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Dancelittleewok
Guest
I’m curious as to what truths can be proved without using evidence. What truths do you believe are self-evident and if so, why?
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dusza
Guest
Things exist. That’s a self-evident truth. Do I really need to prove that 2 > 1? Self-evident means that there’s no need for proof.
If you’re referring to the statement in the Declaration of Independence, it means that the authors believe that the enumerated rights are above argument by a reasonable person. What reasonable person would argue that all men are not created equal, or have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? From that would follow that slave owners, pro-“choicers”, tyrants, etc. are not reasonable people. We’ve come a long way in this country, haven’t we.
If you’re referring to the statement in the Declaration of Independence, it means that the authors believe that the enumerated rights are above argument by a reasonable person. What reasonable person would argue that all men are not created equal, or have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? From that would follow that slave owners, pro-“choicers”, tyrants, etc. are not reasonable people. We’ve come a long way in this country, haven’t we.
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tonyrey
Guest
It is self-evident that we exist because if we didn’t we wouldn’t be communicating with others. It is logically possible that others don’t exist because we may be imagining others don’t exist. It is impossible that we don’t exist because to assert that we don’t exist is evidence that we are thinking! Or at the very least it is evidence of a thought - in which case we need to explain how a thought can exist without a thinker…
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Big_Ro
Guest
Things exist. That’s a self-evident truth. Do I really need to prove that 2 > 1? Self-evident means that there’s no need for proof.
If you’re referring to the statement in the Declaration of Independence, it means that the authors believe that the enumerated rights are above argument by a reasonable person. What reasonable person would argue that all men are not created equal, or have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? From that would follow that slave owners, pro-“choicers”, tyrants, etc. are not reasonable people. We’ve come a long way in this country, haven’t we.
Well, I think you are somewhat mistaken. This was my field of study as an undergrad. The Founders, especially Jefferson, were inheritors of the French Enlightenment. they stood firmly with John Locke and trace their phiosophical roots back to Montesque. In a sense, you are right in that they held some truths to be “self-evident”. However, to say that they didn’t feel the need to provide proof is not quite accurate. They felt that it been proven beyond doubt. To argue against the mountain, at least in their mind, of proof and evidence offered by 400 years of philosophical inquiry was unreasonble.
Also, the Founders had very specific definitions for the words they used. Today, people seem to have the ridiculous belief that we are allowed to assign whatever belief we desire to any word or group of words. I think you might be disappointed if you drilled down in to Jeffersons mind in order to more fully understand his meaning and intent. Jefferson had a tremendously “flexibe” mind and was far more pragmatic that we are sometimes lead to believe. He often acted in ways that were contrary to his stated philosophy. Think Louisiana Purchase, Marbury v. Madison, and his own slave owning and relationship with Sally Hemmings, which we now know beyond a shadow of a doubt produced offspring. She was barely eighteen when he probably began a relationship with her. Jefferson admonished a nephew that sought his advice to avoid reading the Bible. He also made his own Bible. He referred to religion as superstition. Still, he regularly invoked the almighty when it served his purposes. This is true of all the Founders. They all firmly believed, contrary to current popular beliefs, in a seperation of Church and State. In fact, when Madison was asked to write the first ten amendments, he felt it was a waste of time. If people didn’t already agree and believe that these were part and parcel of the NEw Republic they were forming, then they didn’t have a Republic. He considered it a well settled fact, not a belief that needed no proof. I can’t imagine how our Republic could have come this far without them. So, when Jefferson states that these are “self-evident” he means that it is a well settled fact. BTW, they did not believe that we have an unfettered Righ to these. Any one can be removed with due process.
If you’re referring to the statement in the Declaration of Independence, it means that the authors believe that the enumerated rights are above argument by a reasonable person. What reasonable person would argue that all men are not created equal, or have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? From that would follow that slave owners, pro-“choicers”, tyrants, etc. are not reasonable people. We’ve come a long way in this country, haven’t we.
Well, I think you are somewhat mistaken. This was my field of study as an undergrad. The Founders, especially Jefferson, were inheritors of the French Enlightenment. they stood firmly with John Locke and trace their phiosophical roots back to Montesque. In a sense, you are right in that they held some truths to be “self-evident”. However, to say that they didn’t feel the need to provide proof is not quite accurate. They felt that it been proven beyond doubt. To argue against the mountain, at least in their mind, of proof and evidence offered by 400 years of philosophical inquiry was unreasonble.
