From: GEVANS613-AT-aol.com
Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2003 16:02:53 EST
Subject: Dilemma of Modern Metaphysics  One (a) Malcolm



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Content-Language: en

I had to break this into 3 parts in the end.






One (a)



Malcolm:

In what sense is Kant's transcendentalism a rejection of logic? I think
you're a bit confused as to what 'transcendental' means, especially in
relation to the 'transcendent' reality of a god or gods. The transcendent
isn't transcendental, the former refers to a supernatural realm beyond the
problem of empirical reality and phenomena while the latter represents an
attempt to explain the regularities in our experience of phenomena. Kant's
philosophy isn't a theology, in fact it underlines the modern break with god
and was considered as verging on heresy by the church authorities at the time.





Jud:

I didn't make reference to Kant or say that his philosophy was a theology.
Your comments on the question of logic in general and Kant in particular
raises a series of interesting points regarding what is considered to be
logical and what is to be thought of as illogical.



Videlicet:



The first pitfall is that we are dealing with two of the most dangerous types
of words in any language - abstract nouns. Abstract means: theoretical,
non-objective, conceptual, ideational, that is every Tom, Dick and Harry has
a different personal idea of what it is to be logical and [more importantly]
what constitutes a logical or a logically arrived at determination. There is
no such thing as =E2=80=9Clogic=E2=80=9D in the same way that there is no such thing as
=E2=80=9Ctranscendentalism=E2=80=9D there are only logicians or people who consider
themselves to be reasoning logically, and there are only transcendentalists
who =E2=80=9Ctranscendentalise=E2=80=9D this or that concept.  There are of=20course a
multiplicity of =E2=80=9Ctypes=E2=80=9D or =E2=80=9Carms=E2=80=9D of logicians who manage to rationalise
and treat and accept logically the most extreme positions, and the same goes
for transcendentalists whose range over a spectrum of illogicality from the
half-hearted believer (but non-practitioner) who perhaps goes to church once
per year on Christmas Eve, to the fanatic who will crash a plane into a
building and kill him or herself and as many other people as possible at the
same time.



For example is the belief in God inculcated in the musjid or the madrassa or
the schules, or the religious colleges and schools of the west or for that
matter in the Catholic school in Messkirch where Heidegger received his
initial instruction - is that belief arrived at logically? It is an important
point, for as the Jesuits insist - if you give them a child of tender years
they will give you back a Catholic for life.

You may answer that the logical process is no different in any human being
[apart from the mentally handicapped] and that the apparent differences in
the conclusions arrived at depend on the acceptance or rejection of the
original premises, and that in the case of a belief-system that accepts a
divine being that the belief has been arrived at logically as a natural
consequence of the validity of the premise in the light of a consideration of
other variables both competitive and supportative.

Of course we all know that logic or a logical person is not logical 24/7 and
furthermore a person can [like Kant] be logical in some areas of enquiry but
not in others.



There was a professor of Logic, a man a punctilious personal habits, the very
epitome of rationality and reason, who, after a hard slog in the Lecture Room
went home and caught his wife in bed with the next-door neighbour. He ran to
the kitchen in a most illogical fashion and returned to the bedroom in an
illogical fashion and put twenty stab-wounds in both of them in an illogical
fashion.



I was once many years ago involved in a project which entailed a survey of
the Doctors of Lourdes, and it was discovered that almost one hundred per
cent of the clergy of that city (very logically) visited the doctor when they
required medical treatment, and seemed to have momentarily dispensed with the
illogicality of prayer which they were encouraging and stewarding amongst the
vast crowds of pilgrims that flock to that place to participate in the
drinking of the water whilst praying the while.

Perhaps the logical clergy refrain from supping the water because they are
aware that the spring is in fact formed from a fissure that allows water from
the nearby river to seep up through the crack at the centre of the shrine?

Extensive enquires amongst the denizens of the river-side properties dotted
along the river bank revealed no cases of miraculous recoveries due to
deliberate or accidental immersion in the shrines supply water, but sadly
there were reports of various drownings over the years.



The clergy and the same desperate people who travel hundreds of miles (IMO
illogically) in the hope of a cure, will demonstrate the logical value in
brushing their teeth every day in order to ward off teeth decay.

I am not just taking this opportunity to =E2=80=9Chave a go=E2=80=9D at religious
illogicality but merely pointing out that =E2=80=9Clogic=E2=80=9D in another of those pesky
abstract nouns and that there is NOT one fixed Platonic model of =E2=80=9CLogic=E2=80=9D up
there in the sky somewhere that caters as a template for atheists, the clergy
of Lourdes, the pilgrims, Kant, and the architects of the Great Mosque of
Jerusalem.







One mans logic is another mans fanaticism. Sometimes as in the case of the
7/11 tragedy the, [from the our point of view] illogicality of
transcendentalism  - i.e., any system of religion or philosophy emphasizing
the intuitive and spiritual above the empirical and material, became, in the
actions of the terrorists a dualistic partnership between logic and illogic,
for the planning and preparation of those willing to sacrifice themselves for
their transcendentalist beliefs was extremely logical, so much so [that from
their point of view of their objectives] they succeeded in being more logical
than those agents of the US Government and the politician paymasters who are
remunerated to be logical and to foresee such acts of illogicality.



