So you admit to strawmanning my position. — Thorongil

A caricature and a strawman are two entirely different things. One is a summary of a position that is deliberately facetious but still based on real features, the other is the construction of a position similar to the one a person holds, but deliberately different in one or more respects such the it can be easily rejected. As I have not rejected, or even argued against, Idealism, it could not possibly have been a strawman.

A necessary being by definition avoids it, a point you seem incapable of acknowledging for whatever reason. — Thorongil

Your argument was that "... the more important question is not what objects are, but why they are."

If you conclude that a being is 'necessary' (not that I believe such a thing is possible), then you require also the existence of logic (which you presumably used to reach your conclusion) and a least one fact (on which your logic acts). So you still have not answered the question, "why should logic work and why is fact 1 is a fact".

In other words why is the necessary being necessary?

You can't simply pluck an argument out of thin air (though God knows enough people try) so you still have to explain why the elements of your argument are necessarily the case. If you can't explain that, then you cannot demonstrate that your conclusion is truly necessary.

In other words, speaking of 'the data of experience' is not a 'neutral' starting point that can then be treated, as though in a second, unrelated step, in either a 'materialist' or 'idealist' manner. — StreetlightX

I'm not sure I agree. The starting point of idealism and materialism could be the same and yet not be neutral, so I'm not sure why "neutrality" is the problem. I would, of course, agree that one's epistemology tends to inform one's metaphysic, but it need not. An epistemological idealist need not be committed to ontological idealism, for example.

In any case, I suppose I would be of the opinion that the fault line with respect to experience is not as deep as both sides like to make it out to be. The primary reason for this, again, is that neither side objects to the existence of the content of experience. They disagree about how it is supplied and how it ought to be described.

In any case, I suppose I would be of the opinion that the fault line with respect to experience is not as deep as both sides like to make it out to be. The primary reason for this, again, is that neither side objects to the existence of the content of experience. — Thorongil

But they do disagree fundamentally about what an experience is. For direct realists, perception is awareness of external objects, and not anything more. So they would disagree that perception involves any sort of representation or idea in the mind. As such, perception differs fundamentally from dreams or imagination. Where hallucination fits in that is debatable.

A caricature and a strawman are two entirely different things. — Pseudonym

So they are, but I took your admission to be a polite way of describing your attempt to strawman my position, which you did in fact do.

If you conclude that a being is 'necessary' — Pseudonym

I do not conclude this. You asked what one possible answer to my question could be. I gave you one.

In other words why is the necessary being necessary? — Pseudonym

The question is incoherent.

But they do disagree fundamentally about what an experience is. — Marchesk

Right, that's why I said, in the last sentence you neglected to quote, "They disagree about how it is supplied and how it ought to be described."

So, how else does the question make sense in the absence of that presupposition? — Agustino

I don't understand the question.

Fair enough, I did get that impression from part of your post. — Agustino

You might also have gotten it from its title.

Right, that's why I said, in the last sentence you neglected to quote, "They disagree about how it is supplied and how it ought to be described." — Thorongil

No, that's not the point. Direct realists disagree about the nature of experience itself. That's crucially important for making the direct realist case.

What I'm asking is what form would your argument for the necessary existence of a creator or the universe actually take?

It can't take the form - if... then... Because we have no 'ifs' that we can establish as being necessarily the case (if we did we'd have solved our problem already).

It cannot take the form - X therefore y, because again we have no 'x' that is necessarily the case.

It cannot be a tautology because that would not be explicatory.

I admit logic is not really my field (I'm an ethicist), but I'm struggling to see any form that the argument showing 'why the universe is' could possibly take that doesn't rely on some existing facts that we have yet to establish are necessarily the case.

Do you think existentialist classics, like Nausea, are persuasive? I can't find anything persuasive about them. I kind of admire Sartre for his honesty and for being utterly true to himself, but I can't help but feel he was, so to speak, pretty tone deaf when it comes to questions of meaning. 'Hell is other people'? — Wayfarer

I do think this is a bit 'apples and oranges' - if Sartre's fictions don't persuade you of something, I'm not clear that that diminishes Moliere's claims about the philosophical approach of existentialism and 'finding' (or whatever the right word is) meaning in the face of the absurd.

