Quote from: McInerny, The Philosophy of Nature, p. 56The domain of universal doubt which [Descartes] invites us to enter, as containing the only sure road to truth, proves to be a pathless jungle from which not even he was able to extricate himself. Methodological doubt does not free us from scepticism, but entraps us in it inescapably.
This very well might be the case. But it raises the question... how do we escape from uncertainty?
Thomists claim that the answer is Thomism. They assert that there actually is a material world, and that our senses are reliable, and that we have innate knowledge of first principles, etc.. But what exactly is their defense? It all just sounds like question-begging to me. Am I completely misunderstanding their position, or is it really just question-begging?
Other philosophers claim their own philosophies to be correct. But they don't seem to have a defense for theirs either.
I can't help but wonder... maybe there is no road to truth? Or maybe there is one, but maybe it's so well-hidden that no man will ever be able to find it...
You will get the wrong answer, when you ask the wrong question. It is not, how do we escape uncertainty. It is more like how does one arrive at certitude.
Thomist's do not have a defense. Thomist's have an offense. Learn what that offense is, and then you will have your answer. The papacy has desired that rival schools be the Thomist's defense - Denzinger 2192 "We desire that there exist that honorable rivalry with just freedom from which studies make progress...". However, for me there is a problem. Thomist's don't speak my tongue. Talk about a relief.
Prayers like "defend me O God" come to mind as you speak about philosophy and the use of the word defense, or their lack thereof. God comes to the defense of his faithful. But, the devil does not come to the defense of his minions. The devil is on the offense. And, the devil is on the offense because his time is short. Our defense however is not short. It is eternal. World without end, amen. If you do not find philosophy to have a defense. You might be saying something.
Daniel stated:
QuoteThomists claim that the answer is Thomism. They assert that there actually is a material world, and that our senses are reliable, and that we have innate knowledge of first principles, etc.. But what exactly is their defense? It all just sounds like question-begging to me. Am I completely misunderstanding their position, or is it really just question-begging?
The Thomists claim that human beings are born with the capacity to know the material world; this they do through their senses. The senses are infallible in their own domain; for example: The role of the eye is to see color; the eye that functions normally will infallibly perceive the true color under normal conditions; the same for all of the senses. That the material world truly exists and is knowable and therefore objective truth is attainable by the mind through the senses.
As far as 'question begging': It makes an awful lot of sense to me. To say that truth is unknowable, is to deny our daily experience where we indeed function and the world functions on the basis of a real possibility of objective truth that men can know and live by.
Uncertainty about
what? And what is
uncertainty and what reasons do you have for being uncertain? You can't even meaningfully use the word without asumptions of truth, no, language itself falls apart if it cannot point to anything.
QuoteI can't help but wonder... maybe there is no road to truth? Or maybe there is one, but maybe it's so well-hidden that no man will ever be able to find it...
Case in point. What can you even mean by "truth" if you haven't posited certain things in a certain way about which statements could be "true"?
Why don't you work through this systematically as an exercise?
Daniel, your starting point is wrong. You've "grabbed the wrong end of the stick" to begin with. You
assume that the search for truth begins with the private ratiocination in your mind, but
your assumption is wrong. You can go looking around your mind in circles all day long and you'll never find anything certain or solid; this is because the human mind is created and finite, and has no intellectual light in itself, but relies on an external source [i.e. being] for illumination. Only God can grasp the truth by a pure act of reflection upon His own infinite Mind. But the first act of the human mind is not discursive reasoning or reflexive thought, but the simple intuition or awareness of being, and in particular the being of sensible substances (that which can be perceived by the senses, as against the ontologists who believe that the being which we immediately grasp with our minds is the divine being itself). The first thing that our intellect grasps is that the being which our senses perceive exists, i.e. it is real being. Then it begins to grasp the various forms or essences present in sensible being. And only
then does the mind begin to reflect on itself and reason according to the forms or essences which exist in it.
