Saturday, September 4, 2021

The Laws Of Logic Dictate Reality

Logic does not simply reveal truths that are already there.  Though in some cases other factors that could have differed from their present nature, like the laws of physics, affect what is true or false at a given time for certain aspects of reality, it is logic that actually makes anything true in the first place.  Some describe logic as if it is a set of laws that just happens to match reality, a completely backwards position.  The laws of reason confine and shape reality rather than just conform to it.  They are the very core of what utterly defines the metaphysics and epistemology of everything from logic itself to God to all of nature, and every fact about reason points to this supremely foundational nature.

In fact, there would be no such thing as reality in whole or part if the laws of logic did not exist, for there would otherwise be nothing dividing possibility from impossibility, nothing to make anything true, and nothing to connect one idea or truth to another.  There would neither be anything to know nor any way to know anything at all.  There would be no distinctions, no necessities, no certainties, and no realities.  Non-rationalists might regard the laws of logic as an arbitrary prison, but there is literally nothing to escape to outside of logic because it presides over everything.  This is partly why the laws of logic are far more than just a circumstantial epistemological tool.  They are the heart of all reality because nothing else is even possible.

Logic makes some truths follow from others, and anyone who tries to avoid, ignore, or deny this will inevitably stand on the very thing they are trying to escape from.  The only things that can be or could be changed about reality are only malleable because these are not things that are rooted in the purest form of logical necessity--the self-affirming axioms that underpin everything.  God, the cosmos, and perceptions are metaphysically defined by logic, as is everything else.  Even that which changes or could change can only shift from one logically possible state to another, meaning that even shifting parts of reality are rooted in the fixed laws of logic.

Reason is the one thing present at every step of epistemology, and it is the one thing that metaphysically cannot cease to exist even if God himself and all contingent things vanished (a truth that goes far beyond the necessary epistemological truth of logical axioms [1]).  It grounds truth itself.  Even if some truths involve a relationship between logic and something other than itself, like the external world, all truths reduce down to logical truths because there would not be such a thing as reality without reason.  Moreover, without a grasp of reason, no being could ever realize any of this to begin with.  All truth and knowledge depends on reason even if sometimes other things besides reason--but still governed by logic--are also relevant.


No comments:

Post a Comment