Overnight I have felt it necessary to reply to a case as just outlined, in the Nihilism thread, adding to the long and yet growing list of fallacious Darwinist rhetorical tactics that have had to be headlined in warning:
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KF, 47: >>I cannot but comment on this:
[LH, 20, to BA:] Are you asserting that you are infallible only when it comes to analytic propositions?
I cannot but notice the personalisation and subtext of accusation.
First, no sane human being claims infallibility, which does not prevent us from being demonstrably right on certain matters. Even, before we rise to the matter of self-evident truth.
Second, the matter at stake is self-evident truths, to wit, such as:
SELF-EVIDENT TRUTHS:
1: are understood to be so once one can correctly interpret what is stated (which is rooted in our experience of the world),
2: are further seen to be necessarily so, bound up in that meaning (as opposed to being derived from other truths), and
3: are seen as well to be necessarily true on pain of patent absurdity — such, being readily apparent to one able to understand what is meant — on their attempted denial.
The infallibility, in short, lies in the truth and in its accurate and undeniable conformity to reality.
But that does not prevent some from missing the truth.
Some, lack the experience and understanding.
Others, have been indoctrinated or led to believe what runs contrary to reality and can be induced to reject truth and cling to even patent absurdities . . . until intense pain and puzzlement may lead to reconsideration.
Yet others compound such indoctrination with emotional and socio-political polarisation so that they will not listen to those who would correct them.
Some such become so entrenched in absurdities that not even pain will lead them to re-think . . . a false blame-shifting narrative can almost always be composed.
This thread and others on much the same topic, sadly, illustrate that pattern.
And recall, what is being disputed by objectors here is the self evident nature of the first principles of right reason. A saddening and grimly diagnostic sign of how far gone our civilisation is.
In the end, BA at 10, replying to the insinuation of arrogance for the thought crime of thinking LOI, LNC and LEM are self-evident, is right:
your rhetorical device is transparent and unseemly. Everyone sees what you are trying to do. You are trying to equate certainty about infallible truth with arrogance and uncertainty about infallible truth as humility. Just exactly the opposite is true. There are infallible self-evident truths, and I bow to them and accept them and the limits those truths place on the exertion of my autonomous will. You arrogantly assert there are no infallibly certain limits on your autonomous will and then pretend you are merely being humble. That sound you just heard is the needle on the irony meter breaking the stop.
Whom the gods would destroy, first they rob of reason.>>
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The Law of Identity, Law of Non-Contradiction and Law of the Excluded Middle are not on trial, we are.
For starters, consider:
The simple act of recognising distinct identity of an entity A, say a bright red ball on a table:
. . . provides a world partition W = {A|~A}
Instantly from this,
I: (A => A) = 1, i.e. A = A, LOI
II: x in W such that x is (A AND ~A) = 0, i.e. NOT (A and ~A), LNC
III: x in W is such that x is in A X-OR ~A, i.e. x is A or else ~A, not in both or neither; the dichotomy imposed by distinct identity is not a fuzzy border, LEM
Those, or their equivalents, cannot but be plain to the reasonably informed and experienced person. And, by their nature such are certain and not open to change, where also the attempted denial ends in immediate patent absurdity.
It ill-becomes stubborn refusal of self-evident truth to pose as though it were humility, then project to those who call attention tot he error, that they are arrogant to the certainty.
In the end, we are looking at Robert L. Kocher’s warning:
suppose that I say that the red pen I happen to have in my hand at this moment is a red pen. Further suppose that someone else says it is not a red pen, but is instead a flower pot, or a suitcase or a TV set. As a practical matter, I am unable to refute the assertion that what I am holding in my hand is not a flower pot. That does not mean that I’m incorrect when I say that it is a red pen. Nor does it mean that I am intellectually weaker than the other person who is arguing that it is not a red pen. Nor does it mean that his assertion that it is not a red pen is correct.
It means that I have no stronger argument than the red pen being in my hand. There is no stronger argument possible than the simple fact of the red pen being in my hand. No stronger refutation of the other person’s arguments is possible. At some point there must be agreement on what constitutes basic reality . . . .
It has become common for people who routinely engage in chronic psychotic levels of denial to consider themselves as being mental powerhouses, and to be considered by others as being mental powerhouses, because no one can break through their irrationality. This is often supported by a self-referencing congratulatory inner voice which says, “(guffaw) He REALLY didn’t have an answer for that one!” And they are correct. He didn’t have an answer.
There is no answer to stubbornly clinging to patent absurdity, apart from maybe prayer that he pain from falling over the cliff because of refusal to heed warning signs, will at least wake us up to try to do better with whatever is left over after the fall:
My mom was fond of saying, a word to the wise is sufficient. Where, whom the gods would destroy, first they rob of reason. END