Open call for Presups

[HitchSlap]

How do humans know how to determine a rock is not a tree? How do we know that a rock will not be a tree tomorrow?

God?

Transcendent means not of the material world, why would they have a color or smell? Do your thoughts smell, are thoughts colored?

Do thoughts exist without minds to produce them?

 

[Athée]

Yeah, I think we are thinking about logic differently. I'm seeing it as a process or a plan, where logic refers to a process of thinking, like a formal cause that results in knowledge. In this, a proposition like 'A cannot also be not A' is a semantic description of the possible states of affairs. It's not logic itself, but the conclusion, in descriptive form, of the process of logic. The process, in us at least, is not necessary so should have an explanation.

I think that, given we're dealing with epistemic bedrock, our only hope of a solution is through abductive reasoning. We know the conclusion, "Therefore there is a valid process in acquiring truth", we just don't know the premise. So we have to plug in premises and see which one better acquires the conclusion. I think the conclusion has to be fully obtained by the premise otherwise the inserted premise, the conclusion, and the format fall into complete uncertainty.

I do think that my hypothetical of the Nothing reality is a discussion worth having if you want God to serve as the foundation for these types of things but you seem to be moving on from that in order to discuss reason.
Fair enough, you are not so much interested in an account of logic, rather you seem to be more interested in reason and in knowledge.
Before we go too far let me say that despite the Gettier problems I still believe that defining knowledge as a justified, true belief, is close enough for field work So when I say knowledge, that is what I mean. You are free to propose a different definition if JTB doesn't suit you.
On my worldview reason is effective because of evolutionary reliabalism. That view proposes that senses that truth track and come to true conclusions about the world around them are a survival advantage. This is why we are really good at noticing a big cliff. If it is the case in reality that there is a cliff, it is a survival advantage to correctly identify this and reason that, having seen other things fall off cliffs, that one should avoid it. Interestingly this also accounts for why we get things wrong in specific ways. For instance, in a 3d simulator at Disneyland there is a real intuition that you are falling forwards and plummeting to the earth in a spaceship. Your rational brain tells you this is not the case but it gets hijacked by your evolutionary danger seeking heuristic. Anyway the point is that we both have these externalist accounts for justifying knowledge . It seems like at this point the presup approach just falls apart and we move on to examining the evidence for the various worldviews.

 

[Athée]

Not really. As I understand it, they claim knowledge is possible but that it is possible only because "God".

I, OTOH, wonder why I should entertain the idea that knowledge entails certainty and why absolute certainty is important. I act on my experience. When I gain new experience, I gain new options.

I agree, there seems to be this real weight on certainty. But certainty isn't part of a definition of knowledge, at least I've never heard that proposed. Certainty is a desireatum, a feeling of complete and perfect confidence is nice for sure, but not a component of knowledge as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Tinker Grey]

I agree, there seems to be this real weight on certainty. But certainty isn't part of a definition of knowledge, at least I've never heard that proposed. Certainty is a desireatum, a feeling of complete and perfect confidence is nice for sure, but not a component of knowledge as far as I'm concerned.

I may be biased about pre-sup, but I'm pretty sure that Sye claims that you can't be certain the name on your birth certificate is correct. Thus a certain level of certainty, almost absolute, is required to know things. This is what I'm reacting to. Perhaps this isn't representative.

 

[Athée]

I may be biased about pre-sup, but I'm pretty sure that Sye claims that you can't be certain the name on your birth certificate is correct. Thus a certain level of certainty, almost absolute, is required to know things. This is what I'm reacting to. Perhaps this isn't representative.

Based on my YouTube searching and the bit of reading I've done, I think you are correct. I also think that certainty is a red herring in this discussion and in a conversation with a presup we might need to go through this at some point.

 

[Silmarien]

I may be biased about pre-sup, but I'm pretty sure that Sye claims that you can't be certain the name on your birth certificate is correct. Thus a certain level of certainty, almost absolute, is required to know things. This is what I'm reacting to. Perhaps this isn't representative.

Yeah... if you actually go by Reformed theology, I think the point is that Total Depravity means that the Fall has perverted us so fully that we cannot trust even our minds to be working properly. We can only know things if God gives us the power to know things as a gift, because we are beyond helping ourselves.

It is... radical stuff. But I don't think it's specifically about needing an absolute level of certainty. It's more about what happens when Calvinism wraps its jaws around epistemology.

 

[Oncedeceived]

God?

I'm asking you and I know you don't believe God exists so what is your answer.

Do thoughts exist without minds to produce them?

I've never claimed anything like that.

