Examining Stefan's Presuppositionalism

StefanMach (to whom I shall again refer as Stefan going forward) has left a series of comments responding to my blog A Reply to Stefan on Induction and Deduction. Stefan is clearly sympathetic to presuppositionalism, though he seems to be wary of Greg Bahnsen, which is curious in itself.

Below I reply to Stefan’s comments.
Stefan wrote:

On Blarko as a replacement for God in the ontological argument: Simply replacing the term ‘God’ with the term ‘Blarko’ changes nothing at all.

That’s pretty much my point: in an arbitrary argument, you can replace one arbitrary term with another, and the whole still remains arbitrary.

But in terms of religious worship, there would be a difference. Unlike the Christian god, for instance, Blarko did not have a son. This would throw everything off kilter for the Christian worldview.

My point in raising the example of the ontological argument in my post replying to your comments, is that it provides an example of the harrowingly anti-conceptual consequences that can arise when one reverses the order of the steps of concept-formation. As I pointed out, in the objective theory of concepts, the step of defining a concept comes at the end of the process of forming concepts. It does not begin by affirming a definition and then going out to try to validate it somehow. The objective procedure adheres to the principle that knowledge of reality begins by looking outward (thus objective - since it bases knowledge on the nature of the objects we discover in the world through a rational process), while the ontological argument exhibits the opposite procedure – the subjective procedure which begins by looking inward (thus subjective - since it basis knowledge on the subject of consciousness – internally consulting the contents of consciousness and taking this as the standard of what exists “out there”).

Objectivism consistently incorporates the objective theory of concepts since one of its founding axioms is the recognition that existence exists independent of conscious activity – i.e., the primacy of existence.

So when the ontological argument begins by affirming the definition of the notion ‘God’, two things immediately come to mind. First of all, since a concept is a mental integration of two or more units (e.g., the concept ‘man’ integrates an indefinite quantity of men), and since we define concepts (as opposed to proper names and grunting), stating that the word “God” has a definition assumes that it is a concept and that it therefore integrates more than one unit. And yet, “God” is supposed to be sui generis - meaning that there is supposed to be only one “God” (and thus a proper name, not a concept). But if there were only one “God,” then “God” could not be a concept, and thus no definition could be applied. Thus the ontological argument bungles its own terms from the inside.

The other thing that comes to mind would of course be the question: Where did this definition of “God” come from? Again, since I already know that we do not begin with definitions (definition is the final step of concept-formation), this definition – in order to be true – must have some objective basis. Indeed, since definitions are in fact statements identifying the distinguishing essentials of the units a concept subsumes, they can be true or untrue. So to determine if the definition which the ontological argument applies to “God” is true, we would need to examine the units subsumed by “God”. But if we could examine the units subsumed by “God,” then we would have awareness of those units independent of an argument that seeks to establish their existence by means of an analysis of the definition of “God,” which would render the entire venture of the ontological argument completely unnecessary. For example, we do not seek to prove the existence of men by an analysis of the definition of the concept ‘man’. Most thinkers would recognize right off that this procedure has things completely backwards. And yet somehow we are expected to assume that this procedure, when employed by the ontological argument, is perfectly legitimate. It isn’t – it represents a complete logical reversal of how knowledge is acquired.

Stefan wrote:

I think that one thing presuppositionalism is attempting to point out is that if one begins their reasoning process univocally, that is to say with one voice, which is to say without reference or any kind of submission to a primary mind, than what occurs is that all philosophy reduces to pragmatism, or what works.

Presuppositionalism shares with the ontological argument the same reversal in the process of acquiring knowledge. It begins by looking inward at the contents of one’s mind and then seeks to infer “what must be the case” outside the mind in order for the mind’s contents to be what they are or understood to be. Thus it does not begin with an objective starting point. Nor does it begin with a conceptually irreducible starting point, as Stefan’s own statement makes clear. Our knowledge begins with perception – awareness of the world of objects that we perceive with the senses. This comes before we have any conceptual content, for concepts must be formed on an objective basis. The only alternative to this would be mental content void of objective reference – entirely lacking objective input. In such a state we would be held hostage by our emotions, emotions with nothing to anchor them to reality, which would be a most profound form of terror – cf. “the fear of God is the beginning of knowledge” (Prov. 1:7). But emotion is not a means of knowledge – it is not a means of identifying what exists. And basing one’s worldview on one’s emotions could not in any way lead to an objective worldview. We need objective input to inform our knowledge, so we must start with perception – man’s pre-conceptual form of awareness of the world.

Notice how the notion of “a primary mind” has no objective reference. We have no alternative but to imagine such a thing. We do not acquire awareness of “a primary mind” by looking outward at the world. Rather, it is something one concocts in his imagination and secures in place given other notions that lack objective reference.

Of course, it does not follow that if one does not begin by imagining “a primary mind” to which we are supposedly expected to submit, that his only alternative is therefore some form of “pragmatism, or what works.” Of course, if something works, that’s a good thing. Since as biological organisms we face the fundamental alternative of life vs. death, we need things that are successful. But success does not depend on fleetingly pragmatic consequences which happen to obtain at some given point in time. Rather, it depends on conforming our knowledge and action to facts. Facts are entities in specific contexts. Perception gives us direct awareness of facts. We identify the entities we perceive by means of concepts, and this identification can be true or untrue; there can be errors. Thus we need an objective method by which we identify things, which means: we need reason. Reason is the faculty which identifies and integrates the material provided by the senses. Applying reason consistently helps us avoid error in our identifications. Identification which conforms to the facts of reality are true identifications, and thus requires us to look outward at those facts first to have awareness of them and then identify and integrate them by means of concepts. Identifications which are obtained by looking inward lack objective reference and thus could not be identifications of facts, but rather ideational content informed by fantasy and emotion. Objectivism takes the looking outward approach while presuppositionalism, as an application of Christian notions, takes the looking inward approach.

