What's wrong with this argument?
P1: The application of logic requires premises
P2: Any conclusion the application of logic leads to is true if the premises are true
P3: There is no way for a premise to be determined true or false except relative to another premise
(ex: in order to refute the premise "all humans are green" one must accept the premise "visual perception is more reliable than this idiot" and the premise "I don't see green humans")
P4: A premise cannot determine it's own truth value (I expect people to disagree and I'm waiting to see how)
P5: There is an infinite number of potential premises that can be used in an argument
P6: Consequently there is an infinite number of potential premises that can be used to determine the truth value of a premise
C: Every premise is true if the right premises are used to determine it's truth value
C: Every conclusion is valid if the right premises are used to determine it's truth value
What's wrong with this argument? If it is true then any and all values are destroyed (since they can be reinterpreted as vices) and there is no such thing as certainty. Notice that in disproving this argument you only prove it. The only way to disprove this argument is to do what P3 is saying which is to use different premises to determine the truth value of this argument's premises. It's a critique of the method of philosophy itself
P2: Any conclusion the application of logic leads to is true if the premises are true
P3: There is no way for a premise to be determined true or false except relative to another premise
(ex: in order to refute the premise "all humans are green" one must accept the premise "visual perception is more reliable than this idiot" and the premise "I don't see green humans")
P4: A premise cannot determine it's own truth value (I expect people to disagree and I'm waiting to see how)
P5: There is an infinite number of potential premises that can be used in an argument
P6: Consequently there is an infinite number of potential premises that can be used to determine the truth value of a premise
C: Every premise is true if the right premises are used to determine it's truth value
C: Every conclusion is valid if the right premises are used to determine it's truth value
What's wrong with this argument? If it is true then any and all values are destroyed (since they can be reinterpreted as vices) and there is no such thing as certainty. Notice that in disproving this argument you only prove it. The only way to disprove this argument is to do what P3 is saying which is to use different premises to determine the truth value of this argument's premises. It's a critique of the method of philosophy itself
Comments (130)
Yeah, P3 is fallacious.
By utilizing different logics you can refute a premise.
Yes, but their truth value isn't the same across the scope of logic. As an example: contextually, there be an action that is morally wrong but contextually right?
Have at this thread if you care to take 5 minutes to read it.
You can know based on differing logics that would dictate what to do. Ultimately it's a matter of preference when picking what logic to use, there really isn't one definitive logic that can be used or meta-logic. Well, that's not entirely true given that something in all possible worlds can be found to be the most utilitarian preference. But, that's kinda off topic, so I digress.
Quoting Posty McPostface
That's what the argument intends to show
Well, I'm glad that it's a matter of preference; but, I hope this doesn't lead us down the road of nihilistic relativism.
I swear. This post was originally titled "on nihilistic relativism" but I changed it. Nihilistic relativism IS the conclusion here unless you're willing to accept arbitrary premises in which case you're still a nihilisitic relativist because you are practising P3. The method of philosophy itself admits of nihilisitic relativism unless you can somehow refute P3 without relying on another premise. In other words you'd have to find a premise that can prove itself (which violates P4). I have failed at doing this over and over again and all of my post were focused on finding such a premise.
Well, I'm glad we're on the same page then. I just don't agree with P4 either due to there being things such as synthetic a priori judgments or brute facts to borrow from the Principle of Sufficient Reason. The world seems to operate on firmly based laws that dictate how it is going to behave. My gripe with nihilism is that it is self-defeating.
Quoting Posty McPostface
You just agreed with P4 and P3 in that sentence. You have to accept the principle of sufficient reason as a premise in order to show that synthetic apriori judgments exist. If you do not accept the principle of sufficient reason, you'll have to accept the existence of apriori judgments "as preference". Synthetic apriori judgments cannot justify themselves without appealing to the Principle of Sufficient Reason. I'm not saying I don't believe in the principle of sufficient reason, I'm just pointing out it is another one of those "pivots" as I call them. A pivot is a belief that is accepted with no proof or "out of preference". It is like the premise: If A=B and B=C then A=C. No one can prove this but we accept it. The main point of this post is to try to find a COMPLETELY self-justifying belief which means it does not rely on a pivot. I've failed so far. Nihilistic relativism is simply the recognition that "every belief relies on a pivot". This, however, is a pivot of its own and thus unreliable. Maybe this is what you mean by nihilism being self-defeating? But I can't find a more believable pivot anywhere. It is recognized everywhere, even in math, that all of our systems of knowledge are ultimately built on these pivots. Defending a pivot is futile and so I'm trying to find a premise from which we can begin to reason that is not a pivot (that is completely undoubtable and must be accepted by everyone)
Quoting Posty McPostface
How so?
