Reason Itself: An Attempt at Further Self-Criticism

[Do note, I’ve already reconsidered everything I wrote in this essay]

In order to even undertake the task of creating a “justified” starting point for philosophy itself, one must abandon all their prejudices (including even the prejudice to abandon prejudice) and move away from dogmatism. Fideism does not justify anything. One cannot have faith when it comes to the task that is construction of “objectivity.” Now, let me outline objectivity. By objectivity, let us not think of the object of the subject-object division. Rather, let’s think of something that is independent of all categories, not just subjective (subject based) categories. Objectivity is that which all is to be grounded upon, supposedly. Objectivity does not have to be metaphysical, which is to say, ontology and ontics do not necessarily have primacy. Rather, objectivity can be semantical, logical, etc. When we talk about logic we need to understand that it is two things: 1. The necessary relation of consequence between premises and their conclusion and 2. A methodology for the determination of truth. The question “Is logic true?” does not entail circularity in that logic does not judge itself by a qualifier that is derived from it. In other words, the primary is not judged by the derivative. By primary, I mean that thing which comes first, and therefore has structural and sequential primacy. By derivative, I mean that thing which comes as the consequence of the primary. For example, God is a primary, and the Bible is a derivative. One cannot, supposing logic is justified, justify God through the Bible as that would be viciously circular. Logic, following itself as its own standard, is not regulated by its derivatives. In this sense, when logic makes a judgement about it being the case, we must realize it is not assigning truth to itself. Rather, what logic is doing here is demonstrating that it is logical. In doing this, the law of identity would be established and analyticity would follow. The logocentric predicament is not a predicament concerning logic being justified, true, etc. Rather, the logocentric predicament is a predicament concerning the fact that logic, through its own employment and judgement, seems unable to be logical due to the issues of viciously circularity and infinite regression that arise when a methodology uses itself to verify that it follows itself. That logic is true, justified, etc. will only be a consequence of the establishment that logic is logical, which would be identical to solving the logocentric predicament. The issue of methodology is a uniquely logical issue in that logic is the methodology of all other methodologies. Logical explosion, which is entailed by non-logical pluralism and trivialism, is the breakdown of the metamethod that is logic. Therefore, the establishment of logic as logical would be the establishment of logical explosion being ruled out. The skeptic comes to the logocentric predicament only through the use of logic. What the skeptic is pointing out is that logic is self-undermining, self-stultifying, self-defeating. Of course their proposition supposes logic, for that is their very point.

Prejudice has been abandoned. Dogmatism done away with. Neorationalism is not yet my project and it may never be. We are not to construct systems with an end in mind, which is to say, one should not be constructing a base in a fashion that supposes the correctness of a higher, future level. I cannot construct my solution to the logocentric predicament with a bias toward those methods that will implicate neorationalism. My solution must be just that a solution alone.

The issue of language being circular in that language cannot justify itself without its own employment is a logical issue. Logic supercedes all methods and is almost universal. I say almost universal only because the blast waves of logical explosions escape logic.

Axiomatics is to be abandoned, for axioms are unjustifiable in that they suppose themselves. Only non-logical axioms exist which is to say they are not at all, for “non-logical axioms” is a contradiction in terms because self-evidence begs the question “Evidence for what?” Evidence for the axiom’s truth. Axioms are the remnants of foundationalism.

What is the status of reason in all of this? It is not what I have previously purported to be. I have said in the past that reason is superceded by logic. But, this is not the case in that reasoning can be illogical. Logic is the designation that some reasoning does not imply what it purports to conclude. In other words, logic is the designation of a necessary relation of consequence between premises and their conclusion which is found through reason. Inference is reasoning, and logic is exactly the judging of inference and its validity. Therefore, logic is only a form of reasoning. Logical reasoning establishes that a reason is valid which propels premises which are in conjunction together to produce a conclusion necessarily. Illogical reasoning establishes that reasoning need not be valid, therefore leading to premises being propelled toward conclusions in every which way — BOOM — this is logical explosion. My previous analysis of trivialism was incorrect, which is a good thing for us in terms of solving the logocentric predicament. Trivialism does not abandon reason, as I have incorrectly said in the past. Trivialism only leads to a proposition being its own reason, which is to say, the reason itself is internal to the proposition’s truth. This is exactly why trivialism leads to anything being the case. In other words, within trivialism, anything is the case because reason is everywhere. The movement from premises to conclusion which is propelled through inference is lost, sure, but the assertion of the conclusion, lacking premises, still needs a propellant. This propellant is reason, not the process of reasoning (which is somewhat analogous to the process of inferring).

