Comments

  • Wittgenstein's Toolbox
    Probably the most over looked conclusion of PI, PI 307 “‘Are you not really a behaviorist in disguise? Aren’t you at bottom really saying that everything except human behavior is a fiction?’-If I do speak of a fiction, then it is of a grammatical fiction. — Richard B

    What do you take to be the conclusion? The question of whether he is a behaviorist is not answered. He does not affirm or deny that everything except human behavior is a fiction. He says on

    [This was accidentally posted before completing it. When I attempted to continue working on it all that I wrote was deleted and I could not retrieve it. For now I will say only that we do not know what Wittgenstein meant by the term behaviorism, what he may have affirmed or denied regarding the term.]
  • Wittgenstein's Toolbox
    It is not clear to me what problem you are referring to. I wonder what Wittgenstein would say about cognitive science,

    He says, for example:

    Just for once, don’t think of understanding as a ‘mental process’ at all! For that is the way of talking which confuses you. Instead, ask yourself: in what sort of case, in what kind of circumstances, do we say “Now I know how to go on”? I mean, if the formula has occurred to me. -
    In the sense in which there are processes (including mental processes) which are characteristic of understanding, understanding is not a mental process.
    (PI 154)

    He does not deny that there are mental processes involved in understanding, but he does not address those processes. He takes them as given. It seems to me that he sidesteps the question of what those processes are by making a grammatical distinction and denying that understanding is a mental process. While it may be that when I say I understand something I don't mean and I'm referring to a mental process, but cognitive scientists do attempt to address the process. And in doing so may help us to understand what it means to understand.
  • Wittgenstein's Toolbox
    Where I would disagree, is, saying a philosopher should “simply accept mental processes as given,” it risks making Wittgenstein sound like he’s handing the topic to science. He isn’t denying mental life, but he also isn’t just leaving it untouched. His move is grammatical, he shows how the problem arises from the way we talk, the expectations we bring to words like process, state, inner, etc. The work is not to replace philosophy with science, but to untangle the conceptual knot so we stop demanding the wrong explanation. — Sam26
  • Wittgenstein's Toolbox
    With regard to philosophical therapy Wittgenstein says:

    The real discovery is the one that enables me to break off philosophizing when I want to. The one that gives philosophy peace, so that it is no longer tormented by questions which bring itself in question.

    Instead, a method is now demonstrated by examples, and the series of examples can be broken off. —– Problems are solved (difficulties eliminated), not a single problem.

    There is not a single philosophical method, though there are indeed methods, different therapies, as it were.
    (PI 133d)

    It might seem as though Wittgenstein is saying that the solution to philosophical problems is to not philosophize. That is, of course, not a satisfactory solution. In fact, his concern is just the opposite. The problem occurs when philosophy itself is called into question. When the activity turns on itself and comes to be seen as pointless. When the whole enterprise seems to become meaningless.

    At 309 Wittgenstein asks:

    What is your aim in philosophy?
    And answers:
    To show the fly the way out of the fly-bottle.

    Wittgenstein does not ask what the aim of philosophy is but rather what the interlocutor's aim is. The interlocutor could be anyone engaged in philosophy, including both the reader and Wittgenstein himself.

    This exchange follows 308:

    How does the philosophical problem about mental processes and states and about behaviourism arise? —– The first step is the one that altogether escapes notice. We talk of processes and states, and leave their nature undecided.

    The paragraph ends:

    And now it looks as if we had denied mental processes. And naturally we don’t want to deny them.

    He does not deny that there are mental processes but does not attempt to explain them. He regards such explanations to be the purview of science not philosophy. Rather than being tormented by the problem of mental states the philosopher should simply accept them as given.

    Work on philosophy -- like work in architecture in many respects -- is really more work on oneself. On one's own conception. On how one sees things. (And what one expects of them.)
    (CV, 24)

    Work on oneself, on one's own conception, on how one sees things and expects of them may require escaping grammatical tangles but such necessary work is preliminary.

    We might ask what one does when he or she has escaped the fly-bottle.
  • Wittgenstein's Toolbox
    Philosophical Investigations explores what "talking to oneself" involves — Paine

    It is not impossible that it should fall to the lot of this work, in its poverty and in the darkness of this time, to bring light into one brain or another—but, of course, it is not likely. — ibid. viii

    We must ask why he thinks he will not be understood. He certainly is not wrong, as is evident today with the proliferation of incompatible interpretations.