But you are skipping the first two steps and going straight to the third, which leaves you without any real foundation, hence: your tendency to radical agnosticism / skepticism. (In other words, stop looking for the truth inside your mind: truth is something which primarily transcends the human mind, something which exists beyond it and which it must go in search for; the human mind only gets to participate in truth, it does not get to create it
ex nihilo through an act of its own reasoning.) The fact that there is no rational proof or demonstration of the validity of our simple intuition of being does not mean that this intuition is false or irrational, but merely that it is suprarational, i.e. above reason; it is a first principle which is beyond reasoning, since reasoning itself presupposes its existence. If, following the false and misleading method of Descartes, you deny this intuition or awareness we have of being through our senses, you will arrive at the same kind of agnosticism that he & his disciples eventually found themselves in. You must start with the same
common sense grasp of reality that all men have: the world which you can see, hear, smell, taste, & touch is
real. Once you've accepted the
reality of this world perceived by the senses, you can then (by reasoning) arrive at the very existence of God.
But you can't ignore the world and start with pure discursive reasoning. It's this false approach which gets philosophers to be rightly labelled as "navel-gazers", because at that point they really are only staring at themselves and arrive at nothing beyond themselves.
The starting point of real philosophy is wonder, as Aristotle says; but what produces this wonder is the simple & human intuition of the being which we perceive with our senses. Once we accept that this world exists and its existence transcends our minds, and that our minds merely reflect this existence (rather than creating it): the mind is flooded with intelligible light which produces this philosophical wonder. Most modern philosophers, on the other hand, presume that the external world is unknowable, and can only be perceived indirectly through mathematical formulae and scientific theorems; the only thing we know is what exists in our minds, and the "world" which we perceive is in fact merely conceptual, as the external world (if it exists) is a formless sea of subatomic particles, and the "forms" (e.g. tree, cloud, dog) which we perceive have no existence beyond our minds.
This is pure sophistry, pure pseudophilosophical navel-gazing. We do not perceive our own thoughts or senses (except in the special case of reflexive cognition, which is what you're solely relying upon), rather, our thoughts and senses are that
by which we perceive the external object, i.e. the world. That is to say,
we perceive the world, our minds have direct access to being, to reality. We are not trapped in our own minds as the modern philosophers would have it.
Daniel, please watch this video. In particular, the section on René Descartes at 16m 41s. It talks about the inspiration for Descartes' philosophy – and therefore, in a sense, for the whole of modern philosophy – coming to him in a dream in which he was approached by the so-called "angel of truth". This is where the inspiration for his "methodological doubt" came from. It doesn't take a St. Anthony the Great to realise that this was a demon disguising himself as an angel of light.
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExgqXKKagfY&t=16m41s[/yt]
QuoteWhy Descartes was not a Philosopher
Peter A. Redpath
René Descartes is commonly called the Father of Modern Philosophy. Strictly speaking, Descartes was not a philosopher. What, for centuries, we have mistakenly identified as philosophy in his thinking is actually a new type of rhetoric which he had synthesized from the humanism and scholasticism of his time and from his Christian faith in God as a creator. The ancient historical roots of Cartesian thought lie in classical sophistry and poetry and in an apocryphal notion of philosophy as a hidden system of thought which can be apprehended only through a revelatory, practical exegesis of the sort claimed by an ancient poet, sophist, or magician. This apocryphal notion of philosophy originated before the advent of Christianity and was transmitted through Medieval masters of the trivium to Renaissance nominalists and humanists through whom it eventually became adopted by Descartes.
Some readers might be tempted to dismiss what I have just said. None, however, can summarily dismiss the firm and clear pronouncement made by Jacques Maritain about the nature of modern subjective idealism. In The Peasant of the Garonne, Maritain stated he had never "spoken more seriously" than when he challenged "with might and main" the right of subjective idealists to call themselves philosophers.
According to Maritain, the purported philosophy of modern subjective idealists is actually secularized theology, which he considered to be a Grand Protagorean Sophistry. He was absolutely adamant in his claim that adherents to the method of reasoning practiced by subjective idealism are not philosophers: "All these men begin with thought alone, and there they remain .... What does this mean? They impugn ... the absolutely basic foundation of philosophic research. They are not philosophers." [Daniel, this is your situation]
Read more: https://maritain.nd.edu/ama/Sweetman/Sweetman01.pdf
QuoteBut the first act of the human mind is not discursive reasoning or reflexive thought, but the simple intuition or awareness of being, and in particular the being of sensible substances (that which can be perceived by the senses, as against the ontologists who believe that the being which we immediately grasp with our minds is the divine being itself). The first thing that our intellect grasps is that the being which our senses perceive exists, i.e. it is real being.
Except that is disuptable. Which brings Daniel back to his original point.
