First off, please ignore my second from last paragraph in my previous post, as I didn't flesh out my ideas very well.
Further comments below. > On Feb 3, 2019, at 5:13 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt <jonalanschm...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Matt, List: > > Which of the Five Ways of Aquinas includes only premises that "can possibly > have a shred of inductive support"? They are not intended to persuade > non-theists to become theists, but rather to demonstrate how certain > combinations of other beliefs warrant or even require theism. As I stated > previously, that is also my objective here. > > On the other hand, my first premise is falsifiable, at least in principle. > All we need is one counterexample--a single Sign that is not determined by an > Object other than itself. Can you suggest one? Your proposed > revision--"every Sign save the universe-as-a-whole is determined by an Object > other than itself"--not only begs the question, but also amounts to special > pleading. > The special pleading was specifically this analogy: Just as the character of points in the outer borderline of a black dot doesn't follow the same logic which determines the character of the points in the interior of the dot, the character of the whole collective of all signs, i.e., the whole universe, doesn't follow the same the same logic which determines the character of the signs interior to the universe. > The support that I offered for my two premises consisted entirely of quotes > from Peirce's writings. Someone who rejects his definitions of Sign and > Object--which require the latter to be external to, independent of, and > unaffected by the former--will obviously reject my argumentation out of hand. > Likewise, someone who denies that the entire Universe is a Sign will just as > readily dismiss it. > Yes, in my counter argument I rejected the part of Peirce's generalization that included the whole universe as a sign. I'm not that wedded to this rejection; I just think it should be considered. > However, in either case, it should be acknowledged that one is deviating from > Peirce's own explicitly stated views; i.e., that he was incorrect to affirm > one or both of those propositions. Then the question becomes what > ramifications this has for his (and our) understanding of Signs and the > Universe. > Yes. I agree. > Regards, > > Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA > Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman > www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt > >> On Sun, Feb 3, 2019 at 3:34 PM Matt Faunce <matthewjohnfau...@gmail.com> >> wrote: >>> On Feb 3, 2019, at 3:55 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt <jonalanschm...@gmail.com> >>> wrote: >>> My argument is deductively valid, so in order to disagree with its >>> conclusion, one must also disagree with at least one of its premises. With >>> which of those premises do you specifically disagree, and why? >> Jon, here's my 2 cents. >> >> I don't think your inclusion of "every" in your major premise, "every Sign >> is determined by an Object other than itself," can possibly have a shred of >> inductive support. That is, I think your major premise is a mere hypothesis. >> >> I wonder if your major premise is analogous to this: "Every point making a >> black dot is black." Here I'm referring to a black area on an otherwise >> white plane. According to bivalent logic it is either true or false that a >> given point making up the black dot is black—and we'd have to say "true." >> But, Peirce discovered tri-valent logic by wondering about the color of the >> outer borderline of the dot separating the black dot from the white >> surroundings, and determined that, since no point in the line can be half >> black and half white, and since you can't butt two points up together (one >> point in the white line surrounding the dot and the other point at the outer >> black line of the dot abutting the white line) with no room in between, the >> borderline's color must be indeterminate. So, the logic by which everyone >> thought the major premise, "every point making a black dot is black", was >> secure, was in fact not applicable to that outer edge, and therefore the >> inclusion of "every" is specious. I think that it may be, by analogy, that >> the logic by which you think the major premise, "every Sign is determined by >> an Object other than itself", is secure, is likewise not applicable to your >> task. I can accept this revision: "every Sign save the universe-as-a-whole >> is determined by an Object other than itself," but that's not useful for >> your task. >> >> The mere possibility that your major premise, "Every Sign is determined by >> an Object other than itself", is analogous to this major premise, "Every >> point making a black dot is black", means that your major premise is a mere >> hypothesis. It's not inductively supported because you can't possibly assign >> a probability to the status of the analogy, for example, "the probably that >> the analogy holds is 25%." It would be like determining the color content of >> beans in a bag after randomly sampling a percentage of beans from all but >> the bottom layer of the bag. The probability that you assign to your >> induction doesn't apply to the contents of the whole bag but only to the >> area from which you were capable of sampling. If you pulled all white beans, >> the statement, "all the beans in the bag are white", must still be treated >> as a hypothesis. (I'm not considering that you have a clue as to how the >> beans got into the bag, as that would be useful information; all that you >> could include in your induction about how the universe got here are further >> hypotheses.) >> >> A valid syllogism that has a hypothetical major premise has a hypothetical >> conclusion. So your deduction begs the question: Can the reality of God be >> logically supported? >> >> Matt > > ----------------------------- > PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON > PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu > . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu > with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at > http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm . > > > >
----------------------------- PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .
