Simplicity of Being

[penfold]

Jac,

Enjoyed your post. You seem to be a very rare breed: a Christian realist. Kudos. I will, as before, divide my post up into sections. Though if this goes on much longer it may be better to split some of these discussions off. There are only so many bifurcations a thread can endure before it becomes unreadable. However it being your OP I will leave the decision to you.

i Nature of God (again):

Let us start with 'pure act':

[...]you make two mistakes. The first is to presume that 'act' requires change. This is not the case. Act only requires change in human bodies due to our limited nature. When we act, we change. The particular act that God is, is the act of existing. It is the act that instantiates all other acts. It is, thus, the perfect act. Your second mistake is that you are using 'act' univocally when referring to God and man. I won't hold that against you, because I had not yet made the distinction when you offered your post. It should be clear from my words to Davin, however, that nothing in man can be univocally attributed to God, but only analogically. 'Act' is no different. In any case, I think we should be in agreement that DS has no logical problem with things like the Atonement.

You agree that an act in the phenomenal universe requires change. You sidestep this by point out that that there is no univocal agreement between the nature of things in the phenomenal and the nature of God. Thus the pure act is fundamentally different from act and the only link is analogically (rather than a mere difference of degree, which would characterise an univocal relationship - cf Thomas Aquinas). The problem with the relationship being analogous is that it is consequently interpretive.

So I reiterate the question I posed in my previous post: How can I discern what is true and what is merely interpretive regarding pure act? Worse still because pure act has no 'real world' reference point we cannot even ensure our interpretations match each other, so it follows that in literal terms pure act is meaningless!

[...]
...quote from Joseph Owens ...

[F]or any series of efficiently caused causes there is a first cause. It is first in the sense that it does not have its being from anything else. It has no efficient cause prior to itself. Accordingly it has no cause of its being whatsoever. It is an uncaused cause. Its being, therefore, is not prior to its nature but is simultaneous or coincident with it. Its being is not in any way accidental to its nature but is of its nature and in its nature. Its very nature is to be. The first cause, consequently, is not contained within the series of caused causes. It is extrinsic to that series, somewhat as the mathematician remains outside the mathematical series he constructs. However, in the entire series of causes, caused and uncaused together, it is first in order (

An Elementary Christian Metaphysics, p. 80-81)[/list]
The point should be clear enough. Complexity and change in nature does not require complexity and change in God because God is not a part of the causal chain itself. He is above it, animating it.[...]

While God as causal sustainer is elegant (and more than a little Hindu â€" Vishnu anyone?), it does not answer my fundamental question about complexity. What it does do is explain that, no matter how complex the phenomenal is, we can still talk of a common property of being . Which is fine, but this does not address how complexity arises.

This leads onto a further point about divine simplicity:

The phenomenal universe is, as you concede, complex. So the problem is how complexity can arise from simplicity WITHOUT change in the simple. We know from the mathematics of Chaos Theory (cf Lorenz â€" Deterministic Nonperiodic Flow) that complexity can only arise from the interaction (ie change) of no less than three simple systems.

What we have no example of in the phenomenal universe is the arising of complex behaviour from a lone simple system. It does not follow that the way the phenomenal works is mirrored in the ontological, however it does lead us to one conclusion. Divine simplicity is NOT the same as phenomenal simplicity (which cannot alone lead to complex behaviour), so as with act and cause you are using simplicity in an analogous manner. Which means it suffers from the same problems of interpretation and reference.

I want to emphasise this point because I think it is central. If you disallow univocal reference to God then all reference must be analogous. If God is only referred to by analogy then your access to God is interpretive. Interpretation without reference points is impossible to check. I know that we agree on the meaning of the word red because we can refer (look at that fire extinguisher etc...). When talking of God (one little quibble: but philosophy about God is theology) we have no reference. Couple that with your rule banning univocal descriptions of God and we have no way of checking agreement between the meaning of our analogies of God. It is possible that two people could completely agree that God is pure act while unwittingly being at complete odds over interpretation of that word!

As a side note I also think you are guilty of the very sin you accuse the analytical philosophers of. That of inverted intentionality. According to you God has all these descriptions: simple, pure act, sustaining cause etc... Moreover all of these descriptions are analogous rather than univocal (ie divine act differs qualitatively from phenomenal act). However to use a word like 'act' analogically you are making a second order move. You are using the meaning of 'act' rather than the reality of act to describe God when you say: “presume that 'act' requires change. This is not the case. Act only requires change in human bodies due to our limited nature. When we act, we change. The particular act that God is, is the act of existing.” (bold my own). In other words you are using the second intention of act over the primary intention and using that to make a claim about God.

ii Analytical Philosophy:

Analytical philosophy, the method penfold employs, forbids us to speak of reality. However, when penfold attempts to tell me what is true about philosophy, words, causal chains, God, DS, etc., he is speaking of reality. In short, his method allows him only to speak of the meaning of words, not to the actual thing to which they refer. As such, it necessarily leads to absolute skepticism since it can say nothing of reality. As such, since we do think we can talk about reality, we should simply reject the method. There is no reason not to study reality given the method I have first suggested, namely, being qua being.

I fundamentally disagree with this assessment of analytical philosophy. The fallacy of inverted intentionality is a broad critique but it does not encompass all modern analytical philosophy.

To take one example: Wittgenstein. While the Vienna set, most notably Ayer, interpreted Wittgenstein as schilling for the primacy of language over reality, Wittgenstein himself denied this (vigorously as it happened, claiming that “reality” while logically inaccessible was none the less what was “most important” - which goes some way to explaining his life-long Catholicism).

His point was that how language works provides this us with a limit to meaning. There is no inherent committing of the fallacy of inverted intentionality (or use/mention) in this move. Just because Wittgenstein has limited himself to discussion of the second intention it does not follow he is claiming language's primacy over reality, he is merely limiting the scope of meaningful conversation. The kind of statement that Ayer (or later figures like Derrida) made to the effect that language precedes reality are clearly committing the fallacy (as well as containing its own inherent paradox), but you can find no such statement in Wittgenstein.

More centrally though let us talk about the use/mention distinction.

This presents a most serious problem for analytical philosophy, because it means that it has absolutely no way to speak about reality. In fact, analytical philosophy is only capable playing linguistic word games! None of its concepts can ever have any impact on, nor can be impacted by, reality. In fact, it is just here that we see that the entire system is built on a fallacy that Veatch calls Inverted Intentionality. Analytical philosophy cannot speak of men, only "men." This distinction in linguistics is called use and mention. Now, such philosophers commonly admit that this is the case. Their definitions do not allow them to speak of men properly. But, of course, they go on to talk, as your very own post showed, as if they really are talking about the world itself! At bare minimum, they are confusing the use with the mention, which is a fallacy that must be avoided. In response, they argue that it is not they, but we classical philosophers who are making the confusion, because we believe we are talking about men when in fact we are only speaking about "men." Yet the moment they make that claim, they fall invert intentionality. Let me give you a real example. I'm sure you agree that a thing cannot be both red and green in the same way at the same time. But is this a grammatical or real rule? In other words, is it true that things cannot be both red and green in the same way at the same time because our grammar says so, or does our grammar say so because this is true of reality? Clearly, the latter is the case, and yet, this is precisely where analytical philosophy proves useless and contradicts itself, bringing down the entire enterprise! For when they insist that they are not speaking of red or green, but only "red" and "green," they cannot say that "red" and "green" mean what they do because they describe red and green. What they have tried to do is make second order statements determine reality itself. That, however, can't be done. We have a name for people who think that their words alone can determine the nature of reality: witches and warlocks.

There is an awful lot to unpack here. I am also somewhat stymied by the fact that you seem to be dealing with both Kantian idealism and Wittgensteinian linguistic theory together; really we should separate the two but in interests of space I will follow your lead. So forgive me jumping between/ conflating the two in what follows.

