why-series

[bricklayer]

It appears to me that, any why-series questions beg for a common context.
Before one begins to answer a "why" question, either establish a common context,
or be prepared to reduce your answer to the self-evident.

It seems a courtesy to think a thing through before one begins to answer.
Having a grasp of the ideas which must be employed to be denied,
seems the greatest among these courtesies.

I base my observation upon the idea that all reasoning is pre-suppositional.
(One must employ pre-suppositional reasoning to deny pre-suppositional reasoning.)

I am left to believe that, apart from a common context; based on:
existence, identity, non-contradiction, exclusion, causality, necessity, contingency,
the correspondence of truth, etc. , why-series questions cannot be satisfied.

 

[Received]

If you mean that why questions lead to infinite regresses, then you'd be absolutely correct. This is also what I understand by you saying that why questions refer to a common context. If I ask a why question, this presupposes a general context which is constituted by a network of problems that demand an answer -- or even one problem. If I ask you why something happened, and you give me an answer, I'll either be satisfied with this answer or demand other questions -- and these questions make up the context.

Of course, if we're honest with ourselves and continue the questioning, there comes a point where we can't answer further, because all of our beliefs about the world are fundamentally based in assumptions that are necessary, that are therefore "just there", and therefore can't be given a proper answer. A good example of this is with the child who asks how one thing was made, which leads to questioning about another thing, until eventually the parent says that God made it, at which point the child asks, "what made God?", with God, here, would be a necessity being. Or, if you like, an eternal universe.

 

[bricklayer]

Hear here, well put.

There are those ideas which are literally undeniable.

Existence, for example; any attempt to explicitly deny existence implicitly affirms it.

These self-evident ideas are the First Principles of Logic.
Are you familiar with these components of reason?

 

[Received]

I think they can be deniable. How we conceive necessary causes is determined by which assumptions we're willing to make. For example, the existence of the external world is a necessary cause that legitimates science, and is accepted because it's intuitively valid -- but this presupposes that intuition itself is valid in this instance. If you dig deep enough into metaphysics, you find that it meets very basic epistemological problems.

 

[bricklayer]

Your proposition is consistent with the idea that there is no objective perspective.
I agree.
As contingent (not-necessary) beings, we know a thing contingently.

As a contingent being, I am therefore left to believe whatever it is I believe. Much in keeping with scientific-method, nothing is really ever proven, to me. It's just that all the other ideas that I've considered have been des-proven, and what remains is what I am left to believe.

I know that we differ on this next point, but you explained yourself so well that it is only courteous that I try to be as clear.

I am left to believe that material begs an efficient cause, an uncaused cause, a necessary cause, a creator. As such, God occupies a necessary perspective. He knows a thing necessarily, apart from its being. In temporal terms, before its being.

As to the deny-ability of the First Princilpes of Logic,
please demonstate how one might explictly deny their existence, without implicitly affirming their existence.

I hold a correspondence view of truth. From your posts, you appear to me to be a relativist. How would you define truth? For example; truth is that which corresponds to its predicate.

 

[Received]

That which corresponds to its predicate? You'll have to unpack that for me.

My view comes from Heidegger, and it isn't really relativistic at all: truth is unconcealment. This can work with relation to the world (where the truth of phenomena is present when the phenomena stand forth as they are), or in relation to our ideas (i.e., the truth of an idea is an idea that has been unconcealed, clearly perceived, as the idea). There's also a clause from Aquinas that I can't seem to find anymore: the thing perceived is in the mode of the perceiver. That is, who we are filters out how we perceive things. A very basic example is with color: a person with more rods and cones than another (who would therefore be colorblind) is going to see light reflected off a surface of something differently than this other person.

 

[Received]

BTW, I agree with a type of reasoning you've used to point to God. I am, after all, a theist. But this type of reasoning assumes a rejection of an equally plausible alternative: namely, that the universe is eternal. Even if we assume that your reasoning is sound, it doesn't negate this possibility. This is a good example of deniable ideas, because they work according to different assumptions, which in turn determine the conclusions we hold.

 

[bricklayer]

Your View in common with Heidegger is consistent with a correpondence view of truth. (The truth is that which corresponds to its object.)

I don't take it that either you or Aquinas are equating perception with reality, that would be relativism. I really had you wrong, there. I knew I liked you, on some level. You're fun to disagree with, an excellent sparring partner.

Your last point demonstates the problem with relativism. Material necessity is contradictory with personal contingency.
Relativism may well stand against existence and even identity, but it doesn't stand against non-contradiction.
The reason relativism is so appealing is exactly because we are contingent beings, and on some level we know that we are not objective or necessary. The mistake is in thinking that we are then necessary. Relativism actually says that each person is necessary, which is ridiculous. Relativeism makes everyone gods.

We are contingent, obviously contingent.
As you point out, a relativist could hold that contradictory ideas are true.
A consistent relativist should hold that all ideas are equally true.

 

[Received]

Actually, Heidegger's view of truth was a critique of truth-as-correspondence, even though he didn't entirely reject the idea. Truth transcended the conception of agreement between representation and actuality (which we would be a loose definition for knowledge) as unconcealment; however, to recognize this unconcealed phenomenon and apply the "correct" name to it (namings are relative, after all, so the correct name would be the one that we create in relation to an object that corresponds again to this object) can be part of the process. I guess you could say that he thought truth as unconcealment was more fundamental than truth as correspondence. But think of the phrase, "he's a true friend." There's clearly no correspondence explanation for this phrase; to say that he's a true friend means that he is unconcealed as a friend -- that his friendly actions show him as he really is.

Aquinas isn't equating perception with reality; he's saying that how we are each uniquely constituted can determine how we perceive something. If I have cold hands, my perception of warm water is going to be hot; if I have warm hands, the water could even be a little cold. In these instances of perceiving, the object out there as a representative of objectivity isn't negated as such -- it's merely perceived in a different way. With regard to linguistics, the way we name things also changes relative to our perspective in relation to an object.

The reason relativism is so appealing is exactly because we are contingent beings, and on some level we know that we are not objective or necessary. The mistake is in thinking that we are then necessary. Relativism actually says that each person is necessary, which is ridiculous. Relativeism makes everyone gods.

I've never thought of it along those terms before. Relativism seems to drag agreement for many these days for cultural sensitivity reasons -- along the realm of values. I guess I don't get how relativism applies to truth statements because I don't know what absolutism would look like as a contrast; they appear to be false opposites, when only one way of perceiving things is possible.

 

[bricklayer]

I gotta tell ya, you're making some very good points.

The more I think about it, truth as unconcealment of a thing does seem to ontologically preceed truth as corresponding to a thing.
Of course this is at first glance and not well phrased, but an unconcealment view of truth seems more "humble", a better acknowledgment of our contingent perspective.

We'll have to find something else to disagree on.
Perhaps we should have to switch back to politics.

Good stuff, received.
You gave me a lot to think about.

 

[Received]

And you gave some great questions. Keep 'em coming.

 

[bricklayer]

Would you agree that God is necessary?

 

[Received]

I would, but that's different than saying that my view that God is necessary is necessary.

 

[bricklayer]

Of course not, our view is contingent.
To consider our view necessary is equate ourselves with God.

Your response leads into my point.

If Gid is necessary, then He is all He is necessarily.
For example; God knows what He knows necessarily, not contingently or objectively.
I believe that we're together so far, so I'll press on to my next question.

Do you believe that all reasoning is presuppositional?

 

[Received]

What do you mean by presuppositional?