Q&A: A Few Comments on His Books
A Few Comments on His Books
Question
Greetings! Recently I read your books God Plays Dice and Truth and the Unstable. There is no doubt that they add a great deal to the philosophical discussion in our generation, which is very shallow.
As for the attitude toward mysticism, I follow the approach of Rabbi Kook, who disagrees with you, and perhaps I’ll write you an explanation of that sometime. But mainly I wanted to write a few comments about the ontological proof and the discussion around it, because it seems to me that there are a few mistakes that keep recurring.
At the basis of the discussion stands the claim that we accept the ability to derive actual reality from concepts. And therefore from the concept of God one can derive His existence. You raised objections that if so then there is also a unicorn, since one can think about it. That stems from a misunderstanding of deriving from concepts. A unicorn is a composition of several concepts together: a horse (which is itself composite), the color white, a horn, and so on. All of these are existing concepts. But their combination is not necessary.
If we understand that there is such a concept as God in our thought, then according to this approach that necessitates His existence.
(By the way, in my opinion, we do not have such a concept in thought. Our thought combines several things in order to create the concept of God as well. And in my opinion that is the answer to the ontological proof. Even though it is presented as a logical proof, at its base stands the assumption that from thinking about God one can necessitate His existence. Descartes takes this approach in the Meditations. Perhaps one can derive God’s existence from the striving toward Him and the desire for Him, but that is a more complex topic.)
A second comment concerns the rejection of Descartes’ cogito argument. You claimed in the name of several thinkers that the opposite of “I think” is not “I think that I do not think,” but rather “I do not think.” That is obviously true, but it changes nothing and has nothing to do with Descartes’ argument. Descartes tried to say that from the experience of thinking one can derive our existence. One can think that the rest of the experiences are only in our mind, but in the end the experiences exist. And they are the proof of existence. This is not a formal derivation from the verbal impossibility of not thinking, against which your objection can be raised, but rather from the evidentness of the experience of life, which is at the very least thought.
A third and brief comment, about the connection between Moore’s naturalistic fallacy and Hume’s inability to derive a judgment from a fact. I did not understand how you connected them. Moore referred to the intuitive understanding of basic concepts such as good, and to the inability to define them by means of another concept, and that is the fallacy in naturalistic conceptions. This has nothing at all to do with the inability to derive a judgment from a fact.
I would be happy to hear a response.
I do not have philosophical expertise, so it is very possible that I am mistaken, but these seemed to me to be very obvious errors.
Answer
It really does not matter whether the concept is composite. As long as we think it, the proof still stands (to the extent that it stands. I think it does not lead to the conclusion).
Descartes did not speak about evidence in this context. Here he derived his existence logically from the fact that he thinks. If you are talking about evidence, then his whole move is unnecessary. It is obvious to each of us that he exists. What did his argument add beyond that clarity which is understood by every child?!
Many have engaged in intricate discussion about the connection between Hume and Moore, and I see no point in getting into it here (you can also find it online). The interpretation of this or that thinker is not really important to me. As far as I’m concerned, whether it is Hume or Moore, as you wish. From my perspective, one cannot derive values/judgments from facts. That is what matters for my purposes.
Binyah, if I define: “a unicorn that exists” — then does it exist?