In any case, it is more or less this point which Descartes questions with his systematic doubt by consideration of the immediate object of consciousness in waking and sleeping, and just stating the contention as an "axiom" or considering its pragmatic expediency is systematising a philosophy doesn't prove it. Regardless of the former's soundness of argumentation, "being of sensible substances" is not directly perceived by the senses but is conceptualised a posteriori, and that it is the result of an "intuition of being" is questionable, there being plenty of examples casting doubt upon the nature of these supposed "intuitions", or more to the point, the very existence of disputes as to what images of conscious awareness are sensations of "real objects" and which mere "phantasms" - disputes which people inevtiably attempt to settle by inovcation of reason - undermines that contention that this is directly intuited.
So what if you call Descartes a "philosopher" or not?
Quote from: John Lamb on December 27, 2018, 05:42:54 AM
Daniel, please watch this video. In particular, the section on René Descartes at 16m 41s. It talks about the inspiration for Descartes' philosophy – and therefore, in a sense, for the whole of modern philosophy – coming to him in a dream in which he was approached by the so-called "angel of truth". This is where the inspiration for his "methodological doubt" came from. It doesn't take a St. Anthony the Great to realise that this was a demon disguising himself as an angel of light.
Oh dear, why isn't this common knowledge?
If Descartes' philosophy really was inspired by an 'Angel of Light', then Descartes' philosophy belongs to that category of ideas which should be studied as examples of how the Enemy of Mankind wants men to think.
It is a cartoon-character straw-man refutation of Descartes to claim that he said truth only exists in our minds, whereas Thomism says truth transcends the human mind. This confuses ontology with epistemology, and this continual confusion of epistemology with ontology haunts Thomism to this day in issues such as epistemology of faith.
Quote from: Daniel on December 24, 2018, 08:08:20 PM
Quote from: McInerny, The Philosophy of Nature, p. 56The domain of universal doubt which [Descartes] invites us to enter, as containing the only sure road to truth, proves to be a pathless jungle from which not even he was able to extricate himself. Methodological doubt does not free us from scepticism, but entraps us in it inescapably.
This very well might be the case. But it raises the question... how do we escape from uncertainty?
If Descartes invites you to enter the 'domain of universal doubt', and this invitation is inspired by a demon, then ask yourself what the devil wants you to doubt, and why.
Then do the opposite of what is being suggested.
Quote from: Quaremerepulisti on December 27, 2018, 01:39:46 PM
It is a cartoon-character straw-man refutation of Descartes to claim that he said truth only exists in our minds, whereas Thomism says truth transcends the human mind. This confuses ontology with epistemology, and this continual confusion of epistemology with ontology haunts Thomism to this day in issues such as epistemology of faith.
Nevertheless, it's a fact of history that Cartesian philosophy lead to immanentism (i.e. we can only perceive what is immanent to us, the reality transcending our mind remaining unknowable) through the likes of Hume & Kant. And this immanentism began with Descartes
doubting the authority of the senses, which Aristotelian philosophy affirms axiomatically and for very convincing reasons. Descartes' doubt lead to both idealism & rationalism on the one hand, and to materialism & sensism (empiricism/phenomenalism) on the other, depending on whether the Cartesian disciple thought the intelligible species or the sensible species was the less illusory. The Germans tended to be more intellectualist, and the English more sensist, but they both agree in their immanentism, saying we can only know the impression that the world makes on our minds, and not the world "in itself".
Quote
from Descartes' Dream, by Phillip J. Davis and Reuben Hirsh
THE MODERN WORLD, our world of triumphant rationality, began on November 10, 1619, with a revelation and a nightmare. On that day, in a room in the small Bavarian village of Ulm, Rene Descartes, a Frenchman, twenty-three years old, crawled into a wall stove and, when he was well warmed, had a vision. It was not a vision of God, or of the Mother of God, or of celestial chariots, or of the New Jerusalem. It was a vision of the unification of all science.
The vision was preceded by a state of intense concentration and agitation. Descartes overheated mind caught fire and provided answers to tremendous problems that had been taxing him for weeks. He was possessed by a Genius, and the answers were revealed in a dazzling, unendurable light. Later, in a state of exhaustion, he went to bed and dreamed three dreams that had been predicted by this Genius.