The 'red'/'green' example is a nice one so I will stick with that. You are correct that there are some analytical philosophers who would say that because something cannot be both 'red' and 'green' at the same time in grammatical terms so something cannot be both red and green in reality. This is the basic position of logical positivism, and I entirely agree with Veatch that such a line of argument is fallacious.

However that is not the only route open to analytical philosophy. The other option, and one that I would say both Kant and Wittgenstein themselves ascribed to, is that the statement 'nothing can be both red and green' is logically true but does not exclude the possibility that an object is both red and green.

That requires a bit of explaining. Essentially the central point is one of reference. Kant and Wittgenstein do not 'lose the right' to talk of reality. What they does is limit what can be said about it. The reason why something cannot be red and green all over is due to lack of reference. When we talk of an object being one colour 'all over', we are excluding the possibility of it being another colour all over. As this would conflict with our usage of 'all over'. So we literally cannot understand what it means to say an object is red and green all over, without changing our understanding of an object. HOWEVER this does not entail that an object in itself cannot be red and green all over. As such the fallacy of inverted intentionality does not arise because statements about the universe do not refer to the ontological but only the phenomenal.  

Take a more basic example. The ball is red. What is important to understand is I am not making a claim about the ball in itself (the ball qua ball) rather it is a statement about my perception of the ball (the ball qua me). UNLESS I make the claim that 'the ball is red' refers to the ball qua ball I cannot be accused of prioritising the secondary intention over the first (thus I cannot be committing the fallacy of inverted intentionality nor, you will note, am I conflating use and mention).

However you will undoubtedly have noticed that the effect of this line of thinking (extended even further with a Wittgensteinian linguistic turn) reaches the position that we can never refer to things in themselves. Your second point was that this could lead to scepticism:

iii Scepticism:

I have always felt that scepticism gets a bum rap. In fact the sceptical method of Descartes and the analytical philosophers did not lead to some nihilistic stalemate where all meaning was lost. Rather it gave rise to the hugely potent scientific method. When Kant dismissed the possibility of accessing things in themselves he left a gap for rigorous examination of the phenomenal word. Released from the shackles of having to describe What-X science became free to focus completely on How-X.

In fact the sceptical solution (the possibility we are totally in error about everything) contains a lot of wisdom. It demonstrates that we can never have access to a truth which is external to us. The truth only exists as we understand it. Truth qua humanity.

iv Alternatives

So as I see it we are still left with the 'problem' of not being able to talk about things in themselves. Realists like Veatch want to be able to do just that. In order to do this it has to be shown that one can access things in themselves. Or put another way, it must be shown that we can access the ontos of things. It is hear that realism looses me. To say that philosophy should return to a What-X logical system presupposes that What-X questions are capable of answers.

Now forgive me if I am mistaken but this must require a theory of direct correspondence of our perceptions and reality. That seems to me shockingly naïve. It implies that things in themselves match in a meaningful way to our perception of them (for how else could we have access to them?)

Look at our earlier example of 'the ball is red'. The analytical philosopher uses that phrase to refer to our perception of the ball (the ball qua us). What of the realist? He is forced to say either that 'the ball is red' is true for the ball qua ball (which is absurd, just look at the same ball under pure blue light, it will appear black!) or else it is not strictly true (and that the correct statement would be “the ball appears red”)! Either way the position is absurd.

While I accept that analytical philosophy is bleak in so far as we can never discern truth qua reality (only truth qua humanity), it seems to me that to claim otherwise requires that you demonstrate that we can access reality qua reality. You need to show that we have access to objects in themselves.

peace

[Jac3510]

Again, penfold, fantastic reply. I thoroughly enjoy reading your posts.

[Jac3510]

If a sentient being decides what is moral, then that morality is subjective. You have not shown where my logic does not follow, only said that it does not.
For morality to be truly objective, it cannot be decided upon, it would just be. You're essentially saying that gods morality is both subjective and objective.

As I pointed out before, God is not under any reality, because no reality exists prior to Himself. Morality is part of His very nature. It is not subjective, because He doesn't decide to change it anymore than He decides to change the fact that He exists. Now, if you want to use the word "subject" in the statement, "God is subject to the law of non-contradiction," then fine, in that same sense, God is "subject" to His nature. I'll comment more on this below where you simply replied, "Hmm."

I didn't say arbitrary, this would be much easier if you responded to what I said and not add or remove anything from the statement you're responding to. The point is that if morality is not in gods control, just as objective morality must exist independent of any sentient being, then even god would be subject to that morality. If you're not willing to discuss what I'm saying, then just say so, but don't start responding to something else while pretending to respond to me.

If you didn't mean arbitrary, then you have not understood my argument. If God is required to do anything, then there must be a reality external to Himself under which He is required to operate. If that is the case, then He is not a simple being, because He is not pure act; He has the potential to be acted upon. Therefore, for God to be able to change morality, if He is to be God, it must be arbitrary, that is, found only with reference to Himself.

Again, God is not under any morality external to Himself. The word "morality" ultimately has its signification in the nature of God. The way He operates is the means by which we judge whether or not something is "moral."

Hmm.

God is not subject to the law of non-contradiction. The law of non-contradiction is what it is because God is what He is. The fundamental point of the Law is that something cannot both be and not be in the same way at the same time. That is, the Law is rooted in the nature of Being. If God is pure being, then the Law is what it is because of what and the way God is. God is not subject to the Law. It is defined by its relationship to Him.

It cannot be linked to reality without being able to provide evidence of it. You keep putting these statements in then tell me I can't use the philosophical tools necessary to determine what is real? This is definitely not the reality with which we are confronted, there is nothing in reality confronting us that would even point us in this direction.

The Law cannot be linked to reality? Your statement is too vague here. Can you restate?

Here you say god doesn't change, not that god can't change which is what I said. This is comparing different statements. Of course if god has the power to change the law but doesn't is no reason to assume that the god is subject to the law, however if the god can't change a law, then the god is subject to the law.

Not under DS they aren't. To speak of what God "can" do is to assume potentiality in God. Yet there is no potentiality in God under DS. The statement "God can X" is meaningless. The question is what God does. He is, again, pure act. God does not change. It is impossible. It would violate the Law, because a changing God would not be God.

No, there is no way to judge morality from god, because there is nothing about god that we can be sure about.

Ontologically, morality is judged by God. Epistemology is a different matter.

The problem with this statement is still the same, in the example you gave you can certainly say we can and can't do certain things, but I'm explaining my problems are with the concept itself and am not even going to go into the world of the concept until after these things are cleared up. "[W]e know that we attribute nothing to God" is not a good statement and is something I disagree on because there is no way to know this. However if you will refrain from statements like "[W]e know that we attribute nothing to God" and "That is the reality with which we are confronted" without actually backing that up with how we know and the evidence that it is the reality we are confronted with. Either stay purely philosophical or start providing evidence, but stop trying to be philosophical and linking it to reality without fulfilling the burden that that entails.

This thread is not on the issue of whether or not God is Simple. It is on the doctrine of simplicity. It is explaining the concept. If the concept turns out incoherent, then we reject it. But in examining it, it must be assumed. If you want to have an argument on whether or not God is simple, we first have to establish whether or not He exists. We have other threads for that.

I have no reason to accept this even just philosophically. All this means is that people are making things up and saying they are kind of like what they think god might be represented as. Too much uncertainty to be taken as meaning anything. Analogies are not useful for showing what is real or not because they require no link to reality.

Again, you don't have to accept this as being the proper representation of God. What you do have to do is accept that this is the way the doctrine is formulated. You are asking me to prove something that hasn't been defined. That's logically impossible. You have the cart before the horse, my friend. Why do you think I started this thread before I started the thread on whether or not God exists?

You link sight as analogous with good, however I'm linking sight as analogous with evil.

I link sight to good and blindness to evil as a logical and necessary consequence of the definition of sight, blind, good, and evil. I'm not making a value statement. I'm making a logical statement. Goodness is that which is in accordance with intended reality. Evil is that which lacks intended reality. Blindness is not a thing. It is a lack of a thing, namely, sight. Sight is good because it is the intended function of the eye.