    We might start by addressing a couple of assumptions. The first is that he is referring to the state of professional philosophy. The second is that we have emerged from this darkness.

    Is his pessimism about being understood simply due to the poverty of his work and the darkness of the time make it impossible? There are some hints in the preface to suggest that this is not the case. He says he is unable to produce a whole that moves from one subject to another in a natural, smooth sequence. The attempt to do so, he says, goes against the "natural inclination" of his thoughts. This suggests that this is something more than him being a poor draftsman. His thinking does not follow an orderly process that moves from point to point, from premise to conclusion. This is not simply a biographical comment. It is part of a way of doing philosophy:

    A main source of our failure to understand is that we don’t have an overview of the use of our words. - Our grammar is deficient in surveyability. A surveyable representation produces precisely that kind of understanding which consists in ‘seeing connections’. Hence the importance of finding and inventing intermediate links.
    The concept of a surveyable representation is of fundamental significance for us. It characterizes the way we represent things, how we look at matters. (Is this a ‘Weltanschauung’?)
    (PI 122)

    Making these connections is not a limited activity that produces a limited closed whole. It continually expands as new connections are made. But it is not only about the connections he makes, philosophy is about the activity of making of connections.

    Another hint might be his mention of his discussions with Frank Ramsey and Piero Sraffa. He cited their influence but says nothing here about what was said. Wittgenstein's written philosophy is imitative of dialogue. It is not always clear who the interlocutor might be someone else, but as Paine points out , thinking can be the activity of talking to one self.
    Philosophical Investigations explores what "talking to oneself" involves — Paine
  • Seeing Wittgenstein
    Looking back over this it is clear to me that too much was left unsaid.

    In the preface to the Tractatus Wittgenstein says:

    ... what can be said at all can be said clearly, and what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence.

    He concludes the Tractatus by saying the same thing:

    What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.
    (7)

    He attempts to draw the limits of thinking by an examination of its expression in language. Passing over is silence does not mean to disregard. He is not denying that there are things that are important to us, things that cannot be expressed in words:

    Propositions can express nothing that is higher.

    It is clear that ethics cannot be put into words.
    Ethics is transcendental.
    (Ethics and aesthetics are one and the same.)
    (T 6.42-6.421)

    These are things we encounter in experience. We must pass over them in silence because the attempt to articulate them in words renders them nonsense.

    For the early Wittgenstein it is the world seen aright when one transcends propositions. (Tractatus 6.54) The later Wittgenstein comes to reject the idea that there is a logical scaffolding underlying both language and the world. The problems of philosophy are not solved by understanding the logic of language. (T preface). He comes to reject scientism:

    ... philosophers constantly see the method of science before their eyes and are irresistibly tempted to ask and answer questions in the way science does’
    (Blue Book, p. 18).



    Rather than the attempt to theorize and explain away, it is an invitation to open your eyes and mind.

    Man has to awaken to wonder . . . Science is a way of sending him to sleep again’
    (CV 5).

    [Added]

    He no longer regards thinking and seeing as being on opposite sides. Philosophy is not simply a matter of conceptual clarification.

    Work on philosophy -- like work in architecture in many respects -- is really more work on oneself. On one's own conception. On how one sees things. (And what one expects of them.)
    (CV, 24)
  • Wittgenstein's Toolbox
    in Wittgenstein it often means, look until what looked obvious becomes strange, and until you can see the grammar that was leading you. — Sam26

    Although the grammar is important I think there is something more fundamental and important that informs grammar and can become obscured by a focus on language. If, however, you do not think it is outside the scope of your thread I can re-post it.

    I wouldn’t separate these into “preliminary clarification” versus “the deeper thing,” as if clarity were just stage one and then the real philosophy starts. — Sam26

    I agree that it is not a matter of stages. It is, rather, a question of what one is working toward:

    Work on philosophy -- like work in architecture in many respects -- is really more work on oneself. On one's own conception. On how one sees things. (And what one expects of them.)
    (CV, 24)

    And the “primeval chaos” remark fits that too. It’s not chaos as mystical darkness, it’s the pre theoretical mess of our actual practices and reactions, the place where our pictures lose their grip and we have to find our way without a single master key. — Sam26

    I interpret it somewhat differently. It is the pre-theoretical state of the world that is obscured from us by our scientific attitude. For the early Wittgenstein it is the world seen aright when one transcends propositions, (Tractatus 6.54) For the later Wittgenstein it is a rejection of scientism:

    ... philosophers constantly see the method of science before their eyes and are irresistibly tempted to ask and answer questions in the way science does’
    (Blue Book, p. 18).

