I think living in the Matrix would be just as real as living in the real world. — Patterner

You're on the way...

Which is why I'm sceptical of the suggestion that philosophy and science are the same in essence. — Wayfarer

I guess I don't see science and scientific objectivity as separate from philosophical virtue, even in the realm of "reality as lived." It seems like a lot of the same virtues underlie both philosophy and science.

For example, the sage and the psychologist hopefully possess scientific virtues of objectivity and neutrality. As you say, there seems to be a connection between wisdom-detachment and scientific neutrality. The way Buddhism is associated with a scientific aura is perhaps on point, for the Buddhist is often seen as bringing a scientific rigor to psychological introspection (and the same would hold of the desert fathers).

- :up:

I’m reminded of a clause in the founding charter of the Royal Society of London, which explicitly prohibited the consideration of ‘metaphysik’ on the grounds that it was in the province of churchmen, not natural philosophy as such (and in those days, one really had to stay in one’s lane.) — Wayfarer

That doesn't surprise me, but it is interesting.

(I learned of Eric Perl’s book Thinking Being from John Vervaeke’s lecture series Awakening from the Meaning Crisis. As you know, he is attempting to critique some of these naturalist assumptions from within a naturalistic perspective and what he has called ‘transcendent naturalism’.) — Wayfarer

Yep, I like Vervaeke. Though I don't know him too well.

The excerpt from Perl is relevant to @J's interest in Kimhi, who also takes a point of departure from Parmenides' Poem. The context Perl gives is helpful.

Today's culture often deprecates metaphysical claims, especially those that verge on mysticism or spirituality. — Wayfarer

Not being divine beings they do not presume to know anything about matters of divine wisdom or a reality that transcends reality hear and now in our comfy cave. — Fooloso4

You sort of walked into that one, Wayfarer. :wink: I think the grammatical and spelling mistakes are an indicator of what your thesis does to Fooloso's temperament. :grin:

I do not trust your ability to understand and present either what I am saying or what ↪Michael is saying. — Banno

It's fairly obvious that you don't understand what Michael is saying, but you're slowly coming along. I see you've now made it to my post <here>, repeating what I have already said. This is all related to your misunderstanding of the unjustified/unjustifiable distinction.

Not saying you've done it deliberately but I think you have phrased that in a way that is misleading. The way I would put it is: "It is true that even if all life disappeared from the universe, but everything else were undisturbed, that there would still be gold in Boorara."

...

So, yes I do think we can make truth-apt statements about unperceived events. The alternative, that truth depends on knowledge, seems absurd to me. — Janus

Well, the traditional thesis is that truth depends on mind. See, for example, 's post.

I don't see that you've changed Banno's claim. Here are the two claims:

• It is true that there is gold in Boorara. If all life disappeared from the universe, but everything else is undisturbed, then it would still be true that there is gold in Boorara.
• It is true that even if all life disappeared from the universe, but everything else were undisturbed, that there would still be gold in Boorara.

Your, "It is true that," extends to the whole sentence, including the consequent. We are talking about whether it would still be true that there is gold in Boorara. Metaphysics of truth is inevitable here. Even if we talk about, "Whether there would still be gold in Boorara," we are still talking about truth.

Your argument is presumably something like this, "If three humans exist and there are no other minds, and one person dies, then it is still true that there is gold in Boorara. The second dies, and it is still true. By induction we should hold that if the third dies, it will still be true. If the truth was not affected by the death of the first two people, then surely it will not be affected by the death of the third."

But on the other hand is the argument that truths only exist where minds do. Truths are not free-floating entities, existing independently of minds. I actually don't know of any philosophers who try to set out a metaphysics of truth while ignoring this principle. There are plenty of different theories for why something would remain true if all humans died, but they all have to do with non-human or non-individual minds (including especially God). Our Western logos-centric inheritance fits very well with our current intuitions, largely because our current intuitions have been shaped by that inheritance. Aquinas can simply quote Aristotle, "The Philosopher says (Metaph. vi), 'The true and the false reside not in things, but in the intellect'" (ST).

