This was actually fulfilled two and a half years ago, in a combox exchange at the shadow-site, TSZ.
Actually, the prediction has already happened, note this from a TSZ combox for a post there that was trying to dismiss first principles of right reason, 2 1/2 years ago:
Flint on February 21, 2012 at 2:37 am said:
aleta,
I don’t think I quite understand what you are saying with some of the rest of your post. However, you have pointed out the elephant in the room: an important aspect of Stephen’s beliefs about logic is that he wants to be able to use logic, starting with “self-evidently” true logical premises (in his eyes) to prove things about the nature and existence of God, absolute morals, and so on. The view that logic without empirically validated assertions is just content-free manipulations of invented symbols directly challenges that view.
Yes. What I was trying to say (not very well, unfortunately) is that much of what Stephen wishes to derive using logic, can NOT rest on empirically validated assertions. How could one even begin to empirically validate a god, a soul, or salvation? Instead, he must start with undecidable axioms, which (not being empirical) are selected with the foregone conclusions in mind.
Aleta’s reply: Yes, and well said. The elephant in the room.
This is so sadly, revealingly wrong-headed, at so many levels:
1 –> First principles of right reason, being self-evident, stand on their own merits, regardless of our particular worldview, hoped for conclusions or whatever. And to deny them is at once to end in absurdity. That is why they can serve as plumbline tests for whether we have built true and upright . . . straight and plumb.
2 –> Let us go to that notorious, Bible-thumping Fundy preacher [NOT] . . . see what ad hominems and motive mongering lead you into? . . . the philosopher Aristotle [as in, Aristotelian logic], Metaphysics Bk IV, 1011b:
. . . if it is impossible at the same time to affirm and deny a thing truly, it is also impossible for contraries to apply to a thing at the same time [–> LNC]; either both must apply in a modified sense, or one in a modified sense and the other absolutely.
Nor indeed can there be any intermediate between contrary statements [–> LEM], but of one thing we must either assert or deny one thing [–> LOI, thus too LNC], whatever it may be. This will be plain if we first define truth and falsehood. To say that what is is not, or that what is not is, is false; but to say that what is is, and what is not is not, is true [–> notice, definition of truth]; and therefore also he who says that a thing is or is not will say either what is true or what is false. [–> notice, precise description of what we now call a proposition, this is what, C. 340 BC?]
3 –> Similarly, let’s look at the often dismissed Apostle Paul, to see how he addresses much the same issue, on the grounds that one should address the issue, not a caricature:
1 Cor 14:7 If even inanimate musical instruments, such as the flute or the harp, do not give distinct notes, how will anyone [listening] know or understand what is played? 8 And if the war bugle gives an uncertain (indistinct) call, who will prepare for battle?[AMP]
4 –> What is going on here? Basically, we contemplate a distinct thing, say a bright red ball on a table, let’s call it A. The reality of such a ball, and our contemplation of it, both reflect a world-partition:
W = { A | NOT_A }
5 –> Immediately as A is distinct and so partitioned. LOI, LNC and LEM are immediately in action:
LOI: A is itself not not-itself.
LEM: As there is a distinction, nothing is in the middle or apart from the ordered partitioned set W, it is A X-OR NOT_A. And of course
LNC: We do not have A also being NOT_A
6 –> To attempt to deny any of these in fact — as the old Apostle pointed out — depends on distinction, just to communicate:
a [vs ~a] + l [vs ~l] + e [vs ~e] + t [vs ~t] + a [vs ~a]
7 –> So, both Flint and Aleta are sawing off the branch on which they, like the rest of us, are sitting. Not wise. Patent absurdity, in fact. We are dealing with what is seen as necessarily true on understanding what is said, on pain of absurdity.
8 –> They would have been well-advised to heed this from Wiki, sampled that very same Feb 2012, as a case of speaking against known ideological tendency on the weight of evidence:
The law of non-contradiction and the law of excluded middle are not separate laws per se, but correlates of the law of identity. That is to say, they are two interdependent and complementary principles that inhere naturally (implicitly) within the law of identity, as its essential nature . . . whenever we ‘identify’ a thing as belonging to a certain class or instance of a class, we intellectually set that thing apart from all the other things in existence which are ‘not’ of that same class or instance of a class. In other words, the proposition, “A is A and A is not ~A” (law of identity) intellectually partitions a universe of discourse (the domain of all things) into exactly two subsets, A and ~A, and thus gives rise to a dichotomy. As with all dichotomies, A and ~A must then be ‘mutually exclusive’ and ‘jointly exhaustive’ with respect to that universe of discourse. In other words, ‘no one thing can simultaneously be a member of both A and ~A’ (law of non-contradiction), whilst ‘every single thing must be a member of either A or ~A’ (law of excluded middle).
What’s more . . . thinking entails the manipulation and amalgamation of simpler concepts in order to form more complex ones, and therefore, we must have a means of distinguishing these different concepts. It follows then that the first principle of language (law of identity) is also rightfully called the first principle of thought, and by extension, the first principle reason (rational thought) . . .