Stefan wrote:

I see in the objective theory of concepts this limitation. We establish a concept which has for is members those that meet certain fundamental qualities inherent in the idea by means of measurement-omission.

This too is rather mangled. To be clear, we do not begin by first establishing a concept and then going out to look for members which satisfy the requirements which we built into the concept. This would be another application of the looking inward approach. Rather, on the objective theory of concepts, the first thing we do is perceive objects – things existing independent of our conscious activity – i.e., looking outward. Thus upon perceiving certain self-evident similarities isolated from the rest of what we perceive (e.g., we see two men walking on a field), we apply the process of measurement-omission such that the specific incidental differences between the two men (one man is taller than the other, one is huskier than the other, one has a mustache, the other is completely clean-shaven, one is wearing a construction helmet, the other a fedora, etc.) are included but not specified as criteria essential to their grouping. Then when a third man comes along who’s taller than the one but shorter than the other, who wears a beard and has a big, rotund belly, we can included him in that same grouping thanks to the process of measurement-omission. At no point does this process begin by looking inward.

Stefan continued:

We agree on the idea.

But who is agreeing with whom here? Concept-formation takes place in an individual’s mind. It is not something that we do as a group; there is no such thing as a collective consciousness – certainly not among human beings. (The only way this could be approximated by human beings is for each individual in a group to wipe out the contents of his consciousness and then try to backfill it with a trance-like state in which a single-syllable groaning is repeated over and over, but even then there would be no consciousness to speak of.)

Agreement among individuals on objective identifications can only come later – after each individual in the party has made some identifications, applied a mutually understood system of visual-auditory symbols to represent those identifications (i.e., words, language, grammar, etc.) and then undertake the task of communicating with one another, just as we attempt to do here on Incinerating Presuppositionalism.

Stefan wrote:

But let us consider for a moment one of these sure concepts, that of “man”. What of great import have we said about the class? What great questions of the philosophers have we answered? We have not reached beyond physics to metaphysics, so we have said nothing metaphysical.

In my blog post, I used the example of the concept ‘man’ as one whose content is rich with immediate implications about all units that qualify as members of the class. Given the overall context of my point, I raised the example of ‘man’ to show that true (as opposed to “strong” or “weak”) inductive generalizations are possible. Thus my concern was to derive inductive conclusions which are true about all members of a class of things. Whether the inductive conclusion that “all men are mortal” is “of great import” or not is really neither here nor there. The point is that it is true. The point was not to answer “great questions of the philosophers,” whatever those might be (hopefully they’re of greater import than how many angels can dance on the head of a pin).

As for the distinction between physics and metaphysics, Stefan’s view seems to be quite different from mine. Peikoff explains what the term ‘metaphysics’ denotes according to Objectivism:

The branch of philosophy that studies existence is metaphysics. Metaphysics identifies the nature of the universe as a whole. It tells men what kind of world they live in, and whether there is a supernatural dimension beyond it. It tells men whether they live in a world of solid entities, natural laws, absolute facts, or in a world of illusory fragments, unpredictable miracles, and ceaseless flux. It tells men whether the things they perceive by their senses and mind form a comprehensible reality, with which they can deal, or some kind of unreal appearance, which leaves them staring and helpless. (Leonard Peikoff, The Ominous Parallels, p. 23)

Rand discusses this branch of philosophy as follows:

Are you in a universe which is ruled by natural laws and, therefore, is stable, firm, absolute—and knowable? Or are you in an incomprehensible chaos, a realm of inexplicable miracles, an unpredictable, unknowable flux, which your mind is impotent to grasp? Are the things you see around you real—or are they only an illusion? Do they exist independent of any observer—or are they created by the observer? Are they the object or the subject of man’s consciousness? Are they what they are—or can they be changed by a mere act of your consciousness, such as a wish?  

The nature of your actions—and of your ambition—will be different, according to which set of answers you come to accept. These answers are the province of metaphysics—the study of existence as such or, in Aristotle’s words, of “being qua being”—the basic branch of philosophy. (“Philosophy: Who Needs It,” Philosophy: Who Needs It, p. 2)

Naturally, since Objectivism rejects the notion of “the supernatural” altogether, and since man has a genuine philosophical need for a set of comprehensive principles identifying the nature of the universe in which he lives, metaphysics as Objectivism informs it is an explicitly this-worldly area of focus.

By contrast, physics is the branch of science which studies the particulars pertaining to matter, energy, motion, force, etc. It is not a branch of philosophy, but rather one of the special sciences – i.e., a systematic application of reason to some specific area of focus. It requires specialized knowledge and in fact rests on general philosophical principles, including comprehensive principles about the universe as such. Thus physics presupposes metaphysics.

Stefan continued:

We can in no way make any ethical declarations, for without any true metaphysical knowledge, knowledge which cannot be had by a univocal earth bound reasoner, we cannot be sure we have the mind of God/ not God on the subject.

And again, my point in citing the pregnant inductive implications already present in the concept ‘man’ was not to “make ethical declarations.” But since Stefan raises this topic, consider the implications of the recognition that all men are mortal. This can only mean that every man faces the fundamental alternative of life vs. death. In my blog The Moral Code of Life, I contrast the moral code geared towards enabling man to taking those actions necessary given the factual requirements of his life to preserve his life (i.e., the moral code of life) with its alternative – i.e., the code of death. The code of death undermines man’s life by systematically distracting him from recognizing his nature as a biological organism and identifying the factual requirements of his life as fundamental to his task of living.

