{"id":3989,"date":"2019-01-24T14:28:20","date_gmt":"2019-01-24T14:28:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2019\/01\/24\/a-new-and-improved-argument-for-the-necessity-of-something\/"},"modified":"2019-01-24T14:28:20","modified_gmt":"2019-01-24T14:28:20","slug":"a-new-and-improved-argument-for-the-necessity-of-something","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2019\/01\/24\/a-new-and-improved-argument-for-the-necessity-of-something\/","title":{"rendered":"A New and Improved Argument for the Necessity of Something"},"content":{"rendered":"

Previous versions were long-winded.  Herewith, an approach to the lapidary.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

1) If nothing exists, then something exists. <\/span>
2) If something exists, then something exists.<\/span>
3) Either nothing exists or something exists. <\/span>
Therefore<\/span>
4) Necessarily, something exists.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The argument is valid. The second two premises are tautologies. The conclusion is interesting, to put it mildly: it is equivalent to the proposition that it is impossible that there be nothing at all.  But why accept (1)?<\/span><\/p>\n

Argument for (1)
<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

5) If p, then the proposition expressed by 'p' is true.<\/span>
Therefore<\/span>
6) If nothing exists, then nothing exists <\/em>is true.<\/span>
7) The consequent of (6) commits us to the existence of at least one proposition.<\/span>
Therefore<\/span>
1) If nothing exists, then something exists.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Surely (5) is unproblematic, being one half of the disquotational schema,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

DS. P iff the proposition expressed by 'p' is true.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

For example, snow is white if and only if snow is white<\/em> is true. The semantic ascent on the right-hand side of the biconditional involves the application of the predicate 'true' to a proposition. So it is not the case that the left and right hand sides of the biconditional say the same thing or express the same proposition. The LHS says that snow is white; the RHS says something different, namely, that the proposition expressed by 'snow is white' is true. The RHS has an ontological commitment that the LHS does not have: the RHS commits us to a proposition. Since the RHS is true, the proposition exists. (Cf. Colin McGinn, Logical Properties<\/em>, Oxford UP 2000, 92-93. I am taking from McGinn only the insight that the LHS and RHS of (DS) do not say the same thing.)<\/span><\/p>\n

But what about the inference from (5) to (6)? Can it be questioned? Yes, if we are willing to countenance counterexamples to (5) and thereby call into question Bivalence, the semantic principle that every proposition is either true or false, but not both. I'll pursue this in a later post. If, however, one accepts Bivalence and its syntactic counterpart, Excluded Middle, then it looks as if I've got me a rigorous a priori<\/em> argument for the necessity of something and the impossibility of there being nothing at all.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Previous versions were long-winded.  Herewith, an approach to the lapidary. 1) If nothing exists, then something exists. 2) If something exists, then something exists.3) Either nothing exists or something exists. Therefore4) Necessarily, something exists. The argument is valid. The second two premises are tautologies. The conclusion is interesting, to put it mildly: it is equivalent … Continue reading “A New and Improved Argument for the Necessity of Something”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[142,218,228],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-existence","category-nothingness","category-truth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3989\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}