I’ve never read Aquinas, but I’m surprised he said that! I think you both give the atheists too much credit. Human reason is one of the things you will have to deny if you want to deny the existence of God, and once you’ve denied that, you simply have to stop and abandon all hope of knowing anything. I suppose you get the “empty system” with no axioms, which, true, is not self-contradictory, but it hardly qualifies as an alternative.
Regarding Footnote 10. The expression "a priori" is not really Thomistic. It is Kantian more than Thomistic. Aquinas' expression was "propter quid", which means "through the cause" or, perhaps "by means of the cause". The other form of demonstration was not said to be "a posteriori", but, instead "a quia" or, in effect, "through" or by means of "effects". Neither Kant's mentor (David Hume) nor Kant himself were very "big" on Aristotelian CAUSES and/or EFFECTS.
You are correct. However, for whatever reason, the Fathers of the English Dominican province, which is my chosen translation, use "a priori" and "a posteriori." I do not have enough of a dog in the philosophic-linguistic fight to care much either way, but your point is taken. Following Owen Barfield and later Wittgenstein, all language (except that which can be formally axiomatized) is a matter of metaphor, so as long as the point is taken, we're good.
Every language is formally axiomatized. It is called the law of contradiction. Some say the law of non-contradiction or, in other words, do not contradict either being or yourself. Why would you "follow" a poet lawyer or Wittgenstein? Lawyers don't know anything about the truth, for if they did, they'd be on the witness stand rather than contradicting each other at the bar of justice. And Wittgenstein? Did he really threaten Karl Popper with a hot poker or was that just a metaphor?
I know that Owen Barfield influenced "the apologist" (Lewis; good nickname). But he did so with poetic metaphors, rather than logic.
I'm just kidding as usual. Or, perhaps, I'm being metaphorical. Either way, we really are good. I can agree with that. But the expressions in quotes from the fathers of the Dominican Province are misleading. Serious question ...
What do you think about Kant's "a priori" SYNTHETIC Judgments or "synthetic judgments a priori" is another expression of the same phrase.
Formal axiomatization is a much stronger claim than mere non-contradiction. It requires each and every word to be given a precise definition, and each and every claim to have a rigorous chain of logic tying it back to a postulate. Natural language cannot do this because of, firstly, the danger of equivocation.
It is not Barfield's lawyerliness that I follow, but his poetry. Poetic Diction and Saving the Appearances shape my thought substantially.
It's been many years since synthetic judgments a priori have come to mind, so I don't have many thoughts on them at all. I'm not much of a fan of Kant. But I am congenitally suspicious of synthetic anything. Hence why poets are important because they preserve and bind organic growth, rather than sterile philosophers who can build wonderful systems that conveniently exclude major parts of reality.
MERCURY: Formal axiomatization ... requires each and every word to be given a precise definition.
EARTH: What words do "p, q and r" from Daniel Bonevac's text define?
And there is no such thing as a "natural language". It is natural for humans to make languages by convention. But grammar, like the poetry you say "preserves and binds organic growth", is an art form.
ARISTOTLE: "By a noun we mean a sound significant BY CONVENTION, which has no reference to time, and of which no part is significant apart from the rest. [Snip] The limitation, 'by CONVENTION', was introduced because nothing is by NATURE a noun or A NAME --- it is only so when it becomes a symbol; inARTiculate sounds, such as those which brutes produce, are significant, yet none of those constitutes a noun. [On Interpretation, Ch. 2., 16a lines 19 - 29 passim ]
Your mathematician-logician associates got rid of the fallacy of "equivocation" by getting rid of the words of sentences and substituting single letters for entire sentences. As you say, requote
MERCURY: sterile philosophers [who can] build wonderful systems that conveniently exclude major parts of reality.
But the "sterile philosophers" in the case of modern symbolic logic were mathematicians who built a logic which excluded words, including the words of poets, which seem to be important to you. After all when there are no words, then there is no fallacy of ambiguous names. I like words and their meanings. Thus I didn't like Daniel Bonevac's contradictory (of Aristotle's logic) logic text.
