Reflecting on Russell’s Religion and Science 1. Scientism and the Four Purported Magisteria

Posted on May 19, 2019 by Rchard E. Hennessey

1. One reason why I have not been posting over the past months is because I have been caught up in the teaching of courses new to me, in ethics, medical ethics, and environmental ethics. These having been courses for which I had not previously gone through the course preparation process, I have had to devote enough of my time in course preparation and management that I have had none left to devote to my blog.

It recently occurred to me, however, that I could and should combine my course preparation and my blogging, by posting to my blog, if sometimes in somewhat variant versions, the material that I am covering in the courses I teach. As it happens, I am scheduled to teach an introduction to philosophy course later this summer and it seems to me that that course is perfectly well fitted for the kind of integrated activity I have in mind. I intend, therefore, over the coming weeks and months, to offer in the form of posts to this blog some reflections on the material I plan to cover in this summer’s introduction to philosophy course (the courses in ethics, medical ethics, and environmental ethics can await their turn).

2. The primary text of the course will be Bertrand Russell’s Religion and Science,* published in 1935. This is not the book of Russell, it seems to me, that is most likely to show up in an introduction to philosophy course. That would be his The Problems of Philosophy. Indeed, I judge the latter to be the better book of the two. I have, however, used it, the latter, as the primary text in an introductory course in the past and quickly learned that my students found its first chapter’s extended focus on that which we can know of the author’s writing table to be, well, off-putting.

Religion and Science it is, then. Given, now, the title of the work, its readers can justly hope that the book will set forth at least some of Russell’s views on religion and science and on the relationship or relationships that exist between them. Given further that the book is being assigned in a course intending to introduce students and others to philosophy, those reading it with me can also justly hope that the book will set forth at least some of Russell’s philosophical views, so adding philosophy and the relationships it may have to religion and science into the mix of matters to be pondered. Given yet further that those reading Religion and Science with me might well notice that the back cover of the edition of the work at hand identifies Russell as an “English philosopher and mathematician,” they might well also hope that Russell’s understanding of mathematics and the relationships it may have to religion, science, and philosophy will be the object of some attention.

The last hope, that Russell will have interesting things to say about mathematics in Religion and Science, may yield in the course of its reading to disappointment. But hoping that the book will have interesting and important, if not therefore always also true, things to say about religion, science, philosophy, and the relationships between and among them will, I can guarantee, not have been in vain. And I, on the other hand, hope that I will be able to make up for the lacunae in the treatment in Religion and Science of mathematics by bringing in on occasion what Russell has to say on the subject elsewhere, what others have had to say, and, passing, to be sure, from the more significant to the less, what I have to say.

3. And so one of the major themes of the introductory course at hand and of the accompanying series of posts will be the respective natures of the four purported magisteria of science, mathematics, philosophy, and religion. I owe, of course, the use of the term, “magisteria,” to Stephen Jay Gould and his theory of the “nonoverlapping magisteria,” typically abbreviated as “NOMA.” According to Gould’s “Nonoverlapping Magisteria,”** the “NOMA principle” holds that:

Science tries to document the factual character of the natural world, and to develop theories that coordinate and explain these facts. Religion, on the other hand, operates in the equally important, but utterly different, realm of human purposes, meanings, and values—subjects that the factual domain of science might illuminate, but can never resolve.

I should perhaps, and in the not too distant future, devote a post to a comparison of Gould’s views on the nature of science, that of religion, and the relationship or relationships between them, with Russell’s. For the purposes of the present post, however, I will let the opportunity for that comparison pass and content myself with the observation that there are not just the two purported magisteria that Gould had in mind, but four, existing in the following hierarchy very evident in, at least, classical Western thought:

4. Theology
3. Philosophy
2. Mathematics
1. Science

I have placed theology at the top of the hierarchy, instead of religion, because it is theology, as the theoretical component of the religions Russell and classical Western thought have had most in mind, that most appropriately stands in correspondence with the theoretical disciplines of science, mathematics, and philosophy.

4. Returning to Russell, I will propose to my students and fellow readers that our first focus be on his “exclusivist epistemological scientism” (as I will dub it; I will clarify the “exclusivist” and the “epistemological” presently). Russell gave expression to this view of the place of science in a statement, than which none more terse is possible, in the opening paragraph of the essay, “The Art of Rational Conjecture,” the first of the three essays that constitute the book, The Art of Philosophizing and Other Essays.*** There (p. 1), in the course of telling us what he thinks philosophy is and is not, Russell also tells us what he thinks science is.

Let us begin with a few words as to what philosophy is. It is not definite knowledge, for that is science. Nor is it groundless credulity, such as that of savages [sic]. It is something between those two extremes; perhaps it might be called the art of rational conjecture.

The defining thesis of exclusivist epistemological scientism is, then, the thesis,

Knowledge is science.

or, expanding its statement a bit,

All knowledge is scientific knowledge.

or, expanding the statement yet further so that we have before us a fully explicit universal affirmative categorical proposition, as logicians are wont to identify it,

All instances of knowledge are instances of scientific knowledge.

or, equivalently, thus making more fully explicit the reason for the “exclusivist” of the “exclusivist epistemological scientism” tag,

Only instances of scientific knowledge are instances of knowledge.

5. This thesis is, of course, an epistemological thesis, in the jargon of philosophy; in a somewhat more ordinary language, it is a thesis in the philosophical theory of knowledge. It is moreover, to put it mildly, a radical thesis in the philosophical theory of knowledge. If, indeed, it is true that, to revert to its last-but-one formulation, all instances of knowledge are instances of scientific knowledge, then we are faced with a set of arguments, surely disconcerting at least to some or even to many, but also nonetheless absolutely valid arguments.

