Problemy terminologiczne w argumentach za istnieniem Boga

Authors

  • Zbigniew Wolak

Keywords:

material implication, formal implication, paradox of implication, deduction, reduction, induction, abduction, conversational implicature, causality

Abstract

Terminological problems in arguments for the existence of God: In the article I deal with some paradoxes and errors caused by improper usage of logical and philosophical terms appearing in the arguments for existence of God and other philosophical issues. I point at first some paradoxes coming from improper usage of propositional calculus as an instrument for analysis of a natural language. This language is actually not using simple sentences but rather propositional functions, their logical connections, and some replacements for variables in them. We still have to deal with so called paradox of material implication. The second paragraph provides formal and metatheoretical critics of Charles Sanders Peirce’s theory of deduction, induction and abduction. I argue that what Peirce and his followers call abduction is actually deduction or some reasoning unable to describe in terms of the logic used by them. Both syllogistic and inferential theory of abduction generate some paradoxes and contradictions. In the last paragraph also some paradoxes and contradictions resulting from the theory of causation by Jan Łukasiewicz are presented. The central issue of the article is erroneous usage of the implication: in logical paraphrases of a natural language, in description of the scientific reasoning, and in description of causality. However, my objective is not to solve all problems mentioned above but rather to open a discussion over them.

Downloads

Published

2015-06-25