RomanJoe wrote:

Miguel wrote:

That is to say, a different way to argue for PSR in a retorsion argument would be to say that if my inference that "Socrates is mortal" regresses in an explanatory chain ("Because Socrates is a man and I know that", "Every man is mortal and I know that", "Because men are material and material beings decompose, and because we observe that all men die", "because we have seen such and such and because XYZ" etc) that may culminate in a contingent brute fact ("because... No explanation!"), then the whole inference is logically compromised. And since our inferences ultimately trace back to extremely long series of contingent facts in reality, we cannot open the door for "a little bruteness" in reality without compromising the intelligibility of our inferences and reasoning processes.

What do you think?

Sounds like Feser's example of a book resting on a shelf and the shelf resting on nothing. The shelf being where it is is just a brute fact, inexplicable. Therefore, though the book's positioning is explained by the shelf, it ultimately derives no intelligibility because the explanatory regress terminates with the inexplicable. I like this argument. However, couldn't the PSR skeptic just say "Okay, sure, we observe explanations for things but those explanations ultimately terminate with a brute fact." It seems to me that arguing that the PSR skeptic has to hold that intelligibility is probably at best illusory given their worldview, wouldn't be very persuasive.

 
Indeed, though in this case I'm adapting it for the retorsion argument to say that PSR denial would be self-defeating.

We could say that saying "so what?" is not a good response if we realize that the intelligibility of C1 must actually be grounded all the way. It may be tempting to ignore it because pragmatically "it works well enough" to just roll with the intelligibility of C1 not caring about its ultimate intelligibility, but philosophically we should care about it.

An alternative response which I just thought about right now, but would have to develop further, is that one could argue that the series of intelligibility is an essentially ordered series. This means that the very fact that C1 is intelligible is evidence that it is grounded "all the way" at least by intelligible or possible conclusions or hypotheses. I think such a series would be parallel to an essentially ordered series of final causes, and we could look for Aristotle's belief in God as final cause of the world as a potentially useful analogy. In the end, there is intelligibility and purposefulness because the whole chain is rational and intelligible. If the chain were not wholly intelligible, there could not actually be intelligibility in C1. Granted, the suggestion here is still rather cryptic, but I think I might be on to something here and would like to develop it further.

UGADawg wrote:

It's worth noting, by the way, that philosophers have offered reasons for drawing the relevant distinction regarding PSR, so I'd be very hesitant to just point out that it requires drawing a principled distinction and leaving it at that. Kant, for instance, is famous for arguing PSR must apply to the phenomena but that we cannot validly infer from this that it applies beyond them.

 
Kantianism is inconsistent, however, and it doesn't even escape the ad hoc problem. They must draw a line that is not ad hoc. We don't infer that every raven observed until time t is black; rather, we infer that every raven is black.

As for its inconsistency, there are many reasons, but for instance it doesn't make sense to suppose that PSR is true for the phenomena but doesn't hold beyond them, because this would already be a generalization of how human beings objectively operate; if what lies beyond the phenomena is not subjected to PSR, in principle there would be nothing preventing us from operating in a different manner or for the wildest phenomena to be caused by outside forces. Not only is the limitation ad hoc, but also insufficient to account for what is actually experienced. In terms of the retorsion argument, however, the point could be responded by my suggestion that the drawing of a principled line already presupposes psr, etc

I have yet to see a plausible distinction regarding PSR that isn't either ad hoc or lacking (or both).

Last edited by Miguel (12/31/2017 3:25 pm)

UGADawg wrote:

I'm not sure you're right about Kant. It's not that he's supposing PSR is true for phenomena and not other objects, rather he's arguing PSR is a necessary condition for any possible objects of experience, and so, insofar as we experience them, it must be the case that PSR holds for them.

 
How does that change what I said? Such a limitation is both ad hoc and insufficient for explaining our experience. PSR holds for them, but also holds for anything that might be beyond the phenomena, otherwise what is true of us (including the manner in which we interpret the world, the way PSR holds for objects of experience) could change at any moment. In order for PSR to be preserved the way it is for objects of experience, it must be true full-stop; we must have access to facts about the noumenon, access to facts about how things are in themselves.

UGADawg wrote:

After thinking on this some more, is there not a way the critic of the retorsion argument could insist the charge of begging the question is odd?

For example Miguel you mentioned how evil demon scenarios might be rejected on the grounds that that they are objectively improbable, or on the basis that they provide an inferior explanation insofar as they are positing unneeded entities, etc. But couldn't the skeptic charge this response with a similar kind of circularity, i.e. in making these claims you're presupposing you can make the relevant judgments concerning the weighing of probabilities or explanatory adequacy, which presupposes you're not being misled by the demon?

There's sort of an inherent difficulty in attempting to reason about something that necessarily stands outside of it.

 
I don't think so; actually I think what you said begs the question, not the other way around. We consider both possibilities: whether our experiences correspond to the external world or whether we are being deceived by a demon and there's no external world (for example). Ceteris paribus, the demon scenario postulates entities and situations beyond necessity to explain the same experience. That our experiences of the external world are veridical is a simpler and best explanation than the convoluted postulation of an invisible demon that is producing all our experiences. To say "but the demon could be deceiving you!" in face of this is question-begging, I think.

PSR denial, by contrast, just *is* the acceptance that there could be brute facts. Reality could be unintelligible. What best explanation argument could get us out of the type of skepticism entailed by denial of PSR, that doesn't conclude that every fact has an explanation? A brain in a vat and a Cartesian demon are bizarre alternate explanations for our experience. Psr skeptical scenario follows from the denial of psr and thus possibility of brute facts; the only way to deny it is by accepting something like PSR.

On another note. Have you read through Lagrange's argument ad absurdum of PSR denial? I've been working with it for awhile. It might be a very powerful argument.