Now compare Stefan’s notion of “metaphysical knowledge” which he characterizes as “knowledge which cannot be had by a univocal earth bound reasoner,” with the alternatives Rand employs in the questions she asks in the statement I quoted above. She asks:

Are you in a universe which is ruled by natural laws and, therefore, is stable, firm, absolute—and knowable? Or are you in an incomprehensible chaos, a realm of inexplicable miracles, an unpredictable, unknowable flux, which your mind is impotent to grasp? Are the things you see around you real—or are they only an illusion? Do they exist independent of any observer—or are they created by the observer?

What metaphysical view does Stefan’s notion of “metaphysical knowledge” assume? Does it stand on the view that the facts of reality are real and that they exist independent of any observer – or does it stand on the view that the facts conform to the “primary mind” he mentioned earlier? Does Stefan’s notion of “metaphysical knowledge” as he informs it stand on the metaphysical view that the human mind is capable, or on the metaphysical view that the mind is impotent?

Yes, the contrasts are indeed striking.

Stefan wrote:

Any [And?] what about epistemology? If God does lie behind the curtain, and has made man in God’s image via the original Word, so that words beget creation beget more words, than an epistemology that does not take this in to account is actually wrong about what is going on with regards “knowing”.

What Stefan describes here is clearly the approach to knowledge that begins by looking inward, even for man. Clearly the Christian does not think that his god gets its knowledge by looking outward. Before the Christian god created anything, there was nothing for it to look outward at in the first place. And since everything distinct from the Christian god is supposed to have been created by an act of the Christian god’s will, whatever exists is whatever the Christian god wanted to exist, and is whatever the Christian god has chosen it to be. This is pure primacy of consciousness.

But the primacy of consciousness spills over into the worldview of the adherent as well. A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump, so the saying goes. A Christian is at the very least a believer in the Christian god. Thus a Christian is an individual who constructs his rendering of the Christian god, given inputs taken from some narrative source for example, in the confines of his imagination, and then projects it as though it really exists outside himself, when in fact it is merely imaginary. How does he know that his god is real? By “revelation.” Are revelations things that we perceive in the world? No, they are not. Revelations are allegedly communicative transmissions from some supernatural realm into the mind of the believer. So how does he know that he has received a revelation? By looking inward. How does he discover the contents of this alleged revelation? By looking inward. How does he know that he has not misinterpreted this alleged revelation? By looking inward. How does he know anything about the world? He claims to know it by looking inward. Clearly this is all an exercise in metaphysical subjectivism.

Stefan wrote:

It is the case of Neo in the Matrix. The entirety of his world was in one sense false.

This is directly analogous to Christianity. The “physical world” – the “world of the flesh” – is a corruptible creation. The “real” reality is some supernatural realm which the believer can only imagine.

Stefan wrote:

Say Neo had been an objectivist. Say he was asked, “are physical objects as you perceive them real in a physical sense?” Surely he would have said, “Yes, that is air I am breathing”. But he would have been wrong, and this in every particular. As it turns out, his whole life is a dream, and he is basically a car battery for some robot.

Is this supposed to be a serious statement about reality? Or is it just a thought experiment borne on imaginative scenarios? It is hard to see how it could be taken seriously as anything other than the latter. On this view, one would be right to identify himself (how he would do this is not indicated) as a car battery, but he would be wrong to identify himself as breathing air. On this view, a car battery has consciousness and can be dreaming, but not a biological organism like man. Such arbitrariness can only seem useful in the defense of something that is equally arbitrary. It is essentially an attempt to make the point that we cannot deal with reality on its own terms, but rather that we must fantasize alternatives to reality and take them seriously before we could ever be justified in identifying what we perceive. Thus it is borne on a whole series of stolen concepts.

Consider Peikoff’s treatment of such arbitrary scenarios:

As an example, I will quote from a recent skeptic, who asks: “How can I be sure that, every time I believe something, such as that there are rocks, I am not deceived into so believing by … a mad scientist who, by means of electrodes implanted in my brain, manipulates my beliefs?” According to this approach, we cannot be sure that there are rocks; such a belief is regarded as a complex matter open to doubt and discussion. But what we can properly take as our starting point in considering the matter and explaining our doubt is: there are scientists, there are electrodes, men have brains, scientists can go mad, electrodes can affect brain function. All of this, it seems, is self-evident information, which anyone can invoke whenever he feels like it. How is it possible to know such sophisticated facts, yet not know that there are rocks? The author, who is a professor of philosophy, feels no need to raise such a question. He feels free to begin philosophizing at random, treating advanced knowledge as a primary and using it to undercut the direct evidence of men’s eyes. (Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, p. 140)

In the case of Stefan’s Matrix example, we can be sure that there are things like dreams, car batteries, robots, but we would be wrong to say that there are physical objects, perception, breathing, air, “and this in every particular.”

Stefan wrote:

Now people often shrug this off as “silly”,

And they are entirely right to do so. But notice that Stefan thinks it should be taken seriously. Also notice that the Matrix scenario cannot escape the infinite regress that it naturally invites: if this world is really just a simulation projected from a world behind it, why can’t the world which is projecting this world as a simulation also be a simulation projected by some world behind it, and so on and so on? Blank out.

Stefan wrote:

but in fact it is just such questions and details with which philosophy has to do.

I take this as an autobiographical statement indicating what kind of books Stefan has had his nose plugged into. The “philosophy” he describes here is as useless as can be, and is in fact what has given philosophy a really bad reputation in other disciplines. A philosophy which takes seriously the notion that you are wrong to identify yourself as a human being breathing air and proposes that in reality you are really a car battery dreaming all this up, is not a philosophy that is prepared to offer rational individuals anything of intellectual value.