Yes, I think so. Though, I haven't gone through the logic of it all, it seems to me that nihilism is self-defeating because it presupposes no real alternative to its own logic. It's hermetically sealed and cannot be doubted further.
I have a strange affinity towards solipsism, in that it cannot be logically refuted, yet it's nonsensical. Does that make better sense? Nihilism in my mind falls into the same category.
Well, yes, we can pivot away; but, you can't doubt the fact that you're doubting, can you?
P1: I am doubting
To:
C: I am doubting
I have to accept the premise:
A=A (law of identity)
There is no reason to accept the law of identity (I just happen to irl) aka it is a pivot
Therefore I may or may not not be doubting by doubting
But other than that, "I am doubting" is not very useful even if I don't recognize it as a pivot. I can't get anywhere from "I am doubting" because I can't even go on to say "Therefore I am" because that would require I accept the premise "A being must exist to doubt". While I do accept this premise irl (I can't conceive of it being any other way) that does not validate it.
Quoting Posty McPostface
While not really nihilism, check out the pyrenean skeptic school. Ask a pyrenean skeptic "Is knowledge possible" and they'll say "I don't know". That how skeptical they are (this is also me btw, I accept pivots like a normal person but I don't think they are permanent or irreplaceable ergo nihilistic)
We tend to state P2 in reference to deductive logic, but not all logic is deductive. Deductive logic itself, or at least our epistemic and empirical access to it, is derived from repeated experience of consistent relationships (an inductive affair). Even at it's most abstract, "A=A" is not deducible apriori.
The strength of deduction we have empirical access to is actually built on an inductive argument. In other words, deductive logic is only known to be as reliable as the inductive experiments that test them have been repeated.
To say that deductive logic, when properly used, necessitates truth if done from true premises, is in line with how we tend to think about it, but it would be more accurate to sat that deductive logic is the set of observed relationships that have not yet shown inconsistency from true premises.
Quoting khaled
Quoting khaled
You're essentially saying the same thing with both of these premises, and the issue is you're expecting that certainty emerges from perfect bottom up deduction, when in practice we can only approach it from imperfect top down induction. Let me show you what I mean:
Take a highly uncontroversial and basic premise: a force of gravity exists.
We would normally determine the truth of this premise by conducting an experiment to see if our predictions hold true; the more experiments we run and the more accurate or reliable our predictions become the stronger our confidence is (the closer we get to "certainty"). You can propose that we're relying on other premises which themselves must be tested, such as the premise that visual perception reflects some true aspect of the things it perceives. Likewise we can begin testing this premise as well (getting repeatedly slapped in the face is a good test, as it correlates with other senses, such as touch/pain). The more we test the reliability of visual perception, the more confident we become that it does reflect something true about the external world. Next you might doubt the premise that an external world exists in the first place, which is also something we can test by examining the nature of perception itself (e.g: destroying and restoring one's eyeballs consistently cuts off the flow of visual information from the external world).
As you can see it's not hard to quickly evoke doubt and demand an infinite series of supplementary premises, but the need to continually supply them becomes smaller and smaller as the support for the given argument's premises grows. At some point it becomes ridiculous to keep questioning; there's only so many times we can be slapped in the face with a brute fact before we just accept and roll with it.
Instead of starting from an absolute and certain bottom set of incontrovertible premises, our arguments tend to start somewhere in the middle. Support for conclusions builds upward from premises, and support for premises themselves builds downward, typically via testing, where we only tend to build downward as far as is necessary to be convincing/persuasive/of marginal risk of error with respect to premises.
Quoting khaled
Yes, such as the "A wizard did it" premise. Not all hypothetical premises are equal, and even if you have an infinite number of supporting premises, the conclusion need not be sound or strong if all the premises are bad, unlikely, or untrue. (you could have an infinite number of premises (assumptions) which pertain to witchcraft and wizardry, and support its existence, and if we could sum them all we would find the chances of wizards existing does not approach 100%.