Now, if you wish to link sight with evil, be my guest. I will need to see if you are doing this as a mere value statement or if it is the necessary conclusion of your broader ontology.

No, I don't. I can see evil as the presence of something and good as the lack of something just as you can see good as the presence of something and evil as the absence.

All you are doing is playing with labels, Davin. If you want to call evil the presence of something, then I will call God evil with no harm to my position whatsoever. "Evil" in your definition means exactly what "good" means in my definition including all that entails. The important thing is not the words. They are just conventional signs. The important thing is the ideas these signs signify.

But we would then need to show that either good or evil is non-existent, before we can say that we can't link good or evil to a god that can only have things that exist attributed to it... analogously. Remember we are only attributing things to god through analogy, so it doesn't matter if the thing exists or not.

Is darkness a thing, Davin, or is it a lack of light? Is cold a thing, Davin, or is it a lack of heat?

If all you mean by "good and evil" are pure value statements, "Rape is evil because I don't like it for this or that reason," then let's find another word to talk about what I am calling good and evil. The point is that you cannot attribute non-existence to existence. You cannot attribute privations to existence. It's just a logical fact. If all you mean by good and evil is a personal value system, then neither can be attributed to God. You asked, however, how it is that morality could be rooted in God's nature. That is how this whole conversation got started. The way it is rooted in God's nature is that those words do not represent value statements. They represent ontological statements about the presence or lack of existence, which are rooted in the nature of God, that is, in Existence Itself. You can reject that scheme, but just because you reject it doesn't make it invalid. It just means that morality can be rooted objectively in God's nature. You just don't think that is actually the case. Of course, we aren't talking about what you think is actually the case. We are talking about what it would mean if this or that was the case.

How is hatred truly the lack of kindness and not that kindness is truly the lack of hatred?

Because that would mean that kindness is a short-hand for "the non-existence of hatred," which would in turn imply that hatred is the intended relationship between people, which is obviously not the case.

Then why do you have objections to my wanting to have evidence and falsification before determining if a thing is real?

For two reasons.

First, because the purpose of this thread isn't to discover what is real. It is to define the concept of simplicity, which I take to properly signify God. And second, because, as I've already explained, falsification is a tool of science. We don't "falsify" philosophical positions, because philosophical positions don't make empirical predictions. We examine their implications and ask if those implications fit what we see in the world. For instance, if you decided to call hatred the lack of kindness, that position requires us to believe that hatred is the intended relationship between people, and that hatred was therefore good and kindness was therefore evil. That is obviously not the case.

There are some philosophies that lead us to solipsism. They should be rejected. There are philosophies that conclude with the idea nothing can be known. They should be rejected. It is clear that there are other entities and that some things are actually known. You are free to hold to those positions, of course, but you will be forced to live in a perpetual state of cognitive dissonance, on the one hand saying you are the only thing that exists and that nothing can be known, and other the other hand living as though others exist and things can be known.

Philosophy, done properly, is extremely practical. Its goal is to make sense of the world as we live in it. If your philosophy leads to to conclusions that force you to live in such dissonance, it ought to be rejected unless some very, very strong reasons for holding it can be presented.

Analogous references to god are meaningless to me because analogies are not reliable representations of reality. Because analogies can be completely fictional and even make absolutely no sense at all.

Give me an example of a "completely fictional" analogy.

Right, so what you're presenting cannot be falsified because it's analogy. At best you can say that god is an analogy for what really exists.

Of course it can't be falsified. I said that in the first place, remember?

That does not mean we can't reject it as impossible, absurd, or just unlikely.

Somewhat funny.

And true. Verificationism was rejected many years ago. It is self-contradictory.

But it's not coherent under DS, you've just removed all links of DS to reality by making all attributions analogous, and analogies are easily shown to be unreliable representations of reality. One can draw any analogy to anything, the only useful purpose of analogy is to explain a concept, not to show how something is true. So because you removed all ability to show that DS is true, there's no reason to continue except as an exercise in speculation.

[/quote]
You are confusing coherence with truth. Just because something is coherent doesn't make it true. A proof for truth would be as follows:

1. If God exists, He exists as described in the doctrine of simplicity (DS)
2. God exists
3. Therefore, He exists as described in DS.

The truthfulness of DS isn't proven by analogy. It's proven by proofs for God. The concept of DS, however, is perfectly meaningful. You can reject it if you like. I couldn't care less about that one way or the other. The question is whether or not it is coherent on its own merits. As of now, you've said nothing to challenge it. In fact, almost nothing in this reply had to do with DS at all, but only about what we know or can know to be true.

[Jac3510]

Ok penfold, let's go ahead and address your issues. I'll start by noting that I am a realist (a moderate-realist, to be precise; Aristotelian, not Platonic, and certainly a moral realist). I'll follow your same breakdown.

i Nature of God

A. Pure Act and Analogical Language

1. I'm afraid you might have gotten your idea of analogy and univocity a bit mixed up. Allow me to quote from Owens again here, not that authority is important, but only in that we are discussing the technical meaning of terms:

In univocal predication all the instances belong to the same species or, at least for the logician, to the same genus. Churchill and Stalin, for example, are instances of "man" . . . the definition, as signified by the word, is the same in all cases. . . . Between the two extremes [univocity and equivocation] are found various types of partial sameness and partial difference. One is analogy. The word was borrowed from Greek mathematical vocabulary. There it meant sameness of ratio or proportion . . . outside arithmetic . . . the sameness of proportion . . . is not equality but merely similarity. It is a likeness in the respective ways in which the terms are related to each other in the two pairs. But the likeness is found in a feature that differentiates the instances. . . . The one identical notion, accordingly, s partly the same and partly different. (

An Elementary Christian Metaphysics, pp. 86-87)[/list]
It seems that differences of degree are a matter of analogy and not univocity. In univocity there is no difference in degree; only difference in the individual predicated. I am a human and you are a human. 'Human' is predicated to both of us without difference in degree. There is a degreed difference in analogates, however. In fact, analogates themselves are subdivided further between properly proportionate analogates and improperly proportioned analogates. An example of the former is "Sharp is to touch as shrill is to hearing." The proper proportion is "sudden" or "intense." An example of the latter is "Lindbergh was an eagle," which you will also recognize to be metaphor. We can go still further with Owens and distinguish these from predication through reference, in which Aristotle's examples were "healthy" and "medical."

This may be a point of semantics, but if we are going to charge that analogical language, at least pertaining to God, is meaningless, we need to be very precise in our terms. If, on the other hand, you are using "degreed" in a specific sense, do tell, because while I am a Thomist, I am hardly going to pretend that I have mastered Thomistic philosophy specifically or Scholastic philosophy generally.

2. There is, then, no difficult in understanding the meaning of 'pure act.' Although you are correct that 'act' in and of itself is not univocally predicated pure being, its predication via analogy allows us to know something of its nature. We may not know precisely what it is, but that doesn't mean we don't know anything about it. In fact, even Aquinas was clear on this. He says, "Now, because we cannot know what God is, but rather what He is not, we have no means for considering how God is, but rather how He is not."

I would also like to comment specifically on this:

What we have no example of in the phenomenal universe is the arising of complex behaviour from a lone simple system. It does not follow that the way the phenomenal works is mirrored in the ontological, however it does lead us to one conclusion. Divine simplicity is NOT the same as phenomenal simplicity (which cannot alone lead to complex behaviour), so as with act and cause you are using simplicity in an analogous manner. Which means it suffers from the same problems of interpretation and reference.

