The following is from the post, “Two Initial Objections to TAG”. It has been edited down to include only the attempts on the part of Agreus to interact with the initial post and my responses to him.
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Two of the most common objections to the Transcendental Argument for God from both inside and outside of Christianity appear to be inconsistent with each other.
Consider:
1. TAG is circular.
2. TAG is unstated.
Perhaps the two can be reconciled, but I believe it would take more than the typical surface level treatment of TAG to do so. One notable exception might be when a bare assertion is offered as the proof itself. However it would be odd to describe a mere assertion as “circular”.
It is also clear that many of the examples that can be provided are not circular. For example, “If knowledge then God, knowledge, therefore God” does not appear to be circular. Likewise, “Logic, If not-Christianity then not-Logic, therefore Christianity” is not circular that I can see.
In the case of Van Til it is frequently claimed that he never actually offered an argument. Yet it is also frequently claimed that his argument was circular.
Agreus
I’m sorry, but both examples that you’ve presented actually do contain the implicit premise that God exists. Since your conclusion is assumed from the very beginning, both arguments are circular. You simply haven’t explicitly stated all of the premises of the argument.
Where is the implicit premise “God exists” in either example? Are you saying that either of the examples contains the conclusion in the premises in a different way from all other such arguments? If not it is strange to single out TAG as being “circular”. Can you explicitly state all the premises of the argument?
The observation in the post still stands.
Agreus
The premise that God provides the necessary preconditions for knowledge is the one that needs to be proven. Obviously, if you are going to try to prove the existence of God, then you cannot start your argument with a premise that assumes God necessarily must exist or else knowledge could not exist. You first have to successfully argue that God is a precondition to knowledge. Most proponents of TAG even acknowledge this and unfortunately it is here where things usually fall apart for those trying to argue TAG.
Since an unprovable premise is not the same thing as a circular argument and since you assume the argument may be stated; your assertions, even if true, are irrelevant to the original post.
Agreus
Declaring your premise unprovable doesn’t make it immune from being a circular argument. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could argue that way?
A premise is not an argument, ergo you are not making much sense Agreus!
Agreus
I never stated that a premise was an argument. Your premise entails the truth of your conclusion (God’s existence), which is what makes your argument circular.
What does “it” refer to in, “Declaring your premise unprovable doesn’t make it immune from being a circular argument”?
If “it” refers to a premise, then refer to my previous comment. A premise is not an argument.
If “it” refers to TAG, then your statement is correct. An unprovable premise does not mean that TAG is not circular. However, you are citing an allegedly unprovable premise in an effort to explain how TAG is circular. Since an unprovable premise is not the same thing as a circular argument and since you assume the argument may be stated (in your admission that there are premises); your assertions, even if true, are irrelevant to the original post.
But now you’ve written something I’m even more interested in, which is, “Your premise entails the truth of your conclusion (God’s existence), which is what makes your argument circular.” I asked earlier if the examples of TAG provided contain the conclusion in the premises in a different way from other like arguments.
The conclusion of the first example is “God”.
The first premise is “If knowledge then God”.
The second premise is “knowledge”.
The first premise does not entail the conclusion by itself. The same is true of the second premise.
The conclusion of the second example is “Christianity”.
The first premise is “Logic”.
The second premise is “If not-Christianity then not-Logic”.
The first premise does not entail the conclusion by itself. The same is true of the second premise.
Perhaps you are saying that the premises entail the truth of the conclusions of the arguments and hence they are circular. For example, argument X:
If the premises of an argument entail the truth of the conclusion of the argument then the argument is circular.
The premises of argument X entail the truth of the conclusion of the argument.
Therefore argument X is circular.
Are you saying something like that?
Agreus
Chris, either you are making an arbitrary if..then statement or else you are presenting TAG with unstated (implicit) premises, in which case your argument is circular. If you are just making an arbitrary if..then statement, then I have no problem with it, other than the conclusion is false because the premise is false. If you are trying to present an argument for TAG, then you simply have not stated the argument to avoid it from appearing circular.
What do you mean by “arbitrary if..then statement”? Would you consider the following to be an arbitrary if then statement?:
“If you are just making an arbitrary if..then statement, then I have no problem with it…”
Is this one an “arbitrary if..then” statement?:
“If you are trying to present an argument for TAG, then you simply have not stated the argument to avoid it from appearing circular.”
If not, why not? You will also need to establish your statement above. This is what I have been asking you to do. What is circular about either of the examples provided? Be specific, don’t just repeat what you have heard.
It seems that you are merely substituting “arbitrary” for my earlier “unprovable”. However, I have already answered you on this. An argument with an unprovable premise (or an “arbitrary” premise if I understand you correctly) is not a circular argument and a premise is not an argument.