One may take issue with what I have just about how trivialism abandons reasoning but reason. The issue that may be, and probably is, in your head as you read these words is this: within logic reasons are found (interpellated) through reasoning. How can trivialism have reason without reasoning? And how does this help us in the future in regards to practical contradiction? First, I’ll say to the latter question: it does not help us at all; it is not our prerogative to create a system which already assumes a conclusion. Second, to elaborate on what I mean by the latter question, let me contextualize my usage of practical contradiction. It would be easy to argue that the process of reasoning is universal in that both logic and illogic utilize it; therefore, in regards to the idea of the theoretical primitive, reasoning could be just that: absolutely theoretical (a priori) and certainly primitive. This is exactly why trivialism was so troubling for me in the past: it took away this possibility of reasoning being the theoretical primitive. Now, I was right, it does take such a possibility away. But, it does not dispense with reason. So, let me address my previous understanding of reason directly. I purported that reasoning and reason were analogous, but this is not the case. Reasons are come about through reasoning. But are reasons not the propellant? Nope: reasoning requires a propellant for it to come to be. Is this propellant not the subject? Is this propellant not the mind? Not at all. The propellant is reason, though, as we will go over in just a moment, reason is not a propellant of reasoning and thus of reasons but something completely different, but in order to best understand what I’m getting at here, reason is to described as a propellant. In this sense, yes, reasoning is the production of reasons for conclusions (concluding something is the case), and reasons for conclusions are the propellant for concluding something is the case. The latter sentence which has just been written demonstrates the supposed division between logic, illogic, and trivialism in that it shows how, on the one hand, logic and illogic are connected to one another, have the same structure, just different results, different laws of the production of propulsion, which is to say, different laws of reasoning, different laws of inference. Trivialism, on the other hand, seems to not have these laws but instead nothing to get its gears moving, to get production going. In response to what has just been said, which was my previous conception of reason, we must state that the issue of regression appears here: what propels the movement which causes those laws of propulsion to come into being? Is this not an issue, for would the propulsion of the laws of propulsion not already be regulated by those laws which it seeks to demonstrate, resulting in the vivisection of itself which viciously circularity entails? This is the issue of having to infer the laws of inference or deduce the laws of deduction. And, this is also a logical problem, but is also a problem come about through reasoning, it is, therefore, a problem of reason too. I am here to propose that laws of inference are not inferred by an inference which escapes its regulation, the laws of deduction are not deduced by some deduction which escapes them. On the contrary, reasoning comes into being not through reasoning, nor through reasons, but through reason alone. So, what is reason then? How does this help us get around the issue of regression: does reason not need reason to be? Are there no laws of reason?[1][2]

[In case you warrant that reason comes first, go over how: reason infects the body, corrodes the soul, and takes its place (use hanna’s theory of the proto-rationality of the body to warrant this)]

[Maybe argue that if the trivialist responds to a question about what the reason for something being the case then they have given the reason, and therefore reasoning behind it]

[Logic is simply a set of normative laws which are to regulate reason; illogic is the abolition of such laws, letting reasoning led wherever one wants it to go]

Notes

[1]: At this point I continued writing but realized the extreme difficulty of defending what I put forward in the writing, and hence have scraped it. But, in case, the things I wrote could lead to another person’s theoretical breakthrough, I will put them here in this note: First, only dynamic processes and those objects contained within those dynamic process are regulated by laws. So, objects such as myself, supposing scientific physicalism, are within the dynamic process of entropy and gravity, but because of that, I myself am a unique dynamic process myself. Therefore, there is no such thing as a static object contained within a dynamic process, rather, there are only dynamic processes contained within dynamic processes. Objects which do not originate in a process has no dynamicity, and thus no regulation, for nothing there is no dynamic flux to regulate. For Wittgenstein, for example, inferences are not processes come about but are rather already contained in the structural relation of the propositions themselves, and thus justified by the propositions alone. Inferences are not justified by some external laws (of inference). But is this not a processes? For Wittgenstein, it may be, but, for us, it is not. Where does the inference come from? It has already come into being just as the propositions came into being. There is no modus ponens without p and q. Propositions are not universally dynamic in that they can exist, to use an expression of Hoppe’s, “free floating,” which is to say, on their own, which is not to say, in-themselves. Nietzche’s argument in The Will to Power regarding the impossibility of the thing-in-itself because it is abstracted from relation is not a problem for us here. Reason certainly exists in relation to reasoning, for example. But, relations are not themselves dynamic processes, for relations do not have a unique propellant outside of them. Relations do not exist without the constinuents of those relations. Relations are not propelled into being by its constituent propositions, rather they exist immanently within the propositions themselves.

