23 Celsius on a winter day/The myth of the given

That temperature is for Maple Ridge, not Vancouver at the time of writing, this afternoon.

That is 74 degrees Fahrenheit for what is technically still the end of winter in this region.

So, I have been spending more time outside on work breaks...
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The myth of the given 

This is another new philosophical term for me.

Also known as the given (158).

In defining the given, secular philosopher, Blackburn writes that this is connected to foundationalism. (158). This idea is that foundationational epistemology (the study of learning and knowledge) and knowledge is based on certain accepted experienced and learned foundations. (145). Often knowledge is considered to be found from empiricism (senses) and rationalism (reason) as intellectual approaches. (145). One approach might be favoured over the other. (145).

Under The myth of the given entry (re: name adapted by Sellars), it is stated that this is a widely rejected view that sense experience (the senses-based, empiricism approach) gives persons and society points of certainty in knowledge that therefore serve as foundation for the whole of empirical knowledge and science. (253).

In other words, Sellars' critique is generally accepted as correct.

The Oxford Reference

Cited

myth of the given...

Name adopted by Sellars for the now widely-rejected view that sense experience gives us peculiar points of certainty, suitable to serve as foundations for the whole of empirical knowledge and science. The idea that empiricism, particularly in the hands of Locke and Hume, confuses moments of physical or causal impact on the senses with the arrival of individual ‘sense data’ in the mind, was a central criticism of it levelled by the British Idealists, especially Green and Joachim. See foundationalism, protocol statements, sense data. 

Information philosopher

Cited

In his most famous work, Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind, Sellars criticized the notion that perceptions of sense-data give immediate knowledge that can serve as the foundation of all empirical knowledge. He called this the "Myth of the Given." Sellar's criticism is similar to Immanuel Kant's idea that "intuitions/perceptions without concepts are blind" (Anschaungen ohne Begriffe sind blind), or as we might symmetrize the Kantian chiasmos, "concepts without percepts are empty, percepts without concepts are blind."

Quoting, Sellars:

VIII. DOES EMPIRICAL KNOWLEDGE HAVE A FOUNDATION? 

32. One of the forms taken by the Myth of the Given is the idea that there is, indeed must be, a structure of particular matter of fact such that (a) each fact can not only be noninferentially known to be the case, but presupposes no other knowledge either of particular matter of fact, or of general truths; and (b) such that the noninferential knowledge of facts belonging to this structure constitutes the ultimate court of appeals for all factual claims -- particular and general -- about the world. It is important to note that I characterized the knowledge of fact belonging to this stratum as not only noninferential, but as presupposing no knowledge of other matter of fact, whether particular or general. It might be thought that this is a redundancy, that knowledge (not belief or conviction, but knowledge) which logically presupposes knowledge of other facts must be inferential. This, however, as I hope to show, is itself an episode in the Myth. (page 164). 
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Non-inferential claims would not use inference and would not claim that an argument is true or provable. In other words, they are loose claims made.

This is quite complex topic for which like Blackburn, I am only dealing with non-exhaustively, however...

To presuppose that no other knowledge can be factual or true, other than non-inferential is problematic. I reason that knowledge can be obtained through the use of both empirical evidence, including science/scientific, and as well through disciplines within rationalism such philosophy (philosophy of religion), theology, psychology, biblical studies and others.

Both empirical knowledge and rational knowledge can be adapted over time with new premises and conclusions that are internally and externally superior to ones previously accepted. I therefore have very carefully accepted views within my worldview and these always need to be supported superior premises and conclusions that remain internally and externally more reasonable that counter premises and conclusions. I would not coin them 'given' (s). Of course I have faith and philosophy. Divinely guided, reasonable faith and philosophy.

I certainty rely on empirical data, and scientific data, but I realize that science does adapt to new data. In regard to empirical data, which Sellar's deals with in his critique, his critique seems reasonable.

Premises arising from the necessary/of necessity (philosophy of religion), the first cause (philosophy of religion), God, the creator (Hebrew Bible), God, the creator and the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (New Testament), The Trinity (Theology) and the Bible in context, are viewed as accepted by this writer, but they are maintained by reasonable certainty.

See Kant in this website's archives.

BLACKBURN, SIMON (1996) Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, Oxford, Oxford University Press.