Of course, I quite see that the notion involved, of existence preceding essence (to sloganise it) is not how you see things, but that's a different matter.

"Find" doesn't make sense in the world you posit. Meaning must rather be created. But the meaning we can create isn't proportional to, and doesn't fit, what the desires of the heart demand. — Thorongil

In 'Totality and Infinity' Levinas eloquently argues that the first-person encounter with the Other, the subjective experience, always exceeds mere (scientific) description from the 'totalising' system of explanations. There's always a remainder, excess, more, an overflowing.

This leads him personally to an immanent god in a practice of Judaism, but that's not the claim the book is making.

I agree with Streetlight about your 'grammar': as soon as you speak of 'data' you seem not to be in the same part of discourse as the 'metaphysical'. Berkeleyans and physicalists can talk the same sort of methodological talk about objects, but that doesn't mean the ways they underpin their talk of objects in the metaphysics bear any mutual resemblance.

Oh no, I've already passed that stage of development. My subtlety is so immense, I often need a crane to hoist it. — Thorongil

All that shows is that you are mistaken about what you possess being subtlety. Subtlety cannot be heavy; its character is the very opposite of heaviness.

All that shows is that you are mistaken about what you possess being subtlety. Subtlety cannot be heavy; its character is the very opposite of heaviness. — Janus

His subtle wit was so enormous that it sucked the mood of the room into a slowly forming vortex of chuckling, collapsing into outright laughter, swallowing all seriousness in a black hole of guffaws.

Heidegger thought metaphysics begins with the question of why anything exists at all - or the question of Being. That there is a distinction between that which is, and Being as such, is what I feel is what makes it so powerful to me when Leibniz wrote: — darthbarracuda

I'm not too familiar with Heidegger, but what you attribute to him here accords well with my position. Leibniz lurks in the background of my thoughts on the question you're responding to, as I've come to sense that his version of the principle of sufficient reason might be superior to Schopenhauer's, and Leibniz's version, of course, leads pretty straight forwardly to theism.

I reject the notion that the divine, if it exists, would be something that we can come to "know" in such a way that we can express it using the vocabulary of the everyday. — darthbarracuda

I concur. But recall that the pre-modern philosophers you speak of made a distinction between knowing what and knowing that something is. We cannot know God's essence but we can know that he exists, they would say.

Yet a religious belief based on rationalist proofs is hardly religious at all, because it lacks the risk of faith. Before the modern era, demonstrations of God's existence were meant to get people on the path of faith, not establish without a doubt that God exists, because that would jeopardize faith — darthbarracuda

I'm not sure I agree here. Another Scholastic distinction is between the preambles of the faith and the articles of the faith. The existence of God was thought to be a preamble of the faith, and so capable of rational demonstration. The articles of faith, however, do require faith, for they are revealed truths, that is, truths that do not contradict reason but cannot be arrived at by reason, such as the Trinity.

No, that's not the point. — Marchesk

Then we're responding to different points.

That's funny...and even a tad subtle! You have demonstrated that the heavy may be influenced by the light.

The existence of God was thought to be a preamble of the faith, and so capable of rational demonstration. — Thorongil

The problem with this is that there are no "rational demonstrations" which are capable of demonstrating the axiomatic assumptions upon which they are founded.

I'm sorry, but I'm still not following you. We might have to leave it at that.

The problem with this is that there are no "rational demonstrations" which are capable of demonstrating the axiomatic assumptions upon which they are founded. — Janus

I don't see the problem. One cannot demonstrate the principles of logic, but then neither can one reject them, for in order to reject them, one must employ them. Thus, you cannot reject a rational demonstration of God's existence, for example, by appealing to the fact that the logical axioms upon which the demonstration depends cannot be demonstrated. Your only option is to remain silent.

Your only option is to remain silent. — Thorongil

That is what I, and I think Janus, have been trying to say. That you must remain silent. That no logical argument can be brought forth for the existence of everything without using (within that argument) something which you must first presume to exist.

That no logical argument can be brought forth for the existence of everything — Pseudonym

I wasn't trying to prove "the existence of everything."

Any discussion about what "exists" is a mess, partly because "exist", "real" and "is" are metaphysically-undefined.

For example, here are two frequent objections to my metaphysics:

1. "What makes you think that abstract facts exist?"

