If Phil was getting at something along those lines, I think that's a valid consideration.
That's exactly what I had in mind, actually.
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If Phil was getting at something along those lines, I think that's a valid consideration.
First, the historical error: the Investigations were published posthumously. No one in Wittgenstein's lifetime knew the full extent of his critique except for those who knew him personally.
a) This development was inconsistent with the Tractatus. The Vienna Circle and Logical Positivism never understood the Tractatus. If they had, they would have become existentialists (Wittgenstein didn't think that existentialism was philosophy---he thought it much more important).
b) The Investigations do not claim to be the end of philosophy, but the transformation of philosophy. The later Wittgenstein believed philosophy to be about the clarification of language and the untangling of conceptual confusion---it was to be a kind of grammatical therapy. Thus further developments are not necessarily inconsistent.
Actually, no. Meaning, in most cases, for Wittgenstein, is use. So a word with no use would be meaningless. Again, his question would be whether language and meaning need accounting for beyond this and what kind of confusions led us to think that it did.
With Wittgenstein, it's not going to reduce to anything except your assertion that he is wrong unless you end up giving external counterexamples from ordinary use. The later Wittgenstein's system is consistent with itself (the Tractatus, of course, is self-conscious of the fact that it is senseless but necessary, but the Investigations don't have this problem).
We use mystery in two different contexts. (a) That which is known only to God. (b) That which God has revealed but is beyond reason to verify. The former is "the secret things" of Deut. 29:29, while the latter is "the mystery of godliness" of 1 Tim. 3:16.
What I'm concerned about are those who see philosophy as the full way of apprehending divine things. Some are so enamored by the complexity of the tools of philsophy that they forget that there is knowledge beyond which we can grasp and have to depend upon God. Some have recast whole Reformed faith into a systematic theology that comports with analytical philosophy and do not have the humility to stop short of where God's revelation has ceased and believe philosophy gives them license to speculate into hidden things.
I'd have to think that Ludwig would be after you with that red-hot poker just like he was Karl Popper!
But it is irrellivant, you assume that Wittgenstien had no internal inconsistancies that could be developed in the sort of directions that Strawson and others have. He assumed that there could be no such thing as metaphysics because predefined it in a way that made no such language game possible.
He shows from ordinary use that we cannot develop a language game that does not involve particulers.
All of these, and the others in the book, show a good way to deal with and interact with philosophy.
Which is why I prefer the way Van Til handles these issues in particulerly in Christian Apologetics and The Defense of The Faith. He lays out Reformed Theology first, than works out some basic philosophical consequences of it. Lastly he develops his apologetic from there.
I would say that the TA solves the problem of induction (or deduction) that David Hume presented.
You believe that TA depends on connections that you don't think exist?
For starters, what do you believe to be the 'starting point' or foundation, for knowledge, morality, and existence?
Which is why I prefer the way Van Til handles these issues in particulerly in Christian Apologetics and The Defense of The Faith. He lays out Reformed Theology first, than works out some basic philosophical consequences of it. Lastly he develops his apologetic from there.
Scholasticism as a whole developed its prolegomena in retrospect of its dogmatics. If I recall correctly Richard Muller has a section on this in PRRD.
Philip, I must disagree with your statement that the transcendental argument depends on induction or deduction. I would say that the TA solves the problem of induction (or deduction) that David Hume presented. In my discussions with atheists concerning morality, presupposing God is the only way to determine a system of objective morality while being consistent. It is the atheistic worldview that ends up running into the problem of induction/deduction based on its presuppositions.
Not quite. His charge was that metaphysics was a confusion. Strawson disagrees, but in that case he's not being consistent with Wittgenstein. I have no objections to departure from Wittgenstein, given that I'm a Christian, not a Wittgensteinian, but it's important to recognize that when Strawson does this, he is indeed departing from Wittgenstein rather than being consistent with him.
He is not redefining metaphysics, merely allegating its former questions to epistemology and language.
Again, Wittgenstein wouldn't agree to the form of the argument. Transcendental argumentation depends on an internal critique that simply doesn't work with Wittgenstein because his method is to launch a de jure attack on your critique.
As you know, I'm critical of transcendental argumentation in general because it depends either on an inductive argument or else it reverses itself and reduces to a deductive argument. It is one thing to have a metaphysic to ground phenomena in, but the argument for that metaphysic depends on a number of philosophical and linguistic assumptions which, when called into question, prove hard to demonstrate.
I'd just suggest reading Anselm's Proslogion chapter 1.
Depends on whether we are talking about the order of being, in which case it is God, or whether we are talking about the order of knowing, in which case it is the self (Calvin begins the institutes with this distinction). I realize that the latter is considered autonomous by certain Van Tillians (Greg Bahnsen, for instance) but that depends on how you define autonomy.
Depends on whether we are talking about the order of being, in which case it is God, or whether we are talking about the order of knowing, in which case it is the self (Calvin begins the institutes with this distinction). I realize that the latter is considered autonomous by certain Van Tillians (Greg Bahnsen, for instance) but that depends on how you define autonomy.