First,

No instances of scientific knowledge are instances of theological knowledge.
All instances of knowledge are instances of scientific knowledge.
Therefore, no instances of knowledge are instances of theological knowledge.

That is, in brief, there is no, as some have purported there to be, theological knowledge.

Then,

No instances of scientific knowledge are instances of philosophical knowledge.
All instances of knowledge are instances of scientific knowledge.
Therefore, no instances of knowledge are instances of philosophical knowledge.

That is, in brief, there is no, as some have purported there to be, philosophical knowledge.

And, finally,

No instances of scientific knowledge are instances of mathematical knowledge.
All instances of knowledge are instances of scientific knowledge.
Therefore, no instances of knowledge are instances of mathematical knowledge.

That is, in brief, there is no, as some have purported there to be, mathematical knowledge.

We should note that the three arguments all exhibit the same logical structure, the one to which medieval logicians attached the name, “Celarent” (you’ll have to google it; this post is already too long). The arguments are, as already noted, all valid: that is, if, that is, if, their premises are true, the conclusions must also be true. I’ll leave unanswered, for now, the further question of whether any or all of the arguments are sound, that is, of whether, in addition to their being valid [correction, June 1, 2020, replacing “sound” with “valid”], they are such that, in each case, both of their premises are true.

6. Now, according to the “Publisher’s Preface” to The Art of Philosophizing and Other Essays, the three essays contained in “this little volume” and thus too the “The Art of Rational Conjecture,” “were written by Bertrand Russell during the second World War” and so at least several years, if not nearly a decade, after Religion and Science. We should set for ourselves the historical task, then, of determining whether and, if so, to what extent Russell adheres in the earlier work to the several theses just set forth. This we will do in the coming series of posts. More importantly, we should set for ourselves the further, philosophical, task of reflecting with and/or against Russell, and others, and determining for oneself which of the several theses, if any, might be true. This too we will do.

Until next time.

Richard

* Bertrand Russell, Religion and Science, with an introduction by Michael Ruse (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1997 [1935]). Religion and Science is readily available for purchase through Amazon.com. You need only click on the following image to be taken to the Amazon site:

** As of this writing, Gould’s “Nonoverlapping Magisteria,” can be read online at The Unofficial Stephen Jay Gould Archive, http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_noma.html.

*** Bertrand Russell, The Art of Philosophizing and Other Essays (Totowa, New Jersey: Littlefield, Adams & Co., 1974 [1968]). I admit to being puzzled over the fact that, in a book bearing such a title, there is to be found no essay entitled “The Art of Philosophizing.”

The Art of Philosophizing and Other Essays too is readily available for purchase through Amazon.com. You need only click on the following image to be taken to the Amazon site:

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Non-contradiction, Divine Omnipresence, and Dual Citizenship

Posted on November 6, 2018 by Rchard E. Hennessey

1. Good Aristotelian that I am, or at least neo-Aristotelian, I introduce and make use of the principle of non-contradiction, that

No being can both be and not be, in the same respect and at the same time.

in virtually every course I teach. One immediate application of that principle is the thesis that

No being can both be in any one place and not be in that same place, in the same respect and at the same time.

2. I have found that students sometimes have difficulty understanding the difference between that thesis and the thesis that

No being can both be in one place and be in another place, in the same respect and at the same time.

My attempts at getting them to see the difference have seldom gone much beyond (1) repeating the two theses slowly and (2) and then pointing out that the thesis of divine omnipresence of classical theology, that

At least one being, God, can both be in one place and be in another place, in fact, in all other places, in the same respect and at the same time.

is not the same as the thesis, contradicting the principle of non-contradiction, that

At least one being, God, can both be in one place and not be in that same place, in the same respect and at the same time.

One can, that is, consistently uphold both the principle of non-contradiction and the thesis of divine omnipresence.

3. I believe I have found a more helpful, because more concrete, first exemplification of the difference at hand, for another immediate application of the principle of non-contradiction is the thesis that

No person can both be a citizen of any one nation and not be a citizen of that same nation, in the same respect and at the same time.

I have found that students have little difficulty in understanding the difference between that thesis and the thesis that

No person can both be a citizen of any one nation and be a citizen of another nation, in the same respect and at the same time.

or its equivalent

At least one person can both be a citizen of any one nation and be a citizen of another nation, in the same respect and at the same time.

for they can see that, in fact, not just one person, but many persons are citizens of two nations; they hold dual citizenships.

In my efforts to make clear that the principle of non-contradiction does not rule out a being’s being in one place and in another, I will in the future bring in the possibility of dual citizenship before that of divine omnipresence.

Until next time.

Richard

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Michael Anton on Behalf of the Thesis That Religion Is the Basis of Republican Government

Posted on July 29, 2018 by Rchard E. Hennessey

1. No doubt because of the political circumstances in which the United States currently finds itself, I have in turn found myself wanting to know more about and better understand the political theory and philosophy of the nation’s founders, the “founding fathers.” So, coming upon Michael Anton’s “Founding philosophy. A review of The Political Theory of the American Founding by Thomas G. West” in The New Criterion and noting that Anton had served as Deputy Assistant to President [Trump] for Strategic Communications, I thought that the review might well be worth the reading.

