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Soulists believe that if objectivity exists, it’s inaccessible to human minds at our current level of development. And if beliefs can’t be sorted by objective truth, then our criterion for deciding what we should believe is by how useful a belief is.
Okay, reasonable
Or in simpler terms, usefulness decides truth.
Wait what?
If the big questions are unsolvable, you don’t stress over them, you do what you can.
Okay yeah, that’s me, and I’d think most reasonable people as well.
It is me, or the author, who’s having trouble with the word “truth” (and “believe”)?
This same author, in another article, defines ‘soulism’ as basically anarcho-antirealism. Outside of that, it’s hardly been written about, so They kinda get to define it however They want, but Their description seems to contradict itself
I don’t see the contradiction between soulism and anarcho-antirealism. Soulism as a term originates on the internet as anarchism which opposes natural laws. Destroying natural laws requires destroying the system that places reality above people. In other words, destroying realism.
No I’m not trying to imply any contradiction there. I meant the parts I quoted
The truth is what we should believe. According to realists, we should believe in reality. According to realists, truth is objective. According to soulists, we should believe in whatever’s useful. According to soulists, truth is a choice and we have a responsibility to make a good choice.
It sounds like They describe soulists as arguing that the truth is unknowable, so believe nothing and simply use the most helpful assumptions as a guide.
And elsewhere it sounds like They’re saying soulists delude themselves into fully believing those most helpful assumptions as objective truth
That’s an important difference
Soulists definitely don’t believe in an objective anything. I wrote the article, and I can’t see any part of it where I said soulists believe in an objective truth.
Let’s take this theory into the practical. “Trans women are women.” Is that an objective truth? No, women don’t objectively exist. It’s a subjective truth. But it’s a very important subjective truth that everyone needs to agree with and genuinely believe in if we’re going to have a free society.
