Aristotle's arguments prove the existence of a mystery.

Thanks for the Systematic Theology reference jeeprs!

What the arguments end up "proving" is that there are trajectories in the structure of human existence that remain inexplicable in terms of human experience.

But, how can arguments not be arguments? Especially because they may also be something else as well? And what has Aristotle to do with it?

This is the quote that sums up what I think of Aristotle's proofs:


The scholastics drew from Aristotle's proofs. Whether you call them arguments, proofs, or potatoes, I don't see how it matters. He wrote stuff. The stuff points to a mystery. Ta da!!!!

Humans are fools. All of them. No exception.

All masturbate on trivial things and just waste time. Humans are in one way time killers.

Unnecessary rabbit holes. In the end they will be back to square one.

Yet they want to play endless stupid games.


When you understand you do not exist , you come home.

I guess I don't know to which arguments you are referring. I certainly call arguments for God arguments. What else would you call them? And to what mystery are you referring? (Are you maybe mixing up Aristotle with Aquinas)? And what are "trajectories in the structure of human experience"? The meaning of that phrase is certainly a mystery to me.

Another mystery is how arguments can not be arguments. But I don't hope that will ever be cleared up for me. People say all kinds of things, especially in philosophy, since the standards for making sense are thought to be so low.

People do say all kinds of things. Didn't Aquinas draw from Aristotle's proofs?

I'm sure anything I might say about it would come out as word salad. Nothin' like the master chef himself.

Humans are fools. All of them. No exception.

.

How do you exist? Let me count the ways. (Apologies to Elizabeth Barrett Browning).

And what are "trajectories in the structure of human experience"?

You should never believe what i say or disbelieve what i say. For you i do not exist if you know.

You manifest according to your belief. There are many perspective. Your brain has to see. Because if i say something , your brain will see it as a belief. you brain has to find things by accident. That is where you will see , you do not exist.

At present your mind works only one way. A belief slave.

There is nothing wrong with anything though. Earth has all kinds of humans...monkeys...

When you stop seeing through your belief , you will see i do not exist because there is nothing to reflect on it. There is nothing to blame. Belief wants to do that. That is the way it controls humans. it does ***** cry. hahaha.

Firstly, I'm not so sure Kant is right about existence not being a predicate. His argument seems to be that a 'real' predicate must add something new to its subject, yet existence seems to be presupposed. However, consider "Barrack Obama's grandfather is a father". Fatherhood is presupposed in the subject, but does that mean that '... is a father' isn't a real predicate in this context, merely a logical one? I'm unconvinced. Moreover, there are most definitely cases where existence is not presupposed. I might explain to a child that King Arthur is a legend, but King Alfred actually existed. Here existence seems to be being used as the kind of real predicate Kant talks about, to discriminate between different members of a heterogeneous class of kingly characters.

Secondly, I don't think that your examples demonstrate different types of existence, merely different ontological schemes. We disagree on what types of things exist, not on what types of 'existences' there are, which isn't entirely intelligible to me. For example, most people would agree with the statement: There exists an x such that 2 + 2 = x and x is a number. Yet we still have (massive) ontological disagreement about the type of thing that the above variable refers to, which we can bring out by paraphrasing:

There exists an x such that 2 + 2 = x and x is an abstract idea.
There exists an x such that 2 + 2 = x and x is a platonic form/abstract entity/universal.
There exists an x such that 2 + 2 = x and x is a concrete particular.
etc.
Nobody really disagrees about existence (to be is to be the value of a variable, as Quine puts it), they just disagree over what types of thing exist.

Using 'exist' as a predicate meant,
"Barrack Obama's grandfather exists and he is a father".
There is no need to use the word 'exist' in the above, it is presupposed.
If you are trying to establish whether a thing existed in the past or not, then it is a different story and not related to 'exist is not a real predicate'.

Nobody would disagree on the concept of 'existence' if they define the term precisely and all have consensus on that definition.

But in philosophy there are disagreements on what existence is.

1. There are philosophers who disagree with 'ontology' at the fundamental level.

2. Philosophical realists and non-realists have different concept of what existence is.
The philosophical realist believes that things exist independent of mind while non-realist do not agree with that.

The above are not related to what types of things exists, but in what manner and context they exist.

Using 'exist' as a predicate meant,
"Barrack Obama's grandfather exists and he is a father".
There is no need to use the word 'exist' in the above, it is presupposed.
If you are trying to establish whether a thing existed in the past or not, then it is a different story and not related to 'exist is not a real predicate'.

I disagree with your kingly characters example. I don't see how there can be a distinction between a kingly character who exists, and one who does not exist when there are no kingly characters who do not exist. Nothing cannot be distinguished from something, for nothing has no properties. For something to be distinct from something else, both somethings must exist. "King Arthur does not exist" does not mean that something that is King Arthur does not exist. It means that nothing is King Arthur.

Nobody would disagree on the concept of 'existence' if they define the term precisely and all have consensus on that definition.

But in philosophy there are disagreements on what existence is.

1. There are philosophers who disagree with 'ontology' at the fundamental level.

2. Philosophical realists and non-realists have different concept of what existence is.
The philosophical realist believes that things exist independent of mind while non-realist do not agree with that.

The above are not related to what types of things exists, but in what manner and context they exist.

