Tercel

Hi Ender,

Perhaps, but first things first: My handle "Tercel" is not a reference to the make of car by Toyota, but rather is a reference to the word tercel (aka tiercel) meaning a male hawk. Indeed, I was not even aware a brand of car existed by that name until Bob K informed me of this last year.
As far as this being only my second post to you, in a few cases I have thought your responses sufficient in themselves and there was nothing I particularly wanted to challenge or disagree with, but on the whole I think it's simply coincidence that you and I haven't posted too much in the same threads. Metacrock has mentioned a couple of times that you're one of the few non-christian posters he respects and enjoys posting with, so I am certainly intrigued...

What do you think of Kant's argument that causality belongs in an a priori category? I would tend to agree with him and say causality is not only empirically derived, but instinctual. (Of course, being of rather great rationalist tendings, I think I'm just slightly biased against Hume and towards Kant ) But is Kant's thoughts what you mean when you say "results in psychology"?

It is a rather slippery slope I've alleged there, isn't it? Oh well... but the existence of a slippery slope does not necessarily render the argument invalid... or at least the ideas behind the argument (hmm... I seem to be doing some grasping at straws here )

While this is true, are we not constrained to view reality from our own selves, whose nature must necessarily be shaped by that which we are biologically? Given that we are pre-programmed (if you will) to think a certain way by the nature of our selves, does that not in turn compel us to accept that way of thinking as axiomatic? To adopt another way of thinking, would seem to me to render the validity of the system questionable: For all the while that we willfully reject our pre-programmed assumptions and ideas we would be using our self-same pre-programmed minds to process this alternative way of thinking.
So insofar as the law of non-contradiction is an inherent axiom due to our biological nature, I would argue that we must accept it absolutely precisely because it is such.

... those foolist theistic rationalists, pah! Who needs them?

Hmm... is it, do you think? By "lock, stock and barrel ingredient of rationalism" do you mean that if one accepts PSR then one is logically compelled towards rationalism, or that all rationalists accept PSR?

Human curiosity compels all explanations!

Pretty nasty that Occam can be with his razor, can't he? You know, the event of Occam's own commitment to theism is something I've always found rather ironic in light of his razor's regular use on these boards.
With regard to your point, obviously an important point in any cosmological argument is to establish a ground for believing that the universe cannot be it's own sufficient reason, but God can. It is my personal belief that matter, being in my opinion arbitrary in the extreme, can never be its own sufficient reason. While I think that a mind, being of an irreducible and non-arbitrary nature, fits better with what one would expect from an object whose PSR was its own. Since I also would posit a platonic-like duality between concepts and material existence, I am inclined to believe that that which had its own PSR would be an entity from the conceptual realm - given the close relation between the basic entities such as logic and PSR to the conceptual in comparison to the material. Hence I am far more persuaded to accept a mind -an entity that is based in the conceptual realm yet capable of dealing with the material- as a more likely explanation for both the "first cause" and the cause of the existence of the material universe, than I am anything material.
Of course, it may be that this is simply my rationalist bias showing through here again...

Perhaps I have gone slightly over the top here and reached for the straw, but I am not convinced that the idea is without merit. It seems it is easy to bandy the phrase "fallacy of composition", but I am inclined to think that convincingly demonstrating the validity of this objection requires substantually more.

One surely might question the suggest that the first cause need happen in time. I would suggest that time itself is a result of change and causality. -The regular changing of the material world is that which we describe as time.

This rather would seem to beg the question! As would the combined premises 2 & 3 of you explanation to Rimstalker...

Tercel

Vorkosigan

What do you think of Kant's argument that causality belongs in an a priori category? I would tend to agree with him and say causality is not only empirically derived, but instinctual.

Whether implanted by gods or evolution, causality has to be built-in. That is one of the assumption of evolutionary psychology -- perhaps that is what Ender meant by "results in psychology."

Pretty nasty that Occam can be with his razor, can't he? You know, the event of Occam's own commitment to theism is something I've always found rather ironic in light of his razor's regular use on these boards.

No more ironic than Newton's theism, in light of the deism inherent in his mechanistic universe, or the fact that methodological naturalism was invented by theists. For an analytical method to be truly useful, it must be independent of any particular conclusion. It is a tribute to the integrity of these scholars that they were able to set aside powerful beliefs and follow where the evidence led.