Arguments with implicit premises are not necessarily circular. In order for your charge of circularity to stick with respect to the second option you will need to make the alleged implicit premises of the examples explicit and demonstrate how their presence results in circular argument.
You can repeat that the arguments appear circular all night long but it is a far cry from actually showing where and how they are circular. It is not up to me to produce premises that you imagine are hidden somewhere and believe constitute circularity in the arguments when revealed. This is very strange thinking on your part – if you know that there are implicit premises and you know that their being made explicit demonstrates that the arguments are circular then why not produce said premises and put this thing to rest?
Three more things worth noting:
1. I don’t think you actually addressed my questions from the last two comments.
2. You wrote, “Your premise entails the truth of your conclusion (God’s existence), which is what makes your argument circular.” I already addressed this in my previous comments and asked for clarification, but now you appear to be charging TAG with circularity while citing a different reason for doing so (an implicit premise)! Is TAG circular because a “premise entails the truth of [its] conclusion” or is it circular because I am “presenting TAG with unstated (implicit) premises”?
3. None of your comments is actually relevant to the inconsistency between the two surface level (but very popular) objections to TAG I presented. You are presumably trying to establish that TAG is circular or that it is unstated which is fine but it is difficult to see how you might go about establishing both!
Agreus Chris, your argument is a logically valid deductive argument, however that does not tell us much other than your argument is logically valid. Your premises, “If Knowledge, then God” has not been established and hence your argument is unsound. A sound argument is only sound if it is both logically valid and all of its premises are actually true.
If that is all there is to your argument and you have no problem with the unsoundness of it, then that is fine. But I doubt that you are satisified with that. Most people who argue TAG try to support their premises with some sort of argument, which I have always found to be a circular one.
C.L. Bolt “Chris, your argument is a logically valid deductive argument”
Glad you grant this!
“however that does not tell us much other than your argument is logically valid.”
It tells us the argument.
“Your premises, ‘If Knowledge, then God’ has not been established and hence your argument is unsound.”
An argument with an unestablished premise is not necessarily unsound.
“A sound argument is only sound if it is both logically valid and all of its premises are actually true.”
Yes, but note that just because a premise has not been established does not mean that the premise is false. Thus an argument with an unestablished premise is not necessarily unsound.
“If that is all there is to your argument and you have no problem with the unsoundness of it, then that is fine.”
Again, the argument is not necessarily unsound because the premise is not necessarily false, even if it has not been established. You would need to provide arguments in order to demonstrate that the premise in question is false in order to support your statement that the argument is unsound.
“But I doubt that you are satisified with that.”
You’re right, I’m not, because I do not believe that it is unsound.
“Most people who argue TAG try to support their premises with some sort of argument,”
What sort of argument do they try to support the premises with?
“which I have always found to be a circular one.”
If we remove these allegedly circular arguments given in support of the premises of TAG we are back to the problem of an unsupported premise, but an unsupported premise is not the same thing as a circular argument. But aside from this, notice that your claim is that the arguments given in support of the premises of TAG are circular and not TAG itself. So then TAG is not what is circular, but rather the arguments which support its premises. This is different (again!) from what you have said before.
Is TAG circular because a “premise entails the truth of [its] conclusion” or is it circular because I am “presenting TAG with unstated (implicit) premises” or is it circular because the premises of TAG are supported by “some sort of argument…found to be a circular one”? Not only are these different from each other, they are each problematic as explained.
To summarize, you have attempted to show that TAG is circular by making three different claims as to why it is circular. Your most recent claim implies that it is not actually TAG which is circular, but rather the arguments given in support of its premises which are circular. You have not established that TAG is circular. There is also implicit concession in what you have written that TAG is not unstated.
Notice that you have not established either:
1. TAG is circular.
or
2. TAG is unstated.
Not only have you been unsuccessful in raising either of these objections on its own, you have not reconciled the two so as to show that there is no inconsistency in affirming both objections.
Agreus
“If we remove these allegedly circular arguments given in support of the premises of TAG we are back to the problem of an unsupported premise…..”
Chris, what you are doing is not actually addressing the problems of TAG rather you are quibbling about semantics. As Dawson said, “You’re trifling here, perhaps in an interest to divert attention away from the point of the post and subsequent discussion”. For the purposes of clarification, let’s call TAG unstated version, TAG v1, which is the unsupported deductively valid form of the argument. Let’s call the second version, TAG v2, which is the enhanced version of TAG that attempts to argue in support of the premise “If God, knowledge.” With this clarification in mind, let’s review the questions you skeptically posed to me in your last post:
“Is TAG circular because a ‘premise entails the truth of [its] conclusion’”
TAG v2 is circular because its premise entails the truth of its conclusion.
