Can reason defend itself?: Philosophy Forums

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Can reason defend itself?

yffer
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Posted 07/28/07 - 11:47 PM:	#21
Nonblack Raven wrote: Let me ask my obvious question again: What is the alternative to reason? Why exactly do you consider it superior to reason? Answer these and I am interested, but I suspect you cannot--without using reason. Thatâ€™s not really the main question of this thread, rather it is, Can reason defend itself? Several of us have responded with no it can not. If reason cannot defend or justify itself then itâ€™s based in belief. It starts out from belief, faith ,assumption etc., meaning ultimately everything is belief, including the assertion everything is belief, which is absurd. Is there an alternative to belief? Well some beliefs appear to have a greater degree of justification then others. That said, if all reason and knowledge is belief, is based in belief, it doesnâ€™t follow that the awareness of belief is belief. That is, existence is not a belief if it cannot be refuted. The assertion, Existence is not a belief, might be refutable, but existence itself is not. Of course if all claims are beliefs then nothing can be said about existence that is not belief. It has to be left unsaid, meaning there is a kind of knowledge of ones existence that is not based on reason and intellect.

Taffer
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Posted 07/29/07 - 02:25 AM:	#22
jwdink wrote: But I think there's a difference between knowledge in the more useful, everyday sense, and knowledge in the sense of 100% certaintly. Of course the latter is impossible. Are you certain? In reply to anyone making a statement, you could say the following: "ah, but you can't be certain. You could have made a mistake in coming up with that statement." But then, what most people don't realise, is they could say "ah, but you can't be certain of that. You could have made a mistake in coming to the conclusion that I could have made a mistake." And if you tried to deny this statement, you would be applying a double standard of sorts: they might have made a mistake, but there is no chance that you made a mistake. I think it's pretty obvious where this is going. If you accept "but you could have made a mistake when coming up with that statement" as an acceptable reply to any statement, you don't just make rational discourse about certainty or uncertainty impossible. You make any rational discourse whatsoever impossible. Of course, certainty is not really a property of statements. It is a state of mind. I would characterise "certainty" as follows: to say you are certain of a statement is to say that you cannot imagine it being false. There are things of which I am certain. I am certain of statements such as "a and (a implies b) implies b" or "7 is not a square number". As for "can reason defend itself?" if by "defend" you mean "justify", the answer is no. Some things are simply true, and cannot be proven without being assumed in the proof. The principle of induction is such a thing - any proof of the principle of induction necessarily uses the principle of induction. Heuristically, such obvious principles, which are preliminary to any kind of rational thought whatever, cannot be (non-circularly) justified, because the act of justifying them would be an act of rational thought. Edited by Taffer on 07/29/07 - 02:47 AM

dclements
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1 of 1 people found this post helpful Posted 07/29/07 - 06:02 AM:	#23
yffer wrote: Thatâ€™s not really the main question of this thread, rather it is, Can reason defend itself? Several of us have responded with no it can not. If reason cannot defend or justify itself then itâ€™s based in belief. It starts out from belief, faith ,assumption etc., meaning ultimately everything is belief, including the assertion everything is belief, which is absurd. Is there an alternative to belief? Well some beliefs appear to have a greater degree of justification then others. That said, if all reason and knowledge is belief, is based in belief, it doesnâ€™t follow that the awareness of belief is belief. That is, existence is not a belief if it cannot be refuted. The assertion, Existence is not a belief, might be refutable, but existence itself is not. Of course if all claims are beliefs then nothing can be said about existence that is not belief. It has to be left unsaid, meaning there is a kind of knowledge of ones existence that is not based on reason and intellect. I pretty much agree Nonblack Raven on this, because there is nothing to examine reason with other than reason itself. If fact you can not examine anything without reason. If you think more along the way of what Nonblack Raven you would realize how faith and reason are different which answers jwdink's question. Ideas or beliefs can be invalidated using reason. Faith can not invalidate anything. This alone is enough to show that they are not the same. If ideas or beliefs are flawed they can only be discovered flawed through reason and not through faith.
No, you don't get it, thats why I'm telling you. You think you get it, which isn't the same as actually getting it. Get it?-Kakashi Hatake Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied, And vice sometimes by action dignified-Friar Lawrence The state of mind that questions is much more important than the question itself.Any question may be asked by a slavish mind, and the answer it receives will still be be within the limitations of its own slavery...Freedom of desire for an answer is essential for the understanding of a problem-Krishnamurti