2. It was, and for one reason because it contains a relatively explicit argument on behalf of the thesis that religion is the basis of republican government, a thesis that has considerable currency these days. Anton’s expression of the argument is concise, stated almost in passing.

In reality, West shows that Jefferson—like all the founders—well understood that republican government is impossible absent a strong moral foundation in the people, which in turn depends on religion, which government therefore has a duty to promote.

3. Before, however, entering upon the task of “regimenting” the argument, i.e., of so restating it that its logic is more fully explicit, it is worth noting that Anton, in stating that Jefferson “well understood” the sequence of thoughts expressed in the sentence just quoted, is both saying that that sequence of thoughts represents Jefferson’s view and that he, Anton, himself is in agreement with Jefferson on the matter.

That said, let’s observe that the one sentence quoted above actually gives expression to two arguments, the second of which is represented solely by the “which government therefore has a duty to promote,” i.e., the conclusion that:

Republican government has a duty to promote religion.

I’ll return to that argument below, if only briefly.

4. The first of the one sentence’s two arguments is expressed in the passage’s “republican government is impossible absent a strong moral foundation in the people, which in turn depends on religion.” Anton’s statement can be so reformulated that the argument’s validity is patently obvious.

As a first step, the “republican government is impossible absent a strong moral foundation in the people” can be restated as:

Only peoples having a strong moral foundation are peoples [capable of] having a republican government.

Similarly, the “which [strong moral foundation in the people] in turn depends on religion” can be restated as:

Only peoples having religion are peoples having a strong moral foundation.

Together the two propositions serve as the premises of the following argument:

Only peoples having a strong moral foundation are peoples [capable of] having a republican government.
Only peoples having religion are peoples having a strong moral foundation.
Therefore, only peoples having religion are peoples [capable of] having a republican government.

5. It is evident that the argument is perfectly valid, in that, if its two premises are true, then its conclusion is also, and necessarily, true. Perhaps, however, it will be worth taking the few simple steps needed to make its validity even more evident. First, then, the latter of the two propositions just spelled out is logically equivalent to the universal categorical proposition that:

All peoples having a strong moral foundation are peoples having religion.

The former of the two propositions just spelled out is logically equivalent to the universal categorical proposition that:

All peoples [capable of] having a republican government are peoples having a strong moral foundation.

Together the two propositions serve as the premises of the following argument:

All peoples having a strong moral foundation are peoples having religion.
All peoples [capable of] having a republican government are peoples having a strong moral foundation.
Therefore, all peoples [capable of] having a republican government are peoples having religion.

Students of traditional logic will recognize that this argument is a categorial syllogism of the form known as Barbara, all instances of which are valid.

6. Anton’s argument on behalf of the thesis that religion is the basis of republican government, i.e., that all peoples [capable of] having a republican government are peoples having religion, is, as I said above, a valid argument. That, however, tells us only that, if the two premises are true, the conclusion is also true; it does not tell us that the conclusion is true, tout court. The argument can tell us that the conclusion is true only if it, the argument, is sound, only, that is, if both the argument is valid and its premises are true.

7. Our question, then, is that of whether the premises of Anton’s argument are both true. Now, of course, they are not “self-evident,” as, say, “all bachelors are unmarried males” is self-evident. They therefore can only be known to be true if they are conclusions of sound arguments.

The argument on behalf of the conclusion that

All peoples having a strong moral foundation are peoples having religion.

would have to be an argument similar in form to Anton’s argument and so read like this:

All peoples [having some requisite characteristic] are peoples having religion.
All peoples having a strong moral foundation are peoples [having some requisite characteristic].
Therefore, all peoples having a strong moral foundation are peoples having religion.

8. I have invited, or perhaps challenged,** Mr. Anton to provide such an argument. I also invite any reader to provide one. And, while I was and am at it, I further invited him and now also invite the reader to provide the premises that would, in a valid argument, conclude to the aforenoted thesis that:

Republican government has a duty to promote religion.

The thesis that “all peoples having a strong moral foundation are peoples having religion” will undoubtedly be a premise of the argument, but not the only premise.

Until next time.

Richard

* Michael Anton’s “Founding philosophy. A review of The Political Theory of the American Founding by Thomas G. West” (The New Criterion, Vol. 36, No. 10, June 2018).

** Or tried to invite or challenge; finding a working email address for people as much in the public eye as Mr. Anton is difficult.

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Logical Errors in a Logic Textbook, Alas!

Posted on May 14, 2018 by Rchard E. Hennessey

1. Early on in his Socratic Logic, Peter Kreeft offers what I’ll take to be two arguments in favor of a thesis that traditional, or Aristotelian, logic is superior to modern, or symbolic or mathematical, logic, that, indeed, modern logic is, as I’ll put it for him, a defective logic. The matter is of some importance in logical theory, for, if he is right, the past century and a half or so of progress in logic has been an illusion.

2. I will critique the first of the two arguments in the present post, leaving the second for a post to come. The first argument can be formulated as:

Any logic accepting an invalid argument as a valid argument is a defective logic.
Modern symbolic/mathematical logic is a logic accepting an invalid argument as a valid argument.
Therefore, modern symbolic/mathematical logic is a defective logic.

Kreeft and I can easily agree that the argument is a perfectly valid argument, in that, if its two premises are true (or were true), then the conclusion must be true (or would have to be true). But then the question arises of whether the argument is more than just a valid argument, but a sound argument, having both of its premises true. Now, though Kreeft leaves the first premise unexpressed, I am fully confident that he would take it as true, without any “ifs,” “ands,” or “buts.” We disagree, however, about the second premise, for while Kreeft holds that it is true, I hold that it is simply false.