“or is it circular because I am ‘presenting TAG with unstated (implicit) premises’”
I never said that either TAG v1 nor V2 were circular because you were presenting them with unstated premises.
“or is it circular because the premises of TAG are supported by ’some sort of argument…found to be a circular one’?”
Here you are referring to TAG v2, which is a circular argument because it presupposes what it attempts to prove, the details of which have yet to be expounded upon because we are nitpicking over semantics.
Typically if someone argues TAG, they will use the enhanced version as TAG v1 isn’t a persuasive argument for someone skeptical of the existence of God and TAG is supposedly the Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God and not just a deductively valid argument (TAG v1). In fact, TAG v1.0 isn’t an argument for the existence of God at all and we may as well call it the Transcendental Assumption of God’s Existence.
That said, when you talk about the Transcendental Argument for God, you must have in mind TAG v2, which is in fact circular. In this case, you just have not stated the premises in full, which when revealed makes the argument circular. This is what has been pointed out to you for both of your arguments by Dawson. I hope this clarifies things for you.
“To summarize, you have attempted to show that TAG is circular ”
I have not delved into the problems of TAG rather I am trying to unravel your semantical confusions. Why you are expending so much energy quibbling over semantics is telling. Dawson is actually addressing the problems of TAG.
Agreus,
You have not raised any problems with TAG. Rather, you have asserted over and over again that TAG is circular while providing different reasons which are inconsistent with each other as to why this is supposedly the case. I am not “quibbling about semantics.” A circular argument which is used to support a premise of TAG is not the same thing as TAG itself being circular, and an unsupported premise in TAG is not the same thing as TAG itself being circular. That’s not semantics; those are two different descriptions of two different situations. I am asking you why you believe that TAG is circular. So far you have not provided a cogent answer as I have addressed each of your answers every time you have produced them.
You have now divided TAG into v1 and v2 in an ad hoc attempt to save your argument. TAG v1 is not circular given your definition of it because an argument with unsupported premises is not necessarily circular and the examples of the argument I presented are clearly not circular.
TAG v2 you state is an “enhanced version of TAG that attempts to argue in support” of its first premise. You have now repeated yourself in stating that TAG v2 is circular because its premise entails the truth of its conclusion. I have already addressed this argument. The argument fails because a premise does not in and of itself entail anything. A premise must be placed within the context of an argument in order for it to entail a conclusion. But what does your objection then look like? Earlier I asked for more clarification from you on this when I wrote, “Perhaps you are saying that the premises entail the truth of the conclusions of the arguments and hence they are circular. For example, argument X:
If the premises of an argument entail the truth of the conclusion of the argument then the argument is circular.
The premises of argument X entail the truth of the conclusion of the argument.
Therefore argument X is circular.
Are you saying something like that?”
Rather than answering my question, you changed the reason you were giving for thinking that TAG is circular. Now you are denying that you have done this, for you wrote, “I never said that either TAG v1 nor V2 were circular because you were presenting them with unstated premises.” Yes you did, in this comment – https://choosinghats.org/?p=1207&cpage=1#comment-1595 – where you wrote, “Chris, either you are making an arbitrary if..then statement or else you are ***presenting TAG with unstated (implicit) premises, in which case your argument is circular***.” I quoted you directly. I have also already pointed out the problems with this supposed reason for circularity.
You quoted me, “or is it circular because the premises of TAG are supported by ’some sort of argument…found to be a circular one’?” You wrote in response, “Here you are referring to TAG v2, which is a circular argument because it presupposes what it attempts to prove, the details of which have yet to be expounded upon because we are nitpicking over semantics.”
Again, we are not “nitpicking over semantics.” Maybe you are no longer following the discussion, or you are intentionally trying to write off the problems with your claims, but the issue is your inconsistency, not semantics. You are giving reasons for your assertion that TAG is circular and I am telling you what is wrong with the reasons you are giving. The reasons you are giving not only each fail as explained in my comments, but they are in fact inconsistent with each other! You are saying *different* things; this is not reducible to “semantics”.
What do you mean when you write that TAG v2 “is a circular argument because it presupposes what it attempts to prove”? Where, specifically, does the argument do this? If you could please be very specific and stop changing your answer every time I ask you this it would be very helpful. You are free to expound upon the details; I am encouraging you to! I want to know why you think either of the examples provided is circular. So far you have failed to produce something to back up your frequent claims to this effect.
Please, tell me plainly, how are either of the two examples provided circular? I do not think you will surmount this difficulty because I do not believe that either of the examples provided actually is objectionable due to circularity. Your objection, I think, is based upon hearsay.
“Typically if someone argues TAG, they will use the enhanced version as TAG v1 isn’t a persuasive argument for someone skeptical of the existence of God”
In other words you cannot find where the arguments I actually presented are actually circular. Fine, so you think that the circularity rests in the support for the premises. Also fine, but as I’ve already mentioned this is not the same thing as saying that TAG is itself circular. Further, I am willing, ready, and waiting to see the alleged support for the premises and how it is circular.
