In Defense of the Epistemic Significance of the Creator-relation

 

A few weeks ago, in this post, I presented what I call the Transcendental Argument from Conceptual Inadequacy. Discussions surrounding the argument have led me to believe that I left out a crucial step in the defense of a certain premise. In this post, I attempt to remedy this.

First of all, let us recall the argument. The argument is as follows:

1. Conceptual Inadequacy renders knowledge of an object impossible.

2. When a subject S experiences a sufficiently foreign object, S’s conceptual framework is necessarily inadequate.

3. Conceptual Inadequacy can only be dispelled through information (acquired directly or indirectly) from the creator of the object.

4. The universe is a sufficiently foreign object.

5. Therefore, either (a) our conceptual framework is inadequate with respect to the universe, or (b) we possess information from the Creator of the universe.

6. If (a), then knowledge of the universe is impossible.

7. If (b), then knowledge of the universe is possible.

8. Therefore, knowledge of the universe depends upon the existence and revelation of the Creator of the universe.

I believe the premises were adequately defended in the blog post. But recent discussions called my attention to the third premise of the argument. In the post, I defended the third premise thusly:

We can run a simple argument: A subject’s conceptually inadequate framework can only be made adequate through information from a conceptually adequate framework. However, the one supplying the information must have also, at some point, received information from another conceptually adequate framework. This chain cannot go on indefinitely. Therefore, it must terminate at some subject who does not need external information in order for their conceptual framework to be adequate with respect to the object. But only the creator of the object does not require external information for his conceptual framework to be adequate. Therefore, a conceptually inadequate framework can only be made adequate through direct information from the creator of the object or through information based upon information from the creator of the object.

I believe this suffices as a defense of the third premise. However, recently a crucial step in this argument has been called into question. The first premise of this sub-argument, which states that “A subject’s conceptually inadequate framework can only be made adequate through information from a conceptually adequate framework”, has been disputed and this has been used as a basis for rejecting premise (3). The bulk of my efforts in this post would be directed at defending this premise or, more precisely, refuting what I shall call the Conceptual Autonomy Thesis (CAT). This thesis roughly states that a subject S can remedy his own conceptual inadequacy totally on his own. If CAT is false, then the first premise of our sub-argument is true and from the regress argument, it follows that premise 3 is true.

At first glance, it should be noted that the CAT just seems intuitively false. It seems intuitive that no matter how long a Stone Age man studies or observes a PlayStation 5 console, he would never arrive at a correct interpretation and understanding of his experience of the console on his own.

But if one is looking for something more persuasive, we could offer a more substantial argument against CAT. In the original post, we pointed out that conceptual frameworks are heavily influenced by experience. What concepts one possesses in one’s conceptual framework would depend largely on the kind of experiences one has. This is supported by the fact that people from different cultures and time periods possess different concepts. A civilization completely isolated from the modern world would have no concept of computers.

We can flesh out this point further. It is not mere experience that frames a subject’s conceptual framework. Rather, it is experience with other subjects that influences a subject’s conceptual framework. An infant who never interacts with another human would never acquire relevant concepts. A child is able to learn language and acquire concepts for various objects because it learns those concepts from its parents. This point is supported by Donald Davidson’s Triangulation Argument which he fleshed out in his essay “Conditions of Thought”. He writes:

We find the child’s utterances of the [word] ‘table’ similar, and the things in the world we naturally class together that accompany these utterances are tables. Involved in our picture there are now not two but three classes of events or objects the members of which are naturally found similar, by us, and by the child. The child finds tables relevantly similar, by us, and by the child. The child finds tables relevantly similar; we find tables similar; and we find each of the child’s responses to tables similar. Given these three patterns of response it is possible to locate the relevant stimuli that elicit the child’s responses. They are objects or events we naturally find similar (tables) which are correlated with responses of the child we find similar. It’s a form of triangulation: one line goes from the child in the direction of the table, one line goes from us in the direction of the table, and the third line goes from us to the child. The relevant stimulus is where the lines from child to table and from us to table converge.

(Donald Davidson “The Conditions of Thought” in Le Cahier (Collège international de philosophie) No. 7 (avril 1989), pp. 165-171.)

Davidson’s argument is primarily an argument against skepticism regarding the external world and other minds. He argues that in order for thought and speech to be possible, there must be at least one other mind which a subject triangulates with and an external world containing an object which both subjects triangulate on. Parker Settecase further explains the argument:

So, as Davidson argues, in order for a child to come to form the concept and the word ‘table’, there must be other minds, or at least one other mind, who also interprets the table as a table and who can also interpret the child’s word (or similar utterance) ‘table’ and corroborate that this is the correct paring of word/concept and thing. Thus, in order for a child to form new concepts from their surroundings, they must have other minds to triangulate with and an external reality for both to triangulate on. For a reasoner to have the concepts which are necessary for reasoning, other reasoners who already possess those concepts must exist as a necessary condition. They must also be reasoners who have the capacity to communicate in interpersonal—first to second person dialogue—in order to provide feedback, interpret their thoughts and speech, and triangulate on an external reality with them. From this triangulation condition for the forming of new concepts, it follows that from the existence of one person with concepts, the minimum number of minds is in existence is two, plus an objective world. (Emphasis mine)

(I THINK AND SPEAK, THEREFORE אֶֽהְיֶ֖ה: A Transcendental Argument for God by Way of Van Til, Lewis, and Davidson)

The Triangulation argument argues for other minds and an external world because these are necessary conditions for concept formation, thought, and speech. However, the argument also serves as a powerful refutation of the CAT. Socialization is a necessary condition for the acquisition of concepts. Hence, if a subject does not come in contact with other subjects who possess the relevant concepts, said subject would never acquire the relevant concepts and as such, conceptual inadequacy would not be remedied. And since CAT is false, given the regress argument, it follows that premise 3 is true. The epistemological significance of the creator-relation cannot be overlooked. If we know anything, we possess information from the Creator.