Also, the Founders had very specific definitions for the words they used. Today, people seem to have the ridiculous belief that we are allowed to assign whatever belief we desire to any word or group of words. I think you might be disappointed if you drilled down in to Jeffersons mind in order to more fully understand his meaning and intent. Jefferson had a tremendously “flexibe” mind and was far more pragmatic that we are sometimes lead to believe. He often acted in ways that were contrary to his stated philosophy. Think Louisiana Purchase, Marbury v. Madison, and his own slave owning and relationship with Sally Hemmings, which we now know beyond a shadow of a doubt produced offspring. She was barely eighteen when he probably began a relationship with her. Jefferson admonished a nephew that sought his advice to avoid reading the Bible. He also made his own Bible. He referred to religion as superstition. Still, he regularly invoked the almighty when it served his purposes. This is true of all the Founders. They all firmly believed, contrary to current popular beliefs, in a seperation of Church and State. In fact, when Madison was asked to write the first ten amendments, he felt it was a waste of time. If people didn’t already agree and believe that these were part and parcel of the NEw Republic they were forming, then they didn’t have a Republic. He considered it a well settled fact, not a belief that needed no proof. I can’t imagine how our Republic could have come this far without them. So, when Jefferson states that these are “self-evident” he means that it is a well settled fact. BTW, they did not believe that we have an unfettered Righ to these. Any one can be removed with due process.
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JohnMPhilomena
Guest
Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
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JohnJFarren
Guest
JMJ / MMM 8 March 2010 100308
Hello Dancelittleewok, and dusza, and tonyrey –
I saw your facinating question and sharings. Quite some years ago this matter of self-evident truths, principles, was extremely important to me. I clarified it well. I’d like to share a little, and perhaps more, if you’re interested. I shall assume the Declra of Indep is not in the picture here but Philosophy itself.
There are a very few self-evident truths in Philosophy. They are simple and are the foundation of all our other varying certainties.
These few principles are self-evident because … WHEN they are understood … their truth is in the very understanding of them. Like an apple= an apple / 4= 4 / and like I am.
1 – The Principle of Identity
1a – The Principle of Non-contradiction
2 – The Principle of Sufficient Reason (I prefer, of Adequate Explanation)
3 – The Principle of Finality
I’m tempted to say, “That’s it!” But these are the MOST basic.
I would be glad to elaborate but only if there is real interest in further clarifying the matter. It IS fascinating! – especially when “light bulbs” go on!
John (JohnJFarren)
Hello Dancelittleewok, and dusza, and tonyrey –
I saw your facinating question and sharings. Quite some years ago this matter of self-evident truths, principles, was extremely important to me. I clarified it well. I’d like to share a little, and perhaps more, if you’re interested. I shall assume the Declra of Indep is not in the picture here but Philosophy itself.
There are a very few self-evident truths in Philosophy. They are simple and are the foundation of all our other varying certainties.
These few principles are self-evident because … WHEN they are understood … their truth is in the very understanding of them. Like an apple= an apple / 4= 4 / and like I am.
1 – The Principle of Identity
1a – The Principle of Non-contradiction
2 – The Principle of Sufficient Reason (I prefer, of Adequate Explanation)
3 – The Principle of Finality
I’m tempted to say, “That’s it!” But these are the MOST basic.
I would be glad to elaborate but only if there is real interest in further clarifying the matter. It IS fascinating! – especially when “light bulbs” go on!
John (JohnJFarren)
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tonyrey
Guest
Welcome to the party, John!
Physicalists would certainly dispute the principle of finality because they reduce “why?” to “how?”.They attribute purposeful activity to that which is purposeless - without explaining how it has come about!
What they fail to realise is that their explanation of reality overlooks the fact that their reasoning and explanation are purposeful. To regard reasoning as a mechanistic process is to undermine the validity of reasoning. If reasoning has no goal in view it is going precisely nowhere…
To reject finality is to endow the past with supreme significance, to dismiss the future as irrelevant and be forced to live in the meaningless present… 
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Syntax
Guest
(FYI, The Principle of Numerical Identity is way different than the Law of Non-contradiction.)
There are tons of self-evident (meaning self-justifying) truths which are properly basic and don’t depend on any empirical evidence or further propositional beliefs.
As for self-evident principles and other metaphysical truths, here are some more.
- Law of Excluded Middle.
- Principle of Subsistence/Inherence
- Every effect has a cause.
- Mereological Principles expressing part/whole relationships.
- Relational principles of reflexivity, symmetry, asymmetry, transitivity.
- All the Deductive Rules of inference.
- Modal truths expressing Necessity, Possibility, Contingency.
- God Exists (yes, this is a properly basic belief needing no defense–it is just as obvious, if not more obvious, than that “I have two hands.”
- The external world exists.
- There exist other minds.
- Happiness is better than misery.
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Syntax
Guest
Quite right! The relation between Cause/Effect and Ground/Consequent are asymmetrical, meaning, they don’t pair up. Take this example:
(1) Grandma is sick because she didn’t wake up this morning.
(2) Grandma didn’t wake up this morning because she is sick.