Quoting khaled
This is not the case. There are a potentially infinite number of premises (in the same way that there are infinite numbers) that can contribute to the inductive strength of an argument, but not all premises contribute an equal amount of inductive strength. (e.g: evidence that wizards don't exist contributes less to the inductive argument for heliocentrism than astronomical observations and orbital predictions does). Very quickly the vast majority of the room for doubt can be eliminated and we're left with hypotheticals that contradict a lot more than the premises of our actual arguments (see: wizards)
Is a matter of extracting a should from an is. There is nothing in deductive/inductive/abductive logic that tells you when to stop questioning nor what to question or what premises to start testing. Ultimately, the practise of logic requires extracting shoulds from ises. The real issue here is that explaining the world in terms of "a wizard did it" is perfectly justifieable and consistent due to P5 and P6. It's just all of those who explained it through "a wizard did it" happened to die because they couldn't use that explanation for anything practical. Had they been able to, we would also be saying "a wizard did it". The sad thing is, it's not abduction that leads to truth, it's natural selection based on practical utility. There was a time when "God did it" and "Gravity did it" were equally likely propositions. Had someone discovered an applicable use for the former, it would have become the standard. Therefore, it is futile to claim that one has obtained truth through abduction. All one gets is to survive
Quoting tim wood
If there is an infinity of possible premises, and any premise can be used to validate another premise, then there is an infinity if possible premises by which to validate premises
These are too vaguely stated to know what they mean.
I'm guessing that by C1 you mean 'For any proposition P, we can find a set of premises from which that proposition follows'. That gets us nowhere however, because P is a premise from which P follows, and so is ((1=1) -> P).
Further it is vulnerable to inconsistency unless we exclude propositions that are self-contradictory. For example, would you be happy to apply it to the proposition P:'0<>0'?
Certainly for any non-self-contradicting proposition we can construct a logical theory in which it is true. But that doesn't mean that theory is useful, or has any relevance to our lives.
Quoting khaled
It's best to avoid saying things like this. Unless the argument is presented in formal logic, with the rule of inference used to justify each step clearly stated (eg 'Modus Tollens on lines 4 and 5'), it is easily invalidated, simply by pointing out that no formal justification has been provided for one or more of the steps. Breaking up a verbal attempt at persuasion into numbered lines does not constitute a formal proof.
Quoting andrewk
Correcc
Quoting andrewk
My happiness has nothing to do with it. It IS possible to apply it even for self contradictions which is a problem. I would never do that because it doesn't make sense but it is possible.
Quoting andrewk
So, are you saying that the main reason we construct logical theories is because they are useful and relevant to our lives? If so I'd agree but then you'd be basing logic purely in practical value. You'd also only be pushing the issue one step back. Now, one has to choose which aspects of his life he wants to use to base his decision on which premises to use for the system of logic he builds. So instead of
Arbitrary premise -> arbitrary logic
No it's
Arbitrary "life impact" -> arbitrary premise -> arbitrary logic
P1: arithmetic is correct
P2: 2+2=7
3+3 = (2+1) + (2+1) = 2+2+2= 7+2=9
Therefore the premise: 3+3=6 is false
This is stupid math but it is still consistent
That's why I construct them, and I suspect it's the reason for most other people as well. In the end though, I can only speak for myself.
I don't know what role the word 'arbitrary' is playing here. It doesn't seem to fit. I either take premises that are observations or beliefs that are relevant to an actual situation I care about, or that are hypotheses and beliefs about a hypothetical situation I am interested in. I don't see how arbitrariness has anything to do with this, unless one were to say that what I care about, am interested in, observe or believe is arbitrary, in which case I'd say 'I don't see that as arbitrary but I don't mind if somebody else wants to say it is'.
3 = 2+1
And add P3: (a+b) + (c+d) = a+b+c+d
And add P4: 1+1=2
And now it's consistent
Quoting tim wood
How? By modus ponens if 2+2=7 and you replace the premises as I did accordingly in my last comment then it can be inferred that 3+3 does not equal 6
Quoting tim wood
Validate: for premise A to validate premise B means that premise B logically follows from premise A
I agree. There are apriori premises. However there is no reason to pick apriori premise A over apriori premise B by definition. Apriori premises have no validation and thus nothing to use in judging between apriori premise A and B
The entire point of this post is that there are multiple possible apriori premises to pick from and to use in validation of other premises and that there is nothing to distinguish these without relying on other apriori premises but then THOSE have no validation. The point is that human belief must start from an arbitrary pivot
The solution is to give up trying to render ultimate validation via apriori premises or fundamental axioms, and to instead rely on the empirically accessible; we can't touch the bottom. Once we pass a certain depth of substantiation, we get decreasing returns on the utility and additional strength that more actually gives to our conclusions. For example, if we try to assess the prevalence of something by statistical survey, there is a practical limit to the number of samples (or sample size) required to get a well resolved prediction. Additional data can always increase precision, but unless we have practical reason to do so, why bother?