3. To see that this is the case, let’s turn, then, to Kreeft’s formulation of the argument in question. It starts out well enough (p. 24).

A logically valid argument is one in which the conclusion necessarily follows from its premises. In a logically valid argument, if the premises are true, then the conclusion must be true. In an invalid argument this is not so. “All men are mortal, and Socrates is a man, therefore Socrates is mortal” is a valid argument. “Dogs have four legs, and Lassie has four legs, therefore Lassie is a dog” is not a valid argument. The conclusion (“Lassie is a dog”) may be true, but it has not been proved by this argument. It does not “follow” from the premises.

So far, so good.

Kreeft continues (Ibid.).

Now in Aristotelian logic, a true conclusion logically follows from, or is proved by, or is “implied” by, or is validly inferred from, only some premises and not others. The above argument about Lassie is not a valid argument according to Aristotelian logic. Its premises do not prove its conclusion. And common sense, or our innate logical sense, agrees.

Still, so far, so good.

But then the argument goes off the rails, for Kreeft goes on to claim in the next sentence:

However, modern symbolic logic disagrees.

That is, according to Kreeft, while Aristotelian logic and common sense agree that the argument about Lassie is not valid and that its premises do not prove its conclusion, “modern symbolic logic disagrees.” The disagreement is not over whether the argument about Lassie is an argument, but over whether it is valid. Kreeft is therefore committed to saying modern logic holds that the argument about Lassie is a valid argument and therefore that modern logic holds that some invalid argument about Lassie is a valid argument.

4. Kreeft could not be more wrong. In no way would the so-called “predicate calculus,” that branch of modern logic by which the argument at hand would be assessed, pronounce it valid. On the question of whether or not the argument about Lassie is a valid argument traditional logic and modern logic in full agreement.

5. Let me set the argument forth both as it would be presented in traditional logic and as it would be presented in the “predicate calculus.” In traditional logic, stating the argument even a bit more carefully than Kreeft does, the argument would read:

All dogs are animals having four legs.
Lassie is an animal having four legs.
Therefore, Lassie is a dog.

As, as we have seen, Kreeft has said:

The conclusion (“Lassie is a dog”) may be true, but it has not been proved by this argument. It does not “follow” from the premises.

And no logician will or even can come up with a sequence of inferences acceptable to traditional logic that would begin from the two premises and those two premises alone and logically arrive at the proffered conclusion. For, if all that we are given to know is what we know through the argument’s premises, it may well be, for all we know, that Lassie is, not a dog, but a turtle.

On the other hand, of course, we could introduce the premise that Lassie is a dog into the argument. The argument would then read:

All dogs are animals having four legs.
Lassie is an animal having four legs.
Lassie is a dog.
Therefore, Lassie is a dog.

Then, however, we would have a different argument, one in which the conclusion that Lassie is a dog would certainly follow from the premises. But this argument is precisely that, a different argument.

6. Now, in the modern logic, the argument would be stated as:

For any existent x, if x is a dog, then x is an animal having four legs.
Lassie is an animal having four legs.
Therefore, Lassie is a dog.

The judgment that Kreeft advanced about the Aristotelian formulation applies equally well here.:

The conclusion (“Lassie is a dog”) may be true, but it has not been proved by this argument. It does not “follow” from the premises.

And no logician will or even can come up with a sequence of inferences acceptable to modern, symbolic or mathematical logic, that would begin from the two premises and those two premises alone and logically arrive at the proffered conclusion. For, if all that we are given to know is what we know through the argument’s premises, it may well be, for all we know, that Lassie is, not a dog, but a turtle.

On the other hand, of course, we could introduce the premise that Lassie is a dog into the argument. The argument would then read:

For any existent x, if x is a dog, then x is an animal having four legs.
Lassie is an animal having four legs.
Lassie is a dog.
Therefore, Lassie is a dog.

Then, however, we would have a different argument, one in which the conclusion that Lassie is a dog would certainly follow from the premises. But this argument is precisely that, a different argument.

7. If the foregoing holds up, I have shown that the first of the two arguments that Kreeft has offered on behalf of the thesis that modern symbolic/mathematical logic is a defective logic, fails, in that he has not shown that that argument’s premise, that:

Modern symbolic/mathematical logic is a logic accepting an invalid argument as a valid argument.

is true.

In a post to come, I will offer a critique of the second of the two arguments Kreeft advances on behalf of the thesis that modern symbolic/mathematical logic is a defective logic.

Until next time.

Richard

* Peter Kreeft, Socratic Logic. A Logic Text Using Socratic Method, Platonic Questions, and Aristotelian Principles. Edited by Trent Dougherty (Edition 3.1; South Bend, Indiana: St Augustine’s Press, 2014 [2004])

If you wish, you may purchase a copy of Socratic Logic through Amazon.com by simply clicking on the following:

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Countering the Philosophical Skepticism of Former Secretary of the Treasury Robert Rubin

Posted on May 1, 2018 by Rchard E. Hennessey

In an April 30, 2018, New York Times Opinion page article, “Philosophy Prepared Me for a Career in Finance and Government,” former Secretary of the Treasury Robert Rubin singled out his undergraduate Harvard University Professor Raphael Demos for special praise, telling us:

Professor Demos would use Plato and other great philosophers to demonstrate that proving any proposition to be true in the final and ultimate sense was impossible. His approach to critical thinking planted a seed in me that grew during my years at Harvard and throughout my life. The approach appealed to what was probably my natural but latent tendency toward questioning and skepticism.