The intuition that truth is not limited to or generated by humans is what has caused all cultures to posit deeper minds and grounds of intelligibility that are operative in creation. Secular anthropocentrism has deprived itself of these explanations, and it seems to largely be at a loss when it comes to the metaphysics of truth. It is hard for such a tradition to consider the question of whether truth presupposes mind, because the question inevitably leads away from secularism. What is at stake here is the relation between mind and the material world, and to be honest, materialists/physicalists have never really known what to make of truth. It defies materialistic categories (which is why it is associated with mind and intellect).

(In responding to Pinter we should limit ourselves to talking about perception, and not fall into the trap of talking about truth and minds. To do otherwise is heavy-handed. We need only say that what is unperceived can still exist, not that truth would exist without any minds.)

Banno will confirm whether or not this misrepresents his view, but in any case, it is my view. — Janus

Banno is stubborn, but you can still see him trying to adjust his view. For example:

This by way of separating what is true from what is known to be true. Again, that a proposition is true is a single-places predicate, "P is true"; but that we know it is true is a relation, "We know P is true". Same for what are commonly called "propositional attitudes"; a name that marks this relational aspect. — Banno

He has not reckoned with the question of how a "single-places predicate" would exist apart from minds, or why "everything else undisturbed" disturbs foxes but not truths. Banno is usually not up for these deeper questions.

You seem to be falling into a common form of sophistry, as follows:

<absurdity> = "It is possible for truth to be unknowable in principle"

1. Realism → <absurdity>
2. ∴ ~Realism

There is nothing wrong with giving this reductio against realism. The sophistry comes here:

"Realism is_def <absurdity>"

When you try to define realism as <absurdity> you deprive the realist of the opportunity to dispute (1), and this is a form of sophistry. Note too that you haven't been able to find a single example of a self-proclaimed realist who accepts your definition of realism, or would at least sign on to <absurdity>. initially volunteered himself, but now has distanced himself from your definition (as I predicted he would).

- Well, thrash metal was not idiosyncratic if we limit ourselves to the 1980's, but I am thinking in terms of centuries and millennia. It helps prevent one from falling into fads.

If the existence of objects is mind-independent then the truth of “the object exists” is mind-independent such that it could be true even if it is not possible, in principle, to know that it’s true. — Michael

That's not a characteristically realist view. Realists have not historically claimed that because objects can exist apart from minds, therefore truth exists apart from minds. Nevermind the odd add-on about truths which are unknowable.

You have a particular way of construing metaphysical realism vis-a-vis an abstruse knowability debate. It doesn't follow from this that Realism = Believing in unknowable (or unjustifiable) truths. And you won't find sources on Realism that claim such a thing. My quote from the SEP article on Realism is but one example.

There’s a reason that Dummett, the man who coined the term “antirealism”, framed the dispute between realism and antirealism as a dispute about the logic of truth. — Michael

You give a curious definition of antirealism (that no one on this forum would recognize precritically), and then define realism over and against that definition. This is wrong in the first place because realism "wears the pants," not antirealism. It is wrong in the second place because "antirealism" is not identical with Dummett's view, much less a secondary branch of that view (see section 7). It is wrong in the third place because non-realism is not simply anti-realism:

Non-realism can take many forms, depending on whether or not it is the existence or independence dimension of realism that is questioned or rejected. The forms of non-realism can vary dramatically from subject-matter to subject-matter, but error-theories, non-cognitivism, instrumentalism, nominalism,relativism, certain styles of reductionism, and eliminativism typically reject realism by rejecting the existence dimension, while idealism, subjectivism, and anti-realism typically concede the existence dimension but reject the independence dimension. — Realism | SEP

So, at the very least, we should be antirealists about cats in boxes. — Michael

...Because if you think the question of whether the cat is in the box is a verifiable question, then in Michael's terms you are an "antirealist." And if you are a "realist" (in Michael's terms) about cats in boxes, then you would have to say that "The cat is in the box" is both unverifiable and nevertheless true.