 

[Sanoy]

I do think that my hypothetical of the Nothing reality is a discussion worth having if you want God to serve as the foundation for these types of things but you seem to be moving on from that in order to discuss reason.
Fair enough, you are not so much interested in an account of logic, rather you seem to be more interested in reason and in knowledge.
Before we go too far let me say that despite the Gettier problems I still believe that defining knowledge as a justified, true belief, is close enough for field work So when I say knowledge, that is what I mean. You are free to propose a different definition if JTB doesn't suit you.
On my worldview reason is effective because of evolutionary reliabalism. That view proposes that senses that truth track and come to true conclusions about the world around them are a survival advantage. This is why we are really good at noticing a big cliff. If it is the case in reality that there is a cliff, it is a survival advantage to correctly identify this and reason that, having seen other things fall off cliffs, that one should avoid it. Interestingly this also accounts for why we get things wrong in specific ways. For instance, in a 3d simulator at Disneyland there is a real intuition that you are falling forwards and plummeting to the earth in a spaceship. Your rational brain tells you this is not the case but it gets hijacked by your evolutionary danger seeking heuristic. Anyway the point is that we both have these externalist accounts for justifying knowledge . It seems like at this point the presup approach just falls apart and we move on to examining the evidence for the various worldviews.

I'm not sure what the nothing reality is, I thought I read the whole thread but I don't recall it. You mean if nothing existed would necessary things still be there like logic? I think a reality, if it were possible, where nothing exists would preclude anything from existing. I'm not sure we can have a reality where absolutely nothing exists if some things exist necessarily. I think even if Logic is necessary it must have a grounding as a paradigm. Is a paradigm conscious? Vincent Van Gogh is known as the paradigm of impasto. When we say impasto it refers to an aspect of Van Gogh. When we say logic it refers to what?

Yeah, JTB is just fine, especially without having to add "without false premises" at the end because that just gets tedious. Let me tell you I am so glad to be able to use that definition. Because I had a conversation about half a year ago where it was just the B, and the justification was the unobservable arrangement of grey matter.

I disagree with evolutionary reliabalism because it's not senses that truth track and come to true conclusions that offer survival advantage. It is behavior that offers survival advantage, and behavior can be driven by true or false beliefs. Truth isn't necessary. A spider doesn't rule the garden because it knows the truth, it rules it because of it's behavior. Truth is not a necessity under evolution, so there are always other beliefs that could drive survival behavior. If there is just 1 other belief that could lead to a survival behavior then the probability we know the truth is 50%, 1 out 2. But in almost any case there will be far more than 1 other possibility, making it improbable in any scenario that evolution has given us a true belief. Additionally the only behavior Evolution cares about is procreation, it doesn't care if you live longer unless you are making babies. Can procreative selection rifle true beliefs? It doesn't seem like such a narrow scope could build such a rich degree of truth acquisition.

Evolution as a truth builder just doesn't work for this task, because there is nothing about it that necessarily drives truth. That isn't just the observation of Theists, there are Atheists that feel that way too. Neodarwinism is starting to collapse in favor of views more a kin to Panpsychism because of the need to explain consciousness in the first place. And any account of evolutionary derived truth would have to include an account of consciousness as well. To be rational we must have free will, otherwise our conclusions are determined. It seems like the only viable candidates are creationism by a competent agent, Platonism, and some type or variation of Panpsychism. New Darwinism, limited to reductive materialism has reached a dead end on acquiring true consciousness with free will and truth acquiring reason. When we plug it in as a premise to acquire the conclusion "Therefore there is a valid process in acquiring truth" it immediately weakens the conclusion, which in turn weakens the premise in a loop and that is not the direction we should go in solving the problem. I don't think we survive having a premise that weakens that conclusion.

 

[Oncedeceived]

I disagree that the laws of logic can be used to justify the laws of logic. This is circular and fallacious and to say otherwise is special pleading.

I am sooooo sorry, I couldn't understand why you hadn't responded to me and I thought perhaps I had missed your response and went back and looked. What I found was your post to me that I didn't respond to! I thought I responded to this earlier so I apologize.

It is circular but it is not fallacious, that was my point. We both agree that the LOL exist. We are justified in that due to the necessity of LOL to even discuss them at all. So not all circular arguments are fallacious if we know of one that exists that is circular yet true...correct? No special pleading necessary.

I agree that there is no other way to justify them though, that is why they are properly basic beliefs.

They are justified every time we think, discuss, or observe. They are a priori in doing what we do with reason, necessary and true.

