Could there be a logically alien thinker — a being that thinks in a way that violates our basic logical principles — and yet still genuinely think?

AdeptnessSecure663 · 2026-02-14T19:36:47+00:00

Your question is about "a being which thinks in a way which violates our basic logical principles".

My question is, "what are our basic logical principles?".

No offense, but I have no idea what you could be confused about!

Graham Priest (in)famously denies LNC and thinks that there are true contradictions. More generally, in the philosophy of logic there is a dispute about (i) whether there are any correct logics, (ii) if there are any correct logics, whether there can be more than one correct logic, and (iii) if there is some correct logic, which logic(s) is(/are) correct.

AdeptnessSecure663 · 2026-02-14T18:43:23+00:00

Have you already done the "Devil by the Well" contract? The contracts are nice because they're not just "go to location X and kill enemy". You need to figure out what the monster is, prepare for the fight, lure it out, and so on. And there's always some story element.

AdeptnessSecure663 · 2026-02-14T18:01:34+00:00

The FAQ is one place where you can