Political Discussion - "on-topic & unmoderated"Rated PG13, unmoderated but threads must stay on topic - that means you can flame each other all you want as long as it's legal
Except that (2) is demonstrably false. Since we know at least one human has died, we know the claim that all humans were immortal is false (a deduction in itself ), therefore the deduction fails.
That said, I suppose I did mispeak when I said "baseless", as that can imply a falsity, not necessarily just an opinion without any reason.
What I'm talking about is something like "I believe in an afterlife". There's no legitimate basis behind this claim, but it's not necessarily false. Therefore, it cannot be deduced. If one does give a basis for the claim that can be true or false, then that basis can be deduced, and therefore, under those perimeters, so can the original claim.
In the end, the point is that deduction works very strongly alongside true and false claims. For deduction to work, one must be able to show that the statements being used to reach the conclusion are true. If they cannot, then one cannot be certain of the conclusion, therefore the conclusion cannot be deduced.
Let me finish with this one caveat, though: if we knew everything about the universe possible, then I would imagine everything would be deducible. The only reason why we cannot deduce everything is because we don't know everything.
That's my point, a falsity was in the major premise, and got carried over to the conclusion. We're talking deduction pure and simple, meaning the particularities of the real world do not matter. That’s what makes deduction, for example, an (ultimate) example of necessity. You said deduction cannot be based on falsities, but the truth of the premises is inconsequential to the validity of the argument. You are talking about soundness or solidity and thus moving the logic beyond pure and simple deduction. It's fine, I'm just being a stickler for the accuracy of the term deduction.
That's my point, a falsity was in the major premise, and got carried over to the conclusion. We're talking deduction pure and simple, meaning the particularities of the real world do not matter. That’s what makes deduction, for example, an (ultimate) example of necessity. You said deduction cannot be based on falsities, but the truth of the premises is inconsequential to the validity of the argument. You are talking about soundness or solidity and thus moving the logic beyond pure and simple deduction. It's fine, I'm just being a stickler for the accuracy of the term deduction.
I'm a little confused on exactly what you're trying to say here. It seems to me you're contradicting yourself, as for an argument to be valid, at least in a philosophical sense, the points that make up the argument must be sound, or in a more general term, true.
I disagree that the premises that make up an argument are inconsequential to the validity to the argument. In fact, I think they're essential to the validity of an argument.
I'm a little confused on exactly what you're trying to say here. It seems to me you're contradicting yourself, as for an argument to be valid, at least in a philosophical sense, the points that make up the argument must be sound, or in a more general term, true.
I disagree that the premises that make up an argument are inconsequential to the validity to the argument. In fact, I think they're essential to the validity of an argument.
You are probably arguing about different things. Strictly from a logical point of view, he is right. The validity of an argument is independent of the truth value of the premise. A statement "P->Q" is true if P is false, regardless of Q. For example, "If I am the Queen of England then the Earth is flat" is true because I am not the Queen of England.
I'm a little confused on exactly what you're trying to say here. It seems to me you're contradicting yourself, as for an argument to be valid, at least in a philosophical sense, the points that make up the argument must be sound, or in a more general term, true.
I disagree that the premises that make up an argument are inconsequential to the validity to the argument. In fact, I think they're essential to the validity of an argument.
We've been all over the map in this thread. Yeah, I think Moose knows what I'm trying to say--although I've heard material implication as per his example is a bit debatable. Deduction and validity are basically just a matter of taking the statements being considered in a deductive and valid way as if nothing else in the world needs to be taken into account. The arguments given as deductively valid are just supposed to be taken at face value. It's a formal matter; not a matter of content. Content considerations would have to do with circumstances, empirical facts, etc. One can pretend to know absolutely nothing about the physical world and still be logical in a pure sense. Pure logic is just about the statements in and of themselves. This is shown by the fact that pure logic tends to use bare symbols and logical operators between them. Deductive validity is like the skeleton and connective tissue of argumentation. To go with the metaphor I used in the last post, I think of the skeleton as being the letters, the rules of inference or logical operators as the connective tissue, and the flesh and soft tissue is like the circumstances of the world. So pure logic is like the former two and you’re also concerned about the latter--but that is no longer pure logic.