I wish there were a justification, it would make me happier but the truth seems to be that they ontain in all possible worlds but we don't have a way to justify them (different than an account of them by the way).

We justify them every time we open our mouth, write a paper or even identify an object. It is how we account for them that we disagree. Which worldview explains them more cohesively?

As for the question about the nature of nothing...
You claim that God is the foundation, the account, for the rules of inference (from here on I will just say laws of logic or LoL since that is the term you seem to prefer). Given that you claim God as the foundation for LoL, I posed a hypothetical in which God does it exist and asked if the LoL would still obtain. Imagine nothing existed, no God, no thing, not possibility etc, literal philosophic nothing. Let's call that state of affairs "N". Is it possible that it be the case in that reality that N was both true and not true at the same time. In other words, could that reality of literal nothing, be both nothing and something at the same time? If this is not possible, then it seems the LoL are still relevant even in the absence of God and therefore he does not serve as the justified foundation of them.

It would be possible, at least to my mind for nothing to be something in the case of God. God is God, God is not non-God, and either God or non-God. If not God, nothing being something would just be nothing and and not something where there would be no A is A, A is not non-A or either A or non-A would not exist thus logic within the materialistic reality would not be possible.

Finally I'm not sure what you were asking in that last question. My assertion is that in all possible realities the LoL would obtain. You could imagine a possible reality in which unicorns exist and in that universe a unicorn could not both be a unicorn and not a unicorn at the same time in the same way. Conversely you cant even imagine a reality where circles (actual geometric shapes, not the semantic label) are square. In such a universe the LoL, wouldn't obtain but this doesn't seem to be a possible world. Not sure that answers your question but feel free to ask it in a slightly different way if I missed your point

We can only imagine different possible realities due to our own reality which in my worldview depends on the intelligence of God and His creation of reality. We could not even imagine anything without the LOL to start with. They are necessary to "imagine" something other than what we have experienced in our own reality. Why do we experience a reality where LOL are necessary, why do we experience a world where there is order rather than chaos, why do we experience life at all in a universe that seems so devoid of it?

 

[Oncedeceived]

The essence of being an adult

Isn't that the truth.

 

[Oncedeceived]

Should is a difficult word there. I don't think logic, or rather, the various systems of formal logic, are normative. I do think they define the space in which we are able to think coherently. For example I cant even imagine a married bachelor. I can put those words side by side but I can't actually conceive of the concept suggests by their conjunction.
Again not sure I answered your question there but if I didn't just keep asking

Ps Disneyland with three younger kids is a hoot!

Oh Disneyland! I bet it is. Have fun!

I don't think it is difficult at all. If we don't identify A is A as we 'should' we are in trouble.

 

[Athée]

I'm not sure what the nothing reality is, I thought I read the whole thread but I don't recall it. You mean if nothing existed would necessary things still be there like logic? I think a reality, if it were possible, where nothing exists would preclude anything from existing. I'm not sure we can have a reality where absolutely nothing exists if some things exist necessarily. I think even if Logic is necessary it must have a grounding as a paradigm. Is a paradigm conscious? Vincent Van Gogh is known as the paradigm of impasto. When we say impasto it refers to an aspect of Van Gogh. When we say logic it refers to what?

Yeah, JTB is just fine, especially without having to add "without false premises" at the end because that just gets tedious. Let me tell you I am so glad to be able to use that definition. Because I had a conversation about half a year ago where it was just the B, and the justification was the unobservable arrangement of grey matter.

I disagree with evolutionary reliabalism because it's not senses that truth track and come to true conclusions that offer survival advantage. It is behavior that offers survival advantage, and behavior can be driven by true or false beliefs. Truth isn't necessary. A spider doesn't rule the garden because it knows the truth, it rules it because of it's behavior. Truth is not a necessity under evolution, so there are always other beliefs that could drive survival behavior. If there is just 1 other belief that could lead to a survival behavior then the probability we know the truth is 50%, 1 out 2. But in almost any case there will be far more than 1 other possibility, making it improbable in any scenario that evolution has given us a true belief. Additionally the only behavior Evolution cares about is procreation, it doesn't care if you live longer unless you are making babies. Can procreative selection rifle true beliefs? It doesn't seem like such a narrow scope could build such a rich degree of truth acquisition.