Rubin then went on to say:

I concluded that you can’t prove anything in absolute terms, from which I extrapolated that all significant decisions are about probabilities. Internalizing the core tenet of Professor Demos’s teaching — weighing risk and analyzing odds and trade-offs — was central to everything I did professionally in the decades ahead in finance and government.

I myself have to admit to having a “tendency toward questioning and skepticism,” if, though natural, hardly latent. Here and now, for example, I cannot help doubting that Professor Demos was able to “use Plato and other great philosophers to demonstrate that proving any proposition to be true in the final and ultimate sense was impossible,” at least in “the final and ultimate sense.” Or, I’ll put it directly: There is no way to prove in absolute terms that it is impossible to prove anything in absolute terms.

On the other hand, one can prove that one can prove that at least some propositions are true in “the final and ultimate sense” by presenting the actual proofs that they are true, for whatever is actual must be possible. I have in fact presented such very genuine philosophical proofs or demonstrations in the pages of this very blog. I invite you to peruse the:

“A Proof That at Least One Thing Can Be Proven in Philosophy,” of March 6, 2018;

“Sathya Sai Baba. The Man Who Was God,” of February 20, 2018; and

“A Diagram of the Trinity,” of February 8, 2018.

There are also some earlier posts related to the Trinity, links to which can be found in the three posts listed.

I’ll close by repeating the claim I made in the last of the aforementioned posts:

My arguments, I submit, are valid, in that their conclusions must be true if their premises are true. Moreover, they are not only valid, but sound, in that their premises, and therefore their conclusions, are true. Moreover still, they are not only sound, but apodictic or demonstrative, in that their premises, and therefore their conclusions, are not just true but necessarily true.

Until next time.

Richard

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A Suggestion for the New York Times. And for the Author of the Gospel According to John

Posted on March 8, 2018 by Rchard E. Hennessey

The New York Times has launched a new advertisement campaign, one installment of which culminates in the propositions that:

The truth is hard.

The truth is hard to find.

The truth is hard to know.

The truth is more important now than ever.

I’m afraid that the campaign has gotten off on the wrong foot, for any proposition that begins with “The truth is” is, strictly speaking, false. But I will not allow myself to be but a critic and so, after pointing out how the propositions at hand are false, I will, with tongue not quite in cheek, point the Gray Lady in the direction of the logical tools she so evidently is in need of. I will then, albeit rather belatedly, do the same for the writer of the Gospel According to John.

Let’s, then, take the third of the four propositions, “The truth is hard to know,” as illustrative. Taken as it is given, it is equivalent to the conjunction (and here I’m making use of Bertrand Russell’s “theory of definite descriptions”)

There is at least one truth
and
any truth whatever is identical with that truth
and
that truth is hard to know.

Now, I’ll happily grant the truth of the first conjunct, “There is at least one truth”; for example, it is true that

At 10:00 am eastern standard time on March 8, 2018, Donald Trump was President of the United States of America.

And I’ll even, and still happily, grant the truth of the conjunction of the first and the last of the conjuncts, thus:

There is at least one truth
and
that truth is hard to know.

For example, it is either true that there exists extra-terrestrial intelligence or true that there does not exist extra-terrestrial intelligence. In either case, the truth is hard to know.

But I can’t grant that the conjunction of the first and second of the conjuncts

There is at least one truth
and
any truth whatever is identical with that truth.

is true. Take, once again, the above proposition, about Donald Trump, instantiating the first conjunct, “There is at least one truth.” It is just not the case that any truth whatever is identical with that truth. The following truth is a truth that is not identical with that one:

At 10:00 am eastern standard time on March 8, 2018, Michael Pence was Vice President of the United States of America.

There are, then, at least two truths. In fact, I’ll hasten to add, there are others, some, but only some, at least somewhat similar to the two about Messieurs Trump and Pence, e.g., those we all could generate about Messieurs Ryan and McConnell. Etc.

So, here’s my suggestion for the New York Times. Learn to distinguish between universal and particular propositions, as the introductory logic textbooks characterize them, and between affirmative and negative propositions. Applied to the case at hand, those distinctions enable us to distinguish between the universal affirmative proposition:

All truths are hard to know.

the universal negative proposition:

No truths are hard to know.

the particular affirmative proposition:

At least some truths are hard to know.

and the particular negative proposition:

At least some truths are not hard to know.

A moment’s reflection reveals that the Times’ proposition, “The truth is hard to know” implies the universal affirmative proposition, “All truths are hard to know.” As the latter is false, so too the former is false. I have already, in pointing to the truth of the answer to the question of the existence of extra-terrestrial intelligence as a truth that is hard to know, indicated that the universal negative proposition is false. The two particular propositions, on the other hand, are true.

I urge, then, that the writers and editors of the New York Times, in the case at hand and indeed in almost all others, content themselves with particular propositions, instead of, say, a sentence the beginning of which is “The position of the White House is….” But, as I said early on in this post, I am offering the same advice, albeit rather belatedly, to the writer of the Gospel According to John, for therein (14:6) we read Jesus saying

I am the way and the truth and the life.

There may be room for some question as to whether or not the statement “I am the way” is true and perhaps even as to whether or not the statement “I am the life” is. But the statement, “I am the truth,” is just false, for there are many truths, the vast majority of which have little to do with Jesus.

