We can say, 'Grandfather is ill today because he ate lobster yesterday.' We can also say, 'Grandfather must be ill today because he hasn't got up yet (and we know he is an invariably early riser when he is well).' In the first sentence 'because' indicates the relation of Cause and Effect: The eating made him ill. In the second, it indicates the relation of what logicians call Ground and Consequent. The old man's late rising is not the cause of his disorder but the reason why we believe him to be disordered. There is a similar difference between 'He cried out because it hurt him' (Cause and Effect) and 'It must have hurt him because he cried out' (Ground and Consequent). The first indicates a dynamic connection between events or 'states of affairs' i.e. 'eating lobster caused him to be ill'; the first, a logical relation between beliefs.
Now a train of reasoning has no value as a means of finding truth unless each step in it is connected with what went before in the Ground-Consequent relation. If our B does not follow logically from our A, we think in vain. If what we think at the end of our reasoning is to be true, the correct answer to the question, 'Why do you think this?' must begin with the Ground-Consequent 'because' — C S Lewis, Miracles, Chap 3
'Grandfather must be ill today because he hasn't got up yet (and we know he is an invariably early riser when he is well).' — C S Lewis, Miracles, Chap 3
'It must have hurt him because he cried out' — C S Lewis, Miracles, Chap 3
If our B does not follow logically from our A, we think in vain. — C S Lewis, Miracles, Chap 3
It's a matter of my psychological history that I have made the inferences I have, rational or not. — Srap Tasmaner
At most (being charitable), the "argument from reason" only narrowly applies to reductive physicalism, — 180 Proof
I don't understand the focus on my mental behavior you consider rational, and how its being rational makes it special evidence against naturalism. — Srap Tasmaner
It is because of the physicalist assumptions of the kind of naturalism that the argument is aimed at. — Wayfarer
s there an argument from "because" having two senses to there being two realms, one ruled by Physics or Something and one ruled by Reason or Something? If that's even what we're going for. — Srap Tasmaner
Crisis was an attempt to highlight the problem of reducing psychology to materialism/physicalism. — I like sushi
Any ‘theory’ that is given will necessarily be one that is ‘physical’/‘material’. — I like sushi
the implications of the argument — Wayfarer
The argument from reason challenges the proposition that everything that exists, and in particular thought and reason, can be explained solely in terms of natural or physical processes. It is, therefore, an argument against materialist philosophy of mind. According to the argument, if such theories were true, our thoughts, and so also our reasoning, would be determined on the molecular level by neurochemistry, leaving no role for the free exercise of reason. — Wayfarer
The basis of the argument is, then, that if materialism were correct, our thoughts would be the product of physical processes which are in themselves devoid of any purpose or intentionality (in line with the axioms of materialism, which holds that everything in the Universe is the product of physical laws and product of non-intentional and non-purposive processes). — Wayfarer
2. If naturalism is true, then all beliefs can be fully explained in terms of non-rational causes. — Wayfarer
The general problem in the argument is framing things as True or Not True in relation to phenomenon instead of understanding it as an abstract game that helps guide us through ‘reality’ rather than something that is directly applicable to ‘reality’. — I like sushi
In philosophy, intentionality is the power of minds and mental states to be about, to represent, or to stand for, things, properties and states of affairs. To say of an individual’s mental states that they have intentionality is to say that they are mental representations or that they have contents. Furthermore, to the extent that a speaker utters words from some natural language or draws pictures or symbols from a formal language for the purpose of conveying to others the contents of her mental states, these artifacts used by a speaker too have contents or intentionality.
Well, it's not altogether clear even that human thoughts "have intentionality" ... :chin: — 180 Proof
‘Intentionality’ is a philosopher’s word: ever since the idea, if not the word itself, was introduced into philosophy by Franz Brentano in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, it has been used to refer to the puzzles of representation, all of which lie at the interface between the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of language.
What are your thoughts on replacing "true" and "false" with "more accurate" and "less accurate"?
Throwing away the notions of true or false altogether seems a bit extreme to me. Wouldn't we, in effect, be throwing out logic as well? — wonderer1
Well, it's not altogether clear even that human thoughts "have intentionality" ... :chin: — 180 Proof
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