I think I have found a method of a positive argument from reason; one that doesn’t just narrow down our choices in explaining reason with God, but that positively points towards God. Victor Reppert’s argument from reason is negative, Lewis’ argument from reason (upon which Reppert expands) is negative, even Plantinga’s evolutionary argument from reason is negative. I have sought a tool or premise to pivot the argument from reason to point in a positive sense to God, and I think I have it here with the notion of the cogito.
If we hold with a variety of disparate philosophers, from Kant to Sartre, that there exists in each man a cogito through which our world is interpreted and thus reasoned about, and that this cogito exists before sense, then it seems to follow that, if we deny our cogito to be the product of another intentful mind, then our appropriation of the world of senses is brought into irremediable skepticism. I am using “cogito” distinctly from “mind” and “self,” as a sort of “filter” through which our senses and thoughts pass. It is absolutely a part of the mind and the self, without being the entire composition of those things, since mind/self includes things like beliefs and intents, whilst cogito is only a sort of program for the mind.
Sartre (and Heidegger’s as well, perhaps) “pre-reflective cogito” would be explained thusly; “The first condition of all reflection is a pre-reflective cogito.” In other words, there would be no thought, belief, or intent about things if there were no pre-existent “hardware” our mind had to first initiate consciousness and so begin grasping the world and “decompressing” the information received through the senses and put it into an orderly account, which always amounts to reflection upon the world upon reflection of reflection upon reflection of the world (read that several times slowly; I think that makes sense). Note the re-flection in reflection, as how it is necessarily post-experience, never prior to. Reflection follows sensation, but it is the cogito that puts sensation/experience into a form suited to consciousness for reflection upon in the first place.
So now we must consider a fork. Is a fork a fork if there is no man to declare something is a fork? No; a fork is an artifact, it is a device that holds its application in the conception/intention of a mind. Void this mind having the belief about the fork, it lacks the recognition of a mind to see how it functions like a fork is designed by the absent mind. If something lacks an ordered-ness towards another thing in its very essence, then that thing cannot be towards it; you might say “Well, I can make the fork do other things,” and that I will not deny, but you must remember that the fork is entirely at your disposal and whim; its essence, its ordered-ness towards, is entirely up to you, since it has no part in its essence by which it may self-determine. Its only determination is from without; without there being anything to determine (and only minds may determine in this sense) its purpose, it has no purpose, and is just a hunk of matter.
Now consider our cogito; if it is the product only of blind, unintentional forces, then it lacks any necessary essence towards something. Lacking this intrinsic essence, it can only, in casting about itself as an intentional mind, decide for itself what its essence shall be. Hence Sartre’s famous statement “Existence before essence.” This reduces all things of the cogito to whim, open to definition; literally all things. Without a given essence, a mind can only give itself an essence; but this essence from a non-essential mind will never be a true essence, not objective. It is an “approximate essence,” having determination, but a determination from an indeterminate determiner.
This line of reasoning cuts itself off, however, for my reason here, if correct, is correct, without a mind to recognize its correctness. But, if there is no essence of the mind/self, then there is no essence of the cogito to objectively decompress reason; what constitutes reason would be as open to whim as one’s own essence, since there is no objective reason towards which the mind is objectively ordered towards. However, we are objectively ordered towards reason, so our cogito must have in its essence a true appropriation of reason. If not, then how would it be recognized that there is any problem with my argument here?
Therefore, I must have an essence that precedes my existence. However, I cannot have given myself this essence, for it would be a false essence, an artifact of an indeterminate determiner. Blind forces lack intent, however, and only intentional causes can give an end to something in its essence; there must be a primary mind, then, that first ordered other cogitos towards reason.
The formal syllogism for my argument above would be this;
1) Whatever lacks purposeful intent towards something cannot be for something
2) Our cogito is only ordered towards reason if it was intended towards reason
3) Only minds can intend
4) Ergo, our cogito is ordered towards reason only if there is a mind which ordered our cogito
I could keep on going and show how this mind must be God, but my readers should be able to see where the rest of the reasoning goes.
Thus would be a positive argument from reason.
Update: So I see that the Victor Reppert has found this post, and I’ll remind my readers that Reppert is the current champion of the argument from reason. I’d like to warn him, and his readers, that this post here (as well as my other posts) are forays, ganderings, ponderings, and should be treated as such; beginnings meant to be expanded upon, a poor baby bird still learning to fly. To him and those critics directed here from him, do give me honest criticism, but keep in mind this is my first pondering upon a positive AFR as well.
I will note also, to those unacquainted with my blog, that this argument here is also building on other posts on the argument from reason. Here are the links;
I’m very excited for you Bryce to be entering into a larger world of thought with thoughtful people. This is exciting and where you’ve needed to be! This world will challenge you and stretch you and help you refine your argumentation, thought, theology, and philosophy. I’m excited for you!
REV
Do you actually think evolution could give rise to vision-proper?
I don’t understand your question.
You said evolution couldn’t give us reason for reason’s sake. So do you think evolution could give us vision for vision’s sake? Or must there be an intelligent designer first who would bestow vision upon his creations?
