Heidegger

Joseph Polanik wrote:

> Anthony Crifasi wrote:
>
> >>>1. If I know that predicates are attributable to me, then I must know
> >>>that I exist.
>
> >>>2. If I know that I exist, I must know that there is something which
> >>>remains identical throughout all my perceptions.
>
> >>>3. But there is no evidence that anything remains identical
> >>>throughout all my perceptions.
>
> >>>4. Therefore, I don’t know that I exist.
>
> >>>5. Therefore I don’t know that predicates are attributable to me.
>
> >>>Both antecedents (in #1 and #2) are negated by modus tollens.
>
> >>As before, you have reached a self-refuting conclusion. the fact that
> >>you draw conclusion 5 proves ‘I am capable of drawing conclusions’.
> >>this statement contains a predicate. which proves that I attribute
> >>predicates to the referent of ‘I’.
>
> >which is the antecedent in premise 1. which therefore leads to an
> >endless logical paradox, unless and until you address premise 3. which
> >you haven’t done yet.
>
> there is no logical paradox; just a blatant contradiction that is
> removed by rejecting one or more of your premises.
>
> I have addressed your premise 3. I have expressed my skepticism of it.
> let me summarize and extend my critique of this premise.
>
> 1: it is *your* premise; and, therefore, *you* need to support it. you
> have not told us anything about your attempts (if any) to look for
> evidence. what was your evidence detection criteria? did you do a
> complete census of a certain domain or did you just search a
> representative sample of that domain?

Not just me, Joe. Hume tried too. So have a multitude of philosophers
since Descartes. Apparently Joseph Polanik is the first in modern times
to have found positive evidence for whatever entity it is that
supposedly remains identical throughout all human perception. Care to
enlighten us, as well as western history?

> 2: you treat the absence of evidence of Q as evidence of absence — as
> proof of -Q for purposes of perpetrating a modus tollens on premise 2.
>
> if this is allowed, anyone can prove anything using the Crifasi manuver.
>
> A -> B
> claim there is no evidence of B
> (therefore [and this is the Crifasi maneuver]) -B
> (therefore) -A
>
> like this:
>
> If JFK is dead then there is something which remains identical
> throughout all my perceptions.
>
> there is no evidence that anything remains identical throughout all my
> perceptions.
>
> therefore [and this is the Crifasi maneuver], it is not the case that
> there is something which remains identical throughout all my
> perceptions.
>
> therefore JFK is alive

Absence of evidence of Q means that Q is unsupported by evidence. If
this is allowed, then unevidenced assumptions would demand no greater
proof than any other. Like this:

I assert that JFK is alive. I have no evidence that he is alive. But I
don’t have to address that, because all I have to do is point out that
you haven’t proven that he is dead (you haven’t been to his tomb,
exhumed his body, examined it, etc.).

Note to the googlers of Joseph Polanik - not only does he now claim to
be the first in western history to have found positive evidence for
whatever entity it is that supposedly remains identical throughout human
perceptions, but he also thinks JFK is alive.

And yet he doesn’t see why he is getting the same reactions here that he
got on the other Google philosophy discussion groups.

> 3: as flawed as is your attempt to justify -B for purposes of
> perpetrating a modus tollens on premise 2, premise 2 is itself absurd.
>
> you have justified premise 2 by the claim it is a “necessary condition
> of My existence - i.e., that I remain self-identical throughout all my
> perceptions”.

LOL - he’s now clipped out my FURTHER argument for that premise FIVE OR
SIX TIMES IN A ROW! For the sixth or seventh time, here it was:

> >LOL - my answer is and WAS: “Denying that would be denying an identical
> >referent for the identical first person pronoun that I use to refer to
> >myself at any point in my life (I was born, I am now X, I will die).”
>
> >So my argument explicitly appealed to the IDENTITY of the first person
> >pronoun - i.e., that you have yet to produce any reason whatsoever for
> >the continued identity of the first person pronoun if its referent were
> >to lack a continued identity.

So since you have yet again chosen to simply ignore that part of my
argument, could you please explain to all the future googlers of Joseph
Polanik why you keep getting similar reactions on all the Google
philosophy groups to which you’ve posted?

Oh and by the way, address the argument.

> >>existence is a necessary (but not a sufficient) condition of
> >>perceiving. a stone exists but does not perceive. for you to claim the
> >>reverse, that perceiving is a necessary condition of existing, you
> >>would have to show either that stones perceive or that stones do not
> >>exist.
>
> >I see that you have now accepted Heidegger’s demand to transcend all
> >logic.
>
> I see that you are trying to pass off an obvious logical fallacy as
> compliance with a supposedly Heideggerian philosophy of transcending all
> logic.
>
> even the Heidegger himself was not *that* foolish.
>
> toward the end of his career, Heidegger makes a startling admission. in
> discussion Descartes, Heidegger writes: “The formula which the
> proposition sometimes has, ‘Cogito ergo sum’, suggests the
> misunderstanding that it is here a question of inference. … The sum is
> not a consequence of the thinking, but vice versa; it is the ground of
> thinking, the fundamentum.” [1]
>
> this is, of course, all that Descartes needs to prove ‘I experience;
> therefore, I am’.
>
> Heidegger is using ‘being’ as his root predicate (ie to carry the
> meaning ‘not nothing’) while we have been using ‘exists’ or ‘existence’;
> so, we must translate back and forth.
>
> once we notice experiencing anything at all, we deduce that the logical
> preconditions of experiencing have been satisfied; and, thus, we can say
> either: ‘I experience; therefore, I am’ or ‘given that I experience; it
> is necessarily true that I am’.

Please don’t talk about Heidegger - trust me, it doesn’t make you look good.

> 4: In your post of 2008-04-03, you acknowledged that you were trying to
> disprove the assumption that one may not attribute predicates to
> nothingness.
>
> for the benefit of future googlers, the relevance of this assumption is
> quite simply this: having established ‘I am’ have I established ‘I am
> not nothing’? well, yes — provided that when attributing predicates to
> ‘I’ (eg that I experience or that I am capable of experiencing) I am
> attributing predicates to something rather than to nothing.
>
> So, Anthony, if you want to claim that I have not proven that I am not
> nothing; then, you have to *either* admit assuming that *you* can
> attribute predicates to nothingness, *or* present your proof that this
> is possible.

Sure, let me “prove” this using the Joseph Polanik maneuver:

1. I assert that I can attribute predicates to nothingness.
2. But I don’t have to address how I prove or know this, since all I
have to do is point out that Joseph Polanik hasn’t proven that this is
impossible, but only continually asserts it.
3. Therefore, by Joseph Polanik’s mode of argument, I can attribute
predicates to nothingness.

Oh, and JFK is alive.

How’s that tinfoil cap fitting, Joe?

Posted on Wednesday, April 16th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
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