In the first dream he was revolved by a whirlwind and terrified by phantoms. He experienced a constant feeling of falling. He imagined he would be presented with a melon that came from a far-off land. The wind abated and he woke up. His second dream was one of thunderclaps and sparks flying around his room. In the third dream, all was quiet and contemplative. An anthology of poetry lay on the table. He opened it at random and read the verse of Ausonius, "Quod vitae sectabor iter" (What path shall I take in life?). A stranger appeared and quoted him the verse "Est et non" (Yes and no). Descartes wanted to show him where in the anthology it could be found, but the book disappeared and reappeared. He told the man he would show him a better verse beginning "Quod vitae sectabor iter." At this point the man, the book, and the whole dream dissolved.
Descartes was so bewildered by all this that he began to pray. He assumed his dreams had a supernatural origin. He vowed he would put his life under the protection of the Blessed Virgin and go on a pilgrimage from Venice to Notre Dame de Lorette, traveling by foot and wearing the humblest-looking clothes he could find.
What was the idea that Descartes saw in a burning flash? He tells us that his third dream pointed to no less than the unification and the illumination of the whole of science, even the whole of knowledge, by one and the same method: the method of reason.
Eighteen years would pass before the world would have the details of the grandiose vision and of the "mirabilis sientiae fundamenta"-- the foundations of a marvelous science. Such as he was able to give them, they are contained in the celebrated "Discourse on the Method of Properly Guiding the Reason in the Search of Truth in the Sciences." According to Descartes, his "method" should be applied when knowledge is sought in any scientific field. It consists of (a) accepting only what is so clear in one's own mind as to exclude any doubt, (b) splitting large difficulties into smaller one, (c) arguing from the simple to the complex, and (d) checking, when one is done.
https://physics.weber.edu/carroll/honors/descarte.htm
'Triumphant rationality' comes in dreams and visions.
Quote from: Kreuzritter on December 27, 2018, 06:45:51 AM
QuoteBut the first act of the human mind is not discursive reasoning or reflexive thought, but the simple intuition or awareness of being, and in particular the being of sensible substances (that which can be perceived by the senses, as against the ontologists who believe that the being which we immediately grasp with our minds is the divine being itself). The first thing that our intellect grasps is that the being which our senses perceive exists, i.e. it is real being.
Except that is disuptable. Which brings Daniel back to his original point.
In any case, it is more or less this point which Descartes questions with his systematic doubt by consideration of the immediate object of consciousness in waking and sleeping, and just stating the contention as an "axiom" or considering its pragmatic expediency is systematising a philosophy doesn't prove it. Regardless of the former's soundness of argumentation, "being of sensible substances" is not directly perceived by the senses but is conceptualised a posteriori, and that it is the result of an "intuition of being" is questionable, there being plenty of examples casting doubt upon the nature of these supposed "intuitions", or more to the point, the very existence of disputes as to what images of conscious awareness are sensations of "real objects" and which mere "phantasms" - disputes which people inevtiably attempt to settle by inovcation of reason - undermines that contention that this is directly intuited.
Yes, this.
I can see that
if our senses are reliable, and
if the other first principles are true, then Thomism works pretty well. Maybe even better than Augustinian Platonism. But that's the very problem: I'm still not seeing how we know that our senses are reliable or that the first principles are true. And Thomists don't seem to have an answer. They always just brush it off, saying, "Isn't it obvious?" or "No sane person holds otherwise." Obviously I can't expect to see a logical or scientific proof, since Thomists themselves claim that no such proof exists. But there must be at least some way of knowing... otherwise the whole Thomistic system is guesswork and there's no knowing whether or not its conclusions be true.
Quote from: Daniel on December 24, 2018, 08:08:20 PM
Quote from: McInerny, The Philosophy of Nature, p. 56The domain of universal doubt which [Descartes] invites us to enter, as containing the only sure road to truth, proves to be a pathless jungle from which not even he was able to extricate himself. Methodological doubt does not free us from scepticism, but entraps us in it inescapably.
This very well might be the case. But it raises the question... how do we escape from uncertainty?
Thomists claim that the answer is Thomism. They assert that there actually is a material world, and that our senses are reliable, and that we have innate knowledge of first principles, etc.. But what exactly is their defense? It all just sounds like question-begging to me. Am I completely misunderstanding their position, or is it really just question-begging?
Thomists always create a cartoon character straw man version of Descartes, claim to have answered his questions via mere question-begging, and then lay the
entire blame for the collapse of classical philosophy at his door (e.g. argument to consequences), as though the previous nominalism, occasionalism, etc. in their own ranks had nothing whatsoever to do with it.
