Logic Appraised
Logic is not to be denigrated, nor is it to be overestimated. It is an excellent vehicle for safe travel among concepts and propositions. It will save us from many an error and perhaps even lead us to a few truths. But it cannot move us beyond the plane of concepts and propositions. It aids safe passage from thought to thought, but cannot transport us to the source of thoughts, their thinker, the transcendental condition without which there would not be any thoughts.
Posted by William F. Vallicella on
Saturday October 14, 2006 at 3:49pm
I thought a little about what I imagine Bill to be thinking about here while reading Plato on Friendship.
But if carving up thoughts in this way makes it possible for us to speak or think truly, then the world must be a certain way.
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'Outside' the realm of concepts-judgments-arguments is the realm of reality. And, as you seem to be suggesting, there must be some sort of isomorphism between thought and reality if thoughts (propositions) are to be true.
But starting within the realm of thoughts, can one show the existence of a transcendent realm of reality? Why can't truth be some sort of coherence?
Short answer: meditation. (Of course, I mean non-discursive meditation. The word is ambiguous.) Meditation is not an argument but rather the silencing of all discursive activities, including argumentation.
Still, I could give a transcendental argument which shows that, given that there are thoughts, there must be a condition of thoughts that that is not itself a thought. But not now.
One cannot argue for a thesis without arguing for it. I'm sure we'll agree about this. But there is no contradiction involved in arguing that that there is more to reality than concepts, judgments, arguments, chains of arguments, and that this reality is accessible only non-discursively.
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4. Some undesirables: The skimmers, those who cannot read but only read-in. The sophists who, abusing argument, argue for the sake of argument. The ideologues, those who are out for power, not truth. The uncivil. The illogical. The politically correct. Worst of all, perhaps, are those who exemplify the anti-Socratic property: those who think they know what they don't know. If Socrates was famous for his learned ignorance, these types are marked by their ignorant unlearnededness.