Philosophy Discussion Forums

Gertie wrote: ↑July 3rd, 2023, 5:17 pm oops sorry PC I messed up the quotes, here's a tidied up version

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I think I've been misunderstanding, just a little, what you've been writing about. When I wrote my OP, I wasn't as clear as I should have been. As a result, some posts here — perhaps yours too? — reflect a search for the historical emergence of reason-based thinking in homo sapiens, but I'm looking for the intellectual (?) foundation of Reason, not its chronological origin. My fault for not being clear.

In your post to which I'm replying, your consideration is as thoughtful as ever ... and as it progresses, it uses reasoned argument — Reason — as a tool. That's what Reason is for, of course. That's the purpose for which Reason was created. Fair enough. But what are the 'rules', what are the theories, ideas and axioms, that are the intellectual foundation of Reason?

I think that we humans tend to go back later, to codify the 'rules' after they've been in use for quite some time. I'm sure this happened with Reason, just as it surely happened in (say) the scientific disciplines. We did not start by codifying the 'rules', and then starting to use them. I think Reason just sort of emerged, maybe over many millennia. And then, quite a while later, perhaps we went back and added the 'rules' once it was clear (?) what those rules were/are? That would match what we seem to have done in other disciplines/areas.

But perhaps we didn't complete this final step? Maybe the 'rules' that found Reason have never been codified? The closest we've got so far seem to be the so-called laws of thought, that seem to offer good foundation as axioms, for binary thinking. And for that purpose, I think they're a pretty good attempt. But serious and considered thought covers more than just binary thinking. So ideally we need something similar to the 'laws of thought', but a bit more widely applicable, to all instances of serious and considered thought, no matter how it is applied, or to what.



Fundamentally, there are axioms that apply to all of human existence, such as our expectation that the Sun will (seem to) rise tomorrow morning, in the East, just as it did today, yesterday, and on every other day in living memory (and presumably much longer still). But these are too wide for our current needs. They are there, as they must be, founding every human thought and deed. But we need something in between these widest-of-all axioms, and the slightly-too-narrow 'laws of thought'.

The closest I've come so far is this,

The Principle of Sufficient Reason — whereby one should take no action, in thought or deed, without sufficient justification.

This is about the only axiom/law/etc I have come up with that seems to meet my criteria. I'm sure there must be others, but I haven't arrived there yet...

Stoppelmann offered a similar idea,

Stoppelmann wrote: ↑June 15th, 2023, 9:48 pm Principle of Sufficient Reason: This principle asserts that everything must have a reason or cause. It suggests that nothing happens without a cause or explanation. It forms the basis for understanding and explaining events in terms of causes and effects.

Not exactly the same as my wording, which deliberately does not include a specific mention of causation, but the same basic idea, I think?

Relenter wrote: ↑July 6th, 2023, 10:50 pm Thank you for the warm welcome!

You're, er, welcome!

Pattern-chaser wrote: Specifically, I'm looking for the intellectual (?) foundation of Reason, not its origin or emergence in humans.

Relenter wrote: ↑July 6th, 2023, 10:50 pm When you say "the foundation", there seems to be an assumption there that there is a principle, statement, or proposition that all reasonable people must agree to. Having had an interest in this topic myself, I am unconvinced that such a principle exists. Gorgias, as I mentioned, is a historically significant philosopher who used reason to deny that anything can be known or communicated. There are published articles denying the laws of thought you mentioned. Heraclitus is well-known for his "unity of opposites" principle, a direct contradiction to the Law of Non-contradiction. Was he therefore speaking beyond the bounds of reason? You could argue he was, but that would be a subjective matter. In law there is a concept of "reasonableness", and it is a matter for the judge and jury. Put simply, I think every proposition you could dream up has been denied by some philosopher or other. This is unsurprising in a way, as it is part of a philosopher's job to be a contrarian. If you could dream up a principle that everybody uses and expose it, some philosopher would go to work attacking and undermining it.

However, even if there are no principles that command universal assent, there are principles that have near-universal assent. The laws of thought and the principle of sufficient reason are great examples. I wish I could think of more examples. What do you think of this: Scientists have a belief in the uniformity of nature, which was challenged by David Hume. Hume questioned the basis for assuming that the future will resemble the past. Nevertheless science doesn't work without such a principle, or axiom. The belief in the uniformity of nature is the foundation for inductive reasoning.

Are you looking for a similar foundation for deductive reasoning? I would refer you to Lewis Carroll's "What the Tortoise Said to Achilles". This has a discussion that's indirectly about the axiom "If A implies B, and A, then B". It discusses the consequences of simply refusing to believe this; which would undermine any deductive argument.

If someone wants to dig through the work of philosophers like Leibniz and Spinoza and others, you will start to build a good list of fundamental principles used by philosophers, some of which would be more widely applicable than others. For example, Leibniz said the principle of contradiction and the principle of sufficient reason were the two main ones used in his philosophy, but he had others such as the principle of the best according to which we live in the best of all possible worlds (which Voltaire ridiculed).