No one uses the terms "realism" and "antirealism" in this way. Such extremely idiosyncratic usage is unhelpful. In favor of his strange definition, Michael cites a single sentence buried in an SEP article on Fitch's Paradox of Unknowability. But if we look to SEP (or any other reputable source) for this question, we do not find Michael's definition:

There are two general aspects to realism, illustrated by looking at realism about the everyday world of macroscopic objects and their properties. First, there is a claim about existence. Tables, rocks, the moon, and so on, all exist, as do the following facts: the table’s being square, the rock’s being made of granite, and the moon’s being spherical and yellow. The second aspect of realism about the everyday world of macroscopic objects and their properties concerns independence. The fact that the moon exists and is spherical is independent of anything anyone happens to say or think about the matter. — Realism | SEP

The OP's definitions were much more accurate, mapping the two general aspects of SEP:

1. There exist objects that are mind-independent.

2. We can grasp the features of objects external to our mind... — Sirius

These are references to Aquinas' epistemology of assimilation, which I have no doubt you know considerably better than I do. But the salient point is, it undercuts the idea of 'mind-independence' in the sense posited by naturalism. Why? Because the pre-moderns did not have our modern sense of otherness or separateness from the Cosmos. (I know this is very sketchy, but I think I am discerning something of significance here.) — Wayfarer

Yes, that seems right to me. Good quotes.

But note that for the Thomist intellectual knowledge depends on an immaterial intellect. You could construe the moderns as estranged from the cosmos, or you could construe them as materialists. Probably both approaches end up in much the same place.

But in remedying modern epistemology, one could move in a Christian/theistic/transcendent direction, or a Hindu/pantheistic/immanent direction. In the former, Western tradition, the human is both within and beyond the cosmos, as a kind of mediator or steward for the transcendent God. Thus for Aquinas there is an important sense in which the intellect stands over and surveys the cosmos in much the same way that an eagle stands over and surveys the landscape. But the angels do this more completely, and man is the strange mixture or meeting point between angels and matter.

My line of thinking here is if we know something, then at least in that respect we are not deceived. I think the change in outcomes with respect to the thought experiment has to do with emphasizing doubt over certainty -- rather than looking for a certainty that I cannot doubt, and so cannot be decieved by even the evil demon the process of looking for certitude requires I already know things that are uncertain.

To kind of do an inversion here on that line: In some sense we could say that if we accept the certitude of the cogito then we must also accept the certitude of the before-after, and so the self is not this indivisible point-particle that thinks. — Moliere

Is everyone on the same page that Descartes gives an argument for his existence from doubt? (link) Some, like , seem to be missing this. The "shift from certainty to doubt" is not Sartre, it is Descartes, and it is not a shift from certainty so much as an avenue to certainty.

Taking Descartes at face value in the Meditations we end with knowledge of self, God, and world. So the doubt is surely methodical rather than radical. — Moliere

But think about why Descartes responded so vehemently to Gassendi when Gassendi made a similar claim. What you are saying is, "Descartes' wrangling with skepticism wasn't real; it was just a charade." If it wasn't real, if Descartes did not really descend into skepticism and really come out, then his meditation is completely worthless. "Descartes came back up with knowledge, therefore he never seriously entertained skepticism," is a really problematic way to assess Descartes' meditation, and Descartes explicitly rejects this problematic/cynical reading.

We have only each other to talk to, whether it leads it to anything, whether we hope it does, we're all the company we have. — Srap Tasmaner

This is an odd thing to say in the context of Socrates, is it not? Socrates paid more heed to his daimon than to any man.

I'm not even sure it makes sense to say, "Philosophy is about conversation, not reality, because it is rooted in Socratic skepticism." First, all conversation is about something, and that "something" is some kind of reality. If someone is not interested in any realities then they will apparently not have conversations. In a similar way, a hardened skeptic would not engage in philosophical conversation at all. The one who engages in philosophical conversation must at least believe that his interlocutor has the ability to shed light and show him something new and previously unknown (or vice versa).