I leave the spelling out of the advice to be offered to the author of the gospel, were it possible to offer him advice, to the reader.

Until next time.

Richard

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A Proof That at Least One Thing Can Be Proven in Philosophy

Posted on March 6, 2018 by Rchard E. Hennessey

1. There is a widely held opinion that, in contrast with, say, mathematics, there are no demonstrative arguments, or proofs, in philosophy. This opinion is held, not just by those not well acquainted with philosophy, but also by many or even most of those whom we all, including they themselves, would identify as accomplished philosophers. One member of the latter group is William (Bill) Vallicella, the famous or infamous, depending upon one’s political point of view, blogger publishing so prolifically at Maverick Philosopher. I offer as evidence that my inclusion of him in that group is justified the statement, made almost in passing, in his January 23, 2018, post, the “The Two Opposites of ‘Nothing’ and the Logical Irreducibility of Being (2018 Version).”

I won’t be able to prove my point because nothing in philosophy can be proven.

An obvious first reply, of course, is that our maverick philosopher offers no argument here for, much less any proof of, the thesis that “nothing in philosophy can be proven.” But, again of course, that observation invites the equally easy retort that neither is it itself an argument for or a proof of the thesis that “at least one thing in philosophy can be proven.” The aim of the present post is to prove that at least one thing in philosophy can be proven and to prove it by, well, proving at least one thing in philosophy.

2. The philosophical thesis which I will prove is that God does not exist, at least if he, she, or it is the cause of all and only those causes that do not cause themselves. Virtually all who have degrees in philosophy, and many others besides, will recognize in that thesis a precise analogue of the thesis, long ago proven by Bertrand Russell, that there is no class that is the class including all and only those classes that do not include themselves. That does not concern me, for my aim is, as I have said, to prove that something in philosophy can be proven and to prove it by proving something. It is not my aim to argue, much less to prove, that I am an original thinker.

3. The proof is very brief. It involves, first, an assumption that there is such a God, then an observation that such a assumption leads to a falsehood, and then the conclusion that that assumption is false; an argument of this sort goes by the name, reductio ad absurdum. First, then, the assumption: There is an existent, God, which is such that, for any existent y, God is the cause of y if and only if y is not self-caused, i.e., y is not the cause of y.

From that assumption, it follows, since God is, ex hypothesi, an existent, that God is the cause of God if and only if God is not the cause of God.

It cannot, however, be the case that God is the cause of God if and only if God is not the cause of God, just as it cannot be the case that it is 5:00 pm in Massachusetts if and only if it is not 5:00 pm in Massachusetts and as it cannot be the case that Donald Trump is a patriot if and only if Donald Trump is not a patriot.

Therefore, it cannot be the case that there is an existent, God, which is such that, for any existent y, God is the cause of y if and only if y is not self-caused, i.e., y is not the cause of y. Q.E.D.

4. It must be understood that, on the one hand, this proof is a proof that there is no such God in reality. It must also be understood, on the other, that it is not a proof that God as otherwise specified does not exist.

5. The foregoing proof is a philosophical proof. Therefore, at least one thing in philosophy can be proven. Q.E.D., once more.

Until next time.

Richard

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Sathya Sai Baba. The Man Who Was God

Posted on February 20, 2018 by Rchard E. Hennessey

0. Reading today’s (February 20, 2018) post by James Chastek, “Sathya Sai Baba as Atheist argument trope,” in the blog, Just Thomism, I became aware of Sathya Sai Baba for the first time. This was perhaps a bit late, for with but a few clicks I found myself reading today’s Time Magazine on-line article, “Sathya Sai Baba. The Man Who Was God Is Dead.”

The article tells us that:

Believing in the Baba was easy. Devotees were not required to adhere to any particular set of beliefs or renounce worldly pleasures; non-Hindus did not need to change their religion. “I am God,” he would say. “You too are God. The only difference between you and me is that while I am aware of it, you are completely unaware.”

1. In reading him being described in the title as “the man who was God,” I am of course reminded of the classical Christian belief that Jesus of Nazareth was God (and indeed is God; the claim that any person was God should also, it would seem, entail the further claim that he or she is God). In reading the Baba’s statement:

I am God. You too are God. The only difference between you and me is that while I am aware of it, you are completely unaware.

I am also reminded of the logical incoherence of such doctrines. In my February 8, 2018, article, “A Diagram of the Trinity,” and, more thoroughly in my June 12, 2014, article, “Garrigou-Lagrange on Trinity and Triple Identity,” I presented what I take to be a definitive refutation of the Trinitarian doctrine. In the present post, I’d like to present a similar logical response to the doctrine offered by the Baba.

3. First, then, there are the logical principles (I’d rather call them the ontological principles, but I’ll let that matter go for now) of the symmetry and the transitivity of identity. The principle of the symmetry of identity is the principle that:

For any existent x and any existent y, if x is identical with y, then y is identical with x.

Now, if we let ourselves imagine that the Baba was addressing me when he said, “You too are God,” then he would have been saying:

Richard is God.

If, then, we apply the principle of the symmetry of identity to the case of Richard and God, we have:

If Richard is identical with God, then God is identical with Richard.

Given the last two propositions, we find ourselves with the following utterly valid argument, one in the form known by logicians as Modus Ponens:

If Richard is identical with God, then God is identical with Richard.
Richard is identical with God.
Therefore, God is identical with Richard.

4. Let’s turn now to the principle of the transitivity of identity, the principle that:

For any existent x, any existent y, and any existent z, if both x is identical with y and y is identical with z, then x is identical with z.

