First Principles

In order for knowledge to exist, it must have a set starting point.  Otherwise one would have no basis for where to begin, always needing to start at least one step back and never able to make any progress--an inevitably futile manner of seeking knowledge.  Thus is the dilemma which foundational truths called first principles deliver us from.  First principles encompass axioms and logic, the infallible starting points for knowledge.  They are called first because upon them every other facet of human knowledge inescapably hinges.  There is nothing more foundational, nor are there any propositions which are self-evident [1] other than those in this class.

Allow me to contrast first principles with a favorite philosophical target of mine: Christian presuppositionalism, a belief system which says that we have to assume that a certain type of deity exists for us to know that truth exists, that logic is reliable, and to even have a coherent worldview at all.  It rejects use of the intellect as the pathway to revealing truth (very ironic, since presuppositionalists have to make an intellectual case against the reliability of the intellect!) because doing so makes "humans the judge".  One of the great errors of Christian presuppositionalism (alongside the fact that the Bible teaches the opposite of it [2]) is that it assumes something to be true without proof, as opposed to identifying that for which it is impossible to be false and starting knowledge there.

Whereas it is impossible for nothing at all to be true, it is certainly logically possible that murder is not wrong or that God does not love us.  The fallacies of presuppositionalists are abundant, yet they routinely demand epistemological answers from other worldviews that they do not give for their own ideologies.  While first principles reveal to us what is inescapably true no matter what else is, presuppositionalism denies the self-evident as being true by necessity and fabricates the false premise that the Christian god must be invoked for such first principles to hold.

Only first principles deliver us from total ignorance, for without them we would be adrift in a seemingly infinite fog of unverifiable assumptions, skepticism, and uncertainty.  To claim that the Christian god must be assumed for first principles to be reliable is not only demonstrably and laughably incorrect, as things like truth exist even apart from the existence of any deity (although logic proves that an uncaused cause does exist by pure necessity)--it is a claim utterly powerless to falsify the same claim from Muslims and religious people of all other stripes.  Why is the same not true about the Islamic deity of the Quran?  Why not some other miscellaneous deity?

I have met some who deny the intrinsic veracity of first principles, and no other irrational position could ever surpass the folly, the inconsistency, and the lunacy of such an asinine denial.  To my dismay, I have never met more deniers of these first principles in one place than I have at my college, HBU, where an astonishing number of people have called me "too skeptical" (quite possibly because I reject the unverifiable claims they want me to accept) and opposed my total embrace of reason (as they use reason to argue against my rationalism, ironically!).

Many of those who have denied first principles in my presence have also told me either that they would not believe in truth or reason unless they believed in the Christian god or that it is impossible to know practically anything without assuming that such a deity exists.  If you deny or doubt first principles but think that assuming a worldview arbitrarily is the solution to skepticism, you cannot help skeptics because you are not seeking to present reality to them, only an illogical assumption you cannot defend rationally.  Presuppositionalists and presuppositionalism are useless for any legitimate epistemological investigation about the start of knowledge or the core of reality because of the idiocy and intrinsically fallacious nature of their claims.


[1].  I have addressed axioms, logic, self-evidence, and absolute certainty elsewhere:
A.  http://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-self-evidence-of-logic.html
B.  http://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-error-of-presuppositions.html
C.  http://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/02/the-truth-of-axioms.html
D.  http://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-problem-of-criterion-reflection-on.html
E.  http://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/05/the-nature-of-absolute-certainty.html

[2].  http://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/06/the-necessity-of-reason.html