    Man has to awaken to wonder . . . Science is a way of sending him to sleep again’
    (CV 5).
  • Wittgenstein's Toolbox
    [Moved to a new thread "Seeing Wittgenstein"]
  • AXIARCHISM as 21st century TAOISM
    As I understand it, Taoism does avoid a human-centered morality. — T Clark

    I don't think that:

    ...just fully allowing the uncontrived condition of the inborn nature and allotment of life to play itself out. — Chuang Tzu

    is a non-human centered morality, or, for that matter a morality at all.

    Ziporyn's translation from The Essential Writings, chapter, 8 is slightly different. Instead of "the' inborn nature is has "your" inborn nature. It is "your own" virtuosity. According to the glossary:

    The original sense of term [virtuosity, De] is an efficacious power, in the nonmoral sense, "by virtue of" ...
  • AXIARCHISM as 21st century TAOISM
    From the Philosophy Now "Best Possibe World" article:

    Natural axiarchism offers a way to avoid human-centred morality. The axiarchic creative principle seems nothing like human beings, and does not even care about their lives and values. And from the cosmic perspective, everything is the best.

    I don't think we can avoid a human-centered morality, even if we avoid putting what is good for humans at the center. It is human beings who judge questions of morality. The "cosmic perspective" seems to be a fiction. What can or do we know of the cosmic perspective? We might imagine what that might be like, but to do so is to do it from a human perspective. To say that everything is for the best is a human judgment.
  • Tao follows Nature
    ... contrary to the “ways of life” of other animals. — schopenhauer1

    Yup. There is at the heart of it something comical, or as some might regard it, tragic.
  • Tao follows Nature
    I had a hard time understanding this the first time round.

    And if I ever had an inkling, it is no longer shining through the dust of memory.     — Amity

    We would not expect attaining and tenuous to be joined together. They seem to contradict each other, but throughout there is a play of opposites:

    Everyone in the world knows that when the beautiful strives to be
    beautiful, it is repulsive.
    Everyone knows that when the good strives to be good, it is no good.5
    And so,
    To have and to lack generate each other.6
    Difficult and easy give form to each other.
    Long and short off-set each other.
    High and low incline into each other.
    Note and rhythm harmonize with each other.
    Before and after follow each other.
    (Chapter 2)
  • Tao follows Nature
    I have always thought of naming as described in the Tao Te Ching as something humans do. — T Clark

    I think there is an ambiguity regarding human action. Some of our ways are in accord with but others contrary to the Way. Naming is something humans do. To be human is to be part of rather than apart from the Way. The authors of the Tao Te Ching uses names. But

    Now that there are names, know enough to stop!

    I think the Tao Te Ching means what it says. — T Clark

    Does it say that we bring the myriad creatures into existence? As I read it, when it says in the first chapter:

    Named, it is the mother of the myriad creatures.

    'it' refers back to the Way.

    The Way is like an empty vessel ...
    It seems to be the ancestor of the myriad creatures.
    (Chapter 4)

    The myriad creatures rely upon it [the Way] for life, and it turns none of them
    away. ...
    It clothes and nourishes the myriad creatures, but does not lord it over them.
    (Chapter 34)

    The Way produces the One.
    The One produces two.
    Two produces three.
    Three produces the myriad creatures.
    (Chapter 42)
  • Tao follows Nature
    This doesn't seem to account for any exceptions. — Amity

    Except:

    Attain extreme tenuousness

    If in mysterious mode, we let go of the desire to know facts? We simply let thoughts be. — Amity

    I don't think it is a matter of letting go of the desire to know facts. It is the source of facts that is mysterious.

    Danger from what or who? — Amity

    Doesn't avoiding danger require knowing the source?

    This is when it becomes clear that we are not meant to know...so why do we go on so? — Amity

    We do act and can come to a better understanding of our actions and motivations.
  • Skepticism as the first principle of philosophy
    ↪Wayfarer


    While the emphasis is often upon withholding judgment, the Greek term skepsis means to inquire. As a "first principle" of philosophy it might be thought of in terms of philo-sophos, the desire to be wise. It stems from a recognition that one is not wise.

