3017Metaphysician wrote: ↑July 26th, 2022, 1:27 pm
GE Morton wrote: ↑July 26th, 2022, 12:24 pm
3017Metaphysician wrote: ↑July 25th, 2022, 8:37 pm
Metaphysically, we can say something about those things.
What things? (It would help if you would quote and respond to specific statements, rather than quoting an entire post and commenting. Makes it hard to determine just which claims you're challenging).
GE!
There's a whole host of things-in-themselves from which we can try to describe, like the myriad of things from cognition itself/conscious phenomena, right?
Yes, of course. But above you spoke of saying something "metaphysical" about "those things." Which specific things did you have in mind there?
There are no "contradictions" in "reality." There are only contradictions in some propositions about reality.
Are you suggesting that you understand the nature reality, you know, like the concept of a God would know?[/b]
No. I said nothing there about God. I said that contradictions are properties of some propositions, not about any component or aspect of "reality" other than propositions. You're trying to apply that term to phenomena where it has no application, rather like Chomsky's "Green ideas sleep furiously." Ideas don't have colors, don't sleep. The universe or "reality" doesn't have contradictions; those are the wrong category of subjects for that property. Only what we might SAY about it can have contradictions.
No. You can't glide from an argument about propositions to a conclusion about "beings." You have a 4-term fallacy going there (unless you perhaps count propositions as a species of "beings").
Yes you can. You can because a priori logic allows us to, hence, the ontological/cosmological arguments.
What is this "
a priori logic" to which you refer? Are you referring to Kant's categories? None of those lead to a "logically necessary being." And you can't derive such a "being" from the existence of logically necessary propositions. Any "
a priori logic" which leads you to that conclusion is fallacious; it commits the 4-term fallacy.
The ontological argument is also fallacious, to the extent it reaches conclusions about "beings." What we can do is construct an argument such as the following:
1. Something exists.
2. Whatever exists has a cause, e.g., if X exists, then it had some cause Y. Hence Y exists, which requires some cause Z. Etc.
3. Hence there necessarily exists an infinite chain of causes.
Premise #2 is an assumption. If it is false then the conclusion would not follow. But it does follow if #2 is true. We have no way of knowing whether #2 is true, but explanation depends upon it being true. So we assume it is.
Just like mathematics (a priori/objective truth) allows us to discern some levels of reality, a priori logic does this too. Again, not a complete picture, but a picture painted in temporal-ness and finitude from which we can leap to concepts of impossibility, possibility, and necessity nonetheless.
Well, no. Mathematics does not "allow us to to discern some levels of reality," other than mathematical reality. The only means we have of "discerning (other) levels (features, aspects, components, etc.) of reality" is by observing (experiencing) them.
But "reality" is ambiguous. When we use that word we (generally) have one of two meanings in mind, 1) subjective reality, i.e., what we directly experience, and "external reality," a reality independent from us which we postulate to explain subjective experience. The latter "reality" is a
conceptual model of a possible reality, which "stands in" for Kant's noumenal reality, about which we can know nothing.
To be sure, there are numerous other imagined "realities" mystics, Platonic philosophers, religionists, even poets and fiction writers, have conjured from the depths of the their own minds, but which have no empirical basis and no explanatory power. Some of those have entertainment value, but no other intellectual utility.
Remember almost all of formal logic relate to either/or; not both/and. The nature of realty or existence is more often than not both/and. That's what metaphysician's do
"The nature of realty or existence is more often than not both/and."
That is a proposition about reality. It is too vague to assign it any truth value --- a problem with much of what metaphysicians say about "reality."
GE, are suggesting consciousness and subconsciousness and the explanations and descriptions thereof are too vague?
Huh? My comment above related to your claim that ""The nature of realty or existence is more often than not both/and." I said that was too vague. Where does consciousness/subconsciousness enter the picture? There is nothing vague about those concepts.