You are absolutely correct here! There can be no absolutely univocal predication to God of anything found in creation. The reason, of course, is evident in the nature of a simple being. If all perfections exist as one in God, not diversified, and completely unlimited, and yet none of them exist in such a fashion in creation, then all predication is only analogical. It does not follow from this, however, that such speak is meaningless. It is extremely important here to emphasize Aquinas' point. We do not know what God is. We can, however, know what He is not. Whatever conception you or I have in our head is wrong for the simple reason that it cannot capture the infinite. It is rather like being warned about a particularly spicy food and then tasting it, only to discover that it was far more spicy than you expected. Your original conception that it was spicy was true. Until you experienced it, however, the best you could do was an approximation.

We approximate what God is by talking about what He is analogically and rigorously denying Him the rest. So I think your point about meaninglessness is overstated, although in it is a very important and true point. It is true that we do not know what God is (and I think we will never even know in eternity) in Himself. Only God knows that, and that by His nature. We can, however, know what He is not, and as such, we can know that certain descriptions of Him are closer to representing whatever He must be than others.

Finally, as far as my own inverted intentionality, I appreciate the sparring, but if that were true, then no analogy would really be possible. It is true that we have to be rigorous in our recognition of what we do and don't apply to God and how we do so. The analogy of act, as I've said somewhere else, is the act of being. It is the most perfect of all acts, because that act gives reality to all other acts and perfections. Do we "be" though? No, so to speak of God as the 'act of being' as analogical to our own actions. From this, it should be all the more apparent why there can be no potentiality in God, because that would imply that God was, in some sense, both being and not being in the same way at the same time, which, of course, is impossible.

B. God As Sustainer vs. Simplicity

God can give rise to complexity while remaining simple in view of the fact that when we say that He is pure act, we are referring specifically to efficient causality. I'm not a mathematician, so I'll just grant your point that three systems are necessary to give rise to complexity. Fine.  There is nothing that says God can't bring as many systems into existence as He so desires. This gets into the actual meaning of creation ex nihilo. Properly understood, the doctrine teaches that the universe has an efficient and final cause, but not a formal or material cause. God, as Being, can simply will other things into Being. That is what we mean by saying that God is the First Cause.

As far as how He would do so, remember that all perfections are in Him virtually, though obtained and thus exemplified, though more eminently than in us, since in Him they are all unified whereas in us they are diversified. He is certainly capable of willing a nature into existence that has any of these perfections He so desires. Yet it cannot logically be that any of these creations would be simple, because none of them would be pure being. All created beings will receive their existence from outside of themselves, and since they all receive their being, all will be limited. As such, all will be a combination of potentiality and actuality, meaning that all will express their perfections in a limited and diverse way, and this is the thing we call complexity.

Beyond that, I fail to see how it is that a simple God is fundamentally incompatible with a complex world. The very act of creation--that is, the very act of a FC causing anything--creates complexity by the shear fact that it is bringing into existence that which does not have existence in itself, and thus, the created thing must be a composite of both existence and essence.  

ii Analytical Philosophy

how language works provides this us with a limit to meaning. There is no inherent committing of the fallacy of inverted intentionality (or use/mention) in this move.

No, there isn't. However, the nature of the limitation, when extrapolated, necessarily results in the fallacy if people attempt to speak about reality. Again, look at Kant's definitions from which all this comes. All statements are either analytical or synthetic. The former are true by definition and the latter are a combination of concepts and so may or may not be true. Yet in this scheme, there is no way to break out of the linguistic word game to talk about reality. 'Bachelor' may refer to 'unmarried men,' but 'bachelor' does not refer to unmarried men. The latter cannot be addressed without confusing use and mention. Thus, absolute skepticism is the necessary result when applied to the nature of reality (a qualification I should have made earlier).

The other option, and one that I would say both Kant and Wittgenstein themselves ascribed to, is that the statement 'nothing can be both red and green' is logically true but does not exclude the possibility that an object is both red and green.

That requires a bit of explaining. Essentially the central point is one of reference. Kant and Wittgenstein do not 'lose the right' to talk of reality. What they does is limit what can be said about it. The reason why something cannot be red and green all over is due to lack of reference. When we talk of an object being one colour 'all over', we are excluding the possibility of it being another colour all over. As this would conflict with our usage of 'all over'. So we literally cannot understand what it means to say an object is red and green all over, without changing our understanding of an object. HOWEVER this does not entail that an object in itself cannot be red and green all over. As such the fallacy of inverted intentionality does not arise because statements about the universe do not refer to the ontological but only the phenomenal.

You will have to explain this again. It cannot be that an object itself cannot be red and green all over. That violates the law of non-contradiction. It is absurd. The reason we have the grammatical rule is because the way reality itself is. We didn't invent the grammatical rule because of our psychology. If something can both be and not be in the same way at the same time in reality, there is nothing to say that something cannot both be and not be in the same way at the same time in our thoughts, meaning the grammatical rule is baseless.

Further, through this entire discourse, you are talking about "an object in itself." If Kant is right, then even the phrase "an object in itself" has no reference to anything in reality. It is still just a statement of the second intention. Again, you can't talk about reality in an analytical scheme, and in this very paragraph, you illustrate inverted intentionality by committing it yourself. In trying to describe what we can and cannot say about objects in themselves, you are talking about objects in themselves which your philosophy will not allow. Your words "object" "in" "and" "of" "itself" are all just concepts that are tied to your perception, not reality. So when, in your mind, you apply them to objects themselves, you invert the intentionality. The only option is to not claim we are talking about reality, but we are truly only playing word games. You acknowledge this, which leads us to a discussion on skepticism.

iii Scepticism:

The truth only exists as we understand it. Truth qua humanity.

Do you realize this is just a self-defeating statement? It is just advocating relativism. You may as well say "There is no such thing as truth," to which the obvious answer is, "Is it true that there is no such thing as truth?" You will respond, "There is truth, but we cannot know it." To which the question is returned, "Do you know that we cannot know truth?"

Anyway you turn, you contradict yourself. In your own statement, the truth only exists as you understand it. Is that just your understanding? If so, what if it is my understanding that Truth exists in and of itself? Further, your position assumes that epistemology determines ontology, which is absurd. To know reality is to discover it. It is not to determine it. Again, people who think their mere words or thoughts make up reality are called witches and warlocks. That, my dear sir, is called magic.

If you can't talk about reality in itself, you can't know anything. You can't even talk about whether or not you can talk about reality in itself, because "reality in itself" is a meaningless construct. On then, to your alternatives.

iv Alternatives

Now forgive me if I am mistaken but this must require a theory of direct correspondence of our perceptions and reality. That seems to me shockingly naïve. It implies that things in themselves match in a meaningful way to our perception of them (for how else could we have access to them?)

And here we finally come to the heart of the matter. First off, I'll beat the horse of self-contradiction again. You can't say that such an idea is naive, because you are talking about reality again, which you aren't allowed to do. In the second place, far from being naive, starting with epistemology is fundamentally self-contradictory, as I've argued before. To talk about how we know reality is to assume that there is such a thing as reality to be known. The Aristotelian structure works today just as well as it ever did. We have direct access to reality via judgment of being, apprehension of form, and abstraction of the virtual to the universal. Far from naive, the position is sophisticated and rigorous.

Look at our earlier example of 'the ball is red'. The analytical philosopher uses that phrase to refer to our perception of the ball (the ball qua us). What of the realist? He is forced to say either that 'the ball is red' is true for the ball qua ball (which is absurd, just look at the same ball under pure blue light, it will appear black!) or else it is not strictly true (and that the correct statement would be “the ball appears red”)! Either way the position is absurd.

This is just a misunderstanding of classical philosophy. When you put the ball under pure blue light, it may appear black, but it is not black. It is red. But what is red? Red is an accidental property of that particular ball. That accidental property may react different ways with different substances, and so in some cases, "appear black" (which is another accidental property). Yet again, you have confused epistemology with ontology. Just because something appears to be the case (epistemology) does not affect what it is (ontology). The position is not absurd. Denying we are talking about the ball is absurd.

You need to show that we have access to objects in themselves.