    I have argued elsewhere that the term 'first principle' is problematic. The Greek term is arche. The arche or source is not a principle in the sense of a proposition or claim that stands first and on which others are built. When Aristotle begins the Metaphysics by saying that all men desire knowledge he does not mean all men desire to know what claim or opinion from which all others follow from. The arche the inquiry is in search of is ontological not epistemological.

    He says: .

    .. it is through experience that men acquire science and art ...
    (981a)

    but we have no experience of the arche or source. In other words, we are not wise. Or, in Socratic terms, our human wisdom is our knowledge of our ignorance. We are in want of and in search of the arche. We inquire but do not know.
  • Tao follows Nature
    How do you connect with the Way? What does it mean for you in everyday life? — Amity

    ... sages abide in the business of nonaction, and practice the teaching that is without words.
    (Dao chapter 2)

    I am not a Daoist sage. For the most part all I have to offer are words, most of which are not even even my own.

    A great deal has been written about nonaction (wuwei). Cook Ting is an example of wuwei and a practice that is without words. Of course he acts but by carving between the joints his actions are rhythmical and effortless, they meet no resistance. To reach this point, however, requires a great deal of effort. Certainly it is not something that occurs on its own or happens to us while we sit idly by. It does however require a kind of passivity, a looking and observing instead of just doing. It is a doing guided by seeing how things are.

    Right action follows right desire:

    Always eliminate desires in order to observe its mysteries;
    Always have desires in order to observe its manifestations.
    (Dao Chapter 1)

    Is to be aware of how you are and what you do? — Amity

    I think so. And also of how others are and what they do.

    Readers often form a picture of a peaceful, idyllic way of life, but:

    To embody the Way is to be long lived,
    And one will avoid danger to the end of one’s days.
    (Dao Chapter 16)
  • Tao follows Nature
    I wonder if I understand you correctly. Are you saying that process of carving the ox is analogous to the process of the Tao bringing the 10,000 things into existence. — T Clark

    One who has "learned how to nourish life" does not bring things into existence but rather sees and acts in accordance with how things are.

    A name that can be named is not a constant name.
    Nameless, it is the beginning of Heaven and earth;
    Named, it is the mother of the myriad creatures.
    (Dao Chapter 1)

    We name things. We carve them up. By dividing we multiply. We take what is one and regard it as many. This is the way of man. This does not mean we bring the myriad creatures into existence any more than we bring the part of the ox into existence. We can either act in accord with the Way or try to hack our way through life.
  • Tao follows Nature
    ↪Amity


    To name is to divide or distinguish one thing from an other. Zhuangzi's Cook Ting (Ding) divides the ox along its natural joints. To divide things in a way that is contrary to their natural divisions is to force things. The proper division of things requires knowing the natural patterns and organization of things. Knowing what belongs together, what is a part of some larger thing as well as what is separable toward some end or purpose.

    He says:

    At the beginning, when I first began carving up oxen, all I could see was the whole carcass.
    After three years I could no longer see the carcass whole ...

    It is because he had been dividing oxen for three years that he no longer see the carcass as an undifferentiated whole. He saw that it is made up of parts. He say now:

    I follow the natural form slicing the major joints I guide the knife through the big hollows ...

    The ability to guide his knife takes skill developed through practice. But this is not the difference between him and a good cook:

    What your servant loves, my lord, is the Dao, and that is a step beyond skill.

    Going beyond skill does not mean to bypass skill. The cultivation of skill is an essential step in the effort to develop effortless action or wu -wei

    We should not overlook the fact that this and other examples are about ordinary people doing ordinary practical things. As King Hue says in response:

    Excellent.“I have heard the words of Cook Ding and learned how to nourish life!”
  • Tao follows Nature
    A few words that caution us about the use of words.

    Chapter Sixteen:

    Attain extreme tenuousness

    Chapter 32:

    When unhewn wood is carved up, then there are names.
    Now that there are names, know enough to stop!
    Ivanhoe translation

    Zhuangzi poses the problem this way:

    If we’re already one, can I say it? But since I’ve just said we’re one, can I not say it? The unity and my saying it make two. The two and their unity make three.
  • How could Jesus be abandoned?
    He said on the Cross: "My God, My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me?". How could He be abandoned if He and God are one? — MoK

    There are different interpretations of what it means to be one. In the development of Christian theology it has been understood to mean one and the same. The same ousia. The same being. The same essence. Homoousion.

