This is great stuff. I am a huge fan of Pruss and his writing (including his blog). I am a little worried about how much ground he gives with regard to metaphysical/broadly-logical possiblity, when he himself endorses the (correct, IMO) view that there is no meaningful distinction between such truths and the stricly logical ones. Basically, the so-called a posteriori metaphysically necessary truths are distinguished only EPISTEMOLOGICALLY; not ontologically. Moreover, the fully-informed statement of any broadly logically necessary truth does indeed reduce to a stricly logically necessary truth. I don't think Pruss should be reticent about this. Pruss is absolutely brilliant, and his thoughts on modality are top-notch.
Around 56:00 someone mentions that science is actually about prediction, not explanation. I think the right response to that is that predictions are predicated on candidate explanations. Only if we have an explanation in mind for the hitherto observed phenomena can we predict subsequent phenomena on the basis of our understanding. In other words, hypotheses and theories are proposed explanations, and the TEST of whether those explanations are correct or plausible is to see whether predictions made ON THE BASIS OF THOSE PROPOSED EXPLANATIONS pan out.
Taking an extraordinarily long time to get to the subject of the talk... Possibly more direct reasoning would be, "If God exists, and is immortal, AND if the logical method herein is sufficient to comprehend, or compact this fact, then the proof of this logic would have been worked out infinitely long ago (or arbitrarily long-long ago: within the construct of the present finite universe or cosmos) and said proof would have been handed down to us already, and not retried from _obvious_ scratch"... the discussion herein sounds reminiscent of the murderer jailed for his crimes, discoursing on fast-tracking immortality-something the murderer is not too inclined to equal...religion is more historical where humans are concerned, because humanity takes so little of immortality into its considerations....
Dr. Pruss is the best professor I've ever had. Brilliant, but humble and interested in what his students have to say. Thanks for posting this talk.
This is great stuff. I am a huge fan of Pruss and his writing (including his blog). I am a little worried about how much ground he gives with regard to metaphysical/broadly-logical possiblity, when he himself endorses the (correct, IMO) view that there is no meaningful distinction between such truths and the stricly logical ones. Basically, the so-called a posteriori metaphysically necessary truths are distinguished only EPISTEMOLOGICALLY; not ontologically. Moreover, the fully-informed statement of any broadly logically necessary truth does indeed reduce to a stricly logically necessary truth. I don't think Pruss should be reticent about this. Pruss is absolutely brilliant, and his thoughts on modality are top-notch.
Around 56:00 someone mentions that science is actually about prediction, not explanation. I think the right response to that is that predictions are predicated on candidate explanations. Only if we have an explanation in mind for the hitherto observed phenomena can we predict subsequent phenomena on the basis of our understanding. In other words, hypotheses and theories are proposed explanations, and the TEST of whether those explanations are correct or plausible is to see whether predictions made ON THE BASIS OF THOSE PROPOSED EXPLANATIONS pan out.
Taking an extraordinarily long time to get to the subject of the talk... Possibly more direct reasoning would be, "If God exists, and is immortal, AND if the logical method herein is sufficient to comprehend, or compact this fact, then the proof of this logic would have been worked out infinitely long ago (or arbitrarily long-long ago: within the construct of the present finite universe or cosmos) and said proof would have been handed down to us already, and not retried from _obvious_ scratch"... the discussion herein sounds reminiscent of the murderer jailed for his crimes, discoursing on fast-tracking immortality-something the murderer is not too inclined to equal...religion is more historical where humans are concerned, because humanity takes so little of immortality into its considerations....
I,Understand...'Essence 'I,think therefore I,am not.HeHeHe! Unsubstantial.Good very good Absolutely Good.Very useful,Islam.