Oh, I see what you’re meaning to say. While there is such a thing as “reason-for-reason’s-sake” (because reason is not vested in the mere appearance of an exercise of the rational faculties, but is vested in the actual exercise of the rational faculties), there really couldn’t be such a thing as “vision-for-vision’s-sake” (assuming you mean the sense of sight). Our ability to reason and our ability to see are disanalagous, in that one is passive and corresponds merely to matter, and that another is active and corresponds to the immaterial.
But you see the line of reasoning that the intelligent design people use? It’s very similar to yours. Evolutionary theory claims that vision develops by accident: random mutation somehow give certain organisms light-sensitive cells and this benefits this organisms somehow (makes it easier to find food and avoid predators) and slowly these light-sensitive cells turned into eyeball-shape so as to accommodate some form of lens and stuff. The intelligent designers claimed that this doesn’t make sense and the eyes can only develop if God had intended for creatures to see. To quote an intelligent design argument, “To say that vision comes after eyes develop, is to put the cart before the horse”.
You don’t understand my argument.
ID makes the argument that there are certain biological organisms which, to have formed, based on our knowledge of chemistry and physics, are so hugely unlikely as to warrant the hypothesis that a purposeful architect makes a better explanation by being more likely than the event occurring without. ID makes a probabilistic argument for some sort of designer based on the low odds of some event happening without. This is not the type of argument I am making. (In fact, I believe that ID arguments fail in two regards; they do not prove that the events are too unlikely to have occurred without a designer, nor do they prove the existence of God if they are successful.)
I am arguing that the ability to reason cannot possibly exist unless God exists. I am not saying it is merely unlikely, but flat-out impossible, and can only be caused by a mind. This is an oversimplification, but I’m just trying to show the difference between my argument and the sort of argument that an ID argument is. You should be able to see that they are dependent upon wholly separate premises, and prove entirely different things.
That you should confuse my argument with ID makes me suspect the only perspective on the God debate you read is those scientists who don’t understand what philosophers are talking about (i.e. P.Z. Myers, John Loftus). Amirite?
“because reason is not vested in the mere appearance of an exercise of the rational faculties, but is vested in the actual exercise of the rational faculties”
Ah, yes. But, you see, we don’t have vision for vision’s sake. I mean, we don’t have vision-proper. As HUMANS, we DO NOT HAVE proper vision. In the eyes of an eagle, a 20/20 vision is laughable. So, what if, one day, we discover an alien race so intellectually superior to us that on the day it was born, a baby alien could divide anything (I mean, anything, like God and Chuck Norris combined, for example) by zero, would that mean that we don’t actually have proper reasoning capabilities?
In case you don’t understand the argument, I’ll simplify. You believe in a God who is better than us in every way. Okay, God is not just better, He is actually an infinite being, which makes him the best of the best in every possible way. So if you say that we have reason-proper, then God must have reason-properest. In contrast with reason-properest, how “proper” is reason-proper really?
“Our ability to reason and our ability to see are disanalagous, in that one is passive and corresponds merely to matter, and that another is active and corresponds to the immaterial.”
We can only be said to reason when we are meaning to use our rational faculties; we do not use reason “by accident.” Reasoning is an activity that corresponds to immaterial realities we are put in touch with by nothing but our cogito. If there is no intention to reason, reason does not occur.
Sight, on the other hand, is an approximated interaction of matter, an event no different from any other interaction of matter. For there to be an interaction of matter there does not need to be any ordered-towards of interaction; there is just interaction, and such interaction obtains without necessarily intending towards.
In other words, I am saying there is no such thing as “vision-proper” opposed to “reason-proper.” Sight and reason are two qualitatively different things, the analogy does not hold. Once again, trying to draw lines between my argument and ID won’t help, because my argument is wholly different from ID.
Degrees of aptitude in reasoning have nothing to do with the whole discussion. The mere ability to actually reason whatsoever at all is what I am arguing from.
You use the “purpose” argument, the idea that things exist because they were intended by its creator to exist, how is this different from the ID argument? Different flavor of the same ice cream brand. Oh, by the way, that’s actually a good analogy, because to create a different ice cream flavor, you just have to give it a different essence/flavor extract.
You’re just not understanding my argument. If you can’t tell the difference between ID and philosophy, then you are not competent to offer worthwhile discussion.
Yes, I do understand that ID is supposed to be science-y and all that. But, it’s actually an ideology (a philosophy of sorts) masquerading as science. And the ideology behind ID is the kind of reasoning you use is the same, it’s called “teleology”.
In any case, your argument rest on the assumption that we possess reason-proper. Yet, you also believe that an infinite being (God) exists. If we can assume that this infinite being will have a better reasoning capability than us, how can it be said that we have reason-proper? A person can be said to be lacking proper vision if he has has a poorer vision than another person. Surely, the same thing could be said for a person with lesser reasoning capability?
You obviously don’t understand what I mean by “reason-proper.” I am using reason-proper as shorthand for “reason-for-reason’s-sake,” as explained in the first paragraph of this post https://amtheomusings.wordpress.com/2010/03/15/allegory-for-the-argument-from-reason/. I assumed you had read it, considering you started using my term.