Calling Descartes' philosophy "the domain of universal doubt" is an intellectually dishonest straw man. What he is asking is what is it
possible to doubt, and if it is possible to doubt, because we cannot exclude the possibility of the contrary, then we do not have certain knowledge of it. He didn't conclude by saying it was possible to doubt everything. It is not possible for one to doubt that he exists, for the very fact of doubting proves he does. From there, he can be aware that what his senses experience is changing, whether or not that accurately reflects the external world. Therefore, he is moving from potency to act, and a cosmological argument for the existence of God follows. From there, the argument is that God, Who is truth, would not create a completely deceptive arrangement like the Matrix, where we believe ourselves to be sensing and seem to be sensing an external world that is not there.
"We know we perceive the material world through the senses because the senses are infallible in their own domain" has just as much explanatory value as "Poppies induce sleep because they have the sleep-inducing property" - that is to say, none at all - the statement after the "because" is in essence simply a restatement of the statement before it. It's just question begging. Is it logically impossible that we are brains in vats? If so, then demonstrate it. If not, is it possible that an omnipotent God created brains in vats? If not, then show why not. Thomists angrily side-step these questions, because they must.
So yes, it is our intuition that other humans, animals, stars, water, etc., really exist. But it is ALSO our intuition that hearts, lungs, eyes, airplanes, automobiles, etc., really exist, not just "virtually" or as mere "artifacts" but really. If this isn't in fact true (and Thomism says it is not), then it is self-contradictory to point to our "intuition" as the guide.
Quote from: Quaremerepulisti on January 07, 2019, 07:33:35 AM
Calling Descartes' philosophy "the domain of universal doubt" is an intellectually dishonest straw man. What he is asking is what is it possible to doubt, and if it is possible to doubt, because we cannot exclude the possibility of the contrary, then we do not have certain knowledge of it. He didn't conclude by saying it was possible to doubt everything. It is not possible for one to doubt that he exists, for the very fact of doubting proves he does. From there, he can be aware that what his senses experience is changing, whether or not that accurately reflects the external world. Therefore, he is moving from potency to act, and a cosmological argument for the existence of God follows. From there, the argument is that God, Who is truth, would not create a completely deceptive arrangement like the Matrix, where we believe ourselves to be sensing and seem to be sensing an external world that is not there.
Well I agree that it isn't
logically possible to doubt one's own existence, (for I cannot conceive of my non-existent self conceiving of anything,) but I wouldn't say that it's absolutely impossible to doubt it. Because how do we know that the law of non-contradiction is true? Maybe there are some truths which violate our understanding of the laws of logic but are nevertheless true. This is my objection to Descartes's method: he assumes in advance that 1.) the laws of logic are true and universal, and 2.) that we are rational -- that we have a sufficient understanding of the laws of logic in order to distinguish true from false. Could it not be the case that our failure to conceive of ourselves simultaneously conceiving and not-existing could be due not to an absolute impossibility but merely to some defect on our part? Perhaps we lack some faculty or art which is necessary in order to conceive that some contradictions could possibly be true?
Regardless, it's probably best not to doubt the law of non-contradiction or the art of logic. Still, I don't think Descartes's line of reasoning leads us to conclude that the external world exists. Because 1.) maybe the "change" we experience through our senses is in fact an illusion. Maybe everything's eternal and we are eternally experiencing the illusion of change, as the atheistic monists and solipsists would say. And 2.) even if we admit that a God exists who is distinct from my mind, and even if we admit that Truth and God are the same thing, how do we know that God/Truth doesn't put us in a Matrix? I'm not seeing the contradiction. It's a true Matrix, after all. And all propositions concerning that Matrix are true at least with regard to the Matrix, even if not true with regard to reality.
edit - Also, to say that God cannot choose to put people in a Matrix seems to be limiting to God's sovereignty. Further, how do we know that God is even involved? Maybe God created lesser gods and one of the lesser gods created both us and the Matrix, and put us in it, like the Gnostics say. Which I suppose would prove that an external world exists, but not that a material world exists.
Quote from: Daniel on January 07, 2019, 08:30:55 AM
Well I agree that it isn't logically possible to doubt one's own existence, (for I cannot conceive of my non-existent self conceiving of anything,) but I wouldn't say that it's absolutely impossible to doubt it. Because how do we know that the law of non-contradiction is true? Maybe there are some truths which violate our understanding of the laws of logic but are nevertheless true.