Evolution as a truth builder just doesn't work for this task, because there is nothing about it that necessarily drives truth. That isn't just the observation of Theists, there are Atheists that feel that way too. Neodarwinism is starting to collapse in favor of views more a kin to Panpsychism because of the need to explain consciousness in the first place. And any account of evolutionary derived truth would have to include an account of consciousness as well. To be rational we must have free will, otherwise our conclusions are determined. It seems like the only viable candidates are creationism by a competent agent, Platonism, and some type or variation of Panpsychism. New Darwinism, limited to reductive materialism has reached a dead end on acquiring true consciousness with free will and truth acquiring reason. When we plug it in as a premise to acquire the conclusion "Therefore there is a valid process in acquiring truth" it immediately weakens the conclusion, which in turn weakens the premise in a loop and that is not the direction we should go in solving the problem. I don't think we survive having a premise that weakens that conclusion.

In the case of the nothing reality it would still be the case that the nothing could not both be nothing and not nothing so logic obtains even in that reality. Maybe you don't want to call it a nothing reality since the possibility of a description of the laws of logic exist (or some other similar idea), and that's fine. It just points out that God doesn't serve as the guarantor of logic since logic still obtains in a reality without God.
As for evolutionary reliabalism, I think your onjecrion is reasonable but not insurmountable. That aside it seems we are leaving presupositional apologetics aside anand moving into the an evidential approach to investigate the various metaphysical theories on offer.

Does this mean that presup approach, faced with another externalist account of justification, collapses into evidentialism?

 

[Athée]

I am sooooo sorry, I couldn't understand why you hadn't responded to me and I thought perhaps I had missed your response and went back and looked. What I found was your post to me that I didn't respond to! I thought I responded to this earlier so I apologize.

It is circular but it is not fallacious, that was my point. We both agree that the LOL exist. We are justified in that due to the necessity of LOL to even discuss them at all. So not all circular arguments are fallacious if we know of one that exists that is circular yet true...correct? No special pleading necessary.

They are justified every time we think, discuss, or observe. They are a priori in doing what we do with reason, necessary and true.

We justify them every time we open our mouth, write a paper or even identify an object. It is how we account for them that we disagree. Which worldview explains them more cohesively?

It would be possible, at least to my mind for nothing to be something in the case of God. God is God, God is not non-God, and either God or non-God. If not God, nothing being something would just be nothing and and not something where there would be no A is A, A is not non-A or either A or non-A would not exist thus logic within the materialistic reality would not be possible.

We can only imagine different possible realities due to our own reality which in my worldview depends on the intelligence of God and His creation of reality. We could not even imagine anything without the LOL to start with. They are necessary to "imagine" something other than what we have experienced in our own reality. Why do we experience a reality where LOL are necessary, why do we experience a world where there is order rather than chaos, why do we experience life at all in a universe that seems so devoid of it?

No worries, these threads get a bit crazy as various voices chime in
So LoL, a quick clarification, fallacious does not mean false or wrong or not true. Rather, it means that the form of the argument is invalid. So attempting to justify the LoL with the LoL is fallacious and unjustified. But it is the case that LoL work and so we are left in a position where we just have to assume them to be the case. We can't justify them, but we also can't invalidate them without at the same time assuming their validity in order to try to disprove them.

The nothing reality: I didn't quite understand what you were saying there. In my hypothetical nothing reality, there is no God but there seems to be logic so God isn't a precondition for the LoL. Thoughts?

 

[Sanoy]

In the case of the nothing reality it would still be the case that the nothing could not both be nothing and not nothing so logic obtains even in that reality. Maybe you don't want to call it a nothing reality since the possibility of a description of the laws of logic exist (or some other similar idea), and that's fine. It just points out that God doesn't serve as the guarantor of logic since logic still obtains in a reality without God.
As for evolutionary reliabalism, I think your onjecrion is reasonable but not insurmountable. That aside it seems we are leaving presupositional apologetics aside anand moving into the an evidential approach to investigate the various metaphysical theories on offer.

Does this mean that presup approach, faced with another externalist account of justification, collapses into evidentialism?

Well God, (MGB - maximally great being) is also a necessary being, so He would be in all possible worlds, which makes a world with 'nothing in it' not possible. Since He is going to be in the world where only necessities exist He remains a valid candidate for grounding. Now I say "God is a necessary being" softly, because I know people find that distasteful. So we can use it softly, to simply say that 'God (MGB) will be in the world where only necessities exist.'

I don't know how to get from presup to Yahweh. (I don't study presup) The best I am able to do at present is make an abductive case that God (MGB) is the best premise to arrive at our conclusion in contrast to the 4 options on the table. I'll think on it today, and over the weekend and see if anything comes up that might be better than an abductive case. But on the surface it seems like all we can do is plug in premises and see which one is better at acquiring the conclusion ("Therefore there is a valid process in acquiring truth" ).

