Allegations of Demolition 4:…
October 12th, 2008, search relatedRelated posts :: Allegations of Demolition -(2)- :: Allegations of Demolition -(3)- :: Allegations of Demolition (2) :: Allegations of Demolition
In a message dated 07/10/2008 11:14:59 GMT Standard Time, _jPolanik at nc.rr.com_ (mailto:jPolanik@nc.rr.com) writes:
The Experiento: Allegations of Demolition 4: Argument Against Ignorance if I might summarize one strand of our recent discussions to provide some focus…
Joe:
You seem to be defending the claim that nothing that is lacks properties by which one may say what it is. as I’ve mentioned before, I think this is quite plausible and hope you’ll provide your argument in favor of it soon. in any event, I do not contest it; instead, I merely claim that I might not know enough about its properties to say what it is. You apparently believe that it is not possible to make such claims; but, you’ve never explained how to get the knowledge of ‘what’ out of the awareness ‘that’ in the three situations I’ve mentioned:
1: the end/turning point of the via negativa - ‘… and, yet, god is!’
Jud:
I am not happy with your careless phrase (negligent from an ontological POV) *nothing that is.* It untidy, unspecific, unprofessional and un-philosophical. We are not concerned particularly with *WHAT is* (*what it exists as* your obsession) we are initially concerned with the fact THAT such an object exists AT ALL.. Such existential judgements are such that add to the concept of the subject (formalised predicationally) and such predications naturally add to our knowledge of WHAT an object is - WHAT KIND of an object is under judgemental consideration.
I will proceed on the basis that I am defending the claim that in order to be the subject of an existential judgement that which is named and known of a priori will have been automatically the recipient of some existential modalities as attributed by past human instantiators, i. e., the persons who have encountered the name previously, approved it, and mapped it to a known denotatum in the past.
If the current human judge, faced with a name, is already a member of that class of antecedal instantiators, then the connection will be made and the name will be referentially linked (complete with its acknowledged existential modalities i. e., *the white ship* or *the tall man* or The Russian girl* etc., to the existentially modalised denotatum, the link will be judged to be a valid one.- and the object -properties relationship will be approved. If the name is unknown to the person who encounters it, either aurally, or visually, or in the case of a blind person by touch (braille) then it is impossible for such a person to assign any properties to it whatsoever, and as far as that person is concerned (not being a member of the class of antecedal instantiators) there is no evidence that the object exists at all and FOR THEM the object will be judged bereft of a denotatum and declared existentially invalid.
En passant, I am in complete agreement with Kant that exists is not a predicate in itself, for like Descartes the phony predicate
*I exist*
does not add any further predicational information to that which is already conveyed by the subject
*I*
together with and already providing the existentialising, humanising predicate
*think.*
The spurious * therefore,* crudely used to reintroduce the unnecessary logically arrived at conclusion *exist* bit tacked on the end is surplus to requirements - i. e., it is a redundancy.
*I experience* of course falls into the same category of self-referential instantiation, for the determining predicate *experience* takes care of any doubts that the language equipped subject is an alive and kicking human being.
Joe:
in this post, I’ll consider the first example: ‘god is’ and your claim that no one (not even someone reaching the end of the via negativa) can say ‘any, yet, god is’
one of your arguments is:
[Jud]: If such a person concluded that nothing can be predicated of God in addition to the his/her awareness of the term GOD then he would not (even if he/she were a cretin) be in a position to acknowledge the existence of some *thing* (a flower, an insect, a drain cover, a sexual disease, a dumpling etc.) for in his ignorance of any modality being attributed to such a unknown term he would be bereft of any existential or instantiational modes to map to any meaningless putative noun.
Jud:
The above means that it is impossible for a person to assign any properties to the word *God* whatsoever, then it would not even be possible to map the word *God* to anything. The items: a flower, an insect, a drain cover, a sexual disease, a dumpling etc. are merely example of the sorts of nominata that it would be possible to link with the word GO. IS NOT THAT CLEAR ENOUGH IN THE LAST LINE OF THE QUOTE YOU PROVIDE? This is what annoys me Joe - you rake over the same stuff over and over.
Joe:
how is it known that those who conclude ‘{via negativa stuff here} …
Jud:
I will ignore the *via negativa* stuff here for the last time. I am NOT like Heidegger claimed to be - a theologian.
Joe:
and, yet, god is!’ are then unable to know anything about a flower? is this the conclusion of empirical research; or, are you trying to pull off a Crifasi-style modus tollens? what is that, you ask? one such fallacy is as follows:
Jud:
See above for the TWO explanations I have already provided.
“if I, Jud, assert ‘god is’ I claim to lack knowledge of god’s existential modalities.”
Jud:
See above for the TWO explanations I have already provided.
“if I have no knowledge of god’s existential modalities - I have no knowledge of the existence of flowers, insects etc.”
Jud:
See above for the TWO explanations I have already provided.
Jud:
See above for the TWO explanations I have already provided.
“I have knowledge of flowers and insects.”
Jud:
See above for the TWO explanations I have already provided.
“therefore I have knowledge of god’s existential modalities”
Jud:
See above for the TWO explanations I have already provided.
“however, according to my definitions, god doesn’t have any existential modalities at all because god is not an existent.”
“therefore my definitions are incorrect.”
Jud:
See above for the TWO explanations I have already provided.
Joe:
“Oooops.”
Jud:
The Oooops! is yours - not mine. Please pay closer attention to the text.
Joe:
perhaps, you’d be better off denying the conditional (if I have no knowledge of god’s existential modalities - if have no knowledge of the existence of flowers, insects etc.) for which there is no basis.
Jud:
See above for the TWO explanations I have already provided.
Joe:
of course that would mean you’d have to come up with a more plausible argument as to why no one can claim ignorance as to what god is.
Jud: See above for the TWO explanations I have already provided.
I would appreciate it if you did not insult my intelligence with this *via negativa* crap. I am not some half-arsed theologian attempting to describe *God* by negating the crackpot attributions of Christian sheep, nor do I seek to speak of God only in terms of what may not be said about the word God. I HATE the idea of God - not because I hate the belief in some disgusting phantom that does not exist - but because of the real things in the real world that are committed by fanatics who believe in this monster of the imagination.
So please drop the *via negativa* crap, which has no place at all in any discussion with an eliminativist.
Number 1. turns on two possibilities, but typically (obscurantism and imprecision being a feature endemic to trannie lists) you fail to say whether
(A) The *term *… and, yet, god is {god}* means that the iconoclast is not referring to him or her self but to the twits who still continue to believe in such godly guff - in spite of the iconoclastic denier’s exhortations?
or
(B ) The mental state is one of some inadequate iconoclast, who, though rejecting all that is modally attributed to God, finally concludes that in the last analysis and in spite of all that he has said: FOR HIM *God still exists.*
Until you clarify that point, there is no point in me proceeding.
Joe:
2: the number two - ‘there is an even prime number’ [is it a phenomenological reality or an ontological reality; or, does it have an existential modality; etc.] Number 2
Jud:
1 .Phenomenological realities or anything in which considerations of objective reality are not taken into account is not ontology - it is mysticism and belongs in the tents of gypsy fortune tellers and other mountebanks.
2. Ontological *reality* does not exist either - only that which is ontic exists.
3. Neither does number (any number) have any existential modality, for in order for an existential modality to be attributed by a human to another human or another object it must exist or have existed spatially and temporally.
The concept and instantiation of number is an attributed existential modality of those who employ numbers as useful fictions - i. e., not just mathematicians, but ordinary folk buying butter and eggs in a shop etc.
Jud
**************