[2]: Just like the first note, I wasn’t satisfied with what I wrote, but I’ll include it here: First, logic, illogic, and trivialism have reason. But, do all three have reasoning? I have rejected this in the past and in this very paper, but allow me to think for one moment… I believe I could have been wrong. Trivialism may contain reasoning that a proposition is true within the trivialist view because it is. Now, I can’t say all trivialists hold this. For example, if I ask the trivialist why proposition p is the case, and they say it just is; or if I ask them what is the reasoning behind this, what is the reason for why proposition p is the case, and they say there is no reason, it just is; how will we respond to the trivialist here? “There is no reason” coming out of the trivialists mouth complicates my latter claim that trivialism still has to do with reason. I would argue, to further what I have previously said in this essay thus far, that the trivialist is actually saying “There is no reason[ing behind proposition p being the case]” as well as “There is no reason[, in the sense that by reason I mean a singular reason or a plurality of reasons and not ‘reason itself,’ behind proposition p being the case].” Therefore, what is “reason itself”? Is reason itself not with the purview of logic? Are we denying then that logic is the metamethod? Let us, for the first time, pose the questions “What does it mean to be a metamethod?” “What does it mean for logic to ‘come first’?” All that “Logic is the metamethod” and “Logic comes first” means is that logic is the logical prerequisite for any proposition to be proposed. Is this not a tauatology: ogic is the logical prerequisite, which is to say, logically necessary condition of any proposition being proposed. This itself supposes logic. But, again, we have identified logic as a form of reasoning, therefore meaning that reason itself, being a precondition of reasoning, is a precondition of logic. This can also be said as (logic is l; reason is r; reasoning is g; precondition of reasoning is P; and precondition of logic is Q): (((∃g (l = g)) ^ (∀r P(r))) → (Q(r)), which is to say, “Logic is some form of reasoning and reason itself is always the precondition for reasoning, therefore reason is the precondition of logic.” Now, this is a logical conclusion, no? Therefore logic is the precondition of reason itself, right? To answer this, let us clarify something about logic: logic is a form of reasoning, as I have already outlined. We need to emphasize that it is a form in the sense that it is a composition of reasoning. Reasoning operates in a certain way when it is logical, and a different way when it is illogical. That logic is the precondition for the syntactical expression of something being the case does not mean that it has to be the case for that which is being syntactically expressed to be the case. In other words, logic is only the prerequisite of saying the something is the case, but not the prerequisite of something being the case. Logic leads not to its defeat but its displacement from its supposed metamethod. Reason itself is the metamethod because it is the abolition of the instantiation of methodology. Reason itself is always there. Reason is the cause of the interpellation of logic. There is no logocentric predicament in that logic can demonstrate it is not supreme. Logic is a form of reasoning that emphasizes that there is a necessary relation between premises and a conclusion. The relation between premises and conclusion that logic points out is that the premises have a specific conclusion as their conclusion. In this sense, illogic is a form of reasoning that emphasizes that there is no necessary relation between a set of premises and a conclusion. For illogic, and this is the result of logical explosion, a set of premises can be true and “their” conclusion can be false. Obviously, per logic, this false conclusion can not be the begotten of the true premises. It is almost like conceptual genetics (truth tables as punnett squares?). Now, there are some forms of logic which allow for some contradiction, so let me revise what I have just said. Logic holds that there is at least one necessary relation between a set of premises and a conclusion which cannot be contradictory (this is the principle of minimal non-contradiciton that Puntam puts forward).