If there is any end to evolution that we might recognize, it is “survival.” Hence, any part an animal possesses through the selection of the law of evolution will only be in order to fulfill this end, so all parts given to an animal by evolution are for-survival’s-sake. For instance, we have hands-for-survival’s-sake, hearts-for-survival’s-sake, etc. And if indeed our “reasoning faculties” are merely products of this evolution scheme, then we would only possess reason-for-survival’s-sake. However, true reason would only be reason if it is intent on reason for no other purpose than reason, because a reason intended toward some other end is not a reason which actually deals with the corpus of logic/metaphysics/etc. Hence the distinction between reason-for-survival’s-sake and reason-for-reason’s-sake (aka “reason-proper”).
So the idea of “reason-properest” is simply incoherent, since I am not considering greater and lesser aptitudes of reasoning, but the ability to reason whatsoever at all. I am not arguing we could only have as good a reason as we do if there were some sort of designer, but that there couldn’t be any beings which possess reason in any degree if there were no God. I say we have reason-proper because we possess the actual ability to reason (this is what reason-proper is, as I am using the term).
Teleology is not an ideology, but an idea, and could be roughly defined as the study of final causes in nature. I am availing myself of the idea of final causes, but in fact I haven’t posited anything about teleology.
Once again, if you are unable to understand the difference between my argument and ID, you are out of your league here. There’s no point responding to anything else you say unless you can demonstrate in some way you even understand my argument, explaining what it is and what it isn’t.
“You obviously don’t understand what I mean by “reason-proper.” I am using reason-proper as shorthand for “reason-for-reason’s-sake,” as explained in the first paragraph of this post .”
I understand that when you say reason-proper, you are referring to reason-for-reason’s sake. But, look at it this way. Once again, let’s use vision for analogy. I would say we don’t have proper-vision, because evolution has never given us vision-for-vision’s sake. What is vision-proper really? Some animals have poorer vision than us, others can see much further. Even then, the eagle can only see up to a certain distance away. So, it can be said that evolution never really give any animal species vision-proper, but only provide each species with enough vision for their survival needs. This is especially evident on the spiders who are terribly short-sighted, but that’s okay since they don’t rely on their vision much anyway. Maybe then, our ability to reason is similarly restricted, such that it’s only beneficial to our survival? After all, there are many things which seems to be beyond our reasoning capability such as what happens before the big bang and abstract stuff like that.
Reason-for-survival’s-sake contradicts the essence of what it is to reason, because reasoning for any intent other than to reason is not reason; in other words, to reason is to intend to reason.
And again, there is no analogy between vision and reason. Vision doesn’t need to be for its own sake in order to work.
“Vision doesn’t need to be for its own sake in order to work.”
Exactly! But the same can be said about reason. We both know that evolution never gives x for x’s sake and, therefore, whatever we possess has been given by evolution for evolution’s sake.
So consider this: What happens if evolution has given every species vision for vision’s sake?
I would think that would result in EVERY SPECIES being bestowed with the best vision possible (vision-properest) and spiders, humans and eagles would all be able to see equally well. Of course, that’s just my take on that, let’s see what do you think about that.
So answer this: What happens if evolution has given every species vision for vision’s sake?
The same can’t be said about reason. Answer this question;
Can computers reason?
I would answer that question after you give an answer to my question.
QUESTION OF THE DAY:
What would happen if evolution had given every species vision for vision’s sake?
There’s no such thing as vision-for-vision’s-sake, so your question is incoherent. I might as well ask you “What does a square circle look like?”
A square-circle is just nonsense, because the definition of the square entails that it cannot be a circle. There is nothing contradictory in the concept of vision-proper. Vision-proper, something that would result had evolution given us vision-for-vision’s sake, would bestow upon the viewer the ability to see whatever it is that is in front of the viewer, as long as there is nothing obstructing the line-of-sight, in the highest resolution possible. Distance of object from viewer should not be an issue.
Anyway, to answer your question, computers currently cannot reason as well as humans do. That’s because the most computers today are mere calculators. They have been designed to excel in a very limited domain. While they are god-like in things like performing arithmetic calculations or playing chess, they suck at many things a typical human can do. That’s because they are not designed like a human brain. To have a machine that’s going to be capable of reasoning, we need a device that designed like the neural network of a human brain: neural network-based computing. We already have this technology. What’s interesting, though, is these devices are very similar to the human brain in that they are good at what people are typically good at (facial recognition and other pattern-mapping tasks), but they suck at what people generally suck at (calculating arithmetic problems). But, of course, they still can’t reason, because their designs are still very primitive. In order to design a computer EXACTLY like a human brain, we need to first understand the designs of a human brain and neurology is still at its infancy.
So, in principle computers can reason?
[…] answer the argument of a commenter known as “/facepalm” (just full of goodwill) on my positive argument from reason post. He said; A square-circle is just nonsense, because the definition of the square entails that it […]
[…] moment. The day with the most views remains May 26, 2010, when Victor Reppert linked to my post The Pre-Reflective Cogito and the Argument from Reason. At this point in time, he hasn’t given his comment on the argument, though perhaps I should […]