I'm only speculating, but it seems to me that if we try to label, describe, or otherwise identify something as "brute", we have only pushed the explanation back even further. If, let's say, "mind" is "brute" - then what makes mind mind? If God is fundamentally the fundamentality of fundamentality, then what makes it the case that God is God? If the ultimate reality is, say, the Will, does it even make sense to say that the Will is "striving"? How would it be striving? How would be even come to conceptualize what this "striving" amounts to?

The only way out that I see is some form of infinite regress out of necessity (but what is necessity if not a brute fact?) We could say that the "brute fact" is ABCD, and if we try to analyze what "brute fact" amounts to, we'll end up with ABCD as well. A circular but infinite explanation. Sort of like saying everything can be divisible an infinite amount of times.

It may sound funny, but it it still a brute fact that we need brute facts to kickstart any reasoning (conscious or not).

And what a brute at that... lol

The only way out that I see is some form of infinite regress out of necessity (but what is necessity if not a brute fact?) We could say that the "brute fact" is ABCD, and if we try to analyze what "brute fact" amounts to, we'll end up with ABCD as well. A circular but infinite explanation. Sort of like saying everything can be divisible an infinite amount of times. — darthbarracuda

The best attempt I've seen is trying to argue for God or the universe necessarily existing. That there is some reason why God, the universe, mind, etc cannot not exist. That a final theory of everything would be self-explanatory, and if we could understand it, then we would be like, oh so that's why there is something instead of nothing!

And then the issue is resolved without having to propose something existing for no reason at all. I prefer to think that is the case, because brute facts to me seem like should shrugging and rather arbitrary.

And if something can exist for no reason, why can't other things?

Doesn't that make a brute fact just a true statement that is not subject to doubt? — Banno

Have to think about that. Take Humean causation. It's a brute fact that the sun has always "risen" each morning. But that leaves me doubting whether the sun might rise tomorrow. In fact, it leaves me doubting everything about the future.

I'm not comfortable with that.

You're also mistaken about Humean causation too. There is not "no reason" any given event occur. The presence of particular states which case other is present defines Humean causation. Why did the sun rise? Because states, causes and effects, were such that a rising sun came to be. That's "why" some alternative outcome hasn't occurred. — TheWillowOfDarkness

But then Hume uses the turkey/thanksgiving metaphor to explain how our belief in the future being like the past is merely a habit of thought and not something guaranteed in the world. Humean causation has no necessity to it. It's just simply constant conjunction, to date. But that could all change tomorrow or a million years from now, for no reason at all.

It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists
Tractatus 6.44 — Cavacava

Maybe so, but what was Witty trying to get at here? That there is a reason why the world exists, but it's beyond our ability to know?

That there is some reason why God, the universe, mind, etc cannot not exist. — Marchesk

But why does this reason exist? And why does the reason that this reason exist also exist? If something is necessarily existent - why is it necessarily existent? "Brute" facts seem more like cowardice and obscuration than genuine, honest belief.

For sure, but notice the question you are leaving out: if there is a particular state in the future, how does it occur?

Can the sun rise tomorrow without a sun that rises? Hume's point is a causal relationships cannot be defined merely in an idea of what will happen. In causality, nothing can be guaranteed because states must do there respective work. A respective state is required, not just an idea in our mind. "Necessity" is just our fantasy our ideas cannot possibility be wrong.

But that leaves me doubting whether the sun might rise tomorrow. In fact, it leaves me doubting everything about the future. — Marchesk

You know why? You've not been looking at the future in the first place. Deep down, you are actually entirely sceptical of it, to a point where you think it depends on your idea about it. Instead of taking the future and the world on it's own terms, you are looking to outside, to your ideas, ideas to define it.

What difference does it make if you doubt everything in the future? Does it somehow mean the future does happen? Has the sun stopped raising because you encountered Humean causation and are now doubting whether you can trust some idea about the future?

Not at all. The world has continued to do, the sun rising many times (and the many predications about it rising being right) many times since Hume gave his account to causality. Absence of necessity simply doesn't pose any problem to future events or our ability to predict or describe them. We do that perfectly world in which we might be wrong.

Your doubt is merely you boxing shadows of your own mine, cast by your misunderstanding that knowledge of the world is defined by getting beyond the possibly of being mistaken.

But why does this reason exist? — darthbarracuda

Because its non-existence would result in logical inconsistency, like a triangle being a circle.

The ultimate reason for why anything exists is logical consistency. What is existence anyway, if not logical consistency?

But why does this reason exist? And why does the reason that this reason exist also exist? If something is necessarily existent - why is it necessarily existent? " — darthbarracuda

I'm going to guess that asking why something self-explanatory necessarily exists is a meaningless question.

Finding the explanation should dissolve the question. Of course you can always create a why question for any topic. "Why can't God create a stone that God can't move?" Doesn't mean it's any more meaningful than pondering how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

It seems there could not be a reason why there must be something rather than nothing, because if there is nothing there can be no reasons. In other words there must be something for there to be reasons in the first place. So being is necessarily prior to reason, it seems.

So being is necessarily prior to reason, it seems. — John

Yeah, that makes sense. It's tempting to suppose the world just is how it is, while logic, math, language, and scientific models are created by minds attempting to make sense of the world. They are maps, not the territory. But we often confuse the two, and this has led metaphysics, along with plenty of scientists and mathematicians in addition to philosophers, astray for millennia.

But I'm just speculating.

