File spoon-archives/heidegger.archive/heidegger_1998/heidegger.9807, message 97


From: "Anthony Crifasi" <crifasi-AT-flash.net>
Date: Wed, 8 Jul 1998 18:27:54 -0500
Subject: Re:  In dubium revocari


Steven Callihan wrote:

> Actually, I have argued your side of the argument previously--my flipping
> coin argument. If we flip a coin, and on the first flip a head turns up and
> on the second flip a tail turns up, we can be as certain as we can possibly
> be, it seems to me, that the coin has a head on one side and a tail on the
> other. But what convinces us of this? Simply that appearances that we dub as
> real tend to possess the quality of either remaining stable (not changing)
> over time or changing in a pedictable manner. It is our experience that
> coins do not just all of a sudden change fromm having a head and a tail to
> having two heads or two tails, unless someone has switched the coins.
> 
> The "truths" of mathematics (2+2=4) would rest on the same sort of
> assumption. I would suggest that mathematics rests on assumptions that we
> can hardly doubt without tossing mathematics out of the window. That is
> different, I think, than saying that those assumptions are immediately
> certain. Ultimately, it seems to me, assertions as to the truth of
> mathematics rest on the truth of logic. Is logic an immediate certainty?
> Once again, I cannot help but think that it is a case of being compelled to
> affirm the truth of logic under the penalty otherwise of having to dispense
> with all truth.

For me, the immediate certainty of 2+2=4 has nothing to do with 
consequences such as having to "dispense with all mathematics." Rather, 
when I imagine two things and add two other things, I simply and immediately 
cannot conceive of the result being anything other than four things. The 
consequences of rejecting this result may be a further consideration, but they 
do not constitute the phenomenon of the immediate certainty of 2+2=4. The 
case is the same with logical axioms, such as A=A. Further, the flipping coin 
example is not equivalent to the mathematical example, since I can easily 
conceive of the coin somehow morphing as I flip it (even though I have never 
experienced such an occurrence) so that a different face shows up after it 
lands. That is not inconceivable, whereas it is inconceivable for me that 2+2 
would equal anything other than 4.

> Another problem is that every assertion of truth is subject to the question
> "why?" In answering such a question, we must either enlist other purported
> truths as reasons why this particular truth must be taken indubitably as
> being true or we must simply refer back to the consequences of not accepting
> the assertion, which necessarily brings other assertions of truth into play.

The other possibility is the one supported by Aristotle - that there are some 
truths which are known absolutely immediately, and therefore do not at all 
depend on anything else for their certainty, though one may propose posterior 
defensive arguments such as the "consequences of not accepting the 
assertion." For example, Aristotle held that the principle of non-contradiction is 
absolutely primary, and although he proposes reductio ad absurdam arguments 
in order to refute those who question it, he points out that these are not proofs 
because reductio arguments themselves depend on the principle of non-
contradiction.

> The point, it seems to me, is simply that there are no isolated truths, no
> truths that do not appear on the stage already fully supported by a whole
> train of other truths (things which we do not doubt). As such, there is no
> one immediately certain truth from which all other truths might follow, in
> that there is no truth that does not depend on other truths (even 2+2=4
> depends on the affirmation that 1=1).

Then the primary affirmation in question would be A=A, or at least that A 
cannot be both A and not-A.

> Peirce, in "The Fixation of Belief," dispenses with this problem by simply
> stating that there is an abundance of things which we would hardly conceive
> of doubting. Ultimately, we believe that certain things are indubitably
> true, because to believe otherwise would be to see all the cards fall to the
> ground. 

For me, the problem with this (and with many of the theories proposed by 
analytical philosophers such as Peirce) is that it is refuted by our reaction to 
opposing worldviews (ie, other "decks of cards"). The essence of certainty, 
phenomenologically, is not that "if I reject this my whole world falls apart." 
Rather, it is that "I immediately see that it cannot be otherwise, and any 
worldview which denies it must be wrong." If certainty were based simply on the 
maintainance my worldview, then part of certainty would not be the 
condemnation of other worldviews which deny it, which is quite common.

Anthony Crifasi


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