    This is not the only sense of what it means to be one. To be one is to be united. To stand together rather than opposed. One who knows the Law, one, who recites the Shema and understands it, would not hear the oneness of God and man with pagan ears. Nowhere in the Gospel of Matthew do we find anything other than the distinction between God the Father and Jesus, a "son of God".

    It is only by a confluence of later influences that results in an abuse of logic that a son is his own father.

    Without the assumption that the two, God and Jesus, are one and the same, the story can be read in a way that is perhaps closer to the original. It appears as if Jesus knew nothing of the apologetics of sin and sacrifice that were to emerge. Like with Job and Ecclesiastes God's will is inscrutable. Why a man who was believed by his followers to be the Messiah was put to death was for them unfathomable. But in the ways of man myths emerged to try and make sense of it.
  • A Thomistic Argument For God's Existence From Composition
    1. Composed beings are made up of parts. — Bob Ross

    It is not as if living beings are an assemblage of parts that exist prior to or independently of the organism. We might say that the parts of living beings are made by or caused by that being though a process of autopoiesis.

    2. A composed being exists contingently upon its parts in their specific arrangement. — Bob Ross

    No, the parts are contingent upon the being of which they are parts.

    Therefore, a series of composed beings must have, ultimately, uncomposed parts as its first cause. — Bob Ross

    What is an uncomposed part? Where do we find them?

    An uncomposed being (such as an uncomposed part) is purely simple, since it lacks any parts. — Bob Ross

    A simple being without parts is an imaginative fiction masquerading as an a priori ontological necessity. The existence of the fiction, a simple being, is made up of and contingent upon a poorly composed chain of arguments that begins with something known but misunderstood, a living being that has distinguishable but not independent parts, and then posits something unknown and inexplicable as if it is a causal explanation.

    27. To be good is to lack any privation of what the thing is. — Bob Ross

    Our use of the term 'good' does not entail that what is called good is without privation. "what the thing is" is an ambiguous claim. We might say that a dog or a meal a song is good but in none of these cases do we mean that to be a dog or a meal or a song is to be good or without privation. There are bad dogs and meals and songs. The claim that to be God is to be good because what God is is good is circular and question begging.
  • An Analysis of "On Certainty"
    the bedrock, the groundless ground — Joshs

    I think the following metaphor is apt:

    152. I do not explicitly learn the propositions that stand fast for me. I can discover them
    subsequently like the axis around which a body rotates. This axis is not fixed in the sense that
    anything holds it fast, but the movement around it determines its immobility.
  • An Analysis of "On Certainty"
    From On Certainty:

    177. What I know, I believe.

    179. It would be correct to say: "I believe..." has subjective truth; but "I know..." not.

    180. Or again "I believe..." is an 'expression', but not "I know...".

    424. ...One says too, "I don't believe it, I know it".

    478. Does a child believe that milk exists? Or does it know that milk exists? Does a cat know that a mouse exists?

    483. The correct use of the expression "I know". Someone with bad sight asks me: "do you believe that the thing we can see there is a tree?" I reply "I know it is; I can see it clearly and am familiar with it." - A: "Isn't N.N. at home?" - I: "I believe he is." - A: "Was he at home yesterday?" - I; "Yesterday he was - I know he was; I spoke to him." - A: "Do you know or only believe that this part of the house is built on later than the rest?" - I: "I know it is; I got it from so and so."
  • An Analysis of "On Certainty"
    The idea that it's absurd to say one "knows" that one has a toothache suggests that "knowing" is about justification. — Count Timothy von Icarus

    His remark is about the grammar of the word 'know'. It makes no sense to say that I have a toothache but do not know it. If it is not the kind of thing that I do or might not know then it makes no sense to say that I do know it.

    The idea that one can doubt anything one "knows" also makes it pretty clear that "knowledge" here is something like belief. — Count Timothy von Icarus

    What would it mean to know something but doubt it? I know by experience not to grab a hot pan from the stove. If I ever doubted it I no longer do. My knowing it has nothing to do with believing it or not believing it. I will get burned whether I believe it or not.
  • An Analysis of "On Certainty"
    Two questions:

    1. Where in the grammar of ordinary language do we find the idea that knowledge is justified true belief?

    2. Where do we find Wittgenstein claiming that knowledge is justified true belief?
  • In defence of the Principle of Sufficient Reason
    ↪Wayfarer


    We are talking about very different things.
  • In defence of the Principle of Sufficient Reason
    While I can see your point, natural theology will suggest that the regularities and rationally-intelligible principles that constitute what we describe as natural laws suggest a prior cause. — Wayfarer

    Perhaps the pursuit of natural theology is to forsake wisdom as it is understood in the wisdom literature of the Hebrew Bible. Perhaps the attempt to understand God in terms of rational principles is a misguided attempt to understand a God who is understood, to the extent he is understood, as willful.

