaphors
thought and imagination
an unwanted level of religious complexity?

Chapter 12 -- Evidence and the Supernatural
evidence and the burden of proof
a sieve of curious similarities
evidence from reasonable scepticism to reasonable belief

Chapter 13-- The Leveled Playing-Field
a summary of results
the leveled playing-field


Meanwhile, here are the links to the section of chapters I put up last summer:

Ethics and the Third Person (Section Four)
Chapter 30 -- An Introduction to the Question of Ethics
distinctive categories
an introduction to rationally invented ethics
an introduction to discovered non-rational ethics

Chapter 31 -- The Problem with the Third Explanation of Ethics
a summary of the first two problems
monotheism and the third explanation
the fatal problem with ethical theism

(the next two entries were not originally in the book; think of them as chp 31-1/2)
a return to secular ethical grounding?
the final problem and piece of the puzzle

Chapter 32 -- The Solution to the Question of Ethics
a return to the God of Justice
questions of relation

Chapter 33 -- A Necessary Aspect of God's Relationship to Man
procession and the overarching system
an introduction to the Holy Spirit

Chapter 34 -- The Role of the 3rd Person of God
some requirements for personal interaction
the minimum standard

Chapter 35 -- An Introduction to the Concept of Sin
contradiction and ethical failure
the choice of the Good, and other choices

Chapter 36 -- The Consequences of Sin
the waging of sin
the argument from evil

Chapter 37 -- Death
sin and death
the death of sin, and other deaths

Chapter 38 -- The Highest Death
the highest death

Chapter 39 -- The Fall
the fall of me
the fall of man

Chapter 40 -- A History of the Fall
the original sinners (and I)
results of the fall
a question of salvation

(further chapters and entries past chapter 40 have not been posted; though a summary of sorts for Section Four up through the end of chp 40 can be found here)