Authored by: fishpasta.

Metaphysics used to be one of the most hotly contested and important fields of philosophy throughout antiquity, medieval philosophy, and the early modern era. It has since died down in popularity due to contemporary philosophers accepting these lovely things called broad foundationalism and non-skeptical realism. This new epistemology and metaphysical school had rendered all arguments about the nature of reality irrelevant, as you would be immediately labelled a silly person if you did not accept that chairs were real in Oxford.

This argument is a metaphysical one, meaning it deals with the nature of reality. It also assumes your epistemology is that of a positivist (a person who rejects anything unless it’s logically verifiable). If you have some other epistemology, you may want to not spend much time reading the explanations of the premises and skip to the objections section.

So, we’ve got four possibilities typically when we start talking about the nature of the universe:

Skepticism: the proposition that nothing whatsoever exists.

Bundle-theory: the proposition that the only existent things are properties, and hence properties are the metaphysical nature of the universe (there are no substances).

Monism: This usually comes in two forms: emergentism, which is the proposition that only properties and physical things exist and the mind is just an emergent property of matter. The second most popular form would be idealism, which is the proposition that only properties and ideas, or mental substance, exist, the physical world merely being a description of ideas.

Dualism: This also presents itself in two forms. Substance dualism is the proposition that there exist both physical and mental substances as well as properties. Property dualism is the proposition that only mental and physical properties exist.

Now you may have noticed that property dualism shares it’s definition with bundle-theory here. In philosophy of mind, property dualism actually shares it’s definition with emergentism. In other words, property dualism sort of gets passed around a lot. We will here be using property dualism exclusively to refer to the dual properties that bundle-theory posits (mental and physical properties) without any underlying substance.

The method by which we will be eliminating metaphysical theories is deductive reasoning, however, if you were so inclined, you may also use occam’s razor to inductively get you to the same conclusion in the very same way (that is, that amongst several options, the choice with the least non-evidential assumptions is the correct one).

Now we know right off the bat that skepticism is wrong because if nothing exists then there can be no propositions, and if there are no propositions there are no truth statements, and if there are no truth statements then skepticism is self-refuting.

So we are left with several options. We know that one of them must be right, or in other words, we know, as Decartes did, that something has to exist. Now if we can deductively conclude that only one thing exists, that means we must throw out any metaphysical position here that posits the existence of more than one thing, or in syllogism:

Only 1 ontos for the universe exists

metaphysical theories 3 and 4 and the subdivisions thereof all posit more than 1 ontos.

Therfore, metaphysical theory 2, bundle-theory, is correct.

However, we have run into a problem. If we look closer, we can see that bundle-theory doesn’t just make one assertion, it makes two, and in fact it is a type of dualism and hence is equivalent to a subdivision in 4. It would seem now that our syllogism is invalid. Our conclusion is wrong because it is not exempt from the problems of all the other theories. It posits more than one ontos (nature).

Well wait a minute now, all it would seem we’d have to do is look at the theory itself and see which assertion in it we can logically verify. Under bundle-theory we have two types of properties:

1. mental properties
2. physical properties

Now if we can eliminate one of these, then we immediately justify bundle-theory as the accurate metaphysical theory. How can we do this? Well that’s where Berkeley comes in with one of his strongest proofs of idealism (or, as we can call it now, Humean-idealism):

We perceive ordinary objects (houses, mountains, etc.).

We perceive only mental properties.

Ordinary objects are mental properties.

Readers of Berkeley’s A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Understanding will note that I have simply replaced the word “idea” with “mental properties” or “bundles of mental properties”.

It is here that we can now forward Berkeley’s argument for god, which is distinct from mine. For Berkeley’s argument (or rather, arguments, as he eliminates possibilities), consult the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s article on him.

As for (finally) my argument, given our newly deductively proven metaphysics:

Only mental properties exist.

We cannot perceive everything that exists.

An omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent mind is necessary to perceive all that exists.

3 may seem to be jumping the shark, but notate that any mind which contains in it all of existence is itself omniscient, since it is aware of all that exists. Also notate that any mind which is omniscient is by necessity omnipotent, since it can imagine any event into fruition or create anything. And finally notate that by definition, one is always present in their own mind, hence omnipresence.

Non-positivist objections:

The Critique from Broad Foundationalism

“Hey, I’m a broad foundationalist though and accept all this stuff being physical as a properly basic belief.”

I will only respond to a criticism of this type with a Samuel Johnson-esque “well, I’m a broad foundationalist too and I take all this stuff being non-physical as a properly basic belief.”

The Critique from Conventionalism

“I take basic beliefs to be determined by society’s tendencies and intuitions, hence I reject your first premise.”

If you believe this, then you’ll also have to accept that god exists without argument, being that 84 percent of the world believes in him.

The Critique from Reliabilism

“I think we should judge whether or not something is true based on how good it is at predicting stuff.”

If this is so, then simply read “deductive reasoning” in this article as “occam’s razor”. Occam’s razor is lovely at predicting things and to refuse to apply it in a particular place is a special pleading fallacy.

The Critique from Narrow Foundationalism

“I believe clear and distinct truths are what we should assume, such as the physicality of objects.”

I reject this criticism on the grounds that the originator of your own epistemology did not think it clear and distinct that physical stuff existed.

The Critique from Coherentism

“You behave in a way such that physical things exist.”

No I most certainly don’t. See the Three Dialogs for Berkeley’s defense of idealism as a common-sense belief and critique of matter as an abstraction. Also see Russell’s critique of coherentism.

Positivist Objections:

Argument from Meta-Ethics.

“An objective morality exists, and such a morality cannot be determined by a god nor be intrinsic to him as per Euthyphro.”

This is actually a good refutation, but if you don’t mind try to ignore it in your own objections, since I’m looking for possible refutations I haven’t already thought of.

Begging the Question

“You seem to be saying there are mental properties that aren’t perceived, since god isn’t perceived by anything here.”

There are two ways to respond to this. The simple and cheap way is god perceives himself.

The better way would be to use the Leibnizian Cosmological Argument, since existence is just redefined here as “being perceived” we can directly translate the term “necessary existence” to “necessarily perceived thing”.

Non Causa Pro Causa

“An omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent being does not follow from 2.”

I explain why it does follow after premise 3.

Equivocation

“Hume used properties to describe tropes, as he was a nominalist”.

Either definition works for the purposes of this argument.

Contra Berkeley’s Core Argument

“We have deductive reason/inductive evidence for physicalism.”

First define what matter is without begging the question, then refute the master argument, then solve interactionism/justify the existence of matter.

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That covers all the stuff I can forsee. Feel free to bring up the objections I’ve already mentioned for further analysis if so inclined (with the exception of the meta-ethics critique). Also if anyone is curious, the reason I haven’t revoked my atheism after formulating this is because I want to rigorously examine whether or not it is fallacious.

Further Reading:

Berkeley, George. A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge. Philosophy

Collection. Web. 09 June 2010. <http://philosophy.eserver.org/berkeley.html>.

“Skepticism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).” Stanford Encyclopedia of

Philosophy. Web. 09 June 2010. <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/skepticism/>.

Bergmann, Gustav. The Metaphysics of Logical Positivism. New York:

Longmans Green, 1954.