Of Logos & logic

JDHURF said:

“The main point that I would like to make here is that I do not believe that the laws of logic have, were, or will ever be “assumed” rather we, as a thoughtful and cognitive species, have been conditioned to know logical items through evolutionary upsurge. You have not yet told me how, in your view; we ever came to know of logical items. Did “god” tell us? If he did when and where did he do so? I don’t recall the passage in the bible where god is telling people to “assume” the logic that he has placed in the universe.”

Like knows like. Because the mind is supersensible, and because the laws of logic are supersensible, the laws of logic are a natural object thought.

“Let me end the topic of accounting for the laws of logic by saying the following. There are many things to which humans have yet to account for, scientific cosmology is but a yearling in adolescence and cannot be expected to account for everything within the cosmos, how exactly the cosmos was, is and will be and why the cosmos is. There is undoubtedly an answer that may be found and understood in the future but we have yet to come across it and to lay claim that one does, in fact, already know the answer to these questions one is quite full of themselves. I advocate what I consider to be the glory of Promethean revolt and the pleasures of skeptical inquiry. I have no answer to the question, which is unanswerable at present time, and that is one unassailable reason why I so heartily distrust those who claim they DO have an answer.”

One of the problems with this fideistic retreat into mystery is that it fails to distinguish between different domains of knowledge.

If the laws of logic are physical, then it may be possible for empirical science to “discover” them. But if the laws of logic are immaterial, then no advancement in science will discover the laws of logic since they are not the sort of object to which empirical methods are adapted. To suppose otherwise is to make a category mistake.

“I addressed question one in my first paragraph. You now ask me how I came to learn the laws of logic. Now this is what I was actually attempting to do earlier and you mistook my writing for the accounting of logic altogether. Logic is as truth, something that, to some measure, already exists. My view is that through evolutionary advance we as a species acquired the prerequisite characteristics needed to know and understand logical precepts and to then use logic. In the past our ancestors were a species of life that did not have a brain as ours is, this ancestor did not have eyes as we do, they did not have ears as we do, etc. Meaning they could not cognitively filter through their senses and in some cases they did not have all of these senses to filter and understand to begin with. Our ancestors lived and survived with primitive senses and reactions, they knew not of logic or of truth. A distant ancestor without our advanced brain, mind and senses would have survived without the knowledge of how it was doing so. Through evolution this ancestor began to develop advanced senses and abilities such as sight and hearing. After having developed these abilities and characteristics through physical mechanisms it became both possible and plausible that we would learn of and understand logic. We have learned and understood logic thanks to our highly advanced physical brain, how we learned and understood logic has already been briefly described in my prior post. We were afforded the ability to learn of and use logic based on evolution, it was in our survival interest to know and understand not only how we were surviving but how to do so more efficiently. That is what I meant by logic being secondary, it is secondary in this sense. Our ancestors did not know of or understand logic hence it did not exist to them, we now know of and understand logic due to evolutionary adaptation and advance hence it is secondary to this evolution; not to say that it didn’t already exist it simply did not to “us” (our ancestors).”

Several problems:

i) JD fails to explain what logical laws “are.” Since he’s a materialist who equates logic with truth, and contends in the above that logic antedated human awareness, then is he saying that logical laws are bits of matter?

Where do we find logical laws in nature? Where to they exist? Are they like large molecules which we can detect using an electron microscope or atom smasher?

By what empirical means are the laws of logic discernible?

ii) In what sense does truth exist apart from minds? Isn’t true a property of a true belief?

If JD limits intelligence to the biological evolution of rational animals, then in what sense is it true that evolution was true before evolution evolved intelligent species?

iii) In what sense does logic “in some measure” already exist? Isn’t implication a timeless relation? Mustn’t all logical relata coexist for any logical relations to exist at all? If x entails y, then x and y must both exist for y to obtain.

“You have not described this god or this Christian worldview you merely place the hollow word “god” (that has yet to be defined and explained) and claimed that this hollow word vindicates your use of logic, well obviously it does not.”

Here’s a classic definition: “God is a spirit, infinite, eternal, unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth” (WSC Q/A 4).

“1. If you account for logic with the Christian view of god and theology, how then does it actually account for logic?”

The laws of logic are abstract objects which inhere in the infinite, timeless, and supersensible mind of God.

“2. What is the Christian god? How does it function? What are the entities characteristics and attributes?”

I’ve already defined God.

“3. How have you learned of this entity?”

There are multiple sources for the knowledge of God, and multiple arguments for every source. Where would you like to begin?

“How do you know that your knowledge is not merely based on faulty mythology?”

What does mythology have to do with it?

“4. Do you claim to have the answers to life’s uncertainties and unknowables?”

The veracity of the Christian faith isn’t predicated on having all the answers. How is this question responsive to the answers we do have?

“Do you claim that where science is, as of now, unable to provide sufficient answers that you and your Christian worldview can provide them?”

Yes, science is insufficient since science concerns itself with physical questions rather than metaphysical questions. Yet science is, itself, contingent on various metaphysical assumptions.

“5. How is the premise that a Christian god is necessary to account for logic true? What is the evidence for such a claim? What leads you to believe this and why should I accept it?”

You cannot have a true belief without a believer. Logical truths are necessary truths. They must inhere in the mind of a necessary being.

For a full-blown argument embedding abstract objects in the mind of God, cf. www.georgetown.edu/faculty/ap85/papers/PhilThesis.html

“6. How have you come to learn the laws of logic?”

The question is ambiguous:

i) We all enjoy an intuitive grasp of informal logic.

ii) We can study formal logic.

iii) We can study the foundations of logic.