Transcendental Arguments

[@miglriccardi]

Wow, Prof. Bonevac, bravissimo! This is crystal clear and the first time I’ve seen Kant’s TA formalized. It makes it so much easier to understand and especially remember.

[@JamesAndrewMacGlashanTaylor]

That was one of the most valuable 24:43 I have ever spent on KZbin.

[@neoepicurean3772]

Thank you so much for these videos - as a distance learner in post grad philosophy I rely on substituting in-person teaching with guided reading which is so well supplemented and strengthened by content like this - thank you!

[@avaragedude6223]

It seems like the only argument against transcendental arguments is "everything might be an illusion, so it can't really be known". Well, if that is the case, why bother trying to learn anything? Absolute skeptics kept rejecting "dogmas" so much that they created their own. Great video!

[@hokalos]

There is still a necessary precondition as to which possibility of illusion and impossibility of knowledge can be know 😂

[@MyselfTheodore]

Destruction of justification, yes

[@HatingAmericans225]

Most of them are larping.

[@Robobotic]

@@hokalos as well as the claim "everything might be an illusion, so it can't really be known" as it requires language as a condition for that claim itself.

[@buddhabillybob]

One of your best videos!! Thanks.

[@vaclavmiller8032]

Really fantastic!

[@PhiloofAlexandria]

Thank you! Cheers!

[@die_schlechtere_Milch]

Very, very good! Thank you!

[@hrossaman]

This breaks down for me at the end, where my little brain interprets the logic algebra as: "I can imagine this fantastical thing, therefore the fantastical thing must necessarily exist"

[@kyriacostheofanous1445]

thats not the argument at all. you cannot justify knowledge if atheism/materialism are true. how dense are you?

[@hrossaman]

@@kyriacostheofanous1445 I'm not sure yet how dense I am. ** I was actually trying to remember which part of Daniel's argument my hot take was referring to, 6 months ago. Rewatching, I think my criticism only applied to his summary, at 23:05

[@hrossaman]

@@kyriacostheofanous1445 Also, I don't endorse atheism/materialism... Those things are stupid. I'm just grappling with this basic version of the transcendental argument.

[@arthurgreene4567]

The ideas are great and profound and true; they are not really so complicated; Kant manages to make them almost incomprehensible (he creates a new language, you have to learn what he means by each word, like “intuition” for example); Bonevac just adds to the confusion with the unnecessary side lecture on logic.

[@PhiloofAlexandria]

I don’t think it’s unnecessary, since Kant wants to derive a necessary conclusion.

[@arthurgreene4567]

Thank you for noticing my reply, Professor. I could be wrong 😅 not really knowing anything about it, but how does the logical explanation improve on the simple statement that a transcendental argument is an attempt to clarify what the necessary conditions are for something to take place, if that statement is true?

[@Bi0Dr01d]

Simply put, concerning the specifics of what a Transcendental Argument is arguing for, In order for this particular thing to be possible, a necessary thing would have to actually exist. For example, if it is possible to think, then it necessarily follows there is a mind or a brain.

[@findbridge1790]

thank you. great presentation.

[@Testeverything521]

Ooo, I'm excited for this one!

[@grantivie]

Thank you!!

[@lupinthe4th400]

I've been reading about the Transcendental Argument for God. This video was really helpful, thank you!

[@joshua_finch]

Do check out Bahnsen. Also on KZbin.

[@lupinthe4th400]

@@joshua_finch thanks.

[@science_is_fake_and_gay2710]

Transcendal argument and transcendal argument for God are different things. Transcendal arguments don't work as Kant meant.

[@lupinthe4th400]

@@science_is_fake_and_gay2710 I know.

[@jacksonspeakman5831]

Look into Dr. Greg Bahnsen and Cornelius Van Til

[@rorytorrens3394]

I had to think about this for a while but I think I got it in the end! Wonderful work. One thing that I'm coming to see in many places is the desire among philosophers for truths to be necessary. It seems to me that you could take away the boxes, and still have a nice argument. You still get to derive B from the mere possibility of A... But for some reason this isn't enough. I was thinking of this in relation to physicalism in philosophy of mind. THe physicalist, typically, isn't content to say: well, that’s what it’s like around here… brains are necessary for experience. (If it is possible for X to have experience, then X has something like a nervous system; It is possible for X to have experience. Therefore X has a nervous system).They want to say: There is just no way for it to ever occur that one has experience but not a brain (or something similar). Which places a huge additional dialectical burden upon the physicalist. Likewise for Kant. Maybe in nearby worlds it is a condition on the possibility of experience that the subject have a certain kind of unity. But now he needs to prove that there is no world where this is not a condition. And, jeez, that's hard. Conceivability seems to be a key weapon in the philosopher's arsenal to demonstrate necessity, but that's strikes me as highly dubious.

[@milamilojevic8346]

Greatly explained. Thanks proff Bonevac

[@PhiloofAlexandria]

You are welcome!

[@joshua_finch]

Excellent! Please go through more traditional thinkers' (including the Germans) transcendental arguments!

[@jazzeezz]

Thank you. Great explanation.

[@Eta_Carinae__]

Is there a modus tollens analogue for this that works also, that can get me from necessity to possibility? Like, if I negated possibly A I get necessarily not A, and negating the conc. I get possibly not B.

[@tylerhulsey982]

Thanks professor. Very edifying.

[@jayc9940]

1:03 “KANT-templating” 😂 sorry I Kant help myself...

[@arcade5765]

Haha, ha

[@you-tube2044]

great

[@adriancioroianu1704]

It always cracks me up when i hear Anselm's ontological argument, especially well explained. Very good video, thank you.

[@MyselfTheodore]

Why is that

[@adriancioroianu1704]

@@MyselfTheodore it's just funny to me, i find it a clever mental trick that doesn't stand philosophical scrutiny.

[@CjqNslXUcM]

@@MyselfTheodore It's the subject of mockery because it's philosophically specious.

[@die_schlechtere_Milch]

Could anyone please provide the AA or A/B page numbers for the passage cited from the Critique of Pure Reason?

[@Eta_Carinae__]

This fails to obtain in System K, right? It only can work in all accessible worlds, but technically not all worlds. Cheers!

[@PhiloofAlexandria]

Right-it needs S5.

[@ktheodor3968]

What open source software is in software engineering, your video uploads are in academic Φ (φιλοσοφία philosophy). Thank you sir.

[@PhiloofAlexandria]

Thank you!

[@JonSebastianF]

Daniel, please please, follow up with a video about _The Problems of Transcendental Arguments_ :D

[@virtuosic4883]

How about *"Contextual Solutions to the Problems of Transcendental Arguments"*? So tired of seeing philosophers completely stop the development of concepts halfway through just to get wrapped up in outlines of specific problems with them, it's so overdone. If a concept was problematic, what ends are achieved in outlining its peculiar problems when they have such narrow insight - it's uninformative and unproductive.

[@HatingAmericans225]

4:36 most of them actually are.

[@johnstfleur3987]

I AM JOHN.

[@mileskeller5244]

I don't think it's OK to leave out that last parts that he makes the claim god existing is apriori because otherwise how could else have that idea. Nobody could be raised without hearing a god claim so of course he was going to have a concept of a "god". I could also conceive Carl Sagans purple dragon, that does not mean it exists in this world or another.

[@passerby4507]

From a background of mathematical logic, this seems simply like an exercise in logical slight of hand, burying the argument in ill-defined notions. Correct me if I'm wrong. There is first a universe U of worlds. Then, necessity is defined as some property being true in all worlds, possiblity is defined as some property being true in some worlds. The transcendental argument is the statement: (∃w∈U: p(w))∧(∀w∈U: p(w)⇒q(w))⇒∀w∈U: q(w) That's... not true.

[@PhiloofAlexandria]

You're missing the possibility operator in the second premise. It's [](p => q), which means that you need (∃w∈U: p(w))∧(∀w∈U: (∃w'∈U: p(w')⇒q(w)))⇒∀w∈U: q(w)

[@passerby4507]

@@PhiloofAlexandria Ah, now I'm totally embarrassed. I think you mistyped the brackets: (∃w∈U: p(w))∧(∀w∈U: (∃w'∈U: p(w'))⇒q(w))⇒∀w∈U: q(w)

[@yoveeditors5502]

Isn't transcendental about God being mysterious and beyond us, we can't understand him we can't imagine him. Kant looks at the idea of God as supreme. Kant uses two worlds to explain transcendental the phenomenon - real world and nomenon a world that is beyond where God is. Kant makes God distant - God is far from human existence, God is pure. I think this is the weakness of Kant's argument. He distances us from God in his argument. His argument is abstract and difficult to comprehend. I think that's why Christians like to say God is omnipresent he is with us all the time unlike Kant who says God is transcendental

[@PhiloofAlexandria]

I think you're talking about what Kant refers to as transcendent-going beyond the realm of possible experience. In his usage, 'transcendental' means something different, generally, underlying necessary conditions for possible experience.