You yourself are making a argument based in logic (denying law of non-contradiction entails possibility of doubting one's existence), and thus you must presuppose the use of it.
So, you see, you have to assume the law of non-contradiction even in order to deny or doubt it, assuming that these "truths" are not also false at the same time. Also, it wouldn't be absolutely impossible to doubt my existence at the same time as it would be absolutely impossible; and thus, it is absolutely impossible.
Thus it is impossible to doubt basic logic like the law of non-contradiction - you have to assume it before even getting off the ground - you're assuming that either the law of non-contradiction is true or it is false but not both at the same time, which assumes it is true.
QuoteThis is my objection to Descartes's method: he assumes in advance that 1.) the laws of logic are true and universal, and 2.) that we are rational -- that we have a sufficient understanding of the laws of logic in order to distinguish true from false. Could it not be the case that our failure to conceive of ourselves simultaneously conceiving and not-existing could be due not to an absolute impossibility but merely to some defect on our part? Perhaps we lack some faculty or art which is necessary in order to conceive that some contradictions could possibly be true?
No.
Every time you claim "couldn't it be the case that..." the response will be that it is and is not the case at the same time and, thus, it is not the case.
Thus, your claim that logic isn't covered by Descartes' epistemology is false. It does in fact meet the criterion of impossible to doubt.
QuoteRegardless, it's probably best not to doubt the law of non-contradiction or the art of logic. Still, I don't think Descartes's line of reasoning leads us to conclude that the external world exists. Because 1.) maybe the "change" we experience through our senses is in fact an illusion. Maybe everything's eternal and we are eternally experiencing the illusion of change, as the atheistic monists and solipsists would say.
Yes, but our experiences our still changing, even if they are only illusion. Thus we move from potency to act as far as our experience our concerned, regardless of whether they correspond to an external reality or not.
QuoteAnd 2.) even if we admit that a God exists who is distinct from my mind, and even if we admit that Truth and God are the same thing, how do we know that God/Truth doesn't put us in a Matrix? I'm not seeing the contradiction. It's a true Matrix, after all. And all propositions concerning that Matrix are true at least with regard to the Matrix, even if not true with regard to reality.
Because God is a rational being. That is what we mean when we say He is Truth.
Quote from: Quaremerepulisti on January 07, 2019, 09:59:35 AMYes, but our experiences our still changing, even if they are only illusion. Thus we move from potency to act as far as our experience our concerned, regardless of whether they correspond to an external reality or not.
If we are eternal then we aren't moving and there is no potency.
QuoteBecause God is a rational being. That is what we mean when we say He is Truth.
Even if God is rational and distinct from us, how do we know that He didn't put us in a Matrix?
Quote from: Daniel on January 08, 2019, 01:13:48 PM
If we are eternal then we aren't moving and there is no potency.
False.
QuoteEven if God is rational and distinct from us, how do we know that He didn't put us in a Matrix?
Because it isn't rational to create a Matrix when He can create a real world.
Quote from: Quaremerepulisti on January 08, 2019, 05:32:12 PM
Quote from: Daniel on January 08, 2019, 01:13:48 PM
If we are eternal then we aren't moving and there is no potency.
False.
How so?
QuoteQuoteEven if God is rational and distinct from us, how do we know that He didn't put us in a Matrix?
Because it isn't rational to create a Matrix when He can create a real world.
Some Catholic philosophers have argued that the existence of matter is logically impossible and so God cannot create a material world.
But even if God can create matter: What's wrong with Him choosing to create a "Matrix" instead? How is that any less rational, on His part, than if He were to have created a material world?
Quote from: Quaremerepulisti on January 07, 2019, 09:59:35 AM
Because God is a rational being. That is what we mean when we say He is Truth.
Pascal:
The last proceeding of reason is to recognise that there is an infinity of things which are beyond it. It is but feeble if it does not see so far as to know this. But if natural things are beyond it, what will be said of supernatural?I think reason is a subset of Truth, but is not Truth itself.
Also, I believe there might be a tradition among Catholic philosophers to dub God specifically as "irrational". I could not find anything online, but I fondly remember my very orthodox priest in high school saying this very thing.
Finally, I will give myself as an example of where reason limps: I have no doubt that Catholicism is true, and yet I do not possess absolute certainty. I have no idea how this can be accounted for with reason. Nor do I really care all that much anymore. Grace is operating above reason, and I think God wants me to teeter on the cusp of lack of doubt and lack of certainty....whatever that means, I know not.