There is no ultimate certainty, and some would accuse me of therefore embracing some form relativism and/or by extension, nihilism. I disagree. Despite there being no ultimate certainty, there are indeed degrees of greater and lesser certainty; degrees of reliability and substantiation. Instead of expecting to arrive at ultimate certainty, I expect that I will forever approach it. It's not easy to know what's ahead of us on the road of approaching certainty, but it is generally easy to know what's behind us. It seems true that we're stuck with our own relative beliefs and perceptions, but some beliefs and perceptions are better - more accurate - than others.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
To choose to accept emperically accessible information rather than apriori "knowledge" is an apriori ought. It doesn't solve the issue, it's one of an infinity of possible solutions. What you're describing is not degrees of certainty but degrees of practical reliability. To emphasize practical reliability is axiomatic and invalidated just like all it's alternatives
Does understanding how to use the English language count as referring to another premiss?
All premisses are statements. Some statements are true. Some true statements can be verified.
Where's the need to refer to another premiss?
Quoting creativesoul
Yes. You'd have to accept premises such as "Humans are capable of storing memories", "Auditory input is reliable", etc. If Auditory input is not reliable you can't learn English
No. This is confused.
One can know that the statement "there is a cup on the table" is true by virtue of looking. There is no need for one to refer to another premiss. Referring to another premiss requires thinking about one's own thought and belief. That's a metacognitive endeavor.
One can know that some statements are true, and they can know how to tell if they are long before one is able to use them as a premiss.
Thought/belief and statements thereof are long prior to logic. Logic is meant to take account of them. Your argument neglects these facts and suffers as a result.
I've lost track of what that example was intended to demonstrate though.
Yeah, you're probably right. I mean I wouldn't argue against that. It wasn't the best supportive reasoning...
I was more applying the consequences of drawing the distinction between thought and belief and thinking about thought and belief. All premisses are statements used for a specific purpose. All statements are belief statements(assuming sincerity). One can know that a statement is true long before ever knowing why and/or how they've come to believe it.
I think so too
Quoting creativesoul
Incorrect. One would have to accept the premise "Visual input is reliable"
Quoting tim wood
Syllogisms that do not commit logical fallacies
Quoting tim wood
restate P1 as:
3 = 2+1
And add P3: (a+b) + (c+d) = a+b+c+d
And add P4: 1+1=2
And now it's consistent
I don't know what P6 means.
A demonstration:
"Visual perception is reliable" (PA)-> "Visual perception tells me "There is a cat"" -> "There is a cat" (PB)
OR (in the following example the guy also sees a cat)
"My wishes are a better representation of reality than visual perception" (PA) -> "I wish there was a waterfall" -> "There is a waterfall, not a cat" (PB)
Both examples are consistent but "There is a cat" is true in the first and false in the second
P6 is saying that, since there is infinite PAs for each PB, that it is possible to determine the truth value of PB either way depending on which PA you choose. (Essentially postmodernism)
The only way to refute this would be to find a premise B that does not need any premise A by which to determine its truth value which is just refuting P4. This is why I said I expected people to try to refute P4, it is the central premise of the whole thing.
So, if an average 8 year old child is asked if "there is a cup on the table" is true and s/he answers "yes" while pointing at the cup, you're saying that they do not know that the statement is true or that in order to know that they must also know what "visual input is reliable" means and believe it too?
As if knowing that that statement is true requires knowing how to do logic?
:yikes:
It's a reductio. Don't deny it. Fix it.
I said that the premise "Visual input is reliable" is based on nothing and so, upon further examination, anyone would see that it is not necessarily a true premise. Also, the fact that you had to include "average" 8-year-old suggests that this isn't even that absurd. Ask the kid later "Do you KNOW that to be true?" once or twice and they'll start to doubt. If you want to tie truth to the beliefs of 8-year-olds then go ahead but I wouldn't do that.
Quoting creativesoul
It is not known if it is not reasoned, which is why it doesn't take that long to convince a kid that external reality is fake if you're the parent you could do that. I mean, people can convince their kids that there is a giant bearded man in the sky that knows and sees everything they're doing so....
It didn't mention me even once. :smile:
If the conclusion is that, for any given conclusion that is not self-contradictory, we can always adopt some premises from which it can be deduced, then that's just basic logic, and not subject to controversy at all. I don't see why anybody would seek to refute that. I'm not sure it would even count as philosophy.