Far from it. You need to show that we can't. It is intuitively obvious that we have access to reality. The fact that we can actually effect reality in predicable ways confirms this. It is counter-intuitive of the highest order, and borders on magic, to claim otherwise. Now, I can work out a system for how it is that we access reality directly. Aristotle and Aquinas have given us a fantastic start on that.

You, on the other hand, want us all to believe that knowledge of reality is absolutely impossible because we cannot speak of reality in and of itself. I suspect that when every atheist here talks about theists or Christianity or Barak Obama, they are pretty convinced, for good reason, that they are talking about theists, Christians, and Barak Obama, not words they just invented.

[Sophus]

Do you realize this is just a self-defeating statement? It is just advocating relativism. You may as well say "There is no such thing as truth," to which the obvious answer is, "Is it true that there is no such thing as truth?" You will respond, "There is truth, but we cannot know it." To which the question is returned, "Do you know that we cannot know truth?"

Pardon, but as a Nihilist myself (I'm not speaking for penfold) this is one of my favorite pet peeves to correct.  

Do I know any of this to be true, beyond a shadow of a doubt? Of course not! The brain is not capable of infallible knowledge but that does not mean it is is incapable of being right.

[Davin]

As I pointed out before, God is not under any reality, because no reality exists prior to Himself. Morality is part of His very nature. It is not subjective, because He doesn't decide to change it anymore than He decides to change the fact that He exists. Now, if you want to use the word "subject" in the statement, "God is subject to the law of non-contradiction," then fine, in that same sense, God is "subject" to His nature. I'll comment more on this below where you simply replied, "Hmm."

Does this version of god have control to change its rules of morality if it chose to do so?

I didn't say arbitrary, this would be much easier if you responded to what I said and not add or remove anything from the statement you're responding to. The point is that if morality is not in gods control, just as objective morality must exist independent of any sentient being, then even god would be subject to that morality. If you're not willing to discuss what I'm saying, then just say so, but don't start responding to something else while pretending to respond to me.

If you didn't mean arbitrary, then you have not understood my argument. If God is required to do anything, then there must be a reality external to Himself under which He is required to operate. If that is the case, then He is not a simple being, because He is not pure act; He has the potential to be acted upon. Therefore, for God to be able to change morality, if He is to be God, it must be arbitrary, that is, found only with reference to Himself.

Again, God is not under any morality external to Himself. The word "morality" ultimately has its signification in the nature of God. The way He operates is the means by which we judge whether or not something is "moral."

I understand your argument, these are the problems I have with your argument, where your argument doesn't make sense or where your argument is impossible.

God is not subject to the law of non-contradiction. The law of non-contradiction is what it is because God is what He is. The fundamental point of the Law is that something cannot both be and not be in the same way at the same time. That is, the Law is rooted in the nature of Being. If God is pure being, then the Law is what it is because of what and the way God is. God is not subject to the Law. It is defined by its relationship to Him.

Can this version of god violate the law of non-contradiction if it chose to?

It cannot be linked to reality without being able to provide evidence of it. You keep putting these statements in then tell me I can't use the philosophical tools necessary to determine what is real? This is definitely not the reality with which we are confronted, there is nothing in reality confronting us that would even point us in this direction.

The Law cannot be linked to reality? Your statement is too vague here. Can you restate?

Sure, you said, "That is the reality with which we are confronted."

Once again I asked you to either stop telling me I can't use the philosophical tools necessary to determine what is real or not while you keep saying that the things you're saying are real. So what is it going to be? You stop dismissing my tests for reality or you stop saying things are real. Either stay purely philosophical or start providing evidence, but don't just start saying things like "That is the reality with which we are confronted" right after saying something like, "The law of non-contradiction turns out to merely be an expression of God's nature[...]" because that is not the reality we're confronted with. In fact nothing in reality even points to that direction.

Not under DS they aren't. To speak of what God "can" do is to assume potentiality in God. Yet there is no potentiality in God under DS. The statement "God can X" is meaningless. The question is what God does. He is, again, pure act. God does not change. It is impossible. It would violate the Law, because a changing God would not be God.

I'm not even going to go into this concept until the things that don't make sense are cleared up.

No, there is no way to judge morality from god, because there is nothing about god that we can be sure about.

Ontologically, morality is judged by God. Epistemology is a different matter.

Then you should retract your statement that I was replying to: "God is the standard by which morality is judged."

This thread is not on the issue of whether or not God is Simple. It is on the doctrine of simplicity. It is explaining the concept. If the concept turns out incoherent, then we reject it. But in examining it, it must be assumed. If you want to have an argument on whether or not God is simple, we first have to establish whether or not He exists. We have other threads for that.

Then stop saying things are real. My only objection is that you state that things are real then try to limit me on determining if what you said is something that can even be real. All I'm asking is for you to either remain purely in philosophy, or fulfill your burden when you say something is real.

Again, you don't have to accept this as being the proper representation of God. What you do have to do is accept that this is the way the doctrine is formulated. You are asking me to prove something that hasn't been defined. That's logically impossible. You have the cart before the horse, my friend. Why do you think I started this thread before I started the thread on whether or not God exists?

No, I don't understand how I can make this request any clearer: Don't say things are real without fulfilling the burden that it entails. If you say something is real, then provide the evidence that shows that it is real. Otherwise, just stop saying things are real.

For more clarification; I'm asking for you to stop saying the things you're saying are real or to fulfill the burden of proof. If it's logically impossible for you to fulfill the burden of proof when you say that something is real, then don't say that it's real.

I link sight to good and blindness to evil as a logical and necessary consequence of the definition of sight, blind, good, and evil. I'm not making a value statement. I'm making a logical statement. Goodness is that which is in accordance with intended reality. Evil is that which lacks intended reality. Blindness is not a thing. It is a lack of a thing, namely, sight. Sight is good because it is the intended function of the eye.

If the eye was intended at all. The function of the eye is likely not intended at all. We don't know if the eye was intended or not and if it was intended, what the eye was intended for. We can only be sure what we use the eye for.

Now, if you wish to link sight with evil, be my guest. I will need to see if you are doing this as a mere value statement or if it is the necessary conclusion of your broader ontology.

All you are doing is playing with labels, Davin. If you want to call evil the presence of something, then I will call God evil with no harm to my position whatsoever. "Evil" in your definition means exactly what "good" means in my definition including all that entails. The important thing is not the words. They are just conventional signs. The important thing is the ideas these signs signify.

What you're doing is once again misunderstanding what I said: "Evil" in my definition means exactly the opposite of "good" in your definition. The important thing is to make sure you understand the other persons position before you start telling them what they're doing.

Is darkness a thing, Davin, or is it a lack of light?

Depends on the wavelengths you're attempting to see in. Right now in some slow moving wavelengths, you can see the early universe where everything was very hot which makes the sky very bright. Really nothing lacks light, even unmoving walls eight stories underground are shedding infrared wavelengths. So which light and darkness are you talking about? Maybe you're talking about light and darkness as subjectively through a humans perception of the wavelengths through the eyes, in that case darkness is just less light. Too little light is not good because then we can't see, but too much light is worse because it can damage the eyes to never see again. So in this analogy too much light is worse than too little light because it causes much more damage to the eyes. Unless you consider a person going blind as a good thing, then this analogy shows that the more good there is the more damage it causes, while if there is much less good, then no real damage is done.

Is cold a thing, Davin, or is it a lack of heat?

Cold isn't the lack of heat, in fact we haven't found anything that lacks heat at all. We have talked about absolute zero where the particles stop moving completely, but never have we ever seen anything like that. Cold is a subjective term in that it's cold to you. In this analogy does that mean that evil is merely a subjective term to something that has less good than we find comfortable? What about things that are too hot, would that not also be applicable to this analogy that too much good is bad just as too little good?