    One could argue among the aims of philosophy is to discern the boundary of what can be explained in terms of natural laws, and to intuit what may lie beyond it, even if it can't be stated in scientific terms. — Wayfarer

    One could also argue that an appeal to intuition is in this case to mistake the imagination for intellection in the sense it is used in Plato's divided line.
  • In defence of the Principle of Sufficient Reason
    ↪A Christian Philosophy


    You are circling the drain. Repeating the same claims as if they are truths.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    We got now the first event of how the Trump administration will work as Musk showed his power in the incoming Trumpster-fire administration. — ssu

    Short-term they will attempt to work as if the US is a joint business venture. People who do not understand how running a nation works might think this is a good thing, but the US cannot take advantage of the protections it offers to corporations that both Trump's and Musk's businesses depend on. Citizens are not workers who can be laid off and disregarded. The country is not for the benefit of the owners and shareholders.

    Long-term it seems likely that the relationship between Trump and Musk will fracture. For both of them shared power means shared recognition and neither wants to play second fiddle. Then there is the question of who the "shareholders" aka Congress will back. Trump's power lies with his popularity, but Musk's with his technological prowess. And while the social media platform X dwarfs Trump's Truth Social, the more decisive power lies with Musk's SpaceX, for which Trump has nothing even remotely comparable.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    .
    It matters because it's relevant to what Stephanopolous said. ABC would probably have won the case, although it would have raised Trump's ire and led to his retaliation. — Relativist

    I think the decision was made by or with ABC's parent company, Disney. They are concerned with Trump's escalating weaponization of the legal system while pretending that he is the victim. His strategy is always two-fold - legal determination backed by appeal after appeal and public opinion. The merits of the case was not Disney's main concern. They were more concerned with the process of discovery and what dirt could be found or manufactured against Disney's wide ranging assets and how this might affect their public image. As Trump knows well, whatever the truth may be, the harm comes from the accusations.

    .
  • In defence of the Principle of Sufficient Reason
    Does "natural" only mean things in the world that we already know of, and "super-natural" means things that we don't know of yet? — A Christian Philosophy

    No. When you say:

    We could entertain that the laws of nature are caused by prior laws, but this only pushes the problem one step back. To avoid the risk of infinite regress, a fundamental laws must be explained by something that requires an explanation but not a cause. — A Christian Philosophy

    that is an indication that you know the difference. What is natural means what can be explained, to the extent it can be explained, by the laws of nature. It is because you accept the idea that everything must have a cause and reject the idea that the laws of nature are self-caused that you "deduce" that there must be something that causes the laws of nature. Rather than questioning the principle that there must be a cause you simply posit the existence of one because you believe that there must be one.

    Rather than the problem of an infinite regress, the problem is one of the limits of human reason.
  • In defence of the Principle of Sufficient Reason
    I am unclear on what you mean by "natural" vs "super-natural". How do you define those two terms? — A Christian Philosophy

    Roughly, natural explanations do not introduce anything outside the natural world. It rejects the idea that the world is contingent and requires a necessary cause, that is, a super or supra-natural cause that is above or beyond the limits of the natural world and on which the world is dependent.
  • In defence of the Principle of Sufficient Reason
    What is questionable about the PSR? — A Christian Philosophy

    We have been through this already.

    I did not use the word "super-natural". — A Christian Philosophy

    When natural explanations cannot explain why there is anything at all you resort to a super-natural explanation even if you do not use that word.

    We should simply try to follow the rules of the PSR to its logical conclusion. — A Christian Philosophy

    This is circular reasoning.

    And my conclusion is that a thing whose existence is essential is necessary to explain the existence of all other contingent things — A Christian Philosophy

    All other contingent things? Something whose existence is necessary is not something that is contingent. If all natural things are contingent then what is necessary is not something natural but rather the cause of what is natural.

    Why must there be a reason for what is? Positing a principle that there must be is circular and question begging.
  • In defence of the Principle of Sufficient Reason
    ↪RussellA


    We could continue to go round and round, but I won't.
  • In defence of the Principle of Sufficient Reason
    There is no one definitive version of the PSR. — RussellA

    That is not what I asked. I asked which version says that it is contingent on our knowing that an event has occurred.