dclements
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Posted 07/29/07 - 07:56 AM:	#24
jwdink wrote: But I think there's a difference between knowledge in the more useful, everyday sense, and knowledge in the sense of 100% certaintly. Of course the latter is impossible. So what? That statement is a contradiction. If you know that nothing is 100% certain, then how are you 100% certain that it is impossible that for anyone to be 100% certain of anything? Besides it is possible for someone to 100% certain of something, but it is a non-trivial problem.
No, you don't get it, thats why I'm telling you. You think you get it, which isn't the same as actually getting it. Get it?-Kakashi Hatake Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied, And vice sometimes by action dignified-Friar Lawrence The state of mind that questions is much more important than the question itself.Any question may be asked by a slavish mind, and the answer it receives will still be be within the limitations of its own slavery...Freedom of desire for an answer is essential for the understanding of a problem-Krishnamurti

jwdink
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Posted 07/30/07 - 07:01 PM:	#25
Added on edit--if you wish certainty--I agree you cannot get it. But if you wish to live a life and decide what to do--then one needs starting points, as uncertain as they may be. Ahh. Then we agree. I wasn't asking "can reason defend itself in everyday situations realistically?" No, my question was much more philosophical and useless. I was asking "Can reason defend itself, or is it a type of belief?" It appears it is the latter. But I agree that to function we need to have some base assumptions and starting points. The question is, can reason defend itself as a starting point? It cannot. Fortunately, however, it looks like as humans we cannot help but use it as a starting point, whether we want to or not. If you think more along the way of what Nonblack Raven you would realize how faith and reason are different which answers jwdink's question. Ideas or beliefs can be invalidated using reason. ...assuming that the person with who you're talking with is rational. Which, if they're a human, then they probably are. Still, you can't disprove something with reason if I don't accept reason as a valid method of truth finding. That statement is a contradiction. If you know that nothing is 100% certain, then how are you 100% certain that it is impossible that for anyone to be 100% certain of anything? Besides it is possible for someone to 100% certain of something, but it is a non-trivial problem. I never said I was 100% certain that we can't know anything with 100% certainty. That doesn't make it a contradiction. But let's try a little thought experiment. You try and convince me to be 100% certain of something-anything, and I'll try and see if I can find a way out of it.

universalanomaly
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Posted 07/31/07 - 03:00 AM:	#26
jwdink wrote: I think this is what I'm talking about when I speak of "reason". My original question is can a priori logic defend itself with itself, or do you just have faith in these methods of thinking? I am not sure what you think reason/logic needs to defend itself against. It is based on how we think and make sense of the worldâ€“ our mindâ€™s ontology. If you are asking if this ontology corresponds exactly with external reality, I think modern empirical science finds that some fundamental concepts we use to think of the world are fundamentally incorrect or over simplified. Of course this should be expected because evolution has a pragmatic, not epistemological mechanism. In looking for reality, this does not mean we should reject reason, even if this were possible. As NBR very appropriately quoted Neurath, " No tabula rasa exists. We are like sailors who must rebuild their ship on the open sea, never able to dismantle it in dry-dock and to reconstruct it there out of the best materials." In other words, there is no way to simply reject our mode of thought. Reason is the best tool for thought that we have and when applicable, we can fine tune some parts and replace others but we cannot simply reject everything and start from scratch. Rejecting reason completely gets you to a point where thought cannot continue. Even skeptical conclusions concerning the truth of reason or logic are reached through reason and logic. Moving on to religion.. It is not fair to compare religious faith with rational thought. Religious faith rests on the same ground as reason but also requires that additional leap of faith. The reasons for rejecting a religion are epistemological and not ontological (at least not on the level of reason or logic).
Taking evolution as the starting point for morality is no different than claiming the laws of physics are necessarily good because they are the laws of physics. "Any desire is imperative to the extent of its amount; it makes itself valid by the fact that it exists at all." William James