Stefan wrote:

Prove the idealist vision of reality is false. Your not going to do it by kicking your foot against a rock.

The purpose of philosophy is not to refute arbitrary alternatives to what is real. “The task of philosophy is to provide man with a comprehensive view of life” (Ayn Rand, “The Chickens’ Homecoming,” Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution, p. 45).

Again, note the stark contrasts here: Objectivism is this-worldly, taking reality seriously, and learning about it by looking outward; presuppositionalism is other-worldly, taking fantasies seriously, and learning about it by looking inward and calling it “true.”

Stefan wrote:

What Neo needed in this example of what I am saying by analogy, was he needed “outside input”.

But that’s what Objectivism has been saying all along: we have objective input if we look outward. We do not get objective input by looking inward. Man’s means of looking outward is by starting with perception of entities. Only then can he acquire awareness of facts – i.e., entities in specific contexts. He cannot acquire this awareness by looking inward. Fantasies such as Stefan’s Matrix scenario do not in any way invalidate perception or the reliability of perception. Rather, they can only trade in stolen concepts which invalidate their entire enterprise.

Stefan wrote:

To “know” is to be in possession of a true conclusion that is based upon previously known truths all the way back to your presuppositions about metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics. Both Bahnsen and Van Til would have said that unbelievers used induction and deduction properly as tools. They just would have said that at the most fundamental level, that of their presuppositions, they were guessing as proven by the fact that the world, full of its univocal reasoning, has come up with numerous and varied sets of presuppositions, none of which they can prove, because having refused to admit God into their paradigm of what it means to know, they are without the one necessary tool for knowing, the blue pill ( I think it was blue).

Swallowing a pill, submitting to an invisible magic being, praying to Brahma, wiping out your mind through transcendental meditation so that you don’t come back as a cockroach, etc. – the world is full of various recipes for checking out. All of it leads to the same place if taken seriously and practiced consistently, namely death.

Stefan mentions “the most fundamental level,” which of course is of greatest importance. If one is off at the most fundamental level of his thinking, everything thereafter is at best suspect. Of course, most thinkers are not entirely consistent throughout the sum of their knowledge. Many borrow from other worldviews. For example, Christians borrow from Objectivism when they make statements like “saying that it is so doesn’t make it so” or “wishing doesn’t make it so.” These are expressions of the primacy of existence, a principle which Christianity rejects and which is entirely discordant with the teachings of Christianity. By contrast, Christianity assumes the primacy of consciousness. An obvious example is the Christian doctrine of creation: the Christian god simply wished the universe into being, and voilá, reality conformed itself to the Christian god’s wishes.

Another clear example of the primacy of consciousness can be observed in the following:

“That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved” (Romans 10:9)

Presuppositionalism offers a formula that is similarly built on the primacy of consciousness: If you believe in the Christian god, then all your reasoning will magically become reliable and true. If you don’t believe in the Christian god, then you are trapped in the vanity of futile reasoning. The switch from the one to the other is as simple as “believing” what the presuppositionalist program tells you to believe. And Bahnsen tells us (as I showed here) that we are to believe before we understand what we’re expected to believe. In other words, one is to accept some set of beliefs as true before he has any understanding of what he is calling true. It is just another means of negating one’s own consciousness.

So no, Van Til and Bahnsen were not onto anything new. People have been seeking ways to negate the consciousness of other men, and even their own, for thousands of years. Van Til and Bahnsen were just a new batch of witch doctors – different packaging, but surely the same poisonous brew.

Stefan wrote:

I get that Objectivism makes sense to you, and to many others, but not to all.

Of course, Objectivists are fully aware that many – the vast majority of people throughout the world – reject Objectivism, either explicitly or by implication of the mystical beliefs that they have swallowed whole, like a pill, before understanding what they were swallowing (a la Greg Bahnsen).

There is only one Objectivism. There are many varieties of mysticism. Christianity is one general category of mysticism, and yet within Christianity there are hundreds if not thousands or even more sub-varieties. Islam is another variety, with its own internal divisions, factions and schisms. There are eastern religions as well. There are tribal animistic religions. There are other forms of theism as well. But there is only one Objectivism. There is only one worldview which begins with the axioms of existence, consciousness and identity and firmly and consistently recognizes and adheres to the primacy of existence. All forms of mysticism represent different consequences of rejecting all of these.

Most people have a kind of hodgepodge of philosophical notions, most of them far from being explicitly identified and understood, sort of a tossed salad of ideas mixing the mystical with the objective and thereby teeming with contradictions. When a Christian, for example, takes action to produce values for himself and preserve those values that he already has, he is not applying Christian principles of self-sacrifice and anti-selfishness; on the contrary, he is making use of principles that are completely alien to Christianity. The Christian worships a god which is said to have allowed its own child to be tortured and executed by vicious, evil people, and yet it did nothing to intervene and protect its child from these evil-doers. And yet we do not see many Christians themselves acting this way. But the Christian turns around and tells us that only his worldview provides an absolute basis for morality, even though his worldview imagines that there is such a thing as “a morally sufficient reason for the evil which exists” (Greg Bahnsen, Always Ready, p. 172), which he says his god has! What good is a standard of good when it can justify any evil that it allows to take place? Blank out!

Stefan wrote:

Arguing about each others positions from the tree tops of our respective world views does no good.