9 –> And the same SB these so wish to dismiss observed:
[If] an object has an essence or a nature, we do, in fact, know what it is by virtue of having abstracted its universal “whatness” from the particular we encounter through our senses.
In other words, the law of non-contradiction is true
ontologically–a thing is what it is and cannot also be something else at the same time and in the same way.
logically–a proposition about that thing cannot be true and false at the same time and in the same way.
psychologically–a proposition about that thing cannot seem to be true and false at the same time and in the same way.
10 –> And, let us go back to the red ball A. To observe it is to rely on: distinct, intelligible identity. Science and inductive logic, too, sit on the very same branch Aleta and Flint would saw off.
11 –> And so the notion that empirical observation can then ground/disestablish what it is based on, is another case of trying to saw off the branch on which we are all sitting. Save, saws, branches, sitting, us, and sawing are all crucially dependent on these self-same laws.
12 –> So, we see a wrongheadedness on the part of reasonably educated people that can only trace to indoctrination and secondary lack of understanding.
13 –> where, the appeal to the empirical as court of last resort is the key clue: scientism, the notion that science and its methods [dominated of course by evolutionary materialistic ideology] delimit real or serious or credible “knowledge.” This is of course actually an ideological- philosophical imposition, and so it is self-refuting.
14 –> Where, when we become committed to the false and absurd [as has been shown], it is liable to lead us to a state of stubborn confusion that rejects truth, reason and evidence.
KF
PS: Unsurprisingly, A and F also seem to be unaware of the actual evidential basis for Judaeo-Christian theism and have set up and knocked over a strawman. I suggest a 101 here on, with particular encouragement to take time to view the video. And, on the wider worldview question, including first principles of right reason, I suggest the 101 here on. >>
Video:
[vimeo 17960119]
________________
In short, we have a worldviews foundation challenge on the table, starting with logic itself. And, astonishingly, LOGIC is now under suspicion of being covert theism. END
Actually, the prediction has already happened, note this from a TSZ combox for a post there that was trying to dismiss first principles of right reason, 2 1/2 years ago:
Aleta’s reply: Yes, and well said. The elephant in the room.
This is so sadly, revealingly wrong-headed, at so many levels:
1 –> First principles of right reason, being self-evident, stand on their own merits, regardless of our particular worldview, hoped for conclusions or whatever. And to deny them is at once to end in absurdity. That is why they can serve as plumbline tests for whether we have built true and upright . . . straight and plumb.
2 –> Let us go to that notorious, Bible-thumping Fundy preacher [NOT] . . . see what ad hominems and motive mongering lead you into? . . . the philosopher Aristotle [as in, Aristotelian logic], Metaphysics Bk IV, 1011b:
3 –> Similarly, let’s look at the often dismissed Apostle Paul, to see how he addresses much the same issue, on the grounds that one should address the issue, not a caricature:
4 –> What is going on here? Basically, we contemplate a distinct thing, say a bright red ball on a table, let’s call it A. The reality of such a ball, and our contemplation of it, both reflect a world-partition:
W = { A | NOT_A }
5 –> Immediately as A is distinct and so partitioned. LOI, LNC and LEM are immediately in action:
6 –> To attempt to deny any of these in fact — as the old Apostle pointed out — depends on distinction, just to communicate:
7 –> So, both Flint and Aleta are sawing off the branch on which they, like the rest of us, are sitting. Not wise. Patent absurdity, in fact. We are dealing with what is seen as necessarily true on understanding what is said, on pain of absurdity.
8 –> They would have been well-advised to heed this from Wiki, sampled that very same Feb 2012, as a case of speaking against known ideological tendency on the weight of evidence:
9 –> And the same SB these so wish to dismiss observed:
10 –> And, let us go back to the red ball A. To observe it is to rely on: distinct, intelligible identity. Science and inductive logic, too, sit on the very same branch Aleta and Flint would saw off.
11 –> And so the notion that empirical observation can then ground/disestablish what it is based on, is another case of trying to saw off the branch on which we are all sitting. Save, saws, branches, sitting, us, and sawing are all crucially dependent on these self-same laws.
12 –> So, we see a wrongheadedness on the part of reasonably educated people that can only trace to indoctrination and secondary lack of understanding.
13 –> where, the appeal to the empirical as court of last resort is the key clue: scientism, the notion that science and its methods [dominated of course by evolutionary materialistic ideology] delimit real or serious or credible “knowledge.” This is of course actually an ideological- philosophical imposition, and so it is self-refuting.
14 –> Where, when we become committed to the false and absurd [as has been shown], it is liable to lead us to a state of stubborn confusion that rejects truth, reason and evidence.
KF
PS: Unsurprisingly, A and F also seem to be unaware of the actual evidential basis for Judaeo-Christian theism and have set up and knocked over a strawman. I suggest a 101 here on, with particular encouragement to take time to view the video. And, on the wider worldview question, including first principles of right reason, I suggest the 101 here on. >>
Video:
[vimeo 17960119]
________________