Taffer
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Posted 07/31/07 - 07:27 AM:	#27
jwdink wrote: I never said I was 100% certain that we can't know anything with 100% certainty. That doesn't make it a contradiction. But let's try a little thought experiment. You try and convince me to be 100% certain of something-anything, and I'll try and see if I can find a way out of it. Are you 100% certain that it is even possible that we can't know anything with 100% certainty? Are you 100% certain that there is not anything that you are 100% certain of? Come on, it doesn't take much imagination to see where this is going. With this kind of dialogue, rational discussion of pretty much anything breaks down. Edited by Taffer on 07/31/07 - 07:34 AM

dclements
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Posted 07/31/07 - 09:23 AM:	#28
jwdink wrote: ...assuming that the person with who you're talking with is rational. Which, if they're a human, then they probably are. Still, you can't disprove something with reason if I don't accept reason as a valid method of truth finding. Just because someone chooses not to use reason or uses flawed reasoning doesn't mean reason itself is flawed. I do not think you grasp the problem of trying to understand the world and argue positions without the use of reason. If a problem can not be understand through reason than it is simply unknown. Which such problems there is no way to prove any idea or belief about it correct intill there is something is known about it. You may think that there is some sort of problem with using reason or that it is biased, but you have not explained what it is. As far as I can tell, if there are any ideas or beliefs that are flawed in some way the only way to fix them is through better ideas discovered using reason. That is because you can not invalidate any idea without it. jwdink wrote: I never said I was 100% certain that we can't know anything with 100% certainty. That doesn't make it a contradiction. Actaully you did. In the following post you said 100% certainty in knowledge of anything is impossible. jwdink wrote: But I think there's a difference between knowledge in the more useful, everyday sense, and knowledge in the sense of 100% certaintly. Of course the latter is impossible. When you say that something is impossible, you are saying that there is no way that it is possible which is the same as saying that you are 100% certain of it not being possible. It is possible that you really didn't mean what you said but you said it none the less. jwdink wrote: But let's try a little thought experiment. You try and convince me to be 100% certain of something-anything, and I'll try and see if I can find a way out of it. Sorry but even if I was able to be 100% certain of anything, as a typical human being you are unable to be. As I said before, being certain of anything is a non-trivial problem, which means the complexity of it makes it questionable whether it is possible. If you really want to understand the problem I suggest you study up Postmodernism and philosophers such as David Hume. For now I while merely explain how it is plausible to be 100% certain anything. The first problem you have to overcome is the mind-body problem. While we can be certain that 2+2=4 it is only true because we say it is true for the rules that we create in our mind. Anything outside of our mind and influenced by reality has the problem of not being true even if in our mind we know it to be true.This is because our minds are only partial simulation of reality and can not perfectly represent what reality is. If you were aware of every sub-atom quark (or even smaller elements if they exist) and your mind was a perfect simulation of what reality is you would be possible for you to overcome the mind-body problem. After that, you would have to understand all of the cause-effects relationships in the world around you. Of course this would enable you to predict the future perfectly. If you were able to do all this in essence you would have become omniscient. While it is not know whether it is possible for a being to be omniscient, it is certainly plausible. Anyways this isn't really all that important as I already answered your question you had in the OP of this thread by showing the difference between faith and reason. dclements wrote: Ideas or beliefs can be invalidated using reason. Faith can not invalidate anything. This alone is enough to show that they are not the same.
No, you don't get it, thats why I'm telling you. You think you get it, which isn't the same as actually getting it. Get it?-Kakashi Hatake Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied, And vice sometimes by action dignified-Friar Lawrence The state of mind that questions is much more important than the question itself.Any question may be asked by a slavish mind, and the answer it receives will still be be within the limitations of its own slavery...Freedom of desire for an answer is essential for the understanding of a problem-Krishnamurti