I don't claim that they "exist", whatever that would mean. Obviously the if-thens in an inter-referreing system of if-thens have relation to eachother, whether they "exist" or not. Their "existence" has nothing to do with what I've been saying. That's something that I've been emphasizing all along. That's all my metaphysics is about.

2. "How do those hypothetical facts give rise to an actual, concretely real, world?"

They don't. I don't claim that our world is "actual" or "concretely real", whatever that would mean.

...unless "actual" has the more limited meaning that some others have expressed:

"of, consisting of, or part of the world in which the speaker resides."

Of course it goes without saying, with respect to this discussion, that our physical world is actual in that limited, but operationally-meaningful, sense.

Michael Ossipoff

I don't see the problem. One cannot demonstrate the principles of logic, but then neither can one reject them, for in order to reject them, one must employ them. — Thorongil

The principles of logic are mostly concerned with the validity of arguments; that conclusions do follow from premises. Put another way, a valid argument is such that if the premises are true then the conclusion must also be true. Soundness of arguments are something else; an argument is sound only if its premises are true. The truth of premises is not demonstrated by logical arguments; and must be assumed or evidenced by something other than mere logic.

The truth of premises is not demonstrated by logical arguments; and must be assumed or evidenced by something other than mere logic. — Janus

...only if you think that the truth of the premises and conclusions is necessary.

The truth of an if-then fact is quite independent of whether its premise is true. I've been talking about a metaphysical world consisting of the if-then facts themselves, and not the truth of their conclusions or premises.

Michael Ossipoff

An "if-then" proposition is true if the "if" is true and the "then" is valid.

An "if-then" proposition is true if the "if" is true and the "then" is valid. — Janus

Its truth doesn't require that.

Neither the "if" premise nor the "then" conclusion need be true.

An if-then proposition is true, and therefore is a fact--an if-then fact--if what it says is true, viz:

...that the truth of the "if" premise would mean the truth of the "then" conclusion

I'll quote an example that I've been using:

"If all Slitheytoves are (or were) brillig, and all Jaberwockekys are (or were) Slitheyitoves, then all Jaberwockeys are (or would be) brilllig."

That remains true even if there aren't any Slitheytoves or Jaberwockeys.

And it would remain true if there were Slitheytoves and Jaberwockeys, but none of the Slitheytoves were brillig, &/or none of the Jaberwockeys were Slitheytoves.

Michael Ossipoff

Minimalism in moovement

That remains true even if there aren't any Slitheytoves or Jaberwockeys. — Michael Ossipoff

No, it remains valid, not true. You need to brush up on your terminology. I suggest you take a course in elementary logic.

No, it remains valid, not true. You need to brush up on your terminology. I suggest you take a course in elementary logic. — Janus

I'll look up the definitions. I've read something about "sound" being different from "true". But "true" has an obvious meaning that I thought everyone agreed on.

If the truth of a certain "if" premise would always make a certain "then" conclusion true, then It's certainly true to say that the truth of that premise would always make that conclusion true. ...and that's all an if-then proposition says.

I'll look up the definitions but I doubt very much that they'll support your bizarre re-definition of "true".

Michael Ossipoff

Mhmm, I've taken Intro to Logic. I'm still waiting on the punch line.

I do think this is a bit 'apples and oranges' - if Sartre's fictions don't persuade you of something, I'm not clear that that diminishes Moliere's claims about the philosophical approach of existentialism and 'finding' (or whatever the right word is) meaning in the face of the absurd. — mcdoodle

I did try to study existentialism as an undergraduate (having studied The Plague at high school). Sartre's 'Being and Nothingness' stumped me - I literally couldn't understand the first page, although subsequently I have come to understand a little more of him; readings from No Exit, Nausea, and other of his writings were included in the course.

The aspect of existentialism that I think is positive, is the emphasis on 'self-creating' and not living out of a rule-book. But the sense of generating 'out of oneself' a sense of meaning or purpose - I am dubious about that. What I have learned/am learning from my study of spiritual traditions and meditation, is the importance of having a sense of relatedness. I think it is one aspect of what is called in Buddhism bodhicitta and that it's the same quality as the Christian 'agápē'. I don't associate it with formal religion, but it is a spiritual quality, and I think it's lacking in existentialism generally. (Although there are some spiritually-inclined existentialists.)