(1) expresses the ground/consequent relation–meaning, Grandma’s not waking up this morning gives me reason to believe she is sick.
(2) expresses the causation relationship–meaning, Grandma’s being sick is not the cause of her waking up this morning.
If physicalism is true, we should have no way of accounting for our normative rational process of asserting (1).
But we can account for this normative rational process, since (1) is an inductive inference that can either be a “strong” or “weak,” a “rational” or “irrational,” inference. After all, nature doesn’t care whether we are rational or irrational at all. Natural selection, for instance, only selects for survival producing behavior, not for rational or irrational beliefs.
So physicalism has to be false, absurd, or self-undermining.
Or maybe we don’t even know what the word “physical” means when we say all events are physical (which happens to be my own belief about the matter.)
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warpspeedpetey
Guest
cogito ergo sum
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Detales
Guest
Sum, ergo I see that “me” thinks. In English, only the first person singular present tense of the verb “to be” is true to fact. All else is ad hoc and conjectural if for no other reason that our sense perceptions are limited to association with the animal body and rarely develop beyond that.
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tonyrey
Guest
“Natural” and “nature” are equally meaningless as far as physicalists are concerned because those terms are elastic enough to accommodate any new scientific discoveries **even if **they conflict with the assumption that reality is in principle observable. There seems no reason why they won’t accept the mind as an intangible entity!
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Syntax
Guest
Wait a minute!
Descartes’ intuition that he exists is immediately known every time he reflects on it. Descartes did not think it is a logical inference (in spite the illusive “ergo”) about all past and future instances of him existing. So you are strawmanning Descartes right from the start anyway.
Second, if only the *present tense *verb “to be” is true to fact, then the past and future don’t exist at all because “has been” and “will be” are not true to fact like you say.
So if the past and future don’t exist, then John’s brutally murdering Bill ten minutes ago doesn’t exist either. So how can John be made responsible for his crime if his act of murdering Bill “didn’t” happen? After all, we can’t say “didn’t” because that is past-tense–and the past doesn’t exist. Nor can we say that John is murdering Bill now, because it is false that John is murdering Bill now.
So what say you??
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Detales
Guest
I say that you are limited to logic and manipulation of contents as far as your philosophical/logical efforts. There is yet another catagory of understanding which many attempt to fit into the criteria of logic, but that never works. Yet it is funda-mnetal to all of the mental shenanigans used as logic, and fundamentally useful as those are in navigating our plane of existence called the human experience.
So your time sequences are actual and exist, but are not Real in the sense that the 1st person/singular/present is, and false in the sense that the rest of that conjugation is false. those are relatively useful, as in ascribing the blame you suggest, but are ultimately contents, not the container per se. Why do you think it says Gnothi Seauton?
So your time sequences are actual and exist, but are not Real in the sense that the 1st person/singular/present is, and false in the sense that the rest of that conjugation is false. those are relatively useful, as in ascribing the blame you suggest, but are ultimately contents, not the container per se. Why do you think it says Gnothi Seauton?
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Syntax
Guest
Human experience is non-logical, yes. But if you want to start making claims about the objective (un)reality of time which you clearly intend other people to consider, then you are obligated to play by the public rules of discourse in making your views understood by others. If you refuse to do this, then why should anyone take you seriously or even bother listening to you?
I’ve heard this exact same accusation by so many people afraid to open up their views to critical examination. It’s very apparent you are scared of having to use your brain, and your *back-door *that critical thinking is nothing but a way of playing “mental shenanigans” with ourselves is merely your poor excuse not to be challenged. Above all, this move of abandoning critical thinking is intellectually dishonest, lazy, and nihilistic–not to mention, an upfront way of killing a conversation right from the start.
So before I waste my time in holding a discussion with you, do you intend to play by the rules of conversation, or would you rather not engage at all? It’s your call.
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Syntax
Guest
Past and future may not “seem as real” for us in the present moment because we are actually in the present and not in the past or the future, but do past and future moments in time exist or do they not exist? It’s a very simple question.
I don’t understand this at all. Try again, please. Thanks.
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Detales
Guest
Taking your second reply first, and adding it to your opening line of “human experience is not logical, yes,” one has to wonder why the alleged rules of conversation must apply. And I am not denying the objective reality of time or anything else. I am simply claiming that without the ground of “I” there is no objective. The distinction we make between “this” and “that” is mental, not real. It exists, but is not the fundamental Reality of Being which is in Itself unqualifiable and unquantifiable. I am only claiming that all argu-mentation is contents of mind, not Mind Itself, which in order to have a useful perspective, one ought to know if only in theory. Again, Gnothi Seauton.