Well, that's a broader academia problem, and I think it is often even worse in other fields... — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yep. But I'm wondering, "What is the corrective?" Contemplation? Truth over disputatiousness?

I like some of the late Thomas Hopko's ideas on this, who I believe was in your Church. One paraphrase is in my bio, "Don't label him; say he's wrong. And don't just say he's wrong; say why. And don't just say why; say what you think is right." That puts a nice ceiling on disputatiousness. Elsewhere he says that one should never give their opinion unless they are asked or have a duty to do so (this is reminiscent of something like the desert fathers - a kind of spiritual practice). Then elsewhere he says something to the effect, "Showing that your brother is wrong does not make you right. Showing that your brother is a sinner does not make you righteous." Perhaps those can function as a starting point for correctives.

But then when it comes to practice it's sort of the polar opposite, because in the earlier period a great deal of the thinkers are monastics whose entire lives revolve around practice. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Or also active Orders (Dominicans, Franciscans), or geographically centered thought-movements (University of Paris, University of Naples, etc.).

---

I think Socrates and most philosophers since are committed to the idea that there is an ideal convergence point, involving rational inquiry, where we can reach consensus based on what is the case, not simply on "how it looks to us." — J

But the Socrates (or Plato) of the Republic is doing more than this. Here we specifically examine the difference between knowledge and "how it looks to us." Our modern talk about convergence etc. would be foreign to Plato, but I see him advocating a positive doctrine about knowledge that is meant to be independent of what Athenians, or anyone else, think of it. — J

Good points. :up:

---



You seem to have come around on this:

Great philosophy is very much concerned with research. The fact that it does not partake of anscientific method of research doesn’t invalidate philosophical methods as less rigorous , ungrounded or mere conversation — Joshs

(The point was never that we shouldn't read others.)

One of the reasons I posted that, was that I've been mulling this over for the past few days: — Srap Tasmaner

Well I would say that the Socratic examination of opinion is all about the transcendence of opinion. This is the common view, and the way Fooloso reads Plato looks to be idiosyncratic. Or are we trying to talk about Socrates apart from Plato?

have I completely mischaracterized Socrates, who swore up and down that he did not inquire into the heavens and the earth like some others, but only asked people questions? — Srap Tasmaner

Socrates is very interested in the human good (and Plato in The Good), but I don't see the human good as separate from reality. For example, Socrates examines opinions in inquiring about Justice, but it's not as if he is looking at opinions about justice instead of justice.

Now if someone wants to push the image of Socrates-as-skeptic, that's fine, but skepticism is not the same thing as Plato's dialogues or philosophy. If Socrates is to be reduced to a know-nothing skeptic, then we are talking only about one small part of philosophy. If it were the whole of philosophy then perhaps philosophers would be primarily interested in what "has already been said."

In any case, I find it exceedingly odd that none of Socrates' followers do the "Socrates-as-mere-skeptic" thing, and that in the most important and last moments of his life we do not see that aspect emphasized. I find it hard to read Socrates that way.

If all life disappeared from the universe, but everything else remained undisturbed, would there still be foxes? Whether truth remains undisturbed turns on whether truth depends on life/mind, and that is the question you have been avoiding. It looks like you're trying to run a theistic or deistic vehicle that is all out of gas. In the history of philosophy the existence of truth has not been taken for granted in the way you take it for granted.