I’ve never read Aquinas, but I’m surprised he said that! I think you both give the atheists too much credit. Human reason is one of the things you will have to deny if you want to deny the existence of God, and once you’ve denied that, you simply have to stop and abandon all hope of knowing anything. I suppose you get the “empty system” with no axioms, which, true, is not self-contradictory, but it hardly qualifies as an alternative.
You are so on target that I wrote the next week's post about exactly this! https://mercurialthomist.substack.com/p/on-logical-stability-and-non-euclidean
Regarding Footnote 10. The expression "a priori" is not really Thomistic. It is Kantian more than Thomistic. Aquinas' expression was "propter quid", which means "through the cause" or, perhaps "by means of the cause". The other form of demonstration was not said to be "a posteriori", but, instead "a quia" or, in effect, "through" or by means of "effects". Neither Kant's mentor (David Hume) nor Kant himself were very "big" on Aristotelian CAUSES and/or EFFECTS.
You are correct. However, for whatever reason, the Fathers of the English Dominican province, which is my chosen translation, use "a priori" and "a posteriori." I do not have enough of a dog in the philosophic-linguistic fight to care much either way, but your point is taken. Following Owen Barfield and later Wittgenstein, all language (except that which can be formally axiomatized) is a matter of metaphor, so as long as the point is taken, we're good.
Every language is formally axiomatized. It is called the law of contradiction. Some say the law of non-contradiction or, in other words, do not contradict either being or yourself. Why would you "follow" a poet lawyer or Wittgenstein? Lawyers don't know anything about the truth, for if they did, they'd be on the witness stand rather than contradicting each other at the bar of justice. And Wittgenstein? Did he really threaten Karl Popper with a hot poker or was that just a metaphor?
I know that Owen Barfield influenced "the apologist" (Lewis; good nickname). But he did so with poetic metaphors, rather than logic.
I'm just kidding as usual. Or, perhaps, I'm being metaphorical. Either way, we really are good. I can agree with that. But the expressions in quotes from the fathers of the Dominican Province are misleading. Serious question ...
What do you think about Kant's "a priori" SYNTHETIC Judgments or "synthetic judgments a priori" is another expression of the same phrase.
Kevin
Formal axiomatization is a much stronger claim than mere non-contradiction. It requires each and every word to be given a precise definition, and each and every claim to have a rigorous chain of logic tying it back to a postulate. Natural language cannot do this because of, firstly, the danger of equivocation.
It is not Barfield's lawyerliness that I follow, but his poetry. Poetic Diction and Saving the Appearances shape my thought substantially.
It's been many years since synthetic judgments a priori have come to mind, so I don't have many thoughts on them at all. I'm not much of a fan of Kant. But I am congenitally suspicious of synthetic anything. Hence why poets are important because they preserve and bind organic growth, rather than sterile philosophers who can build wonderful systems that conveniently exclude major parts of reality.
MERCURY: Formal axiomatization ... requires each and every word to be given a precise definition.
EARTH: What words do "p, q and r" from Daniel Bonevac's text define?
And there is no such thing as a "natural language". It is natural for humans to make languages by convention. But grammar, like the poetry you say "preserves and binds organic growth", is an art form.
ARISTOTLE: "By a noun we mean a sound significant BY CONVENTION, which has no reference to time, and of which no part is significant apart from the rest. [Snip] The limitation, 'by CONVENTION', was introduced because nothing is by NATURE a noun or A NAME --- it is only so when it becomes a symbol; inARTiculate sounds, such as those which brutes produce, are significant, yet none of those constitutes a noun. [On Interpretation, Ch. 2., 16a lines 19 - 29 passim ]
Your mathematician-logician associates got rid of the fallacy of "equivocation" by getting rid of the words of sentences and substituting single letters for entire sentences. As you say, requote
MERCURY: sterile philosophers [who can] build wonderful systems that conveniently exclude major parts of reality.
But the "sterile philosophers" in the case of modern symbolic logic were mathematicians who built a logic which excluded words, including the words of poets, which seem to be important to you. After all when there are no words, then there is no fallacy of ambiguous names. I like words and their meanings. Thus I didn't like Daniel Bonevac's contradictory (of Aristotle's logic) logic text.
Kevin