Philip,
Just curious, but wouldn't the order of knowing still begin with God? I mean, EVERYTHING that we humans know was known by God first and foremost. Our knowledge is simply a derivative knowledge from him, since it is by his will and decree that we are able to know anything. We know what God chooses to reveal to us. I believe that Van Til argued this point (someone please correct me if I am wrong). So I do not think that we as humans (in our knowledge) are autonomous. We depend on God just as much for our knowledge as we do for our existence and our morality.
Just curious, but wouldn't the order of knowing still begin with God?
We know what God chooses to reveal to us.
So I do not think that we as humans (in our knowledge) are autonomous.
We depend on God just as much for our knowledge as we do for our existence and our morality.
Just curious, but wouldn't the order of knowing still begin with God?
Of course not. Did you start with God when you learned to speak? Did you construct theological arguments when you learned to read?
We know what God chooses to reveal to us.
Careful, we're approaching epistemic occasionalism (Gordon Clark) here.
So I do not think that we as humans (in our knowledge) are autonomous.
Define autonomy. Autonomy is an attitude not a set of attributes or a metaphysical state.
We depend on God just as much for our knowledge as we do for our existence and our morality.
Yes, but that's not what we're talking about in the order of knowing. In the order of knowing, we're not talking about truth-makers or the ontological grounding for knowledge: we're talking about the subjective process of acquiring knowledge. I look in front of me and form the belief that there is a desk in front of me. What I don't do is formulate an argument for the existence of the desk metaphysically---because that's just silly. This goes back to Moore's argument for how I know that I have hands: there it is.
Actually, I would argue that we DID start with God when we learned to speak. This may not have been conscious, but consider the argument in Romans chapter 1 that ALL have knowledge of the truth (but suppress it). God has made things VERY clear so that man is without excuse.
We see here that even in the womb, John the Baptist lept for joy at the presence of the Lord.
Would you say that the fact that the desk exists is a brute fact?
But again, you also subconsciously believe MANY other things concerning that desk (how it got there, what its made of, who made it, why is it there, etc.).
The desk cannot be TRULY known outside of its relationship to the creator, to God.
Their knowledge of the fact was wrong. They KNEW that the man was blind, but they were all wrong regarding the How and Why.
As for autonomy
One cannot suppress something that one does not have in some sense. I would say that in this case it is in a spiritual sense.
I mean, as soon as the light reflects back from the object and is processed into your brain, the VERY FIRST thing you do (subconsciously) is answer the WHAT question.
So again, to simply STOP there and say that you now have knowledge of the truth is to separate the 'what' question from ALL the other questions. You essentially have tried to take this desk OUT of context (the context being that it is God's creation).
If you agree with me that men suppress the truth, and that this truth is evident in ALL of God's creation (even the smallest object), then we must agree that EVERY man, if he has knowledge of ANYTHING, has that knowledge BASED on an innate knowledge of God (that he suppresses inside himself).
If we read the later Wittgenstein rather than Derrida as the prophet of postmodernism
I agree that Paul does not say explicitly that ALL of our knowledge comes from God.
Do you believe that men naturally can KNOW things apart from any knowledge of God?
If they can TRULY KNOW something without having ANY knowledge of God, then how has God made his attributes evident, and how are they without excuse?
If the sunrise reveals God's attributes, then it must be true that in some way the man who sees the sunrise KNOWS that God has created the earth and the sun to act the way that they do (but he suppresses that knowledge).
2) James, man, you read a lot of philosophy. I'll probably be coming to you with questions sometime. Do you see yourself more as a philosopher or as someone who uses philosophy for more theological and apologetical interests?
3) To all, I find Van Til, or more accurately Van Tillianism, to be extremely problematic. It's interesting to me that almost every philosophical discussion on PB, even ones that don't have his name in the thread title, winds up coming back to him. My problem is not so much with the content of the philosophy as with the attitude of many who employ it. They think that because they read Van Til, they know philosophy, and they don't need to know other philosophers. Their approach to philosophy is aggressive and subversive; they read other philosophers in order to do transcendental deconstructions (not Derrida's kind) on their work. It seems to me that many Van Tillians, when they bother to engage philosophers, do so in order NOT to learn from the experience. I'm afraid this attitude, which probably does stem from Van Til's conclusions (but not his own method, which was quite porous and eclectic), is ultimately harmful because of its isolationism.
I must respectfully disagree with you when you say that it is not immediate knowledge of God.
Why SHOULD he clearly acknowledge this?
In the end I really do hope that you will present me with your system of philosophy
Where do you begin in YOUR understanding of philosophy?
To all, I find Van Til, or more accurately Van Tillianism, to be extremely problematic. It's interesting to me that almost every philosophical discussion on PB, even ones that don't have his name in the thread title, winds up coming back to him.