Kantian epistemological philosophy is predicated exclusively on reason and logic, of which “all events must have a cause” is the foremost rendering of it a priori. So, no, the Kantian “all effects must have a cause” does not fit into a category of something beyond reason and logic. Truth be told, I can’t imagine anything beyond reason and logic. Even the alleged “transcendental illusion” is itself reason and logic, however misguided it may be.

Nevertheless, I’m not a logician per se, so I wonder about this conditional stuff. If it rains tomorrow I will go for a jog may be true, but if it doesn’t rain tomorrow, what prevents me from going for a jog anyway? What is it about the rain that if there isn’t any I can’t go for a jog?

The cause/effect proposition and negation I understand, insofar as any effect must have a cause and if there are no effects no cause can be supposed. But the rain thing doesn’t seem to be the same kind of proposition.

It is inherent in our truth tables that we configure a statement to be either true or false, but it seems that this might have certain exceptions, especially in conditionals. — 3017amen

This is all a matter of definition; make more of it than that at your peril. And, granted, conditionals/inference/implication take some getting used to. The rule with fine tools is to not misuse/abuse them, for reasons obvious. Same with logic and its rules.

1. How does one reconcile Being and Becoming — 3017amen

2. Does the Kantian Metaphysical paradigm " all events must have a cause" fit into the category of something beyond reason and logic? — 3017amen

Imo two excellent questions. Develop #1 a bit more? E.g., what need is there for them to be reconciled. What, even, do the terms mean?

#2 is answerable directly: Yes. Under/founding/grounding pretty much all thinking, with specific reference here to reason and logic, are unique classes of rules and understandings. They can be upset, overturned, but that's in every case a big deal, because overthrowing foundations takes down what is built on them. The unique things are called axioms and presuppositions. And "presuppositions" needs the further qualification of being absolute; i.e., absolute presuppositions (APs).

It's a student's task to get it into his or her head that axioms and APs are not ordinary parts of the system. They are in essence expressions of what the system needs to work. Axioms in use are presented without proof, because within the system they're not provable, all of which is understood, APs, on the other hand, are usually presupposed at a level that rarely comes into view.

Both can be dug out and exhibited in isolation (not as easy as may sound) , but for getting the work of the system done, unnecessary and usually inappropriate. Absurd example warning: in a history of battles of the US Civil War, one would not expect to find a separate section on laying out the overall significance of gravity.

That all events have causes, then, is an absolute presupposition of Kantian thinking. That you and I still "buy" it shows that it's a pretty good rule, and that we alive in the the 21st century are informed by a metaphysics of the late 18th. It enters discourse, in distinction to most APs that reside below awareness, because in fact it was not always presupposed, and apparently in broad areas of modern science it is not now presupposed. That is, is not the current understanding of how things work, since c. 1920.

I see Mww ges here first. He usually gets this stuff right!

Kantian epistemological philosophy is predicated exclusively on reason and logic, of which “all events must have a cause” is the foremost rendering of it a priori. So, no, the Kantian “all effects must have a cause” does not fit into a category of something beyond reason and logic.

Hey MW, thanks for chiming-in... .

First things first, I don't believe you are correct there. The Kantian Metaphysical statement of 'all events must have a cause' was one of the hallmarks of his Critique. That is because the meaning of those words is a synthesis of a priori and natural phenomena; thus his infamous synthetic a priori. (Most all physical theories involve synthetic judgements.)

So, using logic, how does one configure the truth value of 'all events must have a cause'?

So, using logic, how does one configure the truth value of 'all events must have a cause'? — 3017amen

As an AP, you don't. It is part of the set of crockery of Kantian thinking. If you want to isolate it, you can. It then becomes a simple proposition (a different animal, which takes a while to understand).

But first, what do you mean be "configure the truth value"?

This isn't meant as glib, but this is why we caution that formal logic isn't to be understood by translating it into natural language. Trying to parse formal logic with natural language semantics only creates confusion.

But first, what do you mean be "configure the truth value"? — tim wood

Hey Tim, what I mean is the whole of the synthetic a priori statement is no longer determined and seems to be cast into a 'neutral' or undetermined relation to truth.