I agree. So why not identify your starting point, just as Objectivism does? We can examine it to see if it is in fact fundamental. Does it identify something we directly perceive? I.e., does it identify something we have awareness of when we look outward? Or, can we only have awareness of it by looking inward? Is the identification of whatever it is objectively true, or is it based in the imagination? Indeed, how does one distinguish what the Christian calls “God” from something the believer may merely be imagining? Blank out. Is whatever the Christian identifies as his starting point conceptually irreducible and thus not secretly resting on any number of unstated assumptions? Or, does it in fact conceal notions that one has already accepted (and believed before he could have understanding of them) and thus seeks to smuggle them into the mix?

So yes, I agree – the tree tops is not where we need to be focusing. Let’s get right down to the roots. Let’s look at the issue of metaphysical primacy. Let’s see who’s looking outward at the facts and who’s looking inward into one’s own fantasies.

Stefan wrote:

We have to stand in one anothers shoes, and show that from that position, that our presuppositions stand together as coherent or not.

That’s easy to do. Simply address the following questions:

1. Do you acquire knowledge of the facts by looking inward or by looking outward?  

2. Does wishing make it so? Yes (the primacy of consciousness) or No (the primacy of existence)? Why?  

3. Does saying that something is the case make it the case? Yes (the primacy of consciousness) or No (the primacy of existence)? Why?  

4. Is there a fundamental distinction between reality and imagination? Or, do you think they are one and the same? Or, do you think they overlap at some point?  

5. Can you explain to me in a clear, logical manner how I can reliably distinguish between what you call “God” and what you may merely be imagining?

Naturally each of these questions could branch off into discussions of their own, but clearly they are all related, and they have very much to do with worldview fundamentals. But typically Christians shy away from these and similar questions. That does not surprise me though.

Stefan wrote:

Of course my Christianity does not make sense from outside of Christianity.

But from what Bahnsen tells us, making sense is not a criterion which even the Christian can use in vetting what he is expected to believe. He is, as Bahnsen makes very clear here, to accept any number of beliefs before - and therefore without - understanding them. So all this talk of “making sense” is not presuppositionally consistent from the believer’s perspective to begin with. It doesn’t matter if it makes sense or not for the Christian – he’s supposed to swallow it whole because, we are told:

God has the right to command and be obeyed. He has, therefore, the right to tell us what we must believe. (John Frame, Apologetics to the Glory of God, p. 51)

But notice also that it is always men who appoint themselves as this alleged supernatural being’s mouthpieces – telling us what it demands us to believe. This supernatural being does not itself come to us personally and tell us what it wants from us. It’s always other men who designate themselves as spokesmen representing this being which we can only imagine. It is not as though it were appearing before us, as it is said to have done on behalf of Saul of Tarsus who was out actively persecuting Christian believers.

Stefan wrote:

Applying non Christian presuppositions to Christianity shows it to be absurd. I mean come on.

One thing that presuppositionalism does embrace is this notion of “coherentism” – i.e., the idea that truth is ensured by the internal coherence of a set of ideas in which that truth is said to rest. This is an abandonment of the correspondence theory of truth, which holds that truth obtains as a result of properly identifying facts we observe in reality so that truth is tied to reality. The coherentism of presuppositionalism can be applied to any scenario and likewise find it to be “true.” The story of Hansel and Gretel, for example, can be said to be “true” because it is internally incoherent. The same with The Wizard of Oz and any fantasy created by Christian C.S. Lewis. If it’s “internally coherent,” then it must be true.

Stefan wrote:

I believe someone rose from the dead, which is looney tunes given say atheistic presuppositions about the non existence of God.

Of course, such a belief is not necessarily “looney tunes” if one grants primacy to the imagination over the facts of reality and envisions the universe to be analogous to a cartoon. But this would abandon any objective standard for truth. This is precisely what Christianity does, which is why presuppositionalists glom onto the “coherentism” implicit in its approach to knowledge.

Stefan wrote:

However, if you honor me as a thinker by standing within my presuppositions about metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics, no problem. Still unusual, but not problematic.

Of course, just as the Christian, I can imagine Jesus rising from the dead in his tomb after he was executed by means of crucifixion. In fact, if I read any of the gospel stories, this is precisely what I would be doing when I got to this part of the tale: I would be imagining the scenes described in the narrative. And yes, there is nothing unusual in this. I would do the same thing (imagine what I’m reading) when I read any story – whether it’s Harry Potter or Alice in Wonderland.

The problem comes in supposing that what is merely imaginary is real. Now when I read the gospel narratives and imagine Jesus rising from the dead, I know that I am in fact imagining. I know this because this is a volitional type of mental activity that I perform in my mind. While I am real and I really am imagining, what I am imagining is not real. But belief in what the Christian worldview would not be possible without blurring this fundamental distinction between what is real and what is merely imaginary. Thus to accept the Christian worldview, one must ignore this distinction in order to allow certain figments of one’s own imagination to be treated as though they were real, when in fact they are merely figments of the imagination and nothing more.

Stefan wrote:

How I see all univocal systems of reasoning, is that they cannot speak intelligently about basic philosophical categories of inquiry, because they are subject to the limitations inherent in a man on his own.

It’s very simple, actually. Man is neither omniscient nor infallible. He does not know everything, and he can make errors in his attempts to validate knowledge. These are the reasons why man needs reason in the first place. Man can in fact perceive, and he can form concepts on the basis of what he perceives. These abilities are not to be taken for granted. And yet, the notion that man is inherently impotent takes precisely these abilities completely for granted while at the same time ignoring their importance to his existence. It is in this way that arguments seeking to undermine man’s confidence in his own mind by citing “limitations” and treating them as some kind of fatal disability commit the fallacy of the stolen concept. They thus invalidate their own conclusions by attempting to draw them on the basis of a string of conceptual fallacies.