Thanks for that useful analysis. As well as looking for the foundation(s) of Reason, I'm looking for something that covers all aspects of reasoning. From my OP:

Pattern-chaser wrote: ↑June 13th, 2023, 11:01 am This topic concerns thought — serious and considered thought, wherever it occurs, and whatever it is applied to.
No other style or type of thinking is considered here.

Also, in this topic, "thought", "thinking", "reason" and "logic" are all effectively synonymous for our purposes here, and should be read as such.

Much of what we have, quite a bit of which you have already covered, concerns only binary thinking, of the sort that science and scientists generally use. The so-called 'laws of thought' are a good example of this. If there was only binary thinking, these 'laws' would be sufficient to serve as the founding axioms of Reason, I think.

But much of our serious and considered thought strays outside binary thinking. For example, many ideas that we might consider do not reduce to binary propositions. Instead, they directly contradict the Law of the Excluded Middle, because the Included middle is where all the action takes place.

The binary version considers only the extremes, often labelled TRUE and FALSE, although right and wrong, black and white, and many other pairs of complements, will do just as well.

The more flexible version, the one that — I think, and hope — covers all applications of serious and considered thought, also allows for spectrums of meaning. For example, black and white might extend and expand to cover all the colours of the rainbow. Or in a simpler form, it allows for YES, NO, and MAYBE (or unresolved, or unknown...). But spectrums, maybe multi-dimensional spectrums (!), are an important area of thinking, to which the laws of thought cannot stretch.

So far, as in some previous recent posts of mine, I have found only the Principle of Sufficient Reason, and even that I have reworded (see my previous post) to suit what I'm looking for. I hope I haven't damaged the original meaning too much, as I think it still belongs there.

The Beast wrote: ↑July 4th, 2023, 12:37 pm Very appreciated.
Petition principii.
The above seems to be a Universal principle demonstrated in orbits and celestial galaxies. There is a window and if I am looking out then I am not looking in. In my modest automation (categorical) I consider force and energy and local reality part of Universal automation. In Universal automation, order comes from randomness and in the union of the opposites (automation/free will) lies our local fundamental force. To have a force you need the applied energy to thought. In the local reality, the biological variables are at work. We gather energy sources and apply (force) them into methods shaping our local reality. That is a local fundamental force shaping local reality. The distinction of Universal and local is one of a window and a petition principii (generational for some) for if I am looking in then I am not looking out. Yes, hypothetical but inclusive and broad. A Universal fundamental force crafting automation (QM) and a local fundamental force searching for freewill.

I've realised I don't actually understand what energy is, according to physics! And the science is beyond me anyway. You'd need to run your idea past someone much more scientifically literate than me.

The mind-body distinction can be characterised in different ways which appear difficult to reconcile, as you say like physical determinism and free will, or subjective and objective, private and public, physical and experiential, first person perspective and third person perspective.

As regards perspective, there's the particular first person perspective, the unique in place and time window we each have on the world. Third person perspective is what we arrive at when we subjects compare notes on what is publically observable/measurable - physical stuff like Russell's table. That's really what it means for humans to talk about objectively falsifiable. But we also have a putative omnisciscient god's eye pov, which relates to the entirety of ontological reality, free of our flaws and limits. Unavailable to us imo. So you could say any speculative broad cloth explanation which fits the evidence available is as good as any other, from God Did It to The Standard Model, to nothing physical actually exists, to white mice aliens run the universe, to actual reality being literally inconceivable to us. I don't think we're in a position to exclude anything, but finding criteria for what could be right is the real prob.

What we can do in some cases is make testable predictions to see if our hypothesis works, at least for publically observable physical stuff and processes, and that's how we've ended up with our current physics. But this methodology doesn't work for private qualiative experience. So I can't imagine how you'd test your hypothesis. Saying that, some approaches like Integrated Information Theory (as I understand it) are using neural correlation in a systematic way to hopefully come up with something akin to equations for getting a quantifiable handle on the mind-body relationship. And there's Penrose working on Orch Or looking at QM in neurons' microtubules. So who knows...

I've realised I don't actually understand what energy is, according to physics!

Who does? Classical vs discrete energies. Something new every day. But is it necessary for existential instantiation? “The body has energy.” What is the “relation” to thought. Energy applied is a force. To be fundamental must be creative. You bring up a juxtaposition to ontological ancestral relation and also the possibility it could just be a classical energy travelling the multiprocessing of the senses giving shape and form to the observations. Yet, our reality is one of principles like beauty, harmony and union shaping the “form” of ideas like justice. The form of Justice is a creation of the fundamental force with a hypothetical (IMO real) ancestral ontological origin.

But we also have a putative omnisciscient god's eye pov, which relates to the entirety of ontological reality, free of our flaws and limits

It is a very narrow ontological description.

A paradox that could be explained but not assumed. The paradox exists as an object and the program changes the object. The program is metaphysical (thought). The metaphysical exists and the physical exists.