I forget... without assuming in advance that God is rational, how do we know that Truth exists?
I know we can start here:
1. Definition: 'Truth' is "the agreement between the proposition (in the mind) and the reality (outside the mind)"
2. Observation: My mind has propositions in it.
3. Observation: "My mind has propositions in it" is itself a proposition which is in my mind.
4. Conclusion (from 1, 2, and 3): At least one true proposition exists (in my mind).
5. Conclusion (from 4): Truth exists (outside my mind).
However, the jump from line 4 to line 5 only works if realism is correct. Because if conceptualism or nominalism is correct--if the truth in my mind exists in itself and not as a participation in some Truth outside my mind--then the conclusion does not follow. So I guess we first need to prove that realism is correct and that conceptualism and nominalism are wrong?
But if the above proof is correct, then we can further prove that God is rational:
1. Definition: 'Truth' is "the agreement between the proposition (in the mind) and the reality (outside the mind)"
2. Assumption: The Forms are eternal.
3. Observation: Truth is a Form.
4. Conclusion (from 2 and 3): Truth is eternal.
5. Conclusion (from 1 and 4): There must be an eternal Mind.
6. Assumption: All eternal things are God.
7. Conclusion (from 5 and 6): The Mind is God.
8. Conclusion (from 7): God is rational.
So God is rational.
Quote from: St. Columba on January 09, 2019, 03:18:35 PMAlso, I believe there might be a tradition among Catholic philosophers to dub God specifically as "irrational". I could not find anything online, but I fondly remember my very orthodox priest in high school saying this very thing.
Two things come to my mind:
1. Pseudo-Dionysius. He said that there are three ways to speak of God: the
via positiva, the
via negativa, and the
via superlativa.
via positiva - "God is rational" <-- this is how Scripture speaks of God
via negativa - "God is not rational" <-- this is supposedly better than the
via positiva, since rationality is finite whereas God is infinite. But this is
not saying that God is irrational. What it's saying is that we can't predicate the finite ('rational') of the infinite (God).
via superlativa - "God is superrational" <-- this is supposedly better than the
via negativa, since God is not limited but neither is He 'irrational'.
I'm not sure, but I think this view is orthodox. I don't know how common it is among Christian philosophers today though, but I know that Thomists reject it in favour of "analogy".
2. Plotinus. He said that God (the One) is so simple that He can't think (we can't predicate of Him positively). But God's Mind emanates from the One as a distinct person subordinate to the One: the Mind is rational (He thinks about the One) whereas the One irrational (i.e. He doesn't think).
Some Christians tried to map the Father onto the One and the Son onto the Mind, but this was condemned as a heresy (I think it's called "subordinationism"), because it denies the equality among the divine persons.
But if your priest was orthodox, I doubt he was alluding to this one.
Quote from: Daniel on January 10, 2019, 10:17:48 AM
since rationality is finite whereas God is infinite.
I think this accords with my saying that reason is a subset of Truth, but is not Truth itself. Furthermore, it means that God is meta-rational, or above rationality. That is perhaps more accurate terminology than "irrational".
Also, in Argument 2, you assume that all forms are eternal, and further assume that all eternal things are God. This implies that all forms are God. I don't buy this. But if I did, I could argue thusly: Since there are things that exist which are not rational, then their (irrational) forms also exists, implying that God, in some way, contains an irrational component. But since God is simple, He is then irrational (rationality + irrationality = irrationality).
Anyway, I love your posts Daniel! Smile often buddy! ;)
Well, maybe the forms aren't God. But if they aren't God, then I don't know what they are. Because it seems that the forms need to be eternal and uncreated:
1. Definition: 'Knowledge' is "when the object's form is in the subject's mind".
2. Assumption: God knows all things.
3. Conclusion (from 1 and 2): All forms are in God's mind.
4. Assumption: God cannot be moved from ignorance to knowledge.
5. Conclusion (from 3 and 4): All of the forms were always in God's mind.
I don't know how to deal with the contradiction -- that some forms are rational while other forms are irrational -- except maybe to say that Irrationality is not a form. Rather, all irrational forms are only irrational insofar as they fail to participate in Rationality. Still, if God is Rationality and if all of the forms are God then I'm not sure how it could be the case that some of the forms fail to participate in Rationality.