If all you mean by "good and evil" are pure value statements, "Rape is evil because I don't like it for this or that reason," then let's find another word to talk about what I am calling good and evil. The point is that you cannot attribute non-existence to existence. You cannot attribute privations to existence. It's just a logical fact. If all you mean by good and evil is a personal value system, then neither can be attributed to God. You asked, however, how it is that morality could be rooted in God's nature. That is how this whole conversation got started. The way it is rooted in God's nature is that those words do not represent value statements. They represent ontological statements about the presence or lack of existence, which are rooted in the nature of God, that is, in Existence Itself. You can reject that scheme, but just because you reject it doesn't make it invalid. It just means that morality can be rooted objectively in God's nature. You just don't think that is actually the case. Of course, we aren't talking about what you think is actually the case. We are talking about what it would mean if this or that was the case.

Aye, now if you could understand what I said without making the assumptions I clearly pointed out that you were making ans still making, we wouldn't have had to waste all this time. What I'm saying is: what if you got the intention of god wrong? What if the nature of god is the opposite of what you think it is? How would you know?

How is hatred truly the lack of kindness and not that kindness is truly the lack of hatred?

Because that would mean that kindness is a short-hand for "the non-existence of hatred," which would in turn imply that hatred is the intended relationship between people, which is obviously not the case.

What if hatred was the intended relationship between people? What makes that "obviously not the case."? What if neither were the intended relationship between people? What if there is no intended relationship between people? Why should I accept that kindness is the intended relationship over these other options?

Then why do you have objections to my wanting to have evidence and falsification before determining if a thing is real?

For two reasons.

First, because the purpose of this thread isn't to discover what is real. It is to define the concept of simplicity, which I take to properly signify God. And second, because, as I've already explained, falsification is a tool of science. We don't "falsify" philosophical positions, because philosophical positions don't make empirical predictions. We examine their implications and ask if those implications fit what we see in the world. For instance, if you decided to call hatred the lack of kindness, that position requires us to believe that hatred is the intended relationship between people, and that hatred was therefore good and kindness was therefore evil. That is obviously not the case.

If the thread isn't to determine what is real, then, once again, stop saying things are real or that "we know" this or that, which is trying to make your philosophy cross the bridge from what the mind can imagine and what is real. To me, I can stay on whichever side you want to take this discussion, but unless you're going to fulfill your burden of proof when saying a thing is real, then stop saying these things are real.

There are some philosophies that lead us to solipsism. They should be rejected. There are philosophies that conclude with the idea nothing can be known. They should be rejected. It is clear that there are other entities and that some things are actually known. You are free to hold to those positions, of course, but you will be forced to live in a perpetual state of cognitive dissonance, on the one hand saying you are the only thing that exists and that nothing can be known, and other the other hand living as though others exist and things can be known.

Philosophy, done properly, is extremely practical. Its goal is to make sense of the world as we live in it. If your philosophy leads to to conclusions that force you to live in such dissonance, it ought to be rejected unless some very, very strong reasons for holding it can be presented.

I agree that philosophy is can be used to make sense of the world as we live in it, part of making sense of the world is making sure that the philosophical ideas match reality. To me it doesn't matter how good or bad reality is, I'm just focused on finding out what reality is. So while I have no problem delving into the world of pure philosophy and addressing all the things the mind can imagine, I do have a problem with accepting what the imagination came up with as real without making sure it's not merely the imagination.

Analogous references to god are meaningless to me because analogies are not reliable representations of reality. Because analogies can be completely fictional and even make absolutely no sense at all.

Give me an example of a "completely fictional" analogy.

A frozen star is what god is like.

Right, so what you're presenting cannot be falsified because it's analogy. At best you can say that god is an analogy for what really exists.

Of course it can't be falsified. I said that in the first place, remember?

That does not mean we can't reject it as impossible, absurd, or just unlikely.

This concept of divine simplicity appears to be completely absurd, impossible and unlikely, which is why I'm not accepting it as true.

Somewhat funny.

And true. Verificationism was rejected many years ago. It is self-contradictory.

That is why I also added in demonstrable and testable. Of course we'll never get to absolute surety of anything, but as long as I have a method that has shown remarkable progress in determining as close as possible what reality is, I'm going to stick with that.

But it's not coherent under DS, you've just removed all links of DS to reality by making all attributions analogous, and analogies are easily shown to be unreliable representations of reality. One can draw any analogy to anything, the only useful purpose of analogy is to explain a concept, not to show how something is true. So because you removed all ability to show that DS is true, there's no reason to continue except as an exercise in speculation.

You are confusing coherence with truth. Just because something is coherent doesn't make it true. A proof for truth would be as follows:

1. If God exists, He exists as described in the doctrine of simplicity (DS)
2. God exists
3. Therefore, He exists as described in DS.

The truthfulness of DS isn't proven by analogy. It's proven by proofs for God. The concept of DS, however, is perfectly meaningful. You can reject it if you like. I couldn't care less about that one way or the other. The question is whether or not it is coherent on its own merits. As of now, you've said nothing to challenge it. In fact, almost nothing in this reply had to do with DS at all, but only about what we know or can know to be true.

I think having a god defined as something that is both subject and not subject to natural laws is contradictory enough to exclude the concept. I also think that a god that can only have attributes attributed to it through analogous language is enough to reject it as even having the possibility of being real.

[Jac3510]

Pardon, but as a Nihilist myself (I'm not speaking for penfold) this is one of my favorite pet peeves to correct.  

By we know nothing we mean it in the fullest sense. It is not to say there is no [strike:1lc9cnhx]truth[/strike:1lc9cnhx] reality. Rather we can never possess it as knowledge with the utmost certainty.

And are you certain that you can't be certain of truth or that you aren't in possession of it?

In simplest terms, it is always maintaining an open mind, although I would suggest we are all nihilists whether we realize it or not because our mind is capable of changing belief about anything and not capable of knowing anything. Anything that you know can be revealed to be false

Can it be revealed to be false than anything you know can be revealed to be false?

... did you know Lou Gehrig may not actually have died from Lou Gehrig's disease? There is no such thing as obtainable truth.

How did you obtain the truth that there is no obtainable truth?

There are only amounts of reasonable and unreasonable doubt.

Is that true?

Even if we are right about something our brain cannot treat it any differently than an axiom (such as this) that can turn out to be false. If new evidence raises or circumstances change, facts can change

Facts can change? So today, it could be "true" (whatever that means) that George Washington was the first president of the USA, but tomorrow, it can be that he was not? Or do you just mean that our interpretation of facts can change based on evidence? If the latter, then doesn't that assume that we can come to know evidence?

Speaking of which, historically, how many facts have changed?  

[Jac3510]

Davin, I can't make myself any clearer. You simply refuse to accept the distinction between epistemology and ontology, between statements on the second order and statements on the first order. I am describing a concept. That concept is real by definition. Perhaps it is wrong, but it is the concept nonetheless. Once that concept is defined, we can test to see if it is real in the first intention. Now, if you want to develop your own concept of goodness, simplicity, god, etc., then feel free. While you are at it, be sure to point out its necessary correlations as I have been doing in this thread with my position. I won't even ask you to prove that it is "real," because I'll be sure to keep in mind that you are developing a concept for future testing.

If you have any issues with the concept of simplicity as stated in this thread, just point them out, and I'll be more than happy to deal with them. Until that time, there's nothing else to say.

[Sophus]

Most of you response is that "is it true that there is no truth?" I was hoping to have answered that with the last lines of my previous post, that no. Of course not. Bearing in mind that this is being extremely pedantic in Epistemological means. Naturally I am not claiming that we can know that we cannot know. What I am saying is that within reasonable doubt we can reasonably presume that we are not physically capable of knowing anything with 100% certainty regardless of the beliefs truth value. When we say "there is no truth" all that is meant is that as far as humans are concerned truth does not exist for us; we can never own it. Unless, of course you can prove otherwise. The overlooked implication of may saying that 'truth does not exist' is that the assertion is open to free inquiry, myself included. If you can prove to me that we can somehow know something, anything, I will quickly abandon my nihilistic position.

