jpbrooks

Hello, Bob!

I'm not a genuine Relativist, but perhaps I can help. In each one of your statements above, you are using terms that you are assuming, in the act of making the statement, are intersubjectively meaningful. In my view the relativism occurs at the point where the maker of the statements about what he or she knows offers a justification for how he or she knows all that he or she presumes
to know. Since any further justification would again assume knowledge, which again would, in turn, assume his or her justification for that knowledge, no further justification is possible without circularity. But this means that "circles" (which is what I will call the systems bound by the circularity of justification) with different "content" would be equally "(un)justifiable" because there is no way to get "outside" everyone's "circle" of justification to judge one "circle" as more "justified" than any other. There is no point, according to the Relativists, in looking for a way around this "problem".

So, for example, in your first statement above, I would begin by asking questions such as how do you know that that statement is true? How did you come to know what a computer is, etc.?

Sur-reality

Theli-
Logic is a claim for logic by it's very nature claims to be true. And yes there is such thing as a non-logical true statement: I hate brussel sprouts. before I go on let me ask this one question: So far it sounds as if you are implying that logic is what makes truth and that if there was no logic then we wouldn't have a devinitive truth, is this correct?
-Sur-reality

Theli

heh? How can logic claim to be true? Is logic a person? What claim have you given the name "logic"?
Yes. But don't get me wrong, I'm not using the narrow definition of logic that must be based on premises and conclutions. I'm refering to the logic we base our language on, the logic we use to share information and claims.
Take your brussel for example, how did you form that claim about you not liking the brussel, if there was no logic involved?

From what I understand, you mean that every claim must be evaluated (or proven) backwards, that is... for claim A to be true, you require proof B, and to prove B you need proof C, and so on.
But where does this get you?
If every claim needs to be proven to be true then how really do you explain us discussing this? If neither your logic or your observations are reliable and they are only based on assumptions, then you must have one hell of a luck managing to form words and argue by clicking randomly at your keyboard you can only guess is in front of you.

And how do you know a claim without evidence is an assumption, and how do you know there is such a thing as an assumption to begin with?
You see where this line of reasoning takes us?

John Page

Perfect explanation! Of course it presupposes that phenomena require an explanation in the first place.
Cheers, John

Starboy

John, if there were no intelligent life in the universe then there would be plenty of phenomena but no explanations. So phenomena do not require explanations, but if you are trying to explain phenomena you will make presuppositions.

Starboy

Theli

What do you mean?
What explainations require presumptions?

John Page

I think Starboy is pointing out that it is the "intelligent life" that requires explanations, but making sense of such explanations requires the "intelligent life" to make presuppositions.

Cheers, John

Starboy

Spot on.

Christopher13

Excuse me if I make a misstep here in this neat duscussion. I thought I'd make a few points about the nature of the human intellect, reason, strictly speaking, being only its discursive part which "reasons" by means of syllogisms. Logic is the name given to the internal rules by which reason works. Its goal is the truth about reality which it orders. It has been demonstrated by others that the understanding contains certain "presuppositions" if you will. One is the aforementioned law of non-contradiction. Another is that the whole is greater than one of its parts. There are only a few such things built in as it were in the human intellect.
What some modern philosophies have done is question these truths about the human mind to the point that so-called radical doubt has befuddled many people, causing them to spend too much time arguing over these first principles of understanding. Some things cannot be argued, such as doubting one's own existence or the existence of the outside world. This has sidetracked many minds since Descartes. The world exists and it cannot be denied without involving oneself in contradictions similar to those posted here.

John Page

Human reason? How do you know?
Everything can be argued. What is the nature of the existence that you claim to have?
The world is full of contradictions and this cannot be denied (without affirming the existence of contradictions).

Cheers, John