I didn't read all the responses closely, but I didn't get the sense that anybody was silly enough to try to refute that unremarkable observation about the nature of logical systems.
Doesn't it extend to self contradictory conclusions? Because you'd have to accept the premise "Self contradictory conclusions are false" for you to say they are and there is no reason to do so.
'False' is a concept of semantics, not logic. We need to be clear whether we're discussing logic or semantics. Semantics is about interpretations of logic, and is not logic itself.
An analog in logic to your statement "Self contradictory conclusions are false" would be the Rule of Inference that exists in Classical Logic, either as a rule of inference (eg in Natural Deduction the rule is Proof by Contradiction) or implicit from other rules (eg in a Hilbert System).
If one doesn't want to use that rule, one needs to use another form of logic. I think that's what Intuitionist Logic is.
Alternatively, one can explore Paraconsistent Logics, as Graham Priest does.
Essentially, accepting (the logical equivalent of) your statement "Self contradictory conclusions are false" is simply a choice of type of logic.
The price paid to use those other logics is that they have much less power than Classical Logic, and cannot prove many things that people intuitively feel very strongly to be the case.
Naturally there can be no logical basis on which to make that choice, as the decision is pre-logical. We cannot use logic to decide which logic to use because we haven't yet got a logic to use.
But there is a reason we accept the statement in the sense of an explanation, rather than a logical proof. That explanation is that we cannot do otherwise. We are creatures that evolved to accept that statement and we cannot successfully go against our intrinsic nature.
The reason we accept it is that, like Martin Luther, we cannot do otherwise (Ich kann nicht anders).
Quoting tim wood
That. Where did you get that 2 was true
I am a relativist in most things, but not a nihilist.
For me the difference is that both relativists and nihilists agree that there is no absolute standard whereby the truth or the value of something can be determined. But the nihilist adopts a worldview whereby they decide that nothing is true for them and nothing has value for them. The non-nihilistic relativist accepts things as being of true and of value for them, but do not insist that they must be true and of value for everybody else. Of course in practice we can observe that most things that are accepted as true and of value for one of us seem to be true and of value for most of us, because the similarities of humans are vastly greater than their differences. But that's just an observation, not a deduction.
A good example of non-nihilistic relativism is in Tim Minchin's song "If I didn't Have you (I'd probably have somebody else)". He loves his partner not because he thinks she's the smartest, most beautiful, sexiest, funniest, kindest woman on the planet, but in spite of the fact that she isn't. He loves her because she's his partner, and because she loves him.
Another example is a thoughtful, passionate fan of a football team. An example in Australia is a public intellectual Waleed Aly, who is a devoted fan of Richmond football team. He doesn't claim they're the best, or the bravest, or the coolest team in the world, and that's not why he barracks for them so ardently. He does it because they're his team, and he can acknowledge that it makes perfect sense for other people to be just as passionate about their teams. Just as Tim Minchin reckons it's reasonable for other people to prefer their life partners to his.
Far from being a nihilist, I am passionate about my politics, my ethics, my spirituality, my worldview and my aesthetic tastes. The fact that I can respect that other people may quite reasonably have different tastes, and that I don't think that mine are in any absolute sense the 'right ones' or the 'best', in no way detracts from the passion I have for mine.
Quoting andrewk
That's not true actually. Nihilism is the recognition that all of society's values (religion, morality, politics, trends, nationalism, etc) are all ultimately based on arbitrariness and that one is free to abandon or to adopt them. It is not an ideology that orders it's followers to be depressed and to denounce any or all of these values. Nihilism is a subset of relativism that applies to society's values, it's essentially a synonym for cultural relativism. Look up "positive nihilism"
Referring to another premiss such as "visual input is reliable" requires thinking about one's own thought and belief. That's a metacognitive endeavor. Pre-metacognitive thought and belief come first.
One can know that some statements are true, and they can know how to tell if they are long before one is able to use them as a premiss, long before having come to terms with it, long before considering the statement in isolation as a premiss.
Thought/belief and statements thereof are long prior to logic. Logic is meant to take account of them. Your argument neglects these facts and suffers as a result.
Care to explain why you think that this reply is relevant to what it's supposed to be addressing?
Quoting creativesoul
Correct. But thought/belief does not equal knowledge. So no. A child doesn't know that there is a cup on the table he believes there is one. As I've said, if it is not reasoned, it is not known.
