Argument Against Ignorance
October 12th, 2008, search relatedRelated posts :: The Claim of Partial Ignorance :: CPI und OD :: On the Alleged Impossibility of Claims of Partial Ignorance :: The unStated Case for ‘All that is, is Matergy’
The Experiento: Allegations of Demolition 4: Argument Against Ignorance
if I might summarize one strand of our recent discussions to provide
some focus…
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!’
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.]
3: the CPI - I know that I am; but, not what I am.
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.
how is it known that those who conclude ‘{via negativa stuff here} …
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:
“if I, Jud, assert ‘god is’ I claim to lack knowledge of god’s
existential modalities.”
“if I have no knowledge of god’s existential modalities -> I have no
knowledge of the existence of flowers, insects etc.”
“I have knowledge of flowers and insects.”
“therefore I have knowledge of god’s existential modalities”
“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.”
“Oooops.”
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.
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.
Joe
–
Philosophy is, after all, done ultimately in the first person for the
first person. — H-N Castaneda
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http://what-am-i.net
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