jwdink
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Posted 07/31/07 - 09:26 PM:	#29
Just because someone chooses not to use reason or uses flawed reasoning doesn't mean reason itself is flawed. I do not think you grasp the problem of trying to understand the world and argue positions without the use of reason. Of course I do-- one simply cannot. We, as humans, need to use reason to function and survive. Unfortunately, I "do not think you grasp" that this is not the problem we're talking about. If a problem can not be understand through reason than it is simply unknown. Which such problems there is no way to prove any idea or belief about it correct intill there is something is known about it/ Again, I never said anything whatsoever about understanding, proving, or demonstrating correctness of some other method of understanding. Of course everything is unintelligible without reason. I never disagreed with this. Of course I believe that reason is the only way we can interpret our world. Unfortunately, I have no way of proving that this is the correct way, and you've shown me no proof that it is, aside from stating that there's no intelligible alternative to it. When you say that something is impossible, you are saying that there is no way that it is possible which is the same as saying that you are 100% certain of it not being possible. It is possible that you really didn't mean what you said but you said it none the less. Sorry, you're right, that seems hypocritical. My defense is that whenever I say something, there's always the somewhat implied but mostly ignored assumption that I could be wrong. So when I say "it's impossible to establish 100% certainty", what I mean is "I believe it's impossible to establish 100% certainty". Sorry but even if I was able to be 100% certain of anything, as a typical human being you are unable to be. This is exactly what I'm saying. I think you're just disagreeing because you misunderstand me, and think I'm attacking reason, or something. As I said before, being certain of anything is a non-trivial problem, which means the complexity of it makes it questionable whether it is possible. If you really want to understand the problem I suggest you study up Postmodernism and philosophers such as David Hume. Please don't throw names at me, as if I don't have any idea of what I'm talking about. As for your tangent of the mind-body problem: yeah, I think this is essentially the problem. We can't be sure what our happens in our minds even reflects reality. So an obnoxious denier could just deny all premises you presented, and you'd be left without a way to demonstrate how they are wrong. This is because they are premises that you have taken on faith-- there is no way to ground them in reality and be sure you have done so correctly. This is all I'm arguing. You have to have a tiny bit of faith that your sense perceptions are trustworthy (mostly) and your reasoning is sound (usually) before you can function. But this tiny bit of faith, itself, is not strictly cause by reason. And try as you may, you can't disprove this by continuing to insist that "functioning without reason is really hard" or "there's no alternative". Hopefully this answers this: You may think that there is some sort of problem with using reason or that it is biased, but you have not explained what it is. The "problem" is that it's based on premises, and these premises are not themselves rational. Hopefully, however, you won't think I'm attacking reason, or saying that someone with faith in Zeus is just as good as someone with faith in reason. I agree with universalanomaly: It is not fair to compare religious faith with rational thought. Religious faith rests on the same ground as reason but also requires that additional leap of faith. The reasons for rejecting a religion are epistemological and not ontological (at least not on the level of reason or logic).

jwdink
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Posted 07/31/07 - 09:29 PM:	#30
Are you 100% certain that it is even possible that we can't know anything with 100% certainty? Are you 100% certain that there is not anything that you are 100% certain of? Come on, it doesn't take much imagination to see where this is going. With this kind of dialogue, rational discussion of pretty much anything breaks down. Are you saying that rational discussion breaks down when we reject reason? Because I just... never would have expected that. It just doesn't seem to follow. Just because my premises makes everything unintelligible to us (as one would expect) doesn't mean reason can justify itself. Sorry. This is like arguing against moral relativism by saying "well then I can just shoot you huh and you'll be okay with that??"

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