Stefan wrote:

That does not mean that their members do not “get on in the world” or make right inferences. It just means that they cannot justify what they are doing beyond being pragmatic from within their univocal system.

Of course, this assumes that said systems have no objective tie to reality. And in fact, we have already seen that there are many such systems. But this is not the result of rejecting mysticism. On the contrary, such disconnects are the result of embracing some form of mysticism, or at the very least incorporating certain mystical or anti-intellectual premises into one’s thinking. A worldview which, for instance, fails to observe the fundamental distinction between reality and imagination, such as Christianity, can provide no objective justification for anything. But this is not a problem for Objectivism, for Objectivism consistently and systematically applies the primacy of existence, a principle which even Christians performatively borrow while denouncing its truth.

Stefan wrote:

What they need is analogical knowledge, or a connection to the one who resides behind the veil, which I believe they certainly have.

Notice that, given the unspecified “limitations” which Stefan has attributed to man, he does not cite reason as the solution. He does not cite the epistemology of looking outward to ground man’s knowledge in reality and to provide a source of objective inputs to inform his knowledge. On the contrary, what Stefan prescribes here is just more of the tired, outworn epistemology of looking inward. Where else would we find this alleged connection that he speaks of? Where else would we look for it? And supposing one believes he has found such a connection, how would he know that it is the real thing? Since, on the view which requires recourse to a connection with the mystical in the first place, man is subject to all these debilitating limitations, how is he to have confidence that, once he has persuaded himself that he has found such a connection, that it is genuinely a connection to the right mystical source? The appeal to a supernatural connection does not escape the limitations which are alleged to make such an appeal necessary; rather, it just moves the whole ordeal deeper into the subjective confines of one’s imagination, the tie to reality being long abandoned.

Stefan wrote:

That it is hard to hear someone else from their own context, and that you refuse to do it, is shown by your statement:

"If deduction came first, what would be deduced, and from what would it be deduced? We have already seen above that, if deduction is the process of moving from general information to a specific conclusion, then clearly we need that information first.”

Your correct, in a godless universe.

I am correct given the nature of man’s mind. Man perceives objects, and therein recognizes self-evident differences and similarities. He applies an objective method to group items according to essential similarities and omit their specific measurements in order to form concepts which integrate those items into open-ended mental units. These open-ended units, i.e., concepts, include all the information pertaining to each of its units, which is subsequently available to draw general inferences about the entire class of items. This is, as Rand points out (per the quote I gave in my previous reply to Stefan, essentially a process of induction.

Stefan then opined:

It is amazing that you quoted me, and then immediately said that you did not hear me.

It is amazing that Stefan is so concerned about preserving his god-belief that he fails to take into account the nature of man’s mind when trying to determine an epistemology that is appropriate for man.

Stefan wrote:

Stand in my shoes. Part of my presuppositional framework is that God projects reality via speaking so that God’s mind has primacy over objects, God’s word over the objects it creates. Word begets creation begets reflexive language.

If I were to stand on the premises which Stefan indicates here (which are as explicitly affirmative of the primacy of consciousness as one could ever hope to see from a Christian), I would be contradicting myself in saying that any of it is true, since the statement that “X is true” performatively makes use of the primacy of existence principle. And yet in this case the “X” would be explicitly contradictory to the principle that I would be performatively applying. Presuppositionalism’s enlistment of coherentism does not escape this, since even coherentism requires logical consistency and eschews contradictions. A contradiction between the primacy of existence and the primacy of consciousness is still a contradiction. The Christian can pretend that it does not exist or that it is only a consideration as part of an external critique. But this ignores the basic nature of consciousness as such – the very faculty he is attempting to use to outrun a fundamental contradiction. If the believer is conscious, he is conscious of some object(s), thus there is an undeniable relationship, whether his worldview acknowledges it or not. Attempts to suppress this contradiction inherent in his position by saying it’s all part of some external critique, is simply an attempt to revise reality and, as such, an attempt to apply the primacy of the believer’s own consciousness over the facts of reality. Unfortunately for him, the facts do not conform to the dictates of his conscious intentions.

Stefan wrote:

Given my starting point, there is coherence in what I say.

But this is not compelling in the least. Someone taking a Harry Potter novel as his starting point could easily make the same appeal to coherence. But as I pointed out above, Stefan’s “starting point” cannot be objective, nor would it be at all conceptually irreducible. It could only be “known” by looking inward, which means it can only be subjective (not objective), and it would assume the truth of Objectivism’s axioms, which can only mean that it is not conceptually irreducible.

Stefan wrote:

Given your starting point, what I say makes no sense. I guess we are going to have to appeal to a higher authority, one who can tell us if I am right or you are right. Oh that’s right, we can’t, at least not from your shoes.

But since reality does not conform to consciousness, it cannot be the case that both of our views – given their diametric opposition to each other – correctly model reality. At best, only one of us could be right. But again, since reality does not conform to consciousness, appealing to some personal authority to whose dictates everything is imagined to conform (thus having the authority to settle difference by fiat), is clearly the wrong path to take, since this would contradict the very reason why we both cannot be right. To determine which if either of our positions is correct, we need to look outward to the facts of reality – which exist and are what they are independent of anyone’s conscious activity – as opposed to looking inward at the contents of our imagination and emotions to find a “connection” to some supernatural consciousness to whose dictates reality automatically conforms. Thus, given presuppositionalism’s own emphasis on coherency, the believer should be compelled to abandon Christianity since Christianity itself cannot measure up to coherentism’s demand for internal coherence. Any way you slice it, Christianity comes up contradictions.