Also - I noted that you mentioned Aquinas' realist epistemology in our previous discussions of these matters. However, a vital distinction between today's realism, and his form of realism, is that Aquinas was an Aristotelian realist, one for whom universals are real. This is not the thread for the discussion of that hoary topic but it's part of the background to the whole debate of the relationship of mind and nature, which is very different for the Aristotelian than for today's naturalism. — Wayfarer

Yes. I will come back to this, but let me just say that realism is the view that something is real. If one thinks that universals are real then they are a realist with respect to universals; if someone thinks the external world is real then they are a realist with respect to the external world; if someone thinks objects of perception are real then they are a realist with respect to objects of perception, etc. Often in these discussions we would do well to remind ourselves what kind of "realism" we are talking about. For example, in discussing Pinter one might want to hone in on the question of realism with respect to the shape of objects of perception. The OP was interested in realism with respect to, "objects external to our mind," or, "Mind-independent objects." Ideally in any of these arguments we want to argue our position such that it is contentious yet not vacuously true, such that the opposing view retains a level of plausibility.

You claimed, "If all life disappeared from the universe, but everything else is undisturbed, then it would still be true that there is gold in Boorara."

Now either you agree with that or you don't. It seems like you want to retract your statement without retracting your statement.

The point <here> is that while I also disagree with Pinter, you have disagreed with him so strongly so as to fall into the opposite pit. Probably what you want to do is retract your statement and replace it with something more measured and less extreme.

Classically, truth pertains to minds/knowers, and if there are no knowers then there is no truth. There is some overlap with Pinter, here. To disagree with Pinter as strongly as Banno has is to run afoul also of this broader school which associates truth with mind. — Leontiskos

You are free to retract your statement if you think it is false. I will not hold you to it.

That's you, not I. — Banno

Put on your spectacles and discern where the quotation marks start and end.

You claimed, "If all life disappeared from the universe, but everything else is undisturbed, then it would still be true that there is gold in Boorara."

I concluded, "This is clearly committing to the view that truth exists where no minds do."

Why? Because if all life disappears from the universe, then all minds disappear from the universe. You say that even then, "it would still be true that...," and therefore you think there would still be truth even if there were no minds. Or do you say that there are still minds where there is no life?

- Does the Geriatric Troll say that there are minds where there is no life?

It's not clear to me that is what Banno is claiming. We can make truth-apt statements about what would be the case in the absence of any percipients. It is that which is really the point at issue as I see it. — Janus

Well he literally said, "If all life disappeared from the universe, but everything else is undisturbed, then it would still be true that there is gold in Boorara." This is clearly committing to the view that truth exists where no minds do.

But apparently you hold a different view, namely the view that we can make truth-apt statements about unperceived events?

When the kids visit, they're either bemused or bewildered that almost nothing has changed. — Srap Tasmaner

A funny picture, but perhaps mistaken:

the main thing they talk about is what they or someone else, not present at the moment, has already said.

...

It's all we've ever done — Srap Tasmaner

I don't think it's all philosophy has ever done. I think it's a very recent phenomenon. To argue about what someone else has said brings an objectivity to the discipline that it feels it needs in light of modern scientific objectivity. But historically philosophers have inquired into reality in a way similar to but deeper than what we now call "science," and if they did talk about what someone else has already said, it was only in service to this inquiry into reality. Lots of us still do philosophy the older way, where the object is reality and not primarily the text of some dead guy.

a book I mentioned, Charles Pinter, Mind and the Cosmic Order — Wayfarer

Yes. Do you remember when in one of your threads I disagreed with Pinter's idea that shape is not inherent to objects?

For me the strangeness of Banno's position is the claim that truth can exist where no minds do. Classically, truth pertains to minds/knowers, and if there are no knowers then there is no truth. There is some overlap with Pinter, here. To disagree with Pinter as strongly as Banno has is to run afoul also of this broader school which associates truth with mind.

And the reason I'm impressed with that book is that I think it is one of the many in that emerging area of cognitivism and cognitive science, which provides support for a kind of scientifically-informed idealism, as distinct from the materialism which has hitherto tended to characterise scientific philosophy. — Wayfarer

Yes, well we certainly don't want to crash into the mountain of materialism, but I would want to pull up on the stick gently rather than too abruptly, lest we create an opposite problem for ourselves.