    I don't believe that the PSR can logically be formulated to apply to unknown events. — RussellA

    Then you reject every version of the PSR that does not explicitly state that the principle only applies to events we know of.

    The Principle of Sufficient Reason is a principle, and principles only exist in the mind. — RussellA

    It makes an ontological claim.

    When the original event happened, the event wasn't following the principle that it could only happen if there was a reason. — RussellA

    How do you know that?

    The original event wasn't determined by a Principle. — RussellA

    The principle does not determine the event. The event occurs in accord with the principle. The principle is not the cause.

    But then you say we can say something about an event we know nothing about, ie, that it must have a reason. — RussellA

    That is not what I said. What I said was:

    We cannot say anything about an event we know nothing about, but we do know that billions of events occurred without our knowledge of them occurring until billions of years later. — Fooloso4

    I gave the example of
    the earliest known galaxy, JADES-GS-z14-0 — Fooloso4
    . Until recently we did not know it existed. We now know it does. According to the PSR it must have a reason for existing. That reason was not created by our discovery of it.
  • In defence of the Principle of Sufficient Reason
    There is no one version of the PSR. There are different formulations. The PSR is a family of principles (SEP - PSR). — RussellA

    And which of those versions says that it is contingent on our knowing that an event has occurred? Or is that your own contribution?

    I am making the case that in the absence of a God, it wouldn't be sensible to apply a PSR to unknown events. — RussellA

    How does our knowing that an event has occurred affect the event such that prior to our knowledge of it it did not or might not have a reason for occurring? We can now see events that occurred millions of years ago, how does our seeing it now but not previously change what occurred or why it occurred?

    Is there any argument that could explain how we can know something about an unknown event, such as the unknown event having a reason? — RussellA

    We cannot say anything about an event we know nothing about, but we do know that billions of events occurred without our knowledge of them occurring until billions of years later. In what way does our coming to know them change the reason for them occurring?
  • In defence of the Principle of Sufficient Reason
    There are different formulations of the PSR. You cite one version of it. See SEP - Principle of Sufficient Reason. — RussellA

    I asked you:

    Whose version of the PSR are you relying on? — Fooloso4

    The closest you came to answering is:

    For Leibniz, God knows all events whether known or unknown by humans. — RussellA

    You say:

    A principle that cannot be justified shouldn't be used. — RussellA

    but when I asked:

    Are you arguing against the PSR? — Fooloso4

    your response was:

    No, I am arguing that the PSR cannot be applied to unknown events — RussellA

    Once again, whose version of the PRS are you relying on?

    And again, the Webb telescope makes known to us events that were previously unknown. According to Leibniz version, the reason for the existence of these events is present in the events whether we are aware of the event or not. The reason is inherent to the event, not to our knowledge of it.
  • In defence of the Principle of Sufficient Reason
    The existence of a being whose existence is an essential property is deduced directly from the PSR. — A Christian Philosophy

    What is deduced from a questionable principle is questionable.

    This thing whose existence you posit designs the laws of nature that cannot be explained naturally.
    — Fooloso4
    What else could it possibly be?     — A Christian Philosophy

    Positing a super-natural being in order to explain what you cannot explain is question begging. It assumes what is in question, that there must be a comprehensive reason for what is.

    To avoid the risk of infinite regress, the fundamental laws must be explained by something that requires an explanation but not a cause. — A Christian Philosophy

    What is this something? What is the explanation for this something?
  • In defence of the Principle of Sufficient Reason
    You propose a formulation of the PSR — RussellA

    I don't propose it. I cite it.

    You must feel that there is a justification for this particular formulation. — RussellA

    Prior to the question of whether one agrees or disagrees is the question of what the principle is. The principle is not based on our ability to know the reason, but rather states that there must be a reason.

    I do not know that there is a reason or that there is not a reason for everything
  • In defence of the Principle of Sufficient Reason
    For Leibniz, God knows all events whether known or unknown by humans. — RussellA

    Up until this point you have been treating unknown as unknown to us. If God knows then even if we do not there is still a reason for all events, reasons known to God. The reason for something is not contingent on our knowing the reason.

    Is your argument based on the existence of a God? — RussellA

    My argument is that if you accept the PRS then you must accept that there is a reason for everything whether that reason is known to us or not. One might, of course, object along the lines of our not knowing that there is a God who knows all things.
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