And now Tim got there first; I also wish a clarification of.....what he said.

I am going to allow you the chance to notice the very specific qualifier in my comment, which should permit you to better understand its validity.

:up:

Okay, put succinctly, reword the statement 'all events must have a cause' to validate its truth value.

#2 is answerable directly: Yes. — tim wood

What am I missing, such that you would say yes, but I would say no?

This isn't meant as glib, but this is why we caution that formal logic isn't to be understood by translating it into natural language. Trying to parse formal logic with natural language semantics only creates confusion. — Terrapin Station

And you to via endorsement, 180

You do mean to be glib. Pretty much everything is only understood by "translating" it into natural language, and the hazards aren't that they will be a source of confusion, but rather may become, if not attended with appropriate understanding. By implication, anything whose initial expression is not in natural language, cannot be understood. And that may in some profound sense be true, but it gets zero of the world's work done, in the face of world's work that is getting done.

Conditionals really aren't meant as natural language if-then statements.

Sorry....that flew right over my head. Are you asking me to reword the statement “ all effects must have cause” to validate its truth value? I don’t know how to do that, because as stated, it’s negation is a contradiction, so its truth value is given by itself.

As I said, I ain’t no logician. The only logic I concern myself with, are the Aristotelian laws of thought, to which of course, the cause/effect proposition is a prime example.

For a guess, differing senses of "logic" and "reason." The hazard of not being at all times, even while swimming, rigorous in explication. But that's why it's called a discussion, even a "reasonable" discussion - among the best kind! - as opposed to some others with other, different, fish we may find ourselves swimming with.

Conditionals really aren't meant as natural language if-then statements. — Terrapin Station

Now you're educating. Please continue. But your claim is that translating forecloses on understanding. How then are we to proceed? Resolve that and the first question is also resolved.

How then are we to proceed? — tim wood

You proceed by understanding the conditional truth table as the conditional truth table. Just take it for what it is.

You proceed by understanding the conditional truth table as the conditional truth table. Just take it for what it is. — Terrapin Station

Well, exactly so. From above

This is all a matter of definition; make more of it than that at your peril. And, granted, conditionals/inference/implication take some getting used to. — tim wood

Do you stand on natural language being a bar to understanding that which does not have its original expression in natural language?

Implying that nothing is understood? Implying that Understanding is not understanding? You can have this, if you want it. But it leaves you with a philosophy that allows you merely to point at things, all other expression being error.

Do you stand on natural language being a bar to understanding that which does not have it's original expression in natural language? — tim wood

I wasn't saying something without context, so that I'd say it about any and every arbitrary thing.

Specifically with formal logic, it's important to not try to translate things like conditionals into natural language in order to grasp/remember the truth tables, because they don't work well with conventional natural language semantics. The first post in this thread is a good example why.

By this I understand you to mean the conditional “if p then q” does not translate into natural language. If so, I agree, for formal logic is empty of content.

Is that what you are saying?

Yes--as in the first post, where there's an attempt to compare it to "If it rains tomorrow, then I will go jogging."

Ok, good on me!! YEA!!!

Still, don’t we need conventional language for truth tables to have any meaning? I understand logical truisms to be guides for rational thought, but we still need to quantify that guide, do we not?

Still, don’t we need conventional language for truth tables to have any meaning? — Mww

You don't need the formal logical structures in natural language.

You do need to talk "around" them in natural language. We need to be able to say, "This is a conditional" for example.

As tools, they've turned out to be most useful for computer science applications, probably. Logic gates for example.

The hazard of not being at all times, even while swimming, rigorous in explication. — tim wood

Ahhhh, yes. The inevitable bane of subjectivity.

You do need to talk "around" them in natural language. — Terrapin Station

Good enough for me. Which is indeed fortunate, because I do it all the time.

Thanks.

No worries Mww, it's all good. I'm far from an expert logician. Let me find another way to broach the concern and I'll respond accordingly. In the meantime, another way of saying what I said in the OP, is basically LEM.

