I Am 100% Certain That Phil Stilwell Promotes Irrationality
Posted in Logic, Syllogisms on | 1 minute | 11 Comments →
(Formerly: Does Phil Stilwell Promote Irrationality?)
P1 Any source that promotes binary and absolute belief/disbelief for human epistemic agents is promoting irrationality [Phil Stilwell, bold mine]
P2 Phil Stilwell promotes binary and absolute disbelief for human epistemic agents: “If you argue that the square triangle in your pocket is made of gold, and produce genuine gold flakes as evidence, we still know with absolute certainty that you do not have a golden square triangle in your pocket.” [Phil Stilwell, bold mine]
C Phil Stilwell promotes irrationality
It seems to me his only out would be to argue that the proposition, “you do not have a golden square triangle in your pocket” is tautological. Of course, this assumes Phil merely forgot to add the qualifier “in a non-tautological proposition” to P1 [which is really P5 as delineated here].
What sayest thou?
cl
says...Well. It turns out Phil has at least a half-dozen different websites / blogs / internet pages, which makes keeping track of his arguments a bit difficult. While perusing this blog of his, I found the following:
So, it would seem to me that Phil could defend himself against my syllogism by claiming that his “absolute certainty” regarding the nonexistence of the God of the Bible is the result of demonstrated–as opposed to simply demonstrable–logical impossibility. Right?
Perhaps, but other questions and/or problems remain.
First, and most importantly, Phil would have to demonstrate the logical impossibility of the God of the Bible. He certainly believes he has done so, as you can see here. However, beginning here, I have shown that Phil’s Faith’s Failure 1.0 argument is unsound. If I can show that his remaining syllogisms are unsound–and I believe I can–he loses support for his certainty, thus becoming guilty of promoting irrationality by his own criteria. He would either have to retract his claim, modify his syllogisms such that they succeed, or plead guilty to charges of promoting irrationality.
Another concern would be that Phil seems to define irrationality simply on the basis of “binary belief.” However, I deny that we can reliably assess irrationality on that criterion alone. I see no reason a “binary belief” cannot be rational, provided it conforms to the generally accepted rules of inference.
bossmanham
says...I assume he wants us to believe the first premise…Either you agree with him or you’re wrong.
cl
says...bossmanham,
Hey, sorry, I forgot you’d emailed me. I’ll get in there, I promise. I rarely check that email.
LOL! So much for that “continuum of belief” eh? Is it me, or does Phil actually promote irrationality in his argument that promotion of binary belief promotes irrationality? He wrote,
Can a belief get any more binary? Surely, he can’t use the “logically impossible” card in this case.
bossmanham
says...Yeah, it’s a self referentially incoherent position. In taking the stand that binary positions are irrational, you have taken a binary position.
dguller
says...cl & bossmanham:
Good points.
cl
says...Yesterday, I said:
I now realize this is not true. I don’t need to demonstrate the unsoundness of all of Phil’s syllogisms. I only need to demonstrate the unsoundness of those which claim to demonstrate the logical impossibility of the God of the Bible. Of the eight syllogisms on that page, I don’t see that any of them would prove logical impossibility if sound. For example, even if I grant Phil that he’s proven the absurdity of penal substitution, faith, or objective morality, such proofs do not constitute proof of the logical impossibility of the God of the Bible. If the syllogisms were sound, they would demonstrate the logical impossibility of traditional Christian exegesis at best. So, I’m going to rest on my claim that Phil Stilwell promotes irrationality by his own criterion. Unless I’m overlooking something, I believe Phil needs to modify his syllogisms and/or create new ones such that they succeed, or plead guilty to charges of promoting irrationality.
Of course, this is separate from my claim that Phil promotes irrationality in his argument that promotion of binary belief is irrational, as bossmanham and myself seem to have shown. The sad part is, I suspect Phil has rested in his conclusion that I “lack the philosophical acumen and honesty to have a productive exchange,” which means he may not return, which means he may still be laboring under the impression that his arguments are sound, and that he is not promoting irrationality.
cl
says...Some may have noticed that I changed the title of this post. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy writes:
So:
P1) Sound deductive arguments promote binary belief in non-tautological propositions;
P2) Phil Stilwell claims it is irrational to promote binary belief in non-tautological propositions;
P3) Phil Stilwell attempts to craft sound deductive arguments;
P4) Phil Stilwell promotes binary belief in non-tautological propositions;
C) Phil Stilwell promotes irrationality.
QED.
Phil Stilwell
says...Cl’s attempt at constructing a valid argument above says it all.
cl
says...Hmmm… since you’ve been unclear, just what does “says it all” actually mean? Isn’t this about *your* attempt to construct a valid argument? More specifically, how your attempt at constructing a *sound* deductive argument qualifies you as “promoting irrationality” given your own P1?
MS Quixote
says...“Cl’s attempt at constructing a valid argument above says it all.”
Uh…what about rule #3 found at theimpossiblegod?
“3. Don’t speculate on the character or motivation of the post’s author. Address the argument.”
You can’t make it up better than this :)
Phil Stilwell
says...I have previously written “Any source that promotes binary and absolute belief/disbelief for human epistemic agents is promoting irrationality.”
This statement is clearly wrong.
For a small subset of statements that that contain logical contradictions, the belief can be as binary and absolute as the certainty in the consistency of logic. *See http://theimpossiblegod.wordpress.com/2011/03/21/faiths-failure-epistemic-certainty/ for an example.
For all other statements (and there is also overlap), the degree of the certainty in a belief must map to the degree of the evidence.
I’d be pleased if anyone can demonstrate that either of these statements do not hold.