Stefan wrote:

Good slam by the way on the whole Stefan trying to declare as true something after undermining deduction by undermining induction. You nailed that one. In perfect form I said, “there are no absolutes”. What a jackass.

If Stefan is willing to learn from his mistakes, he should not be so hard on himself. It is very common to hear detractors of induction making use of assumptions that could only be acquired by means of induction to undermine induction. This is a classic example of the fallacy of the stolen concept, and Stefan is right to recognize this error and grow from his mistake.

Stefan wrote:

Of course, I do not believe that there are no absolutes. and I like what you bring to the table from objectivism as a means for explaining what we are doing when we use language. I was more interested in how you would save the inductive/ deductive process.

Objectivism has much to offer. I would also encourage Stefan to recognize the stolen concepts inherent in any view premised in the primacy of consciousness. But this will be difficult for Stefan to do if he is as confessionally invested in Christianity as I suspect he is. It will require brutal honesty on his part, and it is up to him whether he chooses to be honest or to evade.

Stefan wrote:

The notion of God assumes the primacy of God’s consciousness, not man’s.

It is a good start when a Christian confirms that his worldview assumes the primacy of consciousness. The primacy of consciousness is self-contradictory. And affirming that the primacy of consciousness is true is also self-contradictory, for it performatively makes use of the primacy of existence – it is essentially saying “reality is this way independent of any conscious activity.” while saying that reality is whatever some form of conscious activity makes it to be.

But the primacy of consciousness is undoubtedly involved on the part of the believer as well. We saw this above. Indeed, the believer has no alternative but to imagine the god he claims to worship, and yet he insists that this god that he imagines is real. Any “epistemology” that begins by looking inward to the contents of one’s own consciousness as opposed to looking outward at the facts of reality, is an expression of the primacy of consciousness in the realm of thought. And this is evident throughout Christianity. Consider the doctrines of revelation, salvation and prayer for starters.

Stefan wrote:

Your statement: "To be sound, a logical proof must rest entirely on the primacy of existence" is a presupposition, not proven truth.

I do not accept the dichotomy assumed in this statement. Specifically, I do not hold the view that a proven truth cannot also be a presupposition. A conclusion of a proof can used as a premise supporting a subsequent truth, which would mean that the conclusion of the proof is “presupposed” by the subsequent truth. Thus it is possible for a proven conclusion to serve as a presupposition of a subsequent truth.

Stefan, however, is using the term ‘presupposition’ to mean something closer to an unproven axiom – some statement or affirmation taken for granted or assumed to be true without proof. But it is not the case that what I stated above is a presupposition in this sense.

The very concept of truth presupposes and rests on the primacy of existence. This is because a truth is an identification of facts formulated by means of an objective method – i.e., reason. Facts are what they are independent of consciousness, and as such they instantiate the primacy of existence. Without facts informing our identifications, we cannot claim that our identifications are true. Thus, since truth rests on facts which are what they are independent of consciousness, identifications which are true must be wholly consistent with the primacy of existence. Subsequently, to be sound, a logical proof must be formally valid and have true premises - which means: its premises must rest entirely on the primacy of existence.

Consider the alternative – i.e., the supposition that the concept of truth is compatible with the primacy of consciousness. So we have two individuals – both conscious agents – making statements about the capital of the state of New York. Person A recognizes that true statements need to be informed by facts which obtain independent of anyone’s beliefs, wishing, feelings, imagination, etc., and affirms that Albany is the capital of the state of New York. On the other hand, Person B rejects the view that truth must rest on facts that obtain independent of conscious activity and declares “Schenectady is the capital of the state of New York because I want it to be the capital of New York!” Unfortunately for Person B, truth does not conform to conscious intentions any more than facts do, and that is because to be true, statements identifying facts must conform to the facts they identify, not to conscious activity.

Notice how Person B would still be wrong if he stated that Albany is the capital of New York because he wants it to be the capital of New York. Truth is contextual because identification is contextual. If the context of the identification includes the assumption of the primacy of consciousness at any point, it must be rejected. Truth is only possible on the basis of objective identification, and identification can only be objective if its entire context is wholly consistent with the primacy of existence.

So I stand by my statement above that “To be sound, a logical proof must rest entirely on the primacy of existence,” and since I can prove it by citing the facts which validate it, it is not an unproven presupposition that one must accept without rational justification.

Stefan wrote:

There are other presuppositions that disagree with yours.

Indeed, there definitely are. Here in Thailand (where I currently reside), the “presuppositions” of the Buddhist religion (which is the predominating worldview here) include the notion that “desire” leads to “suffering,” Thus the culture of the people teaches people not to desire things. Consequently the vast majority of people do not desire to learn, to grow, to mature, to grow up, to accomplish things, to increase their skill sets, to improve their lives, to maximize their potential, to be productive, to achieve personal fulfillment, etc. It is a culture of the deep sleep, a culture of stagnation, a culture of self-inflicted intellectual retardation.

And back in the United States where I lived before this, I was surrounded by people who routinely confuse reality with their imagination, presupposing that what they imagine is real because of the impact it has on their emotions, and using their emotions to justify their confusion of the imaginary with the real. They are called Christians. And they go door-to-door sometimes, interrupting my privacy to “share the gospel,” a fantasy which they call “historical” and interpret as having the power to put all these obligations on people, principally an obligation to sacrifice one’s own self-interests on behalf of a deity that one can only imagine.