Only certain classes of objects presuppose existence. The famous example used by GE Moore is tame tigers. It makes perfectly good sense to say:
All tame tigers growl
Most tame tigers growl
Two tame tigers growl
A few tame tigers growl
Many tame tigers growl
etc.

However, when we predicate tame tigers with existence, we can say:

Two tame tigers exist
A few tame tigers exist
Many tame tigers exist

But some of the quantifying adjectives don't work:

Most tame tigers exist
Some tame tigers do not exist (i.e. 'Some but not all tame tigers exist')
All tame tigers exist (It 'works' grammatically, but is a vacuous tautology)
Compare with the similar case of presupposition:
Some/most grandfathers are fathers.

To look at this another way, we might represent the quantifying adjectives graphically. Imagine shading in a circle drawn on a piece of paper; for 'one' we shade a tiny section of the circle, for 'a few' we shade a bigger section, for 'most' we shade over half of the circle, and for 'all' we shade the entire thing. For the existential case, however, there is no circle already drawn. If we want to say 'one tame tiger exists' we would have to draw the smallest circle possible, for 'a few' a slightly larger one; however, we can get nowhere with 'most' or 'all' because they depend upon a circle already being drawn. (note: in the grandfather case we might think of a circle representing grandfathers being subsumed by a larger circle representing fathers, while in the tame tigers case we may think of just one circle, which may explain why the cases differ slightly e.g. when using 'many').

My point is that there are some cases in which existence is not presupposed of the class we are discussing. For example, if I were telling somebody with very little knowledge of history about Tolstoy's War and Peace I might quite rightly say, "Some of the characters in this novel did not exist", and I may correctly use any of the other quantifying adjectives in a similar vane. In this case I might imagine two, overlapping circles, one representing the class under discussion, and the other representing all that exists, with the quantifier determining how much overlap there is, but I may just as easily use shading as above; in both cases I'm assigning members of a class to a certain subclass (things that growl and things that exist). I would say that this kind of discourse takes place across a broader area of language than in discussing historical fiction or legendary Kings. For example, when we suspend judgement on a certain matter of fact, which seems to occur a lot in philosophy.


King Arthur had twelve knights?
Heathcliffe is a character in Emily Bronte's novel?
How about, Heathcliffe does not exist, he is a character in Wuthering Heights?

I certainly seem to be able to talk about things that don't exist, and I seem to be able to use 'exists' like other predicate, at least in some situations. One approach might be to use definite descriptions, but definite description is an unnatural analysis of language, and it certainly doesn't seem to be able to handle cases like these very well.


Surely this is just another distinction between types of thing, mind dependant and mind independent?

Only certain classes of objects presuppose existence. The famous example used by GE Moore is tame tigers. It makes perfectly good sense to say:
All tame tigers growl
Most tame tigers growl
Two tame tigers growl
A few tame tigers growl
Many tame tigers growl
etc.

However, when we predicate tame tigers with existence, we can say:

Two tame tigers exist
A few tame tigers exist
Many tame tigers exist

But some of the quantifying adjectives don't work:

Most tame tigers exist
Some tame tigers do not exist (i.e. 'Some but not all tame tigers exist')
All tame tigers exist (It 'works' grammatically, but is a vacuous tautology)
Compare with the similar case of presupposition:
Some/most grandfathers are fathers.

To look at this another way, we might represent the quantifying adjectives graphically. Imagine shading in a circle drawn on a piece of paper; for 'one' we shade a tiny section of the circle, for 'a few' we shade a bigger section, for 'most' we shade over half of the circle, and for 'all' we shade the entire thing. For the existential case, however, there is no circle already drawn. If we want to say 'one tame tiger exists' we would have to draw the smallest circle possible, for 'a few' a slightly larger one; however, we can get nowhere with 'most' or 'all' because they depend upon a circle already being drawn. (note: in the grandfather case we might think of a circle representing grandfathers being subsumed by a larger circle representing fathers, while in the tame tigers case we may think of just one circle, which may explain why the cases differ slightly e.g. when using 'many').

My point is that there are some cases in which existence is not presupposed of the class we are discussing. For example, if I were telling somebody with very little knowledge of history about Tolstoy's War and Peace I might quite rightly say, "Some of the characters in this novel did not exist", and I may correctly use any of the other quantifying adjectives in a similar vane. In this case I might imagine two, overlapping circles, one representing the class under discussion, and the other representing all that exists, with the quantifier determining how much overlap there is, but I may just as easily use shading as above; in both cases I'm assigning members of a class to a certain subclass (things that growl and things that exist). I would say that this kind of discourse takes place across a broader area of language than in discussing historical fiction or legendary Kings. For example, when we suspend judgement on a certain matter of fact, which seems to occur a lot in philosophy.


King Arthur had twelve knights?
Heathcliffe is a character in Emily Bronte's novel?
How about, Heathcliffe does not exist, he is a character in Wuthering Heights?

I certainly seem to be able to talk about things that don't exist, and I seem to be able to use 'exists' like other predicate, at least in some situations. One approach might be to use definite descriptions, but definite description is an unnatural analysis of language, and it certainly doesn't seem to be able to handle cases like these very well.

Surely this is just another distinction between types of thing, mind dependant and mind independent?