Tuesday, August 9, 2016

Clarkianism Refuted?


A few remarks. 

Self-Evident?

If logic is taken as self-evident then the criterion of such a belief presupposes evidential foundationalism. But this is false. The belief that all beliefs must be based on self-evident beliefs is not itself self-evident. Thus this epistemic criterion is too restrictive; it is self-refuting.  

Transcendental? 

Kant's argument made the foundation of logic (e.g. the categories etc.) man's psychology. Why doesn't that work? It tries to ground universals from particulars. It utterly fails. It fallaciously affirms the consequent. Moreover, our friend simply asserts logic. He is a fideist. But his fideism cannot provide an overarching explanation of the world in terms of logic alone as an axiom. 

So our friend made a great attempt but failed to provide an epistemic foundation.

Perhaps this might help in his analysis: 

<http://www.proginosko.com/docs/The_Lord_of_Non-Contradiction.pdf>

But if logic is understood as divine thoughts, then some form of conceptualism is true.  Clarkians affirm some form of the Augustinian Logos doctrine. If  (as Clarkians affirm) the Bible is the revealed thoughts of God then the Bible is embedded with logic. But precisely how does this not leave the Clarkian with an instance of logic and not logic itself ( i.e. the property)? The laws of logic are used in Scripture but not mentioned. I don't think the Clarkian epistemology package (i.e. Scripturalism plus internalism) works. But I think some form of conceptualism with an Augustinian Logos doctrine can help make it coherent (e.g. Ronald Nash). 

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi. Can you define Clarkianism? Thanks.

R. Dozier said...

This will explain precisely what followers of Gordon H. Clark beleive:

http://www.trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=276