The brain and its "knowledge' is not static. Even memories, which were once thought to be locked in place, have been discovered to be subject to change each and every time we recall upon them. There is a wonderfully fascinating article on this I will dig up if you're interested in the read.

I found epistemological nihilism laughable for a long time, until I realized I was making it more complicated than it really was. Much of the attacks on it are a straw-man, that is to say that we are somehow miraculously daft enough claim to "know that which we cannot know", and "believe we have no beliefs". That's not the case at all because, as I think you are far well intelligent enough to see, language is a barrier hindering the understanding of a most pedantic topic. lol Oh no, and I said "I know!" Google that and you should see what I mean. I believe he was more like the ninth.

Here's one last example to drive home on just what level of extreme open mindedness I'm talking about:

How do you know the universe wasn't created 20 minutes ago with every memory about your life planted into your head, giving the illusion you've been alive all along? Of course you don't know. How could anyone know such a silly thing? But there's no good reason to believe in such a ridiculous thought. If it were true you wouldn't expect to find any evidence in favor for it anyway. Yet that doesn't change that you still don't know. You can never be 100% certain. 99.99999.... perhaps. But never completely certain.

[Jac3510]

Most of you response is that "is it true that there is no truth?" I was hoping to have answered that with the last lines of my previous post, that no. Of course not. Bearing in mind that this is being extremely pedantic in Epistemological means. Naturally I am not claiming that we can know that we cannot know. What I am saying is that within reasonable doubt we can reasonably presume that we are not physically capable of knowing anything with 100% certainty regardless of the beliefs truth value. When we say "there is no truth" all that is meant is that as far as humans are concerned truth does not exist for us; we can never own it. Unless, of course you can prove otherwise. The overlooked implication of may saying that 'truth does not exist' is that the assertion is open to free inquiry, myself included. If you can prove to me that we can somehow know something, anything, I will quickly abandon my nihilistic position.

If it is not true that there is no truth, then it is true that there is truth. There is no middle ground on that. Likewise, if it is not true that you cannot know truth, then it is true that you can know truth. There is no middle ground on that, either. (If it is true that you cannot know truth, then you cannot know the truth that truth cannot be known.) There are, then things that you can know for certainly--both that truth exists, and that it can be known.

It does not good to appeal to certainty with these things. Some things are binary (look, another truth statement that wen can know for sure!). There are many, many things in this world that can be known with certainty. You can know that you exist. You can know that you are having experiences. You can know that your experiences are not you (because then you would not be experiencing them, you would be them). Thus, you can know that you are experiencing something other than yourself, meaning you can know that other things exist. You can know that you either understand properly what those things are or you do not. There is, again, no middle ground. We could do this all day. We can look at analytical (that is, necessary truths) such as "All unmarried men are bachelors." We can know that there contradictories are not true. There are a great deal of what can be called transcendent presuppositions that we know to be true. Therefore, we can know for sure that any system that says we can't know anything for sure is false, including Nihilism.

The brain and its "knowledge' is not static. Even memories, which were once thought to be locked in place, have been discovered to be subject to change each and every time we recall upon them. There is a wonderfully fascinating article on this I will dig up if you're interested in the read.

No need. Notice all the truth statements in your sentence. But let's just say that memories do change (which I don't doubt at all). That doesn't mean that the reality they supposedly represent changed. Memories, as you know, are capable of being in error.

The fact that we can have certain knowledge of some things does not imply that we can have certain knowledge of all things. Indeed, it appears that there are many things that we have an imperfect knowledge of. It appears that we can be convinced we are right and turn out to be wrong. That does not, however, negate the possibility of truth or that it can be known. One does not follow from the other.

I found epistemological nihilism laughable for a long time, until I realized I was making it more complicated than it really was. Much of the attacks on it are a straw-man, that is to say that we are somehow miraculously daft enough claim to "know that which we cannot know", and "believe we have no beliefs". That's not the case at all because, as I think you are far well intelligent enough to see, language is a barrier hindering the understanding of a most pedantic topic. lol Oh no, and I said "I know!" Google that and you should see what I mean. I believe he was more like the ninth.

I hate playing rhetorical games, but sometimes, it's necessary. I figured you would pull that, which is the very reason I used the example. James Hanson was the first president, but George Washington was the first president under our adopted constitution. That doesn't change. It is a historical fact. It is what happened. Those two facts don't and won't ever change.

Facts don't change. People's interpretations of facts change. Facts themselves don't. [Notice, two more statements that we are certain are true, and a third, if you include that statement.]

Here's one last example to drive home on just what level of extreme open mindedness I'm talking about:

How do you know the universe wasn't created 20 minutes ago with every memory about your life planted into your head, giving the illusion you've been alive all along? Of course you don't know. How could anyone know such a silly thing? But there's no good reason to believe in such a ridiculous thought. If it were true you wouldn't expect to find any evidence in favor for it anyway. Yet that doesn't change that you still don't know. You can never be 100% certain. 99.99999.... perhaps. But never completely certain.

Or you could use the old "brain in a jar" routine. In any case, two points should be made:

1. Just because we can't have certain knowledge of some things doesn't mean we can't have certain knowledge of anything.
2. Even though certitude is a requirement for knowledge, there is a real since in that uncertainty doesn't mean we don't have knowledge.

Let me give you a practical example of the second. I know that my wife loves me. Yes, that is true. I know it. It is a fact that I am aware of and give assent to. You can ask, of course, how I know that I know. That, however, is a different question then the first. How I know I know is a meta-epistemological question. Put differently, it is logically possible that my wife does not love me. That does not, however, change my knowledge that she does. My knowledge of the fact is contingent on its reality. Its reality is not contingent on my knowledge. If, then, she truly does love me, then my knowledge is true and I am justified in saying as much. Acknowledging the logical possibility that the reality may be false does not change the nature of the knowledge I currently possess. If it did, there would be an infinite regress of meta-ethical questions. How could I know that I know that I know that I know . . . that my wife loves me? The question could never be answered, and that about anything. But that is absurd, because as I have shown, there are some things that we do know. Further, there is no reason to doubt my knowledge of things like the fact that I am hungry (which I am!) or that Gretchen loves me or that it is 2:18 PM. All this, of course, is based on a very specific view of what knowledge actually is. That is, it is based on the ontology of knowledge. As I said before, you can't start with epistemology. That is, always has been, and always will be a fundamental mistake. So if you want to develop a rigorous doctrine of knowledge that actually reflects the way you really do live, rather than living in the cognitive dissonance of your current view, you have to start with the question, "What is knowledge" and its related issues.

Finally, even in your silly case above, there are still things that can be known, such as the fact that reality does exist. What its nature is, is another question that can be parsed out and debated--which is, again, an ontological, not epistemological question.

There is a reason I started with the simplicity of being. It is an ontological issue. It is the fundamental ontological issue. To say that we cannot have that discussion because we don't know how we know or what we know or that we can know is to put the cart before the horse. Once we have established the meaning of being, we can move on to how we know being and look at important concepts like judgment, apprehension, conceptualization, abstraction, universals, etc. The fundamental point, however, is that you cannot answer the epistemological question in any way (either as a moderate realist like I would or as nihilist like you would) until we agree on the ontological foundations of the question, which, ultimately, leads us to a discussion of the nature of being. I contend that nature is simple, which is the purpose of this thread.

[Sophus]

If it is not true that there is no truth, then it is true that there is truth. There is no middle ground on that.

I don't have time for much of a reply right now, but you're not considering this. This cannot be boiled down to a shallow statement.

1. Just because we can't have certain knowledge of some things doesn't mean we can't have certain knowledge of anything.

The example I gave could well mean that everything you ever "knew" was a lie. And again, I am not saying that we cannot have hit reality, pinned the truth at any given time. What I am saying is we can never know that we have with the utmost certainty.

Facts don't change. People's interpretations of facts change. Facts themselves don't. [Notice, two more statements that we are certain are true, and a third, if you include that statement.]