Vorkosigan

[ May 11, 2002: Message edited by: Vorkosigan ]</p>

Ender

So much for Toyota.

Yes, even though neither of us are known for our aptitude in diplomacy, we can ignore the beliefs/or lack of and chew the fat about philosophy. That I was welcomed as the resident atheist on his boards is a testament of his disposition.

Species of "pure reason" (such as space/time/substance/causality)may do the job (rendering experience intelligible) well, but alternative and different doctrines of organization could do as well. It might be a necessary truth that human experience requires doctrines of organization, and it may be true that space and time do the job, but it is not a necessary truth that space & time are absolutely mandatory to organize our experience.

Both empirically derived and instinctual? Then you would be disagreeing with both Kant and Hume. Kant was in fact convinced by Hume's treatment of the principle of causality that the element of necessity in the very judgment cannot be justified on purely empirical grounds. Hume said that necessity and strict universality cannot be derived from existence, and Kant agreed, saying that "necessity and strict universality are sure marks of a priori knowledge and are inseparably connected with one another." [Critique B4] Kant only gave a different rationalization for causation than Hume's. Instead of custom, habit, animal faith, Kant thought that the rationalistic proposition "every event must have a cause" is an expression of a priori knowledge. He stresses that the necessity cannot be "purely subjective" [Critique B, 5]. Haven't you been doing your Kant homework?

Not at all- rather the animal faith of Hume.

You're right- not everyone who accepts the principle of sufficient reason is a rationalist, as a quick reading of Schopenhauer's dissertation shows.

Borrowing Kant, I would argue that it is precisely human reason that extends our curiosity illegitimately, and far beyond any empirical worth, leaving us into the imaginary logic, or what Kant coins as the "logic of illusion."

How so? The 2nd premise states that the negation of a matter of fact is not a contradiction. The third states that any assertion about an object's existence is a matter of fact. Where is the circularity here?

I will get to the rest of your post tomorrow night.

~Speaker 4 the Death of God~

Clutch

Tercel, Ender, A li'l point of logic: This appears to confuse LNC for Excluded Middle. LNC entails that, if B--&gt;~A, then ~(A&B). In effect, *no more* than one of A and ~A can hold. It does not follow that *exactly* one of A and ~A holds. A logic not including LEM, like constructivism/intuitionism, denies precisely the idea that "there must be some sort of deciding principle" in every case.

Ender

Yup. Rationalism is a fun topic and seems tailor-made for deconstruction.

Ah, with the delectable word "necessary" just how isn't this a confession of a neo-Kantian's loyalties?

The heavy-handed teleological overtone is noted.

Colloquially, it's called thinking out of the box. And just how exactly would we be using the same "programmed assumptions" in order to do so? Doesn't the example of Lukasiewicz's Logic apply here?

Nah. Not inescapably "absolutely," according to the logician Lukasiewicz. And just because it is an characteristic of human nature, by no means does it imply that the logical axioms are absolute.

Are you mistaking the man with an aspect of his philosophy? This is an ad hominem.

If you assume that God is something that has its own sufficient reason within itself, then what explains God's existence?

The mind is predicated by the human brain. We have no experience of any "mind" that lacks a human brain. And slapping a "non-arbitrary" nature onto a notion of the "mind" wrung free from the physical realm is tantamount to sophistry and smacks of intellectual dishonesty. Feuerbach strikes.

Hey Plato, can you give me an abstract general idea?

Of course! Goddidit is the last refugee of every believer. I do not limit myself to classical theory of gravity, which is based on observable space-time, and accordingly believe that the universe must be either infinite or finite. There is a third possibility- that of the quantum theory of gravity. It implies that it's entirely possible space-time may be finite in degree and yet lack a singularity that wrought a boundary or border. The universe itself is actually self-contained, lacking a boundary, so it lacks a beginning- it simply is.

That's not a very convincing defense and does not show why the fallacy charge is insufficient, much less substantial in the slightest.

On the other hand, one surely might suggest that "real" time is actually our own presupposition, and that "imaginary" time is really the real time.

~WiGGiN~

Answerer

Back to my point that we don't understand time or rather spacetime very much. More observations are greatly needed before we can make any further conclusions.

Hans

From the review:

On what basis can one assert that the above is impossible? Inexplicable perhaps. But impossible?

Clutch

Hans, agreed. I have twice on this thread explained why that quote is mistaken; an infinite past is perfectly possible.