“and TAG is supposedly the Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God and not just a deductively valid argument (TAG v1).”
Since TAG stands for Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God you are saying that ‘TAG is supposedly TAG and not just a deductively valid argument.’ Maybe you can help me to make sense out of that.
“In fact, TAG v1.0 isn’t an argument for the existence of God at all and we may as well call it the Transcendental Assumption of God’s Existence.”
Rhetoric and subsequent boredom – let’s see the circularity!
“That said, when you talk about the Transcendental Argument for God, you must have in mind TAG v2, which is in fact circular.”
That’s what you keep asserting over and over again, yes. But where’s the demonstration that it is circular?
“In this case, you just have not stated the premises in full, which when revealed makes the argument circular.”
Actually I did state the premises in full. They are stated above in each of the examples provided. If you want to argue against some straw man of TAG then feel free to state it and show that it is circular, but I don’t know why you’d care to do that.
If you want to “reveal” whatever it is you think is being hidden (and here you’re talking again about implicit premises which you just a moment ago denied doing!) then feel free to do so. You are claiming that TAG is circular. Again, even if it were the case that the supporting arguments were circular, the supporting arguments are not TAG. It is up to you to state these supporting arguments and demonstrate that they are circular or else you have really failed to make any substantial case against TAG in terms of its circularity.
“This is what has been pointed out to you for both of your arguments by Dawson. I hope this clarifies things for you.”
You haven’t actually said anything new, so no you have not clarified anything. Please be specific and tell me how TAG is circular. I read what Dawson has written and do not see that he has done this, but I am asking you to provide this information for me.
In response to me writing, “To summarize, you have attempted to show that TAG is circular,” you wrote, “I have not delved into the problems of TAG.” However, you have certainly been repeating quite often your assertion that TAG is circular. You are correct that you have not “delved” into the alleged problems with TAG. You seem content just repeating yourself, but that is neither an argument nor persuasive.
“rather I am trying to unravel your semantical confusions.”
You have provided three different reasons for thinking that TAG is circular, each one has been answered now, and each one is inconsistent with the other two. You are the one claiming that TAG is circular and you need to provide some support for your claim. I’m not confused. I’m waiting for you to make a consistent and successful argument.
“Why you are expending so much energy quibbling over semantics is telling.”
More rhetoric. I am not quibbling over semantics. You are, however, hand waiving. When this conversation is complete I will be posting it as its own entry. If you do not demonstrate circularity within TAG in your next post the thread is over and the conversation is posted as is. It’s going to look bad at this point, so I do hope you produce some actual argument or evidence or whatever it is you have that demonstrates that TAG is circular!
“Dawson is actually addressing the problems of TAG.”
First, no he’s not. Second, that’s not the point of the post. Third, what about you? Fourth, you still have not clarified how TAG can be both unstated and circular.
Agreus
Chris, I just sifted through the past week or so of comments after having returned from a trip and all I can say is that the versions of TAG you have presented so far really are nothing more than bare assertions. It is what I earlier referred to as TAG v1 (or the Transcendental Assumption of God). Is this your idea of a good argument?
Agreus
Yes it’s a poor argument. The argument is deductively valid, as is the following:
If large green peas, then Jolly Green Giant. Large green peas. Jolly Green Giant.
Obviously, this isn’t a good argument for the existence of the Jolly Green Giant. Yet Chris, who supposedly is a huge proponent of TAG, seems to think these types of arguments are pretty convincing arguments for the existence of God.
C.L. Bolt Agreus responded, “Chris, I just sifted through the past week or so of comments after having returned from a trip and all I can say is that the versions of TAG you have presented so far really are nothing more than bare assertions. It is what I earlier referred to as TAG v1 (or the Transcendental Assumption of God). Is this your idea of a good argument?”
Agreus attempted to reconcile the two objections in the initial post. He has been presenting contradictory reasons for considering TAG to be a circular argument. Again, even if circularity is established, it is difficult to see how TAG can be both unstated and circular. Please see the original post – https://choosinghats.org/?p=1207
In this comment – https://choosinghats.org/?p=1207&cpage=1#comment-1712 – I wrote the following to Agreus:
“When this conversation is complete I will be posting it as its own entry. If you do not demonstrate circularity within TAG in your next post the thread is over and the conversation is posted as is. It’s going to look bad at this point, so I do hope you produce some actual argument or evidence or whatever it is you have that demonstrates that TAG is circular!”
As promised, the thread is now closed. I hope to post the conversation with Agreus and also interact some more with what Dawson Bethrick has written concerning circularity in a separate post. No promises on how soon that will be.
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