I agree. Which is why I keep "reality" separate from "truth". All of our facts are interpretations. That is unavoidable. To be a living, breathing, thinking human is to interpret everything around us. This has been what my crux is, and I'll repeat it: It is not that there is no 'truth' (reality, facts, etc.). Merely that there is not absolute truth that is knowable by any human being.

[Jac3510]

I don't have time for much of a reply right now, but you're not considering this. This cannot be boiled down to a shallow statement.

Is that true?

Sophus, you can call that shallow, but it's the nature of reality. You cannot say that we can't know some things for sure and that everything is our interpretation, because even that would just be an interpretation. It is self-contradictory

The example I gave could well mean that everything you ever "knew" was a lie. And again, I am not saying that we cannot have hit reality, pinned the truth at any given time. What I am saying is we can never know that we have with the utmost certainty.

And I gave you lots of examples of things that can't be a lie. I also distinguished between knowing truth and knowing that you know truth.

I agree. Which is why I keep "reality" separate from "truth". All of our facts are interpretations. That is unavoidable. To be a living, breathing, thinking human is to interpret everything around us. This has been what my crux is, and I'll repeat it: It is not that there is no 'truth' (reality, facts, etc.). Merely that there is not absolute truth that is knowable by any human being.

Then there is such thing that is truth that is knowable, Sophus. You know that there is a difference in reality and truth, between reality and interpretation. That's something you know to be true about reality. Your entire position is built on a particular understanding of reality, not on a particular understanding about understanding, because understanding is also a part of reality.

Your position is just self-defeating. It is self-contradictory. You may as well deny the law of non-contradiction, which is the definition of irrational. If you want to embrace irrationality, then be my guess, but I'm willing to bet that you don't think of yourself as irrational, that most of the decision you make are not irrational, and that most of the people on this board would be offended if you said they were all irrational.

[Sophus]

We're going in circles. I've tried explaining why it's not contradictory, at this rate, there's not much more I can do. Perhaps I've been explaining it inadequately, in which case I'm to blame.

And I gave you lots of examples of things that can't be a lie.

Which again, assumes too much to support itself.

Here, I will attempt one last time to explain. I can't help but think that you are not making an effort to at the least consider it with an open mind. It's not complex. It only appears contradictory and self defeating on the surface.

Let's break this down:

If it is true that you cannot know truth, then you cannot know the truth that truth cannot be known.

Again, no one is claiming we can know "the truth that truth cannot be known". I have repeated this several times now. I am not claiming to know this (bearing in mind I mean with the highest degree of certainty). Epistemological Nihilism itself is not something some one can know; it is only a view which can be held just like any other belief. It would be enormously stupid on my part not to see such a glaringly obvious contradiction like the one you suggested if it existed. You are attacking a strawman. I am not affirming there is no truth. I am denying there is any truth. (Throughout this thread when I use the word truth I shall be speaking specifically of the absolute knowledge of it relative to human beings)

You cannot say that we can't know some things for sure and that everything is our interpretation, because even that would just be an interpretation.

Precisely. And that's all I am claiming it to be....

To answer the question Can I know I exist? one only needs to respond with another, Can I doubt I exist? Any number of bizarre scenarios can be spat out asserting you don't; reality is a dream and you but a mere projection, we're living in a matrix or virtual reality, so on and so on. There is no evidence of any of these, yet at the same time there is no evidence we should expect to see if they were true. Thus it is impossible to prove one way or the either. The point being, like it or not, you don't know.

Science itself is nihilistic, because it is always open. As has been stated by Richard Dawkins,

[P]roof is a notion that scientists have been intimidated into mistrusting.

Influential philosophers tell us we can’t prove anything in science.

[Jac3510]

I understand your position, Sophus. You are looking at your denial of truth in the same way you deny God's existence. You aren't positively asserting (in your mind) that there is no truth. You would say you have no reason to believe in truth. You would be an atruthist.

What I am trying to get you to see is that such a position is self-contradictory. You can say "I lack belief in God." You cannot say "I lack belief in truth." Let me demonstrate this two ways. We can take your statement in two ways, referring to the passive denial of the existence of truth or the passive denial of the knowledge of truth. Let me treat both.

1. Truth is that which corresponds to reality. If I say "it is raining" and it is raining outside, then the statement is true. If it is not raining, the statement is false. Some statements have no truth-value because there is no correspondence to reality: "Blargs are purple," or "Jennifer's husband is the world' must eligible bachelor." Thus, where there is reality, there is truth. Where there are statements, there is truth value (whether it can or cannot be known is another question). If you say, "I lack belief in truth," you are making a statement about reality. The reality, in this case, is your personal belief. The reality is that you don't have a positive belief in truth. Therefore, the statement properly represents reality and is truth. In other words, if you lacked belief in truth, you could not make the statement. To deny the existence of truth in this sense is tantamount to saying, "I don't believe we can make statements." You may not believe it, but you had to employ it to make the statement. Or again, you may as well say, "I don't believe I exist." Such statements are just silly.

2. Knowledge is a primitive fact of consciousness and thus cannot be properly defined, but it can be practically characterized by awareness (including assent) of truth. It may be raining outside, but I may be unaware of it. Thus, the truth may be that it is raining, but I have no knowledge of that fact. Someone may inform me that it is raining, and I deny the fact, and thus cannot be said to have knowledge of it. Again, someone may tell me that it is raining, and I may assent, but it may be that they are wrong, and thus, I still cannot be said to have knowledge. But if it is raining and I am aware of that, I can say that I have knowledge of the fact. Thus, where there is both truth and minds, there is the potential of knowledge. If, then, you say, "I lack belief in the fact that I can know truth," you are making a claim about your relationship to truth, which is to say, you are making a knowledge claim. In this case, the truth--the reality itself--is your state of belief. In making a truth claim about that reality, you are stating your awareness about that truth, and thus, your claim is a knowledge claim. You can't make a knowledge claim that we can make no knowledge claims. Put differently, you can't know that you can't know--logically, anyway. Again, you can certain lack the belief in knowledge, but the statement is self-refuting and thus should be immediately abandoned, because in stating your lack of belief, you are stating your knowledge that you lack belief about knowledge.

This is why I keep asking the silly questions to point out the self-contradiction. You accuse my questions of being shallow. I am suggesting that nihilism of any form is shallow, whether it acknowledges it or not. You said, then, that if I could give you any statements you could know certainly, you would abandon them. Or, to quote you directly:

If you can prove to me that we can somehow know something, anything, I will quickly abandon my nihilistic position.

I've proven to you that you can know that you know you lack belief.

[Sophus]

You accuse my questions of being shallow.

Not your questions, your assertions and reasoning, as it has, and continues, to attack a strawman.

If you say, "I lack belief in truth," you are making a statement about reality.

A statement which is an interpretation of reality.

If I say "it is raining" and it is raining outside, then the statement is true. If it is not raining, the statement is false.

You again, assume knowledge, that it is raining. How do you know it is raining? Can you prove it is raining? Do human senses never lie? Does the brain always depict reality accurately; or with perfection? If so, how can it? How do you know you aren't hallucinating? Gone mad? Dreaming? In a virtual reality? Under the spell from the white witch? Or that you brain is in a jar? What if it's only something that looks like rain? What if it can be proven to be something else?

I am not an epistemological nihilist in practice. I doubt anyone is. There is no reason to believe such radically absurd notions such as these bearing no evidence, that is of course, under the assumption they all have no evidence. At the same time you cannot prove that they are not true, and that is why you don't know anything. The mind can only interpret reality. How accurate its interpretations are has no bearing on reality, or if you prefer "truth". Interpretations can never be considered absolute, and unquestionable. If you can question, you do not know. If you can question, you do not know. Only someone who "knows" is unwilling to question.

To end with another reiterated point: I am not claiming an individual cannot correctly observe reality. Yet s/he can never know (in the austere sense that I am using the word).