HRG

Note to moderators: Couldn't we collect all the immediate rebuttals of presuppositionalism in a FAQ ?

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Kent Symanzik (in part):
[QB]Hi Synaesthesia,



You seem to be saying here that I must be omniscient before I can make a presupposition. I don't understand your reason for this. Can you elaborate?

What I do know is that if I do not presuppose the Christian God then I cannot rationally know anything.
[quote]
How do you know that without making some presupposition ? You cannot judge a system which makes different presuppositions from "within" your own system; that's like applying the rules of soccer to (American) football and claiming a foul when someone is carrying the ball.

Of course, if you presuppose the Christian God you cannot rationally know anything either - as long as you require the same standard for your knowledge as you require for the knowledge in an atheist system. This is for the simple reason that he may lie to you when he says that he never lies.

In contrast, the reality of non-theism (aka "Nature" or "The Universe") may be highly complicated, but, lacking volition, cannot actively deceive you.

BTW, the "laws of logic" are tautologies in the sense that they are inherent in the semantics of our language. They don't need a transcedental origin.

An exact analogy would be the "law" that a bishop never moves to a square of a different color, or that the ace of trumps always takes a trick. Those "laws" are inherent in the rules for chess and bridge; they don't need a transcedental origin either.

Regards,
HRG.


"All theorems of logic state the same: to wit, nothing" (L. Wittgenstein)

Kent Symanzik

Hi Jobar, thanks for the welcome.

I think you are misunderstanding my position. As a Christian my ultimate authority is the Christian God revealed in the scriptures. If there was a message written in the sky it would be less authoritative than the message I already have in scripture.

It seems that you are critizing the concept of the Christian God from you own worldview. If that is the case, you will first have to establish suffering as a rational concept in your worldview. I assume you are talking about human suffering. What is suffering in an atheist worldview? How can it be more than a particular state in the human body. A particular arrangement of chemicals in the brain. But, you seem to be saying that suffering is more than that. Can you explain how it can be in an atheist worldview?

Until that is accomplished we are forced to presuppose that God exists to make sense of suffering in order to use suffering as an argument against his existence.

Ok, thanks for letting my know where you are coming from. And thanks for the good questions.

Kent

Kent Symanzik

Hi acronos,

I think I understand where you are coming from.

The problem here is where you say they have so far proven to be universal. But, in your worldview, there cannot be universals. What is a number? Is it just a different concept in our brains that *so far* has been the same in every human that we know of? Is it a particular that is inherent in every bit of matter? Have you observed it?

From my perspective, the difficulty is that we do live in a world with universals. And I know where these universals are established, namely God. So what happens is that atheists can say "What's the problem? The universe as far as we know is uniform. It works and I have my atheist worldview." But my point is that if your worldview was actually true it wouldn't work.

I hope I am being clear. I just want to let you know what I'm thinking.

Kent

acronos

Hi Kent,
I disagree. In my world there are universals. The actual universe is the universal. The laws of the universe exist, whatever they are. I argue that our understanding of those laws is incomplete, not that the laws are incomplete. The universe just exists. That is my presupposition. Whatever behaviors or laws the universe exhibits are part of my presupposition. Without gravity, there are no planets. Without matter, we don't exist. These laws are universal so far as we know, but our knowledge or lack of knowledge has absolutely no effect on their existence. What is real is real whether we know about it or not.

In my worldview, these universals are part of the existence of the universe. There is matter. Matter is part of our universe. Matter is a universal law as far as we understand it. Introducing God only adds more complexity. It is much simpler to just directly attribute the laws to where you yourself have said we observe the laws, namely the universe. Our universe does not exist outside of the laws of matter, space, and time. When I postulate the existence of the universe, the laws of matter, space, and time are part of the postulation. Is this making sense yet?

[ August 27, 2002: Message edited by: acronos ]</p>

acronos

I know suffering exists because I suffer. I observe others with symptoms similar to mine when they suffer. I hear them tell me that they are suffering. Why is it irrational for me to believe suffering exists? Why do I have to explain the origins of a phenomena to believe in the existence of it? If I see an apple fall to the ground consistently, then I am perfectly reasonable in expecting it to fall the next time I drop it. I am perfectly reasonable whether I understand the mechanism of gravity or not.

Even though I don’t have to explain it, most atheists, I think, would say that the sensation of suffering evolved because there was an evolutionary advantage in motivating creatures to avoid suffering. Pleasure and pain motivate people. Pleasure motivates people towards behaviors that support survival and propagation. Pain motivates people to avoid things that are detrimental to survival. Suffering is what happens when you experience pain.

acronos

I missed this on the previous pass. This is a significant statement. I don't understand where you are coming from. Why wouldn't my worldview work?

Kent Symanzik

Hi acronos,

I think the problem with the universe being your presupposition is that the universe is not a source of knowledge. You must still depend on observation for all you know. That is why your claim that there are universals is without support. You have not observed that. So, when you say what is real is real whether we know about it or not, the problem is that we do not know what is real.

In short, I'm trying to explain that you have a knowledge problem. You are free to presuppose the universe but you have no way of knowing all of what the universe is.

Here, you seem to understand that you cannot observe universal laws. At least, that is what I understand when you say "I postulate the existence of the universe, the laws of matter, space, and time are part of the postulation".

I have thought about this as well. I have wondered, just as I presuppose the Christian God why can't an atheist presuppose the universe, laws of logic, uniformity of nature, etc. But, I think this is problematic because I do not see how all of these things fit in an atheistic worldview. Where do we get uniformity from the randomness of the universe. And what are the laws of logic? I do not know of any atheistic worldviews that have a foundation to support abstract universals.

Another problem I have with presupposing these things is that you are simply presupposing the very things that our worldviews need to justify. The laws of logic are not a foundation but rather require a foundation. In other words, instead of presupposing something to be a source of your knowledge you are presupposing the knowledge itself.

I hope I haven't muddied things up too much. I'm just trying to lay all my thoughts out at once.

Kent

Kent Symanzik

Hi acronos,

I know that you suffer as do I. The existence of suffering is not what is in question. The question is whether your worldview can account for such phenomena or not. If it cannot then your acknowledgement of suffering shows that you act inconsistently with your worldview.

The problem I have with this explanation is that there are several assumptions in it that are unjustified. These assumptions are that suffering is bad and survival is good. Can you explain these things in atheistic terms? By that I mean terms that have a foundation in atheistic worldviews. You have described the universe as consisting of matter. How do you get from matter to the concept of suffering? If we are just bags of chemicals that are reacting what makes us more valuable than a can of pop fissing. When a human changes from the phenomena of pleasure to the phenomena of suffering how is it any more than simply a change in state? Why is death considered bad? How can it be more than simply a change in chemical state in an atheistic worldview.

My argument basically is that atheists must rely on terms that are unjustified in atheistic worldviews to explain phenomena like, suffering, pleasure, survival, and death.

It's been a pleasure having this dialogue with you.

Kent

Kent Symanzik

Hi acronos,

The full statement was this:
As is often the case, I don't think I was very clear. My point was simply that if your worldview was true we would not have universals. That's what I meant by saying your worldview wouldn't work.

I admit that it was an unclear statement.

Kent

Kent Symanzik

Hi HRG,

As I was trying to explain, if I require an authority to validate my ultimate authority then my ultimate authority would not be ultimate.

It would be the same if you were able to ask Protagoras what authority told him that man is the measure of all things. No other authority, of course. Ultimate authorities by definition must be self-authorizing.

Kent