HICK, JOHN (1999) ‘Life after Death’, in Alan Richardson and John Bowden (eds.), A New Dictionary of Christian Theology, Kent, SCM Press.

KANT, IMMANUEL (1781)(1787)(1998) Critique of Pure Reason, Translated and edited by Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

KANT, IMMANUEL (1781)(1787)(1929)(2006) Critique of Pure Reason, Translated by Norman Kemp Smith, London, Macmillan.

KANT, IMMANUEL (1788)(1997) Critique of Practical Reason, Translated by Mary Gregor (ed.), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

KANT, IMMANUEL (1788)(1898)(2006) The Critique of Practical Reason, Translated by Thomas Kingsmill Abbott, London, Longmans, Green, and Co.

KANT, IMMANUEL (1791)(2001) ‘On The Miscarriage of All Philosophical Trials in Theodicy’, in Religion and Rational Theology, Translated by George di Giovanni and Allen Wood, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

SELLARS, WILFRID (1995) Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind, Edited in Hypertext by Andrew Chrucky, http://selfpace.uconn.edu/class/percep/SellarsEmpPhilMind.pdf

Liberalism (sermon)

Fraser River

June 20 2003

Sermon

Grace Baptist Church: Michael Phillips on Liberalism

Cited

The Enlightenment was a supposed flowering of knowledge in Europe, beginning in 1687. Its big idea was Reason (which is often capitalized). The thinkers of that time thought that Reason was the measure of all things. If it is not reasonable to them, it is not be true!

Cited

By rejecting all authority (but their own) and ignoring tradition, the Thinkers soon found many things wrong with the authority of Scripture, the Divinity of Christ, the Fall of Man, the Atonement, the Resurrection, the Judgment, Heaven and Hell. What Christians always took for God's Word became little more than a collection of primitive religious hopes with a good deal of fairy tale mixed in.
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Some edited previous work of mine on the Enlightenment...

Colin Brown described the Enlightenment as follows: The Age of Enlightenment (German Die Aufklarung) covers roughly the eighteenth century. It is sometimes identified with the Age of Reason, but the latter term covers both the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Although the Enlightenment had some of its roots in seventeenth century rationalism, the ideas which characterize the Enlightenment went far beyond the rationalism of Descartes, Spinoza, and the thinkers of their time. Brown (1996: 355).

From Brown’s idea, the roots of the Enlightenment started with philosophers like Descartes, but went beyond those men.

David A. Pailin, of Manchester University, stated: The Enlightenment’s criticism of the authority of tradition led to increasing secularization in attitudes and ideas. Nature is seen as an ordered whole rather than as a stage for divine interventions and supernatural happenings. So far as religious beliefs are concerned, claims to revelation are acceptable only when they are rationally justified and their contents subject to reason’s judgement. Biblical stories and accepted doctrines are not immune from criticism.

Works like Bayle’s Historical and Critical Dictionary and Voltaire’s Philosophical Dictionary highlight the faults of revered figures and the questionability of standard doctrines. Historical and literary investigations into the Bible develop. Reports about miracles, especially that of the resurrection, give rise to considerable discussion. There is great hostility to priestcraft and suspicion of ecclesiastical pretensions to guide human understanding. Pailin (1999: 180). David Pailin’s comments demonstrate some of the modern assumptions made by philosophers of religion concerning Christianity.

As Pailin pointed out, revelation and ecclesiastical pretensions would often face great hostility philosophically. I agree with the Enlightenment approach to review Christian claims through reason, but it appears that more faith is put in the Enlightenment critics of Christianity than in the people who wrote the original work. Enlightenment thinking is committed to ". . . reason as the proper tool and final authority for determining issues." Pailin (1999: 179).

Enlightenment thinking has human reason as the final authority, whereas traditional Christianity uses human reason, but it assumes that human nature is fallen and God must reveal himself to that reason. Enlightenment thinking, in my view, rests on the faulty idea that finite man should be able to be the final judge regarding ideas about God. Enlightenment era thinking, which is still prominent in liberal circles today, believes that man has the ability to reason out who God is, whereas traditional Christianity believes that God must reveal himself in order for human beings to come to some understanding of who he is.

The Enlightenment puts greater emphasis on the human mind comprehending God, whereas traditional Christianity puts emphasis on Scripture inspired by God, which must teach human beings about God.