It is true that there is gold in Boorara. If all life disappeared from the universe, but everything else is undisturbed, then it would still be true that there is gold in Boorara. — Banno

So then, @Michael, it looks like Banno does subscribe to something very near to the strained version of realism that you outline. That's at least one person. Presumably this sort of approach was born in the modern period. If Banno were more forthcoming one would be tempted to ask about his view of what truth is, but we all know how fast that conversation would go Nowhere.

What I mean about the difficulty of contemporary analytic philosophy, is that it's often extremely dense, written by and for those who can draw on a great deal of specialised scholarship — Wayfarer

I was thinking about the fact that a good thread or argument must be strong but not vacuously true, and therefore it must be contentious and yet not overpowering (and I was also considering the way that various posters will carelessly reduce their position to that which is vacuously true).

This contentiousness is a hallmark of philosophy, and this is especially true in the Analytic tradition. For some reason we think it boring to agree with someone or sympathetically develop someone else's idea. It is more exciting and attention-drawing to disagree, and disagreement is also the more obvious path to intellectual progress. This dynamic can lead quickly to abstruse hair-splitting that requires specialization to understand, and it often feels that in philosophy contrarian-ness is the horse leading the carriage, rather than more noble or intentional motives.

Is this avoidable? At first glance it is not, because disagreement forms the basis of philosophy in a way that it simply does not form the basis of other disciplines. And yet the way to circumvent this problem is to place philosophy into the context of a common goal.* Pierre Hadot does something like this when he shifts the focus from individual philosophers to schools of philosophy and ways of life, which groups of philosophers mutually contribute to and upbuild. Without a common goal, philosophy quickly degenerates into unfocused acts of disagreement.

* As I tried to do in my thread on argument.

(1) I'm not a logician and (2) I do not regard logic as mere symbol manipulation. — TonesInDeepFreeze

If you say that logic is not merely symbol manipulation, then what do you say it is?

Yeah, but it's very different -- methodical doubt is a process for finding a certain foundation for knowledge in Descartes. He's using it as a tool to dig out the foundations from the confusion.

Also, since he finds his certainty, he's no longer a skeptic at all by the end of the meditations. Whereas the Pyrrhonian wants to sustain the attitude of suspension of belief to the point that supposing someone came up with a persuasive argument then it would be the Pyrrhonian skeptic's task to invent another way to dissolve that belief. — Moliere

Well, Descartes wants to occupy the same space as the Pyrrhonist. He has a different goal, but he does not want to provide himself with a guarantee that he will get there (just as the Pyrrhonist is not supposed to provide himself with a guarantee that he will reach his goal of ataraxia). See:

Accordingly, when Gassendi, in keeping with his unwillingness to allow Sextus to doubt ordinary truth-claims as well as theoretical ones, was unwilling to accept that the sceptical doubt of the first Meditation was seriously meant to have absolutely general scope, Descartes replied:

"My statement that the entire testimony of the senses must be considered to be uncertain, nay, even false, is quite serious and so necessary for the comprehension of my meditations, that he who will not or cannot admit that, is unfit to urge any objection to them that merits a reply." (V Rep., HR ii, 206) — Myles Burnyeat, The Sceptic in his place and time, 340-1

Interesting thread. :up:

So the question: Must the cogito rely upon a notion of the past and future in order for its doubt to make sense? — Moliere

Yes, I think Sartre is right, at least with respect to doubt.

If so then it seems the skeptic must at least admit of knowledge of time. And so cannot be universally skeptical. — Moliere

Agreed.

If we know about time then just how could there be an Evil Demon behind the appearances? Is it outside of time? If so then the cogito has nothing to do with it, as per the argument. — Moliere

I don't follow this. Are you supposing that the Evil Demon cannot manipulate our experience of time?

Also of interest is how the argument does not touch on Pyrrhonian skepticism, which explicitly courts the suspension of judgment. This has more to do with the sort of skepticism inspired by Descartes which desires a certain foundation. — Moliere

Doesn't Descartes explicitly court the suspension of judgment? It seems to me that Descartes thinks he can descend even below the level of Pyrrhonism and nevertheless re-surface with certain knowledge.