Had my Philosophy exam today. The topic was 'evaluate the claim that any proof for the existence of God is based on personal experience'. I thought I did pretty well.
Except can someone please explain to me how in the hell the Ontological argument is relevant at all? It seems completely ridiculous to me!
Had my Philosophy exam today. The topic was 'evaluate the claim that any proof for the existence of God is based on personal experience'. I thought I did pretty well.
Except can someone please explain to me how in the hell the Ontological argument is relevant at all? It seems completely ridiculous to me!
More of an application of concepts question I suppose, to be lenient.
Had my Philosophy exam today. The topic was 'evaluate the claim that any proof for the existence of God is based on personal experience'. I thought I did pretty well.
Except can someone please explain to me how in the hell the Ontological argument is relevant at all? It seems completely ridiculous to me!
What do you mean by relevant?
Anyway, writing on the ontological argument is a fun, rational excerise. It is a creative argument that can take many forms, but ultimately it suffers from one flaw exposed by Kant: existence is not a predicate.
Anyway, writing on the ontological argument is a fun, rational excerise. It is a creative argument that can take many forms, but ultimately it suffers from one flaw exposed by Kant: existence is not a predicate.
I don't know, either I don't completely understand it, or I do and I just think its pointless.
The way it was explained to me was like this: what do you desire in a perfect partner?
1. Good personality
2. Good looks
3. Money
And then based off of something like the ontological argument it would be like this
1. Good personality
2. Good looks
3. Money
4. Existence
That's when I decided that I really didn't like the argument, because I always assumed that existence is implied.
I don't know, either I don't completely understand it, or I do and I just think its pointless.
The way it was explained to me was like this: what do you desire in a perfect partner?
1. Good personality
2. Good looks
3. Money
And then based off of something like the ontological argument it would be like this
1. Good personality
2. Good looks
3. Money
4. Existence
That's when I decided that I really didn't like the argument, because I always assumed that existence is implied.
The various arguments are pretty similar in structure, and it goes something like (reformated from IEP):
(This is the toughest version of it, so in my opinion, if you understand this one then you can understand the rest of them.)
1) God can be defined as: a being than which none greater can be imagined.
2) A being that necessarily exists in reality is greater than a being that does not necessarily exist.
3) Thus, by definition, if God exists as an idea in the mind but does not necessarily exist in reality, then we can imagine something that is greater than God.
4) But we cannot imagine something that is greater than God (This follows from the definition of God, see premise 1).
5) Thus, if God exists in the mind as an idea, then God necessarily exists in reality (This follows from something that exists in reality being greater than something existing only in the mind, see Premise 2).
6) God exists in the mind as an idea.
7) Therefore, God necessarily exists in reality.
I can see what that person was trying to do by explaining those characteristics to you, however that oversimplifies the argument, in my opinion. It doesn't give it a charitable interpretation. It takes person B to better than person A because person B exists, while presumably person A does not exist. It would suffer from the objection of: am I better than my grandfather because I am existing and he is not existing (i.e., he died)? I don't think this is what the argument was going for.
Kant's objection, and what I was referring to was something like: the argument treats existence as a property. For example, green could be a property of an apple (i.e., the apple is green). The argument treats existence as a property like the colour green, however, it is not. Existence is meant to be self-evident or assumed when assigning properties to things, but that doesn't tell you anything about it in reality.
‘God exists’ is either a synthetic or analytic proposition (analytic = contained in the subject or synthetic = added to the subject).
If it is analytic, then the statement is true, but the statement doesn’t say anything about reality it just indicates an occurrence with reality. For example, you could say, "God exists" but that doesn't tell you anything about how the world really is since it is just a definition.
If it is synthetic, then the statement needs to proven by other outside evidence, but the outside evidence itself can be proven or disproven. For example, saying "the apple is green" would be have to be proven. And when you try to prove it, it can be argued either way (I might see red, for example) based on the evidence, which means the proposition has room to be doubted.