It seems there could not be a reason why there must be something rather than nothing, because if there is nothing there can be no reasons. In other words there must be something for there to be reasons in the first place. So being is necessarily prior to reason, it seems.

Are you trying to prove god?

I'm not comfortable with that. — Marchesk

Perhaps you doubt too much.

Let's follow Austin. If we have brute facts, then there must be facts that are not brute.

Searle, when he used the term, placed it in opposition to social facts.

What does McGinn list as not brute?

I hadn't thought of it that way. If God is thought as infinite being then the situation would be as I said, but if God is thought as transcendent to being, then a reason for being might be thought to be prior to being, after all.

Perhaps you doubt too much. — Banno

Nah, I tend to be more dogmatic than skeptical, but philosophy encourages doubt.

What does McGinn list as not brute? — Banno

I don't know. Haha @ video.

The ultimate reason for why anything exists is logical consistency. What is existence anyway, if not logical consistency? — litewave

But how do you explain the fact that we can think about impossibilities? Do these acts of thinking not really exist?

But how do you explain the fact that we can think about impossibilities? Do these acts of thinking not really exist? — darthbarracuda

An act of thinking exists as a collection of qualia in one's consciousness. But if they refer to impossibilities such as a triangular circle they refer to nothing because impossible things do not exist.

So you can think the statement "The triangle is a circle", or you can speak it or write it down. The collection of qualia, sounds, or ink marks on paper is consistent and exists, but it does not refer to anything.

So you can think the statement "The triangle is a circle", or you can speak it or write it down. The collection of qualia, sounds, or ink marks on paper is consistent and exists, but it does not refer to anything. — litewave

Are you sure that they don't refer to anything? How can we coherently talk about something without having a representation of it in our minds? How can something be absent in our minds and yet still we talk about "it"?

We are able to put arbitrary thoughts, words or sounds together but that doesn't mean that these collections refer to something in reality.

I don't know. — Marchesk

Is it that McGinn hasn't worked this out?

All philosophy consists of thought/belief and statements thereof. Whatever thought/belief consists in/of and whatever it takes to form and hold... such is brute to all philosophy.

You tell me. What did he work out?

Oh, that we're cognitively closed to such things? Maybe so.

It would be good for a brute-fact to be something undeniable, or at least something whose denial has the burden of proof. Maybe it wouldn't be called a "brute fact" then, because maybe only arbitrary brute-facts are brute-facts.

What would be a brute fact that is undeniable, or whose denial has the burden of proof?

How about the fact that there are, and couldn't have not been, abstract facts, or abstract statements about hypothetical conclusions from hypothetical statements about hypothetical relations among hypothetical quantities?

I suggest that the burden of proof would be on anyone denying that.

We've been discussing that matter at the discussion-thread called "A Uniquely Parsimonious and Skeptical Metaphysics", at the Metaphysics and Epistemology forum at this website. In that discussion, several arguments have been posted, to the effect that the fact in the paragraph before last is either undeniable, or that at least its denial has the burden of proof.

When I say that the metaphysics that I propose in that discussion-thread doesn't posit any brute-facts, I'm going by the meaning of "brute-fact" that says that a fact isn't brute if it's really undeniable, or at least if its denial has the burden of proof.

Michael Ossipoff

What would be a brute fact that is undeniable, or whose denial has the burden of proof?

**How about the fact that there are, and couldn't have not been, abstract facts, or abstract statements about hypothetical conclusions from hypothetical statements about hypothetical relations among hypothetical quantities?**

I suggest that the burden of proof would be on anyone denying that. — Michael Ossipoff

In fact, I further suggest that it's undeniable.

What would it mean to say that there "aren't" those statements about hypotheticals? Would such a claim it mean anything?

That system of abstract hypothetical statements about hypothetical conclusions from hypothetical statements about hypothetical relations among hypothetical quantities--That system of hypotheticals have meaning and application only in relation to eachother.

They have that meaning in relation to eachother regardless of whether they "are" in any larger context. Evaluating them in some other context would be meaningless.

So, some global fact that there "aren't" such a system of interrelated hypotheticals would be meaningless.

You can call that a brute fact, but it's an undeniable one, or at least its denial has the burden of proof.

If every metaphysics depends on a brute fact, the metaphysics that I propose only depends on an undeniable one, or one whose denial has the burden of proof (and that proof hasn't been supplied).

Michael Ossipoff

In line with something that Lightwave pointed out:

This putative world in which there are no hypotheticals is, itself, a hypothetical alleged possibility.

A hypothetical that there could have not been any hypotheticals (including the hypothetical possibility that it, itself, is?)

Michael Ossipoff

Brute facts seemingly can only exist in a monistic universe. I also don't think brute facts can exist in a relativistic universe.

Furthermore, logical positivists take a similar stance and call brute facts 'logical hinges' or 'simples'. Russell is the only recent philosopher that comes to my mind as someone who believed in brute facts (think; to deduce all axioms of arithmetic from first order logic). We all know that he failed in reducing arithmetic to logic.

Furthermore, it seems that things like the Principle of Sufficient Reason are necessary presuppositions to claim the existence of brute facts. However, I disagree with this due to quantum mechanics possibly not being causal in nature.

However, I think that if the simulated universe theory is correct, as well as the Church-Turing-Deutsch Principle, then I see no reason why certain brute facts can't exist. What are these 'brute facts'? I have no idea.

Once you start to distinguish between brute facts and contingent facts, I think you are heading down the wrong road. If facts are simply states of affairs, then all facts are brute facts. Statements of fact are contingent (some more obviously so than others).