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Kevin
 Sep 6, 07 - 12:17 AM |
From Categoricals to Hypotheses and Hypothetical-Maxims
Re: Ivo's Kantian Replies Name: Ivo Date Posted: Aug 28, 07 - 11:37 PM Message: IVO WRITES (hypothetically): Kevin, If your questions are NOT rhetorical, I don't get them. REVIEW: The questions were (1) DO YOU SEE YOUR EYES?, (2) DO YOU SEE YOUR IDEAS? (3) What Surah of the Koran mentions INSTINCT? REPEATING IVO'S 1ST HYPOTHESIS: IVO WRITES (hypothetically): Kevin, IF your questions are NOT rhetorical, (THEN) I don't get them. REPLY: My questions are NOT rhetorical (AFFIRMING ANTECEDENT of Ivo's hypothesis). CONCLUSION: Hence, Ivo doesn't "get" them. (AFFIRMING CONSEQUENT of Ivo's hypothesis). 2nd HYPOTHETICALLY-PHRASED "Maxim": IVO: If you want an answer, (THEN) please explain the questions. REPLY: But I do NOT want to explain the questions. (Denying the CONSEQUENT). Hence, I do NOT want an answer (DENYING the Antecedent having DENIED the consequent.) COMMENTARY: Those are the 2 valid ways to reason hypothetically. (1) Affirming the antecedent logically WARRANTS one to affirm a hypothetical consequent. (2) Denying the consequent of a hypothesis allows one to logically deny the antecedent proposition of an hypothesis. The other 2 possibilities are fallacious forms of hypothetical reasoning, to wit, (3) Denying antecedents and (4) Affirming the consequential propositions of hypotheses, because... (3) When we CATEGORICALLY CONTRADICT the antecedents of hypotheses, we are essentially, "hypothetically affirming" what we "categorically deny" --- a slightly complex sort of self-contradiction; and (4) When we CATEGORICALLY AFFIRM what we have only "hypothesized", we are involved in two fallacies (4.1) question begging and (4.2) the fallacy of overgeneralization. Those fallacies, involved with hypothetical reasoning, and also the valid forms of reasoning from a hypothesis, were WHY Aristotle seemed to think that hypothetical reasoning couldn't, or, perhaps, wouldn't lead to any progress in KNOWLEDGE, for besides the 2 fallacies, (1) affirming ANTECEDENTS is a kind of "question begging" and (2) DENYING CONSEQUENTS, allows us to logically DENY the antecedents of hypotheses, but, simultaneously, a logically warranted NEGATIVE conclusion about a hypothetical CAUSE/antecedent, gives us no new KNOWLEDGE about either CAUSES or EFFECTS. In short, Aristotle didn't think that hypothetical reasoning would provide any advances in knowledge. But so-called "modern science", employing hypotheses and experiments has provided scientists with a lot of new knowledge of various causes and effects. As an arguable consequence, logicians and certain "philosophers" have gone "ga-ga" over hypothetical (a.k.a. conditional or scientific) reasoning, doing their utmost to rephrase CATEGORICAL PROPOSITIONS into "conditionals" of the hypothetical and conjunction varieties, using their own kinds of formalized ALGEBRAIC NOTATION. Maritain wrote about the tendency to turn LOGIC into LOGISTICS or "algebraic notation" in his LOGIC work of the 1930's. Similarly, Aristotle argued that the "platonists" (post Plato) were, likewise, attempting to conflate LOGIC with MATHEMATICS, while multiplying "forms" without reference to EXISTENT beings --- which Plato had posited "the forms/ideas" to explain. Eventually the platonists had more "forms" than "things" to explain, while some things had no forms to "explain" them at all --- a ridiculous result of/for those who asserted, but perverted, Plato's doctrine. Aristotle refined and modified the doctrine. Kevin |
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