It would only follow that all knowledge is existentially dependent upon thinking about thought and belief.
Metacognition includes thinking about one's own thought and belief.
Knowing what "the cup is on the table means" is talking about does not require metacognition.
Quoting khaled
Denying that eight year olds have true belief is outlandish!
Reason requires a baseline from which to reason. The baseline consists of language use which talks about the world and/or ourselves. Reason requires language use about the world and/or ourselves.
One reason parents can convince a kid of anything is because the kid trusts the parent and the kid is amidst the initial formation of his/her baseline(worldview).
There is no reason whatsoever to deny that the kid can know something simply because it's still in the beginning of it's worldview development.
When a the truth-value of a premise is relative to other premises, it is not called "premise" but "conclusion".
Quoting creativesoul
Yes but knowing what it means has no bearing on it's truth value. Yes the kid knows what "the cup is on the table" means but that doesn't mean there is a cup on the table. A flat-earther knows what "the earth is flat" means but that doesn't make the earth flat
Quoting creativesoul
Knowledge, as I have defined it (a belief that stems from applying sound syllogisms) is not possessed by kids who have not reasoned their beliefs. There is every reason to deny a kid that just like there is every reason to deny a flat-earther knowledge because he/she is at the beginning of forming a world view.
Quoting creativesoul
First of all, that wouldn't be enough to invalidate it. Second of all, I never denied 8 year olds have true belief I denied that they have knowledge
P1: 3 = 1 + 2
P2: 2 + 2= 7
P3: (a+b) + (c+d) = a+b+c+d
P4: 1+1=2
C: 3+3 =/= 6
Where is the problem here. I tried looking up what you're telling me to look up but nothing comes up that seems to invalidate the argument above
You're either avoiding the valid objection, or you don't understand it. I'll grant sincerity. You don't understand it.
Of course I've provided you examples of belief... The distinction between belief and knowledge is irrelevant here.
I'm objecting to p3. It was written as follows...
Quoting khaled
That is false. I've offered an everyday example to the contrary. The belief statement "the cup is on the table" could be used as a premiss. There is no need to consider another premiss in order to determine whether or not "the cup is on the table" is true. All that is necessary is knowing what the statement is talking about and looking to see if the cup is on the table.
QED
Quoting khaled
Nor does it need to in either case in order for the person to have knowledge prior to thinking about their own thought and belief. Thus, your criterion for knowledge is inadequate, for it cannot account of the knowledge that you yourself have admitted to here.
In both cases, the person knows what a statement is talking about.
QED
Quoting creativesoul
I maintain that it is impossible for a person to have knowledge prior to thinking about their own thought and belief therefore both of your objections do not stand as such:
1- Quoting creativesoul
Incorrect. The distinction is not at all irrelevant, it is Central to our disagreement. Perhaps I should restate premise 3 slightly differently:
There is no way for a premise to be known true or false except relative to another premise
Does this address your issue? Or do you still not understand?
2- Quoting creativesoul
The kid knows what "there is a cup on the table" means because he accepts the premises needed for the English language. When you teach someone a language all you're teaching them is a bunch of equation premises so
"Angry" = *insert abstraction of emotional state here*
"Happy" = *insert abstraction of emotional state here*
The kid knows and accepts enough of these abstractions and as a result, knows what "there is a cup on the table" means. That does not mean he knows that there is a cup on the table unless he explicitly accepts the premise "visual input is reliable". In other words, if you still fail to understand, me saying that the kid knows what "there is a cup on the table" means does not invalidate my definition of knowledge. The kid only knows the meaning of that sentence because he explicitly accepts certain premises. My definition of knowledge is consistent with what I've classified as knowledge
One can say something as many times as one likes. That doesn't make it true. It does make it 'maintained'...
You have no idea what you're talking about.
Your entire storyline here is chock full of self contradiction.
Do you see how that is fatal to what you maintain?
If you want to be constructive here instead of randomly saying "you don't know what you're talking about" then go ahead but I don't have much to reply to if that's all you're going to say.
Quoting creativesoul
One may not know what the word premise means but one always knows what a premise is. People naturally think in syllogisms. It is like how kids know what anger is despite never learning the word. You haven't actually shown any inconsistencies yet
Quoting tim wood
I believe this is true, you believe it is false. Why do you think it is false
Quoting khaled
Quoting khaled
Quoting creativesoul
Does "there is a cup on the table" count as a premiss? On my view it can if and when one is using it as such. Use is what makes it a premiss, instead of just any ole' statement. Such usage doesn't change the meaning of the statement. We can know this solely by virtue of knowing that the truth conditions of the statement remain unchanged. This remains the case regardless of it's use.