 

[Silmarien]

In the case of the nothing reality it would still be the case that the nothing could not both be nothing and not nothing so logic obtains even in that reality. Maybe you don't want to call it a nothing reality since the possibility of a description of the laws of logic exist (or some other similar idea), and that's fine. It just points out that God doesn't serve as the guarantor of logic since logic still obtains in a reality without God.

Only if a reality without God is a metaphysical possibility. I could argue that if the law of non-contradiction holds even in a possible world with no discrete objects, then logic as an abstract reality needs to be grounded in a divine mind, otherwise it is not clear how it can exist independently, much less affect physical reality. Once you start playing with ideas like this, you move from presuppositionalism into scholasticism, and that is where the dangerous ideas live.

I could also look at it the other way and question whether a "nothing" reality is a metaphysical possibility, given that it may well be the case that something must necessarily exist, and that a possible world with nothing would not be a possible world at all. I could also wonder what we mean by nothing, and whether at the heart of reality, nothing and something are not actually the same thing--that which we call God, and which may well transcend categories of thought altogether.

But none of this is presuppositionalism. Just food for thought from the other side of theology. (Though I think Sanoy is from my side of town as well, though maybe more Plantinga-esque. We'll both make you pull out the modal logic, though. )

 

[Oncedeceived]

No worries, these threads get a bit crazy as various voices chime in

True.

So LoL, a quick clarification, fallacious does not mean false or wrong or not true. Rather, it means that the form of the argument is invalid. So attempting to justify the LoL with the LoL is fallacious and unjustified. But it is the case that LoL work and so we are left in a position where we just have to assume them to be the case. We can't justify them, but we also can't invalidate them without at the same time assuming their validity in order to try to disprove them

.

Ok, so we just assume them...if we assume them on your worldview, how do you account for them? You really haven't elaborated on how we have these abstract conceptual laws in your view.

The nothing reality: I didn't quite understand what you were saying there. In my hypothetical nothing reality, there is no God but there seems to be logic so God isn't a precondition for the LoL. Thoughts?

Why does there seem to be logic in nothing reality?

 

[Oncedeceived]

Only if a reality without God is a metaphysical possibility. I could argue that if the law of non-contradiction holds even in a possible world with no discrete objects, then logic as an abstract reality needs to be grounded in a divine mind, otherwise it is not clear how it can exist independently, much less affect physical reality. Once you start playing with ideas like this, you move from presuppositionalism into scholasticism, and that is where the dangerous ideas live.

I could also look at it the other way and question whether a "nothing" reality is a metaphysical possibility, given that it may well be the case that something must necessarily exist, and that a possible world with nothing would not be a possible world at all. I could also wonder what we mean by nothing, and whether at the heart of reality, nothing and something are not actually the same thing--that which we call God, and which may well transcend categories of thought altogether.

But none of this is presuppositionalism. Just food for thought from the other side of theology. (Though I think Sanoy is from my side of town as well, though maybe more Plantinga-esque. We'll both make you pull out the modal logic, though. )

I think it is presuppositionalism. Well articulated.

 

[Silmarien]

I think it is presuppositionalism. Well articulated.

Nah, it's the opposite. I'm one of those people off in ontological territory wondering whether existence actually might be a property. But presuppositionalism doesn't have a monopoly on challenging the logic of a worldview.

 

[Oncedeceived]

Nah, it's the opposite. I'm one of those people off in ontological territory wondering whether existence actually might be a property. But presuppositionalism doesn't have a monopoly on challenging the logic of a worldview.

Interesting.

 

[Athée]

Well God, (MGB - maximally great being) is also a necessary being, so He would be in all possible worlds, which makes a world with 'nothing in it' not possible. Since He is going to be in the world where only necessities exist He remains a valid candidate for grounding. Now I say "God is a necessary being" softly, because I know people find that distasteful. So we can use it softly, to simply say that 'God (MGB) will be in the world where only necessities exist.'

I don't know how to get from presup to Yahweh. (I don't study presup) The best I am able to do at present is make an abductive case that God (MGB) is the best premise to arrive at our conclusion in contrast to the 4 options on the table. I'll think on it today, and over the weekend and see if anything comes up that might be better than an abductive case. But on the surface it seems like all we can do is plug in premises and see which one is better at acquiring the conclusion ("Therefore there is a valid process in acquiring truth" ).

I don't find the maximally great idea very compelling but that is a discussion for another thread
I'm not sure how the presup argument runs myself, hence this thread, but I have enjoyed discussing it with you
Peace