So yes, I realize that many people – indeed, the vast majority of human beings – have “presuppositions” which differ from mine. But the very fact that there are such differences confirms that human beings need an objective method by which the facts of reality can be discovered and properly identified such that we can confidently know what the truth is. Notice that both the Buddhist and the Christian worldviews both share the same fundamentals: mystical reality beyond the reach of the senses, the primacy of looking inward over looking outward as the means of “knowing,” the repudiation of selfishness, collectivistic politics, etc. They’re essentially the same, only the packaging is different.

Stefan asked:

By what right other than the supremacy of your mind over mine do you dogmatically assert that you are right and that I am wrong.

For one, since I am explicitly applying reason to these matters, it is not a “dogma” that I am asserting. Also, I carefully step through the process – beginning with perception, which anyone reading my words is clearly capable of doing – to the verdicts that I have drawn. Moreover, what I am doing here on my blog in no way infringes on anyone else’s rights: Stefan has every right to reject what I affirm and suppose that I am a complete bonehead if he so judges.

What I hope Stefan would take away from this is an enlightened understanding about the fundamentals underlying the notions of true and untrue, right and wrong, accurate and mistaken, and recognize their nature with respect to the issue of metaphysical primacy – i.e., the proper orientation between the subject of consciousness and the objects of consciousness. See for example my discussion above about the concept ‘truth’ necessarily presupposing the primacy of existence. Stefan will not learn about these things by reading the bible.

Stefan wrote:

I am on an equal footing with you as far as being authoritative goes, which is shifting sand for both of us.

I cannot speak for Stefan. But I am certainly not expecting anyone to take what I say as truth merely on my own say so. Reason is my only authority. It is the only objective authority. An objective authority could not be a consciousness to whose dictates reality allegedly conforms. If such a consciousness existed, there could be no reliable standard to anything we identify. We could identify something as a rock one minute, and the next the ruling consciousness could decide to turn it into a steamship. I certainly do not style myself as such a consciousness. I am only interested in going by the facts, and that is why I recognize my need for reason.

Stefan wrote:

You appear to be suffering from the irrational/ rational tension.

Stefan does not identify what he takes as an indication of this tension in anything that I have affirmed. So it is unclear why he thinks I “appear to be suffering from” it.

Stefan wrote:

Assuming something to be true so completely that you don’t even realize that you are assuming it.

If this is what Stefan thinks I’m doing, he is mistaken. I am extremely careful not to take unwarranted assumptions for granted. That is why I think it is so important to begin with a starting point that is conceptually irreducible - a starting point which does not rest on more fundamental identifications, notions, assumptions, beliefs, etc. This is accomplished in the Objectivist axiom of existence: it does not rest on more fundamental knowledge or assumptions.

Stefan wrote:

I own my presuppositions as just that. Apparently you do not.

What exactly this means, depends in large part in the meaning that Stefan packs into the notion “presuppositions.” To parse his statement and determine whether or not his suspicions about me with respect to what he says here are true, he would need to make the elements of meaning involved in the notion “presuppositions” as he uses it here explicit.

Stefan wrote:

I will keep reading.

That is the least that any online blogger could hope for!
Stefan wrote:

Thanks for the response in book form.

Stefan is most welcome. I enjoyed writing another blog entry on induction.

Stefan wrote:

I do think is some ways you have misread Bahnsen, but I am not interested in defending him. Given a different set of circumstances, he would have been a mass murderer, by his own admission. That Theonomy is scary shit.

I’m reminded of a brief passage that Rand included in “Galt’s Speech” in her novel Atlas Shrugged:

Every dictator is a mystic, and every mystic is a potential dictator. A mystic craves obedience from men, not their agreement. He wants them to surrender their consciousness to his assertions, his edicts, his wishes, his whims—as his consciousness is surrendered to theirs. He wants to deal with men by means of faith and force—he finds no satisfaction in their consent if he must earn it by means of facts and reason. Reason is the enemy he dreads and, simultaneously, considers precarious; reason, to him, is a means of deception; he feels that men possess some power more potent than reason—and only their causeless belief or their forced obedience can give him a sense of security, a proof that he has gained control of the mystic endowment he lacked. His lust is to command, not to convince: conviction requires an act of independence and rests on the absolute of an objective reality. What he seeks is power over reality and over men’s means of perceiving it, their mind, the power to interpose his will between existence and consciousness, as if, by agreeing to fake the reality he orders them to fake, men would, in fact, create it.

At no point in the bible do we find a prohibition of the use of force against individuals. There is no doctrine of individual rights laid out in the bible. The concept of individual rights is completely alien to a worldview which holds that the fundamental purpose of our lives is to serve a “king” – even if that king is nothing more than a figment of men’s imaginations. The very notion of “the Holy Spirit” coming into a man’s mind and “regenerating” him such that he “sees” the “Truth” and “knows” his god’s wishes for his life, is an example of the initiation of the use of force against man. Presuppositionalists themselves tell us that their arguments cannot convince us; indeed, they cannot convince me, but not for the reasons that they offer. They cannot convince me because I know they are fundamentally erroneous through and through. But presuppositionalists insist that their arguments are sound, even if they do not formulate them correctly (Van Til affirmed this). Rather, they say that it is “up to God” whether or not a person “sees the light” – meaning, we are not to be persuaded to accept the truth by means of reason, but that we need to be forced by some irresistible phenomenon that we cannot see, touch, or even reason with. Reason is out. Force is in. Faith and force are corollaries.

Stefan wrote:

Last note: I do not see any reason to refute the tree top observations of objectivism. It is not the details but the presuppositions I am interested in. Sorry I did not go in to your list of presuppositions for objectivist thought.

There is much in my two blog posts responding to Stefan already. But even more going back nearly nine years on my blog. I invite Stefan to continue reading at his leisure and to inquire with any questions he may have.

by Dawson Bethrick