One can say "there is a cup on the table" in normal everyday parlance and believe it or not. This would be to use the statement as a means to report one's belief, or perhaps even as a means to report an other's, or it can also be used as a means to deliberately misrepresent one's own or another's belief.
One can also report upon the meaning of the statement.
One could use the statement as a premiss to prove some other statement.
The truth conditions of the statement remain unchanged in each and every case.
Do we agree thus far?
:brow:
We can say "there is a cup on the table" around an other who knows exactly what we're saying, but has no clue how to use that statement as a premiss. S/he knows exactly how to determine if it's true or false. They look and see for themselves.
All of this clearly shows that "the cup is on the table" can be determined true or false without it's being used relative to another premiss.
Thinking about one's own though and belief requires complex language use. If knowledge requires thinking about one's own thought and belief, then it requires complex language use.
Complex language use requires knowing what certain statements mean. If knowledge requires complex language use, and that requires knowing what certain statements mean, then we've arrived at a big problem...
Either there is more than one kind of knowledge, or knowledge does not require thinking about one's own thought and belief.
One has to first know what certain statements mean before one can begin reasoning about them.
Get it yet?
:confused:
for premise A to validate premise B means that premise B logically follows from A
Logically follows: For B to logically follow A means that there is a syllogism formable such that A is a premise and B is a conclusion that does not commit any logical fallacies
My basic point is if A validates B and B validates C, etc then nothing can possibly validate A or else that would be using circular reasoning. P6 is that there is an infinity of possible As from which you can start this logical validation chain and I find this a problem
Quoting creativesoul
Yes. Exactly. That's the point this post is trying to highlight (although not specific to language). Ok let me rephrase this problem like this
A (complex language use) validates (def in the comment above) B (knowledge) and B then goes on validating C, D, E, F, G, etc. Now, what validates A? The main point of this argument is to highlight this issue that any logical chain of premises and conclusions must start from an arbitrary point as there is no logic to determine where that point should be that does not itself assume arbitrary premises. What you would call "different kinds of knowledge" does not solve the issue for if you do not define knowledge as: The result of a valid syllogism (my definition) then potentially every strong belief is knowledge.
Quoting creativesoul
Ok, let me address something I think is a big issue here. I do not mean when I say that "Knowledge is the result of a valid syllogism" that the cup is not on the table. Since "the cup is on the table" CAN be made as a conclusion to a valid syllogism that accepts premises like "visual perception is reliable" then it still counts as knowledge. If it is the result of a valid syllogism, then it is knowledge assuming its premises are true. Your definition of "different kinds of knowledge" still fits in my definition of knowledge unless you can give an example of knowledge that CANNOT be put in the form of a valid syllogism. "the cup is on the table" can be put in a valid syllogism and is thus knowledge ASSUMING THE PREMISES OF SAID SYLLOGISM ARE TRUE. I take "visual perception is reliable" to be a true premise so yes I believe the cup is indeed on the table. The reason I said that what the kid has is a belief not knowledge is because the kid (I'm assuming) has never carefully reasoned WHY he thinks a cup is on the table. Once he discovers it is because "visual perception is reliable" is true, then you could say he has knowledge. Otherwise, if this step is not taken, then any strong belief could be accounted as knowledge without validation. I believe that if A is knowledge, it must be validated by B.
Basically, I think my definition of knowledge is unproblematic because any form of knowledge must rely on a validation (or else it is not knowledge) and that validation can always be abstracted into a premise in a syllogism to give an accurate model of knowledge. I haven't come across any knowledge that cannot be put as the conclusion to a syllogism yet (as that would imply that there exists knowledge that does not need validation)
Quoting creativesoul
No problem dude, I was having a bad day yesterday and got triggered for no reason, sorry about that.
Quoting tim wood
You mean, there are not a lot of As that WORK (are practically useful) if the As are the starting axiom. I agree, however picking axioms because they work is just another axiom "One ought to start with axioms that work". There is no reason to pick THAT over "One ought to treat all starting axioms equally"
Quoting tim wood
This is where I knew you were using the pragmatic axiom highlited above (which I use too, but I think it's not justified)
This is false. I've just argued for how that's the case. I also argued that reason is not necessary for knowledge. If you agree with everything I just wrote in the last post, then you have some self-contradiction going on if you still maintain that the premiss quoted above is true. It's not.