Quote from: Daniel on January 07, 2019, 08:30:55 AM
Well I agree that it isn't logically possible to doubt one's own existence, (for I cannot conceive of my non-existent self conceiving of anything,) but I wouldn't say that it's absolutely impossible to doubt it.
No.
You can't conceive of anything without
you existing. That doesn't depend on it being inconceivable as being otherwise, as if it were an alleged fact whose assertion rested in the limits of human understanding: by the meaning of "I conceive" and "exist", the "I" who "conceives" exists.
You really need to do yourself a favour and start talking less and thinking more about language. For instance, you claim it is
possible to "doubt ones own existence". But what precisely do you mean by that?
QuoteBecause how do we know that the law of non-contradiction is true?
In this case even more so. I don't know precisely what you have in mind by "law of non-contradiction", but you should ask yourself what you mean by that law not being true. Because if you cannot answer that, the words "the law of non-contradiction is not true" are essentially senseless, a mere artifact of syntax over which philosophers huddle, mouths agape, like a bunch of idiots.
As for my own take, I answered that here, Daniel. https://www.suscipedomine.com/forum/index.php?topic=21075.msg461522#msg461522 (https://www.suscipedomine.com/forum/index.php?topic=21075.msg461522#msg461522)
The "law" of non-contradiction, really a principle, is founded in the most primitive idea of the
thing. Language itself, in any conceptual mode, falls apart without it, because identity falls apart. You can't have P(a), ¬P(a) and a=a all at the same time if P is predicated of "a" and a=a indicates identity. I wouldn't even call it an analytic a priori truth so much as a defining principle of all logical thought and any formal system.
QuoteMaybe there are some truths which violate our understanding of the laws of logic but are nevertheless true.
That IS NOT POSSIBLE. There may be things that cannot properly be expressed in a logical system, but that does not make them a case of violations of the laws of logic.
QuoteThis is my objection to Descartes's method: he assumes in advance that 1.) the laws of logic are true and universal,
Your problem is you're still operating on the level of "laws of logic" being subject to taking truth values, so that they might possibly be "false". It's nonsense, and the formalisation of logic and axiomatisation of mathematics, that great undertaking of the 20th century, should have done away with this erroneous idea by now. The "laws of logic" define the system of
logic, and more to the point, it is the "laws of inference" that define the logical symbols, not the former which are just presumed to be "true" based in some wishy-washy notion of the meaning of the latter. And at the most fundamental level, in order to enable conceptual thought, we have the notions of identity, reiteration, negation, implication, conjunction, that lie either explciitly or impliclty at the basis of every formal language. The old notion, that still serves as a point of entry for such skeptical sophistry, and in which appeals are made to "self evident truths", should be gone, dead and buried.
Quoteand 2.) that we are rational -- that we have a sufficient understanding of the laws of logic in order to distinguish true from false. Could it not be the case that our failure to conceive of ourselves simultaneously conceiving and not-existing could be due not to an absolute impossibility but merely to some defect on our part? Perhaps we lack some faculty or art which is necessary in order to conceive that some contradictions could possibly be true?
Blah, blah. I'm not saying this to be rude or impugn your intelligence, but this is literally meaningless babble. You have much too high an estimation of the constructive possibilities of language and an erroneous understanding of what logic is and why the principle of non-contradiction is a thing.
Quote from: Daniel on January 09, 2019, 04:57:17 AM
Some Catholic philosophers have argued that the existence of matter is logically impossible and so God cannot create a material world.
What do they mean by "matter"?
What I see, what I smell, what I touch, the sight, the odour, the body, that
is material, and if you wish, "matter". Only when we begin to start speaking of the immediate object of our awareness as a mere impression on the mind and "matter" as some mediately-experienced noumenon only existing "out there" would it even become possible to deny its existence - but the former still remains a reality, and remains what it is.
QuoteBut even if God can create matter: What's wrong with Him choosing to create a "Matrix" instead? How is that any less rational, on His part, than if He were to have created a material world?
What is your basis for distinguishing between a "Matrix" and a "real" world? Unless you're claiming our real bodies are lying in a vat somewhere, but even that doesn't solve the problem of "reality", only relegating it.
I'm sorry, but what I mean by a word like "body" points to experienced actualities, and on the most abstract level, defined functionally, in which case the distinction between, say, my waking body and a dream body resides in a difference of appearance and behaviour, not a vague concept of a difference in degree of reality. This is why I just shake my head at these Cartesian-style debates about evil demons and butterflies dreaming they are men.