Do you make any distinction between premises and inference rules? — Srap Tasmaner

You could, but I am not.

I'm trying to understand this. Are you arguing against the cut rule? — Srap Tasmaner

My point is that argument 1 and argument 2 are different arguments. Argument 2 could be an enthymeme form of argument 1, but it need not be. Michael somehow thinks it needs to be.

This is important because if we cannot speak about argument 2 apart from argument 1, then we cannot even understand the difference between Michael and Tones (and at this point in the thread Michael looks to be actively suppressing the emergence of that difference in a very strange way).

Edit: On my view no argument is demonstrably an enthymeme just in virtue of its material constituents. On Michael's view this is apparently not right, and therefore validity has to do with possible inferences, not documented inferences. Frege's judgment-stroke and the difference between inference and consequence seems relevant here, although Michael is pushing consequence even further than Frege's opponents would.

- :up:

Justice—no?

...

Yes. To punish the perpetrator and avenge the victim(s). — Bob Ross

Generally we do not believe that everyone has legal standing (locus standi).

Similarly, it is the duty of the judge to punish the perpetrator and avenge the victim, not the common person.

Do we have a duty in justice to right wrongs happening on the other side of the world? I don't know. Maybe, but not really? Not everything is within our jurisdiction. Here is Aquinas:

Again, no man justly punishes another, except one who is subject to his jurisdiction. Therefore it is not lawful for a man to strike another, unless he have some power over the one whom he strikes. And since the child is subject to the power of the parent, and the slave to the power of his master, a parent can lawfully strike his child, and a master his slave that instruction may be enforced by correction. — Aquinas, ST II-II.65.2

Your understanding of logic has been repeatedly shown to be lacking. There's no reason to take you seriously on such issues. — Banno

No one on this forum takes you seriously. I'm just continuing an exchange with Michael.

The point of that was to show that there is a meaningful difference between these two propositions:

1. If A is B then it can C
2. A can be B only if it has C

Banno is repeatedly misinterpreting/misrepresenting (1) as (2). — Michael

The question is whether that distinction is relevant when it comes to justification. (1) is not demonstrative. Mortality, for example, is an inductive inference. It's not at all clear that justifiability is inductive, such that one can claim that a proposition is justifiable without actually justifying it. Yet that is what you require.

Secondly, it is the realist who denies p → ◇Kp, and so if you follow your own reasoning you must provide an example of an unknowable truth. — Michael

Except that you haven't produced a single example of a real person who holds to your definition of realism. So there's that.

No I don't. — Michael

Sure you do. If you want to deny A→B then you must give an example of A^~B.

1. If the vase is fragile then it can break
2. The vase can be fragile only if it has a break — Michael

One can show that a vase is fragile without breaking it, but can one show that a truth is justifiable without justifying it?

If a truth is justifiable, then for that truth there is some justification. — Banno

Were @Michael to disagree with this, he would have to show us a justifiable truth with no justification.

(What is happening here is that there is a shifting back and forth between the View from Nowhere (justifiability) and the View from Somewhere (particular acts of justification).)

So is an explosive argument valid? In one sense it is, and in one sense it is not. — Leontiskos

So we have something like tiers of sophistry:

• Michael: An argument explicitly leveraging explosive inferences is valid. (light sophistry)
• Michael: Argument 1 and argument 2 are the same argument. (medium sophistry)
• Tones: An argument with inconsistent premises is valid, irrespective of explosion. (heavy sophistry)

What's interesting about the "medium sophistry" is that Michael has detached logic from humans in a remarkably thoroughgoing way. He is basically saying, "If a conclusion is inferentially reachable from the premises, then the argument is valid, even if the argument does not present the necessary inferences." He collapses an argument and an enthymeme into one thing, which doesn't make any sense in the end. Pace Michael, inferences (or lack thereof) are part of the argument itself.

(@NotAristotle)