Kant, [like the murderous Professor] and like any other human being could be
extremely logical in some areas and illogical in others. Kant could be a
transcendentalist too, in spite of his well known logical refutation of the
Cartesian ontological argument - which states that from the concept of a
being containing every perfection it is possible to infer its existence-is,
could be extremely logical in some areas and illogical in others.: Whilst he
was perfectly logical in his demolition of the Cartesian premise that:



=E2=80=9CI perceived clearly and distinctly that existence belongs to the nature or
essence of a supremely perfect being; Therefore, existence can be stated as
true of a supremely perfect being, that is, a supremely perfect being
exists.=E2=80=9D



Descartes' premise from with he proceeded to extrapolate his apparently
logical conclusions were based upon an illogical premise - just like the
young Arabs and Jews and Hindus and Christians of the West.



As ex-President Clinton might have said: =E2=80=9CIt's the accepted premise=20stupid!=E2=80=9D
[nb. this is not directed at you]



We (I - IMO) may wonder if his final acceptance of a supreme being was not
illogical after all, but a logical career-move tactic to secure and mantain
his university position - we will never really know. To be frank I don't know
enough about the prevailing religious pressures upon academia in the
Konigsberg of his time, or the details of his private conversations, to make
a logical judgement.  I just wonder what the future would hold for [say] an
American academic who had a chair in a religiously orientated and funded
university who professed atheism. I don't know the answer to that?



In Kant's words: "If, in an identical proposition, I reject the pedicure
while retaining the subject, contradiction results; and I therefore say that
the former belongs necessarily to the latter. But if we reject subject and
predicate alike, there is no contradiction; for nothing is then left that can
be contradicted" (KrV, B623) It could be sustained that given God, the
necessary predicates of its concept should be verified as God's predicates.
However, if we suppress the existence, every other predicate of God could not
be verified without contradiction. "The omnipotence cannot be rejected if we
posit a Deity, that is, an infinite being; for the two concepts are
identical. But, if we say, "There is no God," neither the omnipotence nor any
other of its predicates is given; they are one and all rejected together with
the subject, and there is therefore not the least contradiction in such a
judgment" (KrV, B623)



Kant states there would be a contradiction only if, given the subject, the
necessary predicates of its concept weren't verified. But the suppression of
the subject together with the predicates wouldn't imply a contradiction. As
to the minor premise, Kant's argues that existence shouldn't be considered a
predicate. Being cannot be a determination of the concept of God; on the
contrary, it requires having the realm of thought, positing as existing what
was before just conceived.



Malcolm:

One of the main claims of phenomenology including Heidegger is a critique of
Kant's transcendentalism and you Jud are one of the most dedicated
transcendentalists on this discussion list:





Jud from a while ago:

Images, impressions are BOUND to be distorted, and even if our brain was on
the outside equipped with absolutely perfect receptivity sensors the light
that comes from space is distorted etc. and would mess things up in any case.
We just have to get on with it and interpret the world with the equipment we
have ready to hand. For me the eyes and ears are extensions of the brain, and
are wired into the brain - if they were NOT a part of the brain then there
would be no need for a link up would there?



Jud:

This is in no way transcendentalist. I merely point out that the
representations that we receive through the senses and which we transact and
interpret by the brain are bound to be distorted, because of the [observable]
laws of physics.

Such is our knowledge of these laws that we have no need to worry that these
distortions affect our judgement untowardly, for we don't go about bumping
into things continually unless we've had more to drink than usual, and then
it is a breakdown in our information processing system that is a fault and
not the incoming information.



Malcolm,

You do remember our thread 'Shall we dance'? I invested some time and effort
into discussing your ontological assumptions.



Jud:

And I with yours



Malcolm:

and we came up with a 'Be-ontologator' that rationally organises and
constructs a reality from sense data perceptions of an external
(transcendental) supersensuous reality.



Jud:

I can't recall the =E2=80=9Csuper-sensuous=E2=80=9D bit? To my knowledge [and it would be
very uncharacteristic of me] I have never relied on information or data
existing outside of or not in accordance with nature as perceived through our
human senses?

Care to elaborate with details of my transcendentalist Kehre?







Malcolm:



It's a distorted Kantian model, and a form of psychologism, and it's also a
mode of transcendentalism through and through.



Jud:

You compliment me and unwittingly agree with my position that thought does
not exist but only the thinking of the thinker.  You may remember that I hold
that ideas are not material but are an existential modality of the neurons as
opposed to physical in nature, though how a conviction that thought is a
human activity, rather than a human materially palpable possession, is by any
stretch of the imagination transcendental and is in the same ball-park as a
stitch-on Peter Pan =E2=80=9Cbeing-wings=E2=80=9D and pop-up-and down mountains - well =E2=80=9C do
declare=E2=80=A6.





(a) What do the widely differing range of logical systems which run from
Aristotelian Logic right up to more modern Mathematical and Modal Logic have
in common? Generally speaking it could be he a methodology of thinking that
that analyses inferences and utilises a system of reasoning rather than blind
faith.



(b) And what do the widely differing range of transcendentalist belief
systems have in common? Well they all appear to include elements of
irrational belief [which they label as intuitively accessed knowledge, which
is almost always =E2=80=9Crevealed=E2=80=9D to them by some religious or transcendentalist
leader or authoritive figure which is an characteristic feature of all
religions and philosophical cults.

The differences appear to be ones of commitment to the belief or to the
leader or written work of such a =E2=80=9Cguide=E2=80=9D which acts as a vade mecum within
which all the answers are set down to cover any contingency in the life [or
death] of the religious or philosophical ecclesia.





End of 1(a)

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