What the East terms illusionary is not what we think of as a distortion of realty. 'Maya' means the conjunctive 'name-and-form'. It’s the conceptual mind’s process of trying to take hold of the inherent fluidity and dynamic nature of reality through fixed and static concepts. That process of our conceptual mind is what leads to the illusion of things having an independent existence.

You didn't present a reason. "Platonic realism is true in some possible world" doesn't contradict TAG. You could say "The universe doesn't make sense" and that wouldn't contradict TAG's arguments and conclusion - just a denial of a premise.

The question is whether or not knowledge is possible on atheism - you just state "Knowledge is possible on atheism". A textbook begging of the question.

Howso?


I haven't looked at your TAG thread yet but I assume we'll get to these there.

I'm not sure this is worth going into any more, but what I'm doing here is saying where my disagreement with the argument lies. Deductive arguments can fail in two ways--they can be invalid or they can have false premises. Here, I don't think the argument is invalid, but I do think one of the premises is false. So yes, I am denying a premise and explaining why.

I think a more accurate way of putting the question is whether or not we can show a justification for knowledge on non-theistic grounds. The easiest way to show this is to list an example of such a justification, which I did (Platonism). I could explain what Platonism is, but I didn't think it was necessary in a short post.

If you don't think that Platonism is such justification, or you don't think it is a successful justification, that would need to be shown. Of course, even if you were successful in showing that it wasn't, I would then go on to my next example: Aristotle, then Kant's transcendental philosophy, then Hegel, then Russell, etc. Only after you've shown that each of these individually is not only is false, but can't even in theory justify knowledge would this objection be defeated.
In the context of logical argumentation, "begging the question" names an informal fallacy in which the conclusion either implicitly or explicitly entails the conclusion directly. I have not begged the question. I've put forward a counterexample to the claim that non-theistic philosophy cannot justify knowledge. The correct way to respond would be to examine the counter-example to see if it actually does so.

More informally, people use the phrase, "begging the question" to mean something, "raises the question." So I say that Platonism is a counterexample, which "raises the question" here of exactly how it is a counter-example (that is, how it justifies knowledge).

I think you're using the phrase in the latter sense.

Platonic realism could exist in some possible world and that wouldn't cause TAG to fail nor would it show a premise false.

Van Til has gone into much detail about why Plato doesn't succeed as a grounds for knowledge. Just listing Platonism hardly answers him.

I don't really need to show these to contradict your assertion that TAG is obviously wrong. But if you want it shown both Van Til and Bahnsen deal with these philosophers and many more in great detail.

Your counterexample is a mere assertion - Platonism is true(or is good grounds for knowledge) - which is the question.

No.

It seems to me that you're sort of misunderstanding where the burden of proof is here.

In the argument, the presupp makes the implicit claim that every other view which claims it can know logical truth is false. . In order for the argument to succeed, the presupp has to show that these other worldviews which profess to be adequate grounds for logical truth are false. If he does not do this, he is just making a baseless assertion.

Thats why OrP doesnt have to explain platonism, It isnt required that he prove platonism true, it is enough that it exists and is unrefuted. And as he said, Platonism is not the only view that needs to be dealt with

I'm looking at Bahnsen's book on Van Til in which there is a chapter called "The Epistemological Failure of Unbelief" and runs about 100 pages, mostly extensive excerpts from VT assessing many philosophical positions. What he should have done is just said "In some possible world TAG is true. QED".

I don't understand why you keep saying this. It's not 'some possible world', it's this world. (unless you hold that Platonists, contractarians etc don't believe they hold true beliefs?)

I'm honestly unsure why you aren't conceding this. It seems to me trivial. Until the presupp has successfully disproved all other worldviews that claim to be able to derive moral truths, the argument fails. If the presupp has a problem with this, well, thats a shame, but it is his own fault for making such a strong claim.

In short, of course it would be a laborious task to first disprove all other views, but this is the bed they have made for themselves.

Okay, I would prefer to move the discussion to the TAG thread, so I'll reply more substantively there. But I do want to make a rhetorical point here. In your response, you note that Bahnsen and Van Til talk about Platonism. Great. If I was talking to them, then no doubt after I made my assertion that Platonism is a counter-example they would argue that it is not.

However, I'm not talking to them, I'm talking to you. In my experience, presuppositionalists either don't understand or are not even aware of the various proposed non-theistic explanations for things they claim require God. So the first important step is to show that these non-theistic explanations actually exist. Then, you're supposed to show that they are not adequate as explanations. Instead, what you're doing here is claiming that I'm supposed to list Bahnsen's and Van Til's arguments showing this and respond to those arguments. But that is several steps further in the argument, and I want to see those objections raised before going into them (and by raised, I don't mean just a reference to the fact that Van Til criticizes Platonism--I mean what is his actual criticism?).

Yes, if my short post on 2p2 doesn't go into as much detail on my argument as Bahnsen's book explicating Van Til's argument then I'm begging the question.

or you just throw the "unnamed, undescribed explanation that I haven't thought of yet" - which he still has to disprove in order to assert his point.

its not enough to show that all the known alternatives fail - he must also show that all unknown alternatives also fail. Disproving TAG doesn't require a specific counterexample. Getting bogged down in the specific counterexamples is kind of a sideshow, and somewhat plays into their hands, implicitly acknowledging that a counterexample is even needed.

While you are correct as to the logic of the situation, I do think it stronger to show a specific counterexample instead of arguing about burden of proof issues. That is, I want to demonstrate that the premise is false, not merely show that it has not been shown to be true.

Good point. Sorry.

Good point. Sorry.

But you were BTQ.