If we apply the principle of the transitivity of identity to the case at hand, we have:

If both the Baba is identical with God and God is identical with Richard, then the Baba is identical with Richard.

5. Now a third principle becomes pertinent, the principle of the indiscernibility of identicals, according to which, as I’ll word it:

For any existent x and any existent y, if x is identical with y, then, for any attribute φ, x has φ as an attribute if and only if y has φ as an attribute.

Applying this principle to the case at hand and recalling that the Baba has claimed that he is aware of his identity with God, we have:

If the Baba is identical with Richard, then the Baba has an awareness, that he is identical with God, as an attribute if and only if Richard has an awareness, that he is identical with God, as an attribute.

Let me assure you, however, that:

Richard has no awareness, that he is identical with God, as an attribute.

From these two statements, however, it follows that:

The Baba is not identical with Richard.

6. That was as expected, I suppose. But let us now recall that, above, an application of the principle of the transitivity of identity to the case at hand led to the proposition that:

If both the Baba is identical with God and God is identical with Richard, then the Baba is identical with Richard.

We have just determined, however, that

The Baba is not identical with Richard.

Given the last two propositions, we find ourselves with another utterly valid argument, this one in the form known by logicians as Modus Tollens:

If both the Baba is identical with God and God is identical with Richard, then the Baba is identical with Richard.
The Baba is not identical with Richard.
Therefore, the Baba is not identical with God or God is not identical with Richard.

7. I dare to say that the first proposition, that the Baba is not identical with God, has to be true, for it can be shown to be so by appealing once more to the principle of the indiscernibility of identicals. First, however, given that the Baba has died, we can safely assert:

The Baba is subject to death.

Accordingly:

If the Baba is identical with God, then the Baba is subject to death if and only if God is subject to death.

Unless Nietzsche is right, however, God is not subject to death; I am, moreover, confident that my assumption that the Baba himself believed, or at least consistently professed to believe, that God is not subject to death is secure. It follows then that:

The Baba is not identical with God.

An exactly parallel argument starting from the premise that:

Richard is subject to death.

would lead to the conclusion that:

Richard is not identical with God.

8. I can imagine that at least some readers have had the patience not only to follow my reasoning this far, but also to accept the conclusions it has reached related to the Baba and Richard, specifically, their non-identity with God. But would not exactly parallel reasoning apply to Jesus of Nazareth?

Until next time.

Richard

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A Diagram of the Trinity

Posted on February 8, 2018 by Rchard E. Hennessey

Today my eyes fell on a diagram, the Scutum Fidei or “Shield of Faith,” the purpose of which is to set forth the relationships which classical Christianity believes to exist between and among the three persons of the Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

Before my retirement from Merrimack College in North Andover, Massachusetts, a few years back, I often had occasion to ponder an essentially similar diagram on a stained-glass window in the Church of Christ the Teacher at the college. What gave rise to the pondering, of course, is the evident impossibility that the Trinitarian relationships all hold. That impossibility is a primary reason why I have to count myself as a pagan Aristotelian, or neo-Aristotelian, and not a Christian Thomist.

That is, the conjunction of the theses that God the Father is God and that God the Son is God is quite simply inconsistent with the thesis that God the Father is not God the Son. Ditto for the set of theses coming with the introduction of God the Holy Spirit.

I have dealt with the Trinitarian doctrine at length in two previous posts, posts you may wish to subject to your most critical reading. One is that of April 4, 2014, “The Inconsistency of the Doctrine of (the Distinction of Divine Persons and so That of) the Trinity with Monotheism.” (I apologize for the length and complexity of the title and I resolve to never again try to express more than one thesis in the title of a post. At least in that manner.)

Another post you may wish to subject to your most critical reading is that of June 12, 2014, “Garrigou-Lagrange on Trinity and Triple Identity.”

My arguments, I submit, are valid, in that their conclusions must be true if their premises are true. Moreover, they are not only valid, but sound, in that their premises, and therefore their conclusions, are true. Moreover still, they are not only sound, but apodictic or demonstrative, in that their premises, and therefore their conclusions, are not just true but necessarily true.

I invite you, after you have completed your critical readings, to do your best to show that the arguments are invalid, unsound, or merely non-demonstrative.

Until next time.

Richard

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Conceiving of Exceptions to the First Principles

Posted on February 2, 2018 by Rchard E. Hennessey

1. In my immediately previous post, the “First Thoughts on the First Principles” of January 19, 2018, I offered statements of the principles, of non-contradiction and excluded middle, recognized as “first principles” by classical philosophical thought. I further pointed to a passage in Plato’s Apology and a couple of passages in Peter Kreeft’s Socrates Meets Jesus* where at least the principle of non-contradiction makes an appearance. In the present post I will first restate the two principles. I will next take note of the passage in Socrates Meets Jesus, also noted in the preceding post, where Kreeft has Socrates claim that one cannot conceive of an exception to the principle of non-contradiction. I will then proceed to the point of the present post and to the conceiving of exceptions, not to just the one, but to both of the principles, in a most direct way, that of simply negating them.

2. First, then, the principle of non-contradiction is the principle that, quite simply:

No beings can both be and not be (in the same respect and at the same time).

The principle of excluded middle is the principle that, equally as simply:

All beings must either be or not be (in the same respect and at the same time).