[@yoveeditors5502]

Daniel Bonevac Thank you for clarifying this I'm only learning philosophy in your lectures

[@douglashurd4356]

Philosophical slight of mind. If I can imagine a pig with wings, it must exist. I enjoy your videos and lectures very much and feel that I learn a lot but this was just polishing a turd.

[@milmex317th]

Modus Ponean is magic. Sorry to break to you. I mean that nassasahrly.

[@tulliusagrippa5752]

It is possible that unicorns exist. Therefore unicorns exist. That makes perfect sense. And it also eliminates the need for empirical data. No wonder that Kant concluded that there can be no geometry other than Euclidean geometry. O the wisdom of the Boeotians!

[@Robobotic]

What are you talking about. You either didn't get the argument or purposefully don't want to accept it so you misinterpret it on purpose.

[@talleyhoe846]

Modal logic in general lacks justification as a means of describing the real world. Absent objective verification, modal logic axioms of what is possible and necessary are arbitrary human inventions whose applicability therefore remains confined to human conceptual domain. This is why theologians rely on transcendental arguments because these arguments cannot be tested for verification in the real world. Hence they are safe in being immune from rebuttal. The more arbitrary axioms added to a modal system, the more extended the scope for concocting transcendental arguments. The addition of the axiom yielding S5 was the missing prop theologians required to allow them to manufacture a god by morphing possibility into necessity. The magic of semantics at its very finest. The conceptual realm in which logic resides a free-for-all intellectual playground without the limiting constraints imposed by the real world. So any claims about the real world derived from a conclusion of logic per se is irrelevant unless all premises required to yield the conclusion are explicitly stated and objectively verified. Otherwise, it is nothing but a word game.

[@Bruh-el9js]

I really dislike this argument, there's no basis to assume what is and what isn't possible, we literally have no reason to believe you could've worn a different shirt, I say the only possibility is reality and we can't deduce all of it's elements because we don't experience all of it

[@Bruh-el9js]

@@sriveltenskriev6271 I do hold determinism actually, which does not mean that "empirical truths are analytic" in any way

[@Bruh-el9js]

@@sriveltenskriev6271 we know that time and space itself is relative to other properties, if you're close to something which distorts it, such as a very massive object, time itself will pass faster, and if you could see earth clearly you would see things that haven't happened in our time yet, which shirt someone will choose and at what time they will die, these events will have both already happened and not happened yet, and the ones which haven't happened yet will necessarily follow their future selfs

[@gerardo49078]

@@Bruh-el9js And how exactly do you know that the same things will follow one specific line of time if time was distorted? Do you happen to know a relative which has experienced this?

[@Bruh-el9js]

@@gerardo49078 there's no reason to assume otherwise, there's zero evidence of other timelines and there's a lot of evidence that the universe indeed works that way, TIME was distorted, not the contents of space, you seem to be misunderstanding it

[@okra7648]

But determinism doesn't explain our judgments which is how we get morality. If our reality is determined then there's no basis for you to get made at me if I suddenly punch you in the face. You get mad at me because you sense a moral failing, a judgment, but in presupposing judgments you can't hold a determinist frame. It just isn't helpful, it's intellectually shallow and rejects free will. If our sense perception can intuit judgments and said intuitions are inherent to us as human beings, who emerged out of nature (assuming you take evolution seriously) it must tell us something about the nature of reality independent our sense experience(I disagree with Kant here).

[@JerryPenna]

I can see some transcendental arguments, but to claim god is transcendental seems like a big leap without justification.

[@PhiloofAlexandria]

The arguments have similar forms, but you're right, each has to be evaluated independently, because the second premise-necessarily, if A is possible, then B (i.e., B is a necessary condition for the possibility of A)-may or may not be plausible for various choices of A and B. So, there's no inconsistency in liking some of these arguments and disliking others.