Two problems *non-exhaustively) come to mind concerning the human mind’s ability to know God.

First, the human mind is finite, God is infinite. It could be said that human beings could only understand God in a limited way. This is not to say that the limited human understanding was in error or without logic, but simply limited. For this reason, I think in this relationship God would have to take the initiative in presenting himself to humanity for greater understanding, and this would lead to revelation.

Second, there is significant evidence in Scripture and everyday life, that humanity is imperfect and sinful, and in a spiritual condition where they would have to be transformed in order to have a relationship with God. I am not saying that human beings cannot understand things about God without revelation, but I am stating that revelation is required for a changed spirit which could lead to a relationship with God. I, therefore, do not think that human reason outside of revelation should be our final authority in theology.

Back to the sermon, and a key liberal exemplar mentioned...

SCHLEIRMACHER 

(Schleiermacher, my correction)
 
The best known man of this kind is Friedrich Schleirmacher. He was a German theologian, born in 1768. His father was a Reformed pastor and he studied at a Moravian university. This is a good combination! He learned Calvinism at home and got the disciplines of prayer and devotional reading in school. With his great learning, sincerity, and personality, he might have become a Giant of the Faith. 

But he didn't. He became a Giant of Unbelief. 

He accepted the doctrines of the Enlightenment and looked for a way of integrating them into the Christian Faith. He found one. He said the scholarship of his day was true, but it did not affect Christianity in the least because Christianity is not about objective truth, but about devotional feelings. He tried to rebuild the Faith on the foundation of feelings.

From my PhD: Theodicy and Practical Theology (UWTSD, 2010)

Schleiermacher’s approach redefines Christian religion as a unique element of human experience, not located in the intellectual and moral aspects of persons as these produce indirect knowledge concerning God only. God is instead experienced through feeling. Schleiermacher (1821)(1928)(1976: 212-213). The infinite God is experienced through human experience with the finite world. Schleiermacher (1821)(1928)(1976: 212-213). Not primarily from rational and doctrinal concepts. 

Therefore, Schleiermacher, unlike many traditional and Reformed approaches with the omnipotence of God is not primarily concerned with a dogma and doctrine concerning the omnipotence of God, but is instead focused on how God is experienced by persons, and this would include God’s attribute of omnipotence. I personally still favour a doctrinal approach.

Phillips states in the sermon...

But, setting that aside, I want to show you their technique. It was not right, but it was extremely clever and highly effective. What the old Liberals mostly did was to downplay doctrine. They didn't come out and deny it-most of the time-but they said it wasn't important or that unity, service, and love are more important than doctrine.
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Agreed. This still goes on today within many liberal denominations and churches.

BROWN, C. (1996) The Enlightenment, in Walter A. Elwell (ed.), Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, Grand Rapids, Baker Books.

PAILIN, D.A. (1999) Enlightenment, in Alan Richardson and John Bowden (eds.), A New Dictionary of Christian Theology, Kent, SCM Press Limited.

In Three Minutes: If you have nothing good to say...

Lampeter from Facebook and UWTSD. My PhD, Alma mater.

The Pastor Jon Courson quote is from page 42.

Matthew 7: 6

Bible Gateway

COURSON, JON (2005) Application Commentary, Thomas Nelson, Nashville.

Infinite class versus finite class

The University of Wales, Trinity Saint David, London. 

Infinite class versus finite class

Preface

March 14 2019 edition, slightly edited September 10, 2023.

LANGER, SUSANNE K (1953)(1967) An Introduction to Symbolic Logic, Dover Publications, New York. (Philosophy)

I earned my PhD at the Lampeter campus.

The review of the Langer text continues, and my learning symbolic logic continues:

Key symbols

≡df = Equivalence by definition
: = Equal (s)
ε = Epsilon and means is
⊃ = Is the same as
⊨ is Entails
˜ = Not
∃ = There exists
∃! = There exists
∴ = Therefore
. = Therefore
< = Is included
v = a logical inclusive disjunction (disjunction is the relationship between two distinct alternatives).
x = variable
. = Conjunction meaning And
0 = Null class
cls = Class
int = Interpretation

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Infinite class versus finite class

Philosopher Langer on page 214 further explains that in symbolic logic the uniqueness of 0 and 1 is guaranteed and therefore a more important equation as the system of the Law of Tautology can be shown. (214).

