• Pantagruel
    3.3k
    I don't see how logic could not be our rational basis; rational discourse is destroyed without logic.Lionino

    What logic? Symbolic logic? Propositional logic? Dialectical logic? You are speaking of logic as if it were an objective reality, instead of a construct. There are political logics, aesthetic logics, sociological logics. Life is a synthesis of overlapping domains of thought, not one of which is privileged. The essence of dystopian fiction is in the enforcement of a single vision of life, to the exclusion of the rest.

    The notion that you can encapsulate any meaning completely is illusory, and abstraction, perhaps an ideal. Symbolic logic, pushed to its logical limits, is just so much nomenclature. As soon as you attempt to link it to practical realities, its limitations appear.
  • Lionino
    1.5k
    What logic? Symbolic logic? Propositional logic? Dialectical logic? You are speaking of logic as if it were an objective reality, instead of a construct.Pantagruel

    Even acquiescing that logic is a construct, there are laws of logic (and related) without which we cannot productively have discourse. Law of identity, non-contradiction, law of excluded middle, the possibility of analytic judgements, etc. It is perfectly fine that a construct is fundamental. Scientific discourse relies on non-contradiction, as does any discourse.
  • Pantagruel
    3.3k
    Even acquiescing that logic is a construct, there are laws of logic (and related) without which we cannot productively have discourse. Law of identity, non-contradiction, law of excluded middle, the possibility of analytic judgements, etc. It is perfectly fine that a construct is fundamental. Scientific discourse relies on non-contradiction, as does any discourse.Lionino

    Yep. There are rules of discourse. The law of non-contradiction doesn't apply to dialectical logic in any non-trivial sense, since dialectics assumes that opposing viewpoints can reach a synthesis. More generally, the "rules" exist in order to facilitate social interactions, which are themselves the bases of the meanings of our existence. So the laws of reasonable discourse are in aid of reasonable social interactions, not the determinants of them.
  • Lionino
    1.5k
    The law of non-contradiction doesn't apply to dialectical logic in any non-trivial sense, since dialectics assumes that opposing viewpoints can reach a synthesis. More generally, the "rules" exist in order to facilitate social interactions, which are themselves the bases of the meanings of our existence. So the laws of reasonable discourse are in aid of reasonable social interactions, not the determinants of them.Pantagruel

    I would not be so eager to call dialectics logic.

    It is not just discourse. When I manipulate mental contents inside my mind, I cannot make an apple not be an apple, be apple and not be apple at the same time. No matter what, I can look at two rocks and see that is less than three. Language being so is a reflection of the mind. Whether there is a society around me or not, I can reason, and my reasoning is bound by some limits, which we call laws — whatever their origins are.
  • Pantagruel
    3.3k
    Whether there is a society around me or not, I can reasonLionino

    Yes. And everything that you might think about will relate to the human existence of being part of a collective. We relate to the universe through the mechanism of our evolution. Those are the only laws that matter. People conducted the business of life long before there was any concept of logic.
  • Lionino
    1.5k
    Let's agree to disagree.
  • Lionino
    1.5k
    Well, this reply has been catching dust in my drafts, so I will just post it anyway:

    I think in this case, we reach a basal point where we simply differ in opinion, which is the semantics of the adverb ‘metaphysically’.
    I believe that “metaphysically” so far does not imply any modality automatically that we know of, as there are no laws of metaphysics. I then believe that a statement needs to explicitly reference a theory for it to be called "metaphysically impossible", because when we say "metaphysically", it does not mean "epiphenomenalistically" or "counterfactually”. As an example, saying "souls are physicalistically impossible" or "bodies are idealistically impossible" is fine, but that "souls are metaphysically impossible" is incorrect. Of course, you think that “souls are metaphysically impossible relative to physicalism”.
    You may then raise the issue that the same could be the said about physical impossibility. But when we say “physically”, we are automatically invoking the modality known as the laws of physics.
    All in all, my argument is exactly that “metaphysically” does not invoke any laws like “physicalistically” or "dualistically" does. The adverb "metaphysically" is semantically empty until we find universal laws of metaphysics.

    You, on the other hand, believe that the adverb “metaphysically” implicitly references a modality through the justification “Znot” part of “!(z ^ Znot) ^ Znot”, as you said previously I am conflating the proposition being metaphysically impossible with its justification.
    For me, “relative to” is not meaningful, and the justification needs to be part of the argument, otherwise “z is metaphysically impossible” is not informative as it is not mentioning any specific modality, and “z is metaphysically impossible relative to M” is both trying to evoke a modality and not affirm it at the same time.

    Saying ‘Z ^ Znot’ is metaphysically impossible shifts the focus to a different proposition, X, which would have to be evaluated relative to a specified metaphysical theory, N.Bob Ross

    That also ultimately depends on whether “relative to” is a meaningful thing to say.
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