What a statement means involves not the statement but the sensations that are the metabolites of the statement, and the associations. Complex language use is not 'required,' as it is already there, utilized, a part of the whole of human knowledge. Such a thing is as meaningful as saying "Air is required to live."
Rubbish.
Quoting tim wood
But... This is clearly false. Look at non eucledian geometry. Beforehand there were 5 postulates but then people started removing some and adding some and getting systems THAT STILL WORKED and WERE USEFUL (non euclidean geometry). There is no saying this cannot be done with arithmetic (it probably already has but I haven't found anything in a 2 minute Google search). People DO pick and choose their axioms out of a potentially infinite set. You keep saying "there are not many As, just look at this system, it has 5 As" but that's obviously not proof because there are systems that remove some of those As and add new As. Heck even for logic, there is fuzzy logic which is useful, there is certain logics that remove the axiom "everything is either true or false" and add a few extra axioms and are incredibly useful, etc.... The idea that there is many As to pick from has been undoubtedly shown throughout history but since As are axioms then by definition there is no answer to the question "which A should I pick' that does not itself rely on arbitrary As. THAT is the problem. Human knowledge is like a castle built on air. And there is a lot of air to choose from
Quoting Blue Lux
Why exactly is this rubbish? I agree with that guy. Obviously understanding does not involve the language itself or else how do you explain that there are multiple languages but the same understanding?
Example?
Quoting tim wood
I never claimed anything as a result of there being a potentially infinite set of starting axioms so there is no problem like that. All I'm saying is that there are many many axioms (maybe infinite) one could pick from and get a perfectly coherent system of knowledge. As a result, the only thing making our systems of knowledge lasting is their practical utility
Quoting tim wood
What do you mean "say about that set"
Quoting tim wood
I think you are misunderstanding the implications of what I'm saying. I'm not saying we should believe 2+2=7, I'm saying there is no justification for us believing that 2+2=4 and not 7 except survival value
"two plus two equals four"
"2???2?4"
"dos más dos son cuatro"
Quoting creativesoul
Quoting khaled
Are these examples of the same understanding in different languages? How does understanding not involve language seeing how in each case it is set out with language? Seems obvious to me that understanding has to do with language. Remove the language, remove the understanding.
What I see here is three ways of saying the same thing. That doesn't support the idea that understanding does not involve language. It supports the idea that different languages can say the same thing.
A statement's meaning is about the statement. Being about the statement involves the statement.
This conflates things. For one, you've offered a definition of knowledge that says that all knowledge must be the result of a syllogism. That's false, and I've already argued how. P3 in the OP is false, and I've shown how. Arguing by definitional fiat doesn't work here.
You're claiming that reason is required for knowledge. That's false. Knowing what certain statements mean is required for reason. So, either knowing what certain statements mean is not knowledge(which is absurd), or reason is not required for all knowledge.
Quoting creativesoul
I bet 99% of the people in the civilized world would staunchly disagree with that statement. If you are willing to accept illogical or unproven statements as knowledge then arguing with you is futile.
Quoting creativesoul
I never agreed to this. Knowing what certain statements mean makes transmitting knowledge much easier but young kids are obviously also capable of thought even though they don't know a language. Language is not necessary for thought, I think that proposition is absurd. It would even imply that cavemen were incapable of thinking but had that been the case we wouldn't have survived. You don't need a personal monologue running 24/7 to think
Reason is required for knowledge. Language is not required for reason. Language is a form of knowledge. You cannot define knowledge without having the word "justified" or "validated" in the definition or else arguing with you is futile because if you don't have something like that in your definition then literally any statement is knowledge if one believes in it strongly which defeats the purpose of having the word "knowledge" when it just means "strong belief"
No true scotsman
You're arguing with your own imagination.
Not accepting reason as the basis for knowledge is a completely untenable position.
Quoting khaled
How do you reconcile this obvious contradiction?
And yet, I reject reason as the basis of knowledge, and do not have any issues with paradox or self-contradiction.
It only follows that your claim is false.
All reason is thinking about thought and belief. Thinking about thought and belief is existentially dependent upon language use. All reason is existentially dependent upon language use. All language use is existentially dependent upon shared meaning. Shared meaning is existentially dependent upon a plurality of users knowing how to use language. Knowing how to use language is knowledge. All is reason is existentially dependent upon knowledge.
Quoting creativesoul
This is clearly incorrect. Unless you think young children can't think. Do you actually think young children and animals are incapable of thought?