Tautology is repeating the same idea, not identically.

These propositions are called 'tautology' because they show that no matter how many times a term is mentioned in a sum or in a product (within symbolic logic, my add), a product is not changed by being multiplied or by something in it, nor a sum by having one of its summands added to it. (215).

Cited 

Britannica (online)

Britannica/Tautology

tautology, in logic, a statement so framed that it cannot be denied without inconsistency. Thus, “All humans are mammals” is held to assert with regard to anything whatsoever that either it is not a human or it is a mammal. But that universal “truth” follows not from any facts noted about real humans but only from the actual use of human and mammal and is thus purely a matter of definition. 

To simplify, Langer writes:

A class of dogs is simply a class of dogs. (215).

Adding of multiplying dogs in that class, does not change the fact it is only and simply a class of dogs.

Therefore, my examples demonstrate that addition or multiplication does not change a class of dogs.

z= Dogs

z x z = z

z + z = z 
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Langer explains that the propositions using tautology will use no exponents. (215). In other words, in multiplication, there will not be a smaller exponent number present, to the right of the base number. (215).

This is in the context of multiplication.

Therefore, z x z = z, and z2, z3 and related, etcetera is not used. (My example, based on Langer (1953)(1967: 215).

In a similar way with addition 2z cannot be arrived at with z + z = z.

With addition, 23, 34 etcetera is not arrived at. (My example, based on Langer (1953)(1967: 215).

Cited

...if 1 is added to anything, the sum is 1, and if anything is multiplied by 0 the product is 0. Langer (1953)(1967: 215).

My philosophical example based on reviewing the Langer text:

The infinite class (God) is simply infinite, nothing can be multiplied or added to that class.

The finite class is simply finite, nothing can be multiplied or added to that class.

This logic would counter philosophies and theologies reasoning the finite can become infinite.

i = infinite
f = finite

i ˜ ⊃ f

The infinite is not the same as the finite.

i ˜ ⊨ f

The infinite does not entail the finite.

And I add:

i . ˜ f

The infinite is therefore, not the finite.

i : ˜ f

The infinite equals not, the finite.

(∃!  i) + (∃! f) ˜ : 

There exists the infinite, plus there exists the finite, they are not equal. The class of dogs is simply a class of dogs. (215). Using the same logic, there is an infinite class and an finite class. They are separate.

Theologically and philosophically, this idea could be used to document God/The First Cause as within the infinite class and separate from creation, which would be within the finite class. 

Certainly, there are other, and in my opinion, more clear ways to explain this type of theology and philosophy, but I am attempting to stay true to Langer's symbolic logic. 

For example, there are different types of dogs, but for our case here, only one class of dogs. There are of course, different finite entities and types of finite entities (human being versus angelic, for example), but for our case, only one finite class, in contrast to one infinite class.

Note that in the incarnation, the infinite nature of God the Son, within the Trinity, does not mix with his finite human nature. This remains true as the resurrected Christ, Jesus Christ, has two natures, divine (infinite) and human (finite).

ASHBY, E G. (1986) 'Colossians' in The International Bible Commentary, Grand Rapids, Zondervan.

CRANFIELD, C.E.B. (1992) Romans: A Shorter Commentary, Grand Rapids, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. 

ERICKSON, MILLARD J. (1994) Christian Theology, Grand Rapids, Baker Book House.

HEBBLETHWAITE, BRIAN, 'Incarnation' in A New Dictionary of Christian Theology, London, SCM Press. 

HEWLETT, H.C. (1986) 'Philippians' in The International Bible Commentary, Grand Rapids, Zondervan.

LANGER, SUSANNE K (1953)(1967) An Introduction to Symbolic Logic, Dover Publications, New York. (Philosophy)

MARTINS, RALPH P. (1987) Philippians, Grand Rapids, IVP.

MOUNCE, R.H. (1995) The New American Commentary: Romans, Nashville, Broadman & Holman Publishers.

REYMOND, R.L. (1996) 'Incarnation' in Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, Grand Rapids, Baker Books.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica/Brian Duignan (2023) Tautology, Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/tautology

THEISSEN, HENRY, CLARENCE (1956) Introductory Lectures in Systematic Theology, Grand Rapids, Eerdmans. 

WRIGHT, N.T. (1989) Colossians and Philemon, Grand Rapids, IVP.