I’m leaving in a few hours and will be out of the country for two weeks. I don’t have time right now to go through what for me is experientially true. The best I can do at the moment to fulfill your need for an acceptable discourse on the matter is to suggest that you find for yourself a copy of Franklin Merrell-Wolff’s The Philosophy of Consciousness Without an Object and study it thoroughly. Because of your “grounding” in classical philosophy, which is evident, and which is why I asked you what you had limited yourself to in this field, you may not “get” what is being put forth in this work at first read. An acquaintance read a much shorter work 26 times before he admitted that he was too prejudiced to understand the author’s perspective, which he then embraced. To this day I don’t know why he persisted, but he did, much to his great credit. I wouldn’t put it past you to have the intellectual chops to do better, though my acquaintance was of a rather elevated intelligence. That’s a compliment, in case you missed it.
In the mean time, you may wish me, as I do you, great success with rod and reel. I’m about to try both the fresh and salt waters of Belize. And I am still interested in what sort of painting you do. I’m trusting that you are not so stuffy as to understand that if we do not agree or see eye-to-eye on such matters as these here argued, we might yet at least recognized some more fundamental commonality than philosophical repartee.
Namaste
Bindar Doondat, FZPC
I’m leaving in a few hours and will be out of the country for two weeks. I don’t have time right now to go through what for me is experientially true. The best I can do at the moment to fulfill your need for an acceptable discourse on the matter is to suggest that you find for yourself a copy of Franklin Merrell-Wolff’s The Philosophy of Consciousness Without an Object and study it thoroughly. Because of your “grounding” in classical philosophy, which is evident, and which is why I asked you what you had limited yourself to in this field, you may not “get” what is being put forth in this work at first read. An acquaintance read a much shorter work 26 times before he admitted that he was too prejudiced to understand the author’s perspective, which he then embraced. To this day I don’t know why he persisted, but he did, much to his great credit. I wouldn’t put it past you to have the intellectual chops to do better, though my acquaintance was of a rather elevated intelligence. That’s a compliment, in case you missed it.
In the mean time, you may wish me, as I do you, great success with rod and reel. I’m about to try both the fresh and salt waters of Belize. And I am still interested in what sort of painting you do. I’m trusting that you are not so stuffy as to understand that if we do not agree or see eye-to-eye on such matters as these here argued, we might yet at least recognized some more fundamental commonality than philosophical repartee.
Namaste
Bindar Doondat, FZPC
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hatsoff
Guest
Personally, I think “self-evident” is a problematic term insofar as it is often employed ambiguously, and attempted definitions have often failed to clarify it. A natural definition might be to say that a proposition is self-evidently true if the proposition itself constitutes evidence that it is true. However, while you might be able to argue that logical axioms meet that criterion, I am unaware of any proposition about the real world that constitutes evidence for its own truth.
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Syntax
Guest
huh?? Of course the rule of conversation apply if you are having a discussion with someone else. You are not talking to yourself.
The cognitive self is presupposed in all experience, but that doesn’t mean this self “creates time” or that “time doesn’t exist without someone’s perception of it.” I fail to see that entailment. Please explain.
So when someone smashes you over the head with a bat, that’s just your mental perception of it. But the actual bat coming down on your head and cracking your actual skull is not real? yeah, ok.
No thanks. I only read people qualified to talk about philosophy. You’re not going to listen to Michael Jackson talk about evolution, are you? No.
Further, I am much more interested in the grand mystic tradition of the Church. I have spent many years and numerous hours before I was baptized in the Church, tinkering around with other Faiths and Eastern Philosophies. My own bookshelf is already stocked full of ideas like the one you are proposing. I hate to break it to you, but I have come to the conclusion after my years of research in these areas that uneducated people will believe all types of lazy nonsense that is either philosophically, humanly, spiritually, or religiously absurd. So it is a “fat chance” you are going to persuade me of the truth of some “new discovery” made by an individual quack. How about I send you a list of about 100 contemporary philosophers YOU can read for your own edification who are actually much more qualified?
How would someone as unqualified and uneducated in these areas as yourself know this? Stop being so presumptuous. I guarantee my knowledge of philosophy greatly exceeds more than you can try comprehending in 10 years. Philosophy is my very own profession, and I have devoted myself to it for over 15 years.
I am not concerned about your own “intelligent” friend’s conversion story. I am surrounded the best of the best in my own academic field, so this doesn’t mean anything to me at all.’ And I see intelligent people being converted to all types of new-age quasi-spiritualities that are completely moronic. Take L. Ron Hubbard for instance. The guy was a nut-job! In case you haven’t noticed, people do “convert” back and forth all the time from one stupid idea to another. So this doesn’t tell me jack.
How old are you, anyway?
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Detales
Guest
Hi from Belize. Have fun with your sin tax. We’re done, and good luck. Call me when you wake up.
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