Two notes should perhaps be added here. First, the qualification, “(in the same respect and at the same time),” is inserted simply to ward off possible equivocation. A person can be, in different respects, but at one and the same time, both off, because not working, and not off, because his mind is functioning well; the word “off” needs to have the same meaning in its two occurrences. And a person can be, in the same respect, but at different times, both off, because not working, and not off, because working.

Second, I offered some illustrations of the application of the two principles in the aforementioned “First Thoughts on the First Principles.”

3. On now to the passage in Kreeft’s Socrates Meets Jesus where he has his Socrates claim that one cannot conceive of an exception to the principle of non-contradiction. Closely repeating what I said in “First Thoughts on the First Principles,” the background to the story has Socrates, finding himself, much to his astonishment, alive and well and a student at Have It University in Camp Rich, Massachusetts. In the passage at hand, he is defending the possibility of miracles in a conversation with a Professor Flatland. One part of the conversation reads as follows:

Socrates: Let’s try it another way. You can’t even conceive of an exception of the laws of logic or math, but you can conceive of exceptions to the laws of nature.
Flatland: How’s that? Give an example.
Socrates: All right. You can’t conceive of a man both walking through a wall and not walking through a wall at the same time, can you?
Flatland: No.
Socrates: But you can conceive of a man walking through a wall, can’t you?

4. To make sure that my most direct way of conceiving of exceptions to both of the principles, that of simply negating them, is well understood, I will now illustrate that act of simple negation with a pair of propositions less imposing than our two principles. First, reversing the order in which they usually are presented, let us note that the principle of excluded middle is both a universal proposition, bearing on all beings, and, let us be careful to notice, an affirmative proposition, affirming that they must either be or not be. So too the less imposing proposition:

All humans must be animals.

is both a universal proposition, bearing on all humans, and an affirmative proposition, affirming that all humans must be animals.

Similarly, let us note that the principle of non-contradiction is both a universal proposition, bearing on all beings, and, let us be careful to notice, a negative proposition, denying that they can both be or not be. So too the less imposing proposition, the obverse, as logicians would identify it, of the proposition just reviewed and logically equivalent to it:

No humans can be non-animals.

is both a universal proposition, bearing on all humans, and a negative proposition, denying that they can be non-animals.

5. Now let me go on to deny first the less imposing universal affirmative proposition and then the less imposing universal negative proposition. The denial of the former is:

It is not the case that all humans must be animals.

This, a few moments’ thought will tell you, is equivalent to:

At least one human can not be an animal.

(Note that this is very different from “At least one human cannot be an animal.).

The denial of the less imposing universal negative proposition, of course, is:

It is not the case that no humans can be non-animals.

This, a few moments’ thought will tell you, is equivalent to:

At least one human can be a non-animal.

6. The negations of the more imposing universal affirmative proposition, the principle of excluded middle, and of the more imposing universal negative proposition, the principle of non-contradiction, now beckon. The negation of the principle of excluded middle has to be:

It is not the case that all beings must either be or not be (in the same respect and at the same time).

This is equivalent to:

At least one being can not either be or not be (in the same respect and at the same time).

The negation of the principle of non-contradiction has to be:

It is not the case that no beings can both be and not be (in the same respect and at the same time).

This is equivalent to:

At least one being can both be and not be (in the same respect and at the same time).

7. That’s how easy it is for one, even one who is sure, as I am, that they are without exception, to conceive of exceptions to the principles of non-contradiction and of excluded middle. Actually, it seems to be even easier than that, for I cannot recall an introductory philosophy course that I have taught in which no student advanced the thesis that God, at least, was not bound by the two principles; at least two of my students in the introductory course I am teaching this semester have thought that this might be so.

And, returning to the thesis put forward by Kreeft’s Socrates, that “You can’t conceive of a man both walking through a wall and not walking through a wall at the same time,” I can conceive both that:

There is at least one man who can both be walking through a wall and not be walking through a wall (in the same respect and at the same time).

and even that:

There is at least one man who both is walking through a wall and not walking through a wall (in the same respect and at the same time).

In brief, I can very easily conceive that which I do not believe.

8. Let me go a bit further and enter an area that may be somewhat, shall I say, controversial by affirming that I, along with at least some others, can conceive both that:

There is at least one person who can both be identical with his father and not be identical with his father (in the same respect and at the same time).

and even that:

There is at least one person who both is identical with his father and not identical with his father (in the same respect and at the same time).

(I deal more definitely with the matter here brought up in a post published some time ago (April 4, 2014), “The Inconsistency of the Doctrine of (the Distinction of Divine Persons and so That of) the Trinity with Monotheism.”)

9. A final observation: Let us, at least for present purposes, adopt the name, “rationalism,” as that of the theory for which both the principle of non-contradiction and that of excluded middle are true. Let us then adopt the name, “irrationalism,” as that of the theory which negates them. Next let us note that the negations in question are both particular propositions, i.e., not universal propositions. Finally, let us adopt the phrase, “universalist irrationalism,” as the name of the theory that asserts the universal propositions corresponding to the two particular propositions. The one thesis of the theory, then, is:

All beings can not either be or not be (in the same respect and at the same time).

The other is:

All beings can both be and not be (in the same respect and at the same time).

We have here two more theses contrary to the first principles that you and I can easily conceive, even if we cannot believe them.

Until next time.

Richard

*Peter Kreeft, Socrates Meets Jesus. History’s Greatest Questioner Confronts the Claims of Christ (2nd edition; Downers Grove, Illinois: Intervarsity Press, 2002 [1987])

Should you wish to purchase a copy of Socrates Meets Jesus, you may do so quite easily by clicking on the following image.

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