Beyond that, [other] unresolved paradox's remain quite a mystery...

Imo two excellent questions. Develop #1 a bit more? E.g., what need is there for them to be reconciled. What, even, do the terms mean?

Thank you Tim. It's a huge discussion (Heidegger, Plato, cognitive science, physics, et al.) but here's a simple first take:

What is the difference between being and becoming? Is any form of being not a “becoming”? Can one “be” in a static/incomplete or static/complete sense?

We are beings within space-time, thus it follows that our being is a becoming.

How can logic or mathematics resolve the static state of existence and Being(?)

And derivative examples include:

Paradox of:

1. Self-reference
2. Contradiction
3. Infinite regress
4. Half-truth's

And so on.

Would you need examples of those?

( I'd be happy to provide some, please advise.)

What is the difference between being and becoming? Is any form of being not a “becoming”? Can one “be” in a static/incomplete or static/complete sense?
We are beings within space-time, thus it follows that our being is a becoming. — 3017amen

To borrow ideas from elsewhere, it seems there are minimal limits for a thing to be what it is, and beneath which it isn't. For example, a minimum for water is an h2o molecule. You can argue whether one molecule of water is water - a matter of definition. But if you don't have at least that, then no water in any sense. In terms of time, if an activity takes some amount of time, then at less than that time, not that activity. If a baseball game requires nine innings, then any interval that encompasses less than nine innings is not a baseball game.

As to our uses of the words "being" and "becoming," to make sense in a context they require definition, at least for the purposes of that context.

My view is that being is the static understanding of the subject, much as a balance sheet is a static representation of the financial state of a business. No one pretends that the business ceases to function for the balance sheet to be taken; indeed it's usually referenced to as a "snapshot," "being" an arbitrary reading of data points at a given moment.

And at our macro-level of existence change is the reality. But not in regard to select criteria with respect to select usage. We commonly refer to people and things as not having changed: their being enduring unchanged. In respect of that narrower understanding of being, it may be accurate to say the being is static. And thus the contrast and tension between (perceived) being and becoming.

In movies, which used to be just stories about people, there evolved so-called "coming-of-age" movies, usually about "loss of innocence" in a transition to adulthood. For the most part, these were stories on a narrow theme. Later there emerged what I call being-and-becoming stories. That is, the movement from a stasis to a dynamic and presumably better state, not necessarily narrowly centered on loss of innocence on the way to adulthood.

Definition for context matters. And both can be argued away (nothing changes v. nothing remains the same). The answers, then, to your questions all seem to fall under the general categorical answer, it depends; it depends on what you mean.

Hey Tim...all this talk about procreation on the forum got me to thinking about the old (abortion) 'personhood' debate viz Being and becoming. This also concerns the OP as it relates to the unknown, neutral, or otherwise indeterminant things, from Wiki:

"The beginning of human personhood is the moment when a human is first recognized as a person. There are differences of opinion as to the precise time when human personhood begins and the nature of that status. The issue arises in a number of fields including science, religion, philosophy, and law, and is most acute in debates relating to abortion, stem cell research, reproductive rights, and fetal rights. "

"Traditionally, the concept of personhood has entailed the concept of soul, a metaphysical concept referring to a non-corporeal or extra-corporeal dimension of human being. However, in modernity, the concepts of subjectivity and intersubjectivity, personhood, mind, and self have come to encompass a number of aspects of human being previously considered to be characteristics of the soul.[1][2] With regard to the beginning of human personhood, one historical question has been: when does the soul enter the body? In modern terms, the question could be put instead: at what point does the developing individual develop personhood or selfhood?[3] "

So Tim, back to being and becoming, I asked myself whether Being is a noun or verb, and it lead me to time dependent things:

Existence is dependent on time
Human Beings exist
Therefore, Human Beings are dependent on time (for their existence)

And so one question becomes, if existence is a noun, and to exist is a verb, how is it reconciled?

IF, THEN in computer language - what goes after 'then' is independent function, sentence on its own. Thus truth value is taken twice, separately for each statement.