The various arguments are pretty similar in structure, and it goes something like (reformated from IEP):
(This is the toughest version of it, so in my opinion, if you understand this one then you can understand the rest of them.)
1) God can be defined as: a being than which none greater can be imagined.
2) A being that necessarily exists in reality is greater than a being that does not necessarily exist.
3) Thus, by definition, if God exists as an idea in the mind but does not necessarily exist in reality, then we can imagine something that is greater than God.
4) But we cannot imagine something that is greater than God (This follows from the definition of God, see premise 1).
5) Thus, if God exists in the mind as an idea, then God necessarily exists in reality (This follows from something that exists in reality being greater than something existing only in the mind, see Premise 2).
6) God exists in the mind as an idea.
7) Therefore, God necessarily exists in reality.
I can see what that person was trying to do by explaining those characteristics to you, however that oversimplifies the argument, in my opinion. It doesn't give it a charitable interpretation. It takes person B to better than person A because person B exists, while presumably person A does not exist. It would suffer from the objection of: am I better than my grandfather because I am existing and he is not existing (i.e., he died)? I don't think this is what the argument was going for.
Kant's objection, and what I was referring to was something like: the argument treats existence as a property. For example, green could be a property of an apple (i.e., the apple is green). The argument treats existence as a property like the colour green, however, it is not. Existence is meant to be self-evident or assumed when assigning properties to things, but that doesn't tell you anything about it in reality.
‘God exists’ is either a synthetic or analytic proposition (analytic = contained in the subject or synthetic = added to the subject).
If it is analytic, then the statement is true, but the statement doesn’t say anything about reality it just indicates an occurrence with reality. For example, you could say, "God exists" but that doesn't tell you anything about how the world really is since it is just a definition.
If it is synthetic, then the statement needs to proven by other outside evidence, but the outside evidence itself can be proven or disproven. For example, saying "the apple is green" would be have to be proven. And when you try to prove it, it can be argued either way (I might see red, for example) based on the evidence, which means the proposition has room to be doubted.
I think existence is like a second-order property, like the property of having properties. If something has greenness, and a statement on this is true, then existence is like something that follows from the fact that greenness (or other first-order properties) is true of this something.
Analytic statements are tautologies, meaning their truth (falsity) has no reference to the physical world. They provide no information about the world. A synthetic statement, by contrast, is not necessary, but provides information about the physical world.
I think the foregoing two paragraphs summarize what you said. Now consider this property:
(0) x is ‘that which requires nothing else to exist’.
Call x substance. Is the property described by (0) analytic? It sounds like it in the way it is a definition whose truth depends on the meaning of the statement. Is it synthetic? If so I would think its truth would bear on empirical evidence as potentially given through physics, as the most general of the natural sciences. I would say that it is the former, it is analytic and tautologous in terms of its truth-value, as well as applicable to the physical world to the degree that the physical world is captured by this property. It’s like an open-ended reference that is similar to the nouns ‘self-sufficiency, ‘necessity’, and ‘all-powerfulness’ in its meaning. It can be about both abstract truth and the physical world. Anything may fit the bill if it fits the description. I mean for that subject to depend on something would be what is required for it to not be absolutely self-sufficient, but that seems to be impossible, and it wouldn’t fit the bill of the property that I stipulated in (0). How could there not be anything to which (0) refers? There would have to be no necessity and universal contingency, but would not the fact of universal contingency itself be necessarily true when one considers the universe and existence as a whole. Hypothetically, if everything--and even nothingness as well--is able to be instantiated as the subject of (0), then how could that subject not be absolutely self-sufficient? Or if substance does not capture the physical world, as something transcendent of it, would not that which is analytically true still fit the bill? For instance ‘2 + 2 = 4’ is true regardless of whether or not there are no pairs in the physical universe. Bottom line as I see it is that that which is described by (0) exists necessarily at the same time that it applies to the physical universe. So I believe (0) is analytic, synthetic in the sense that it applies to the natural world, and existence is not treated as a first-order property by this assessment. I don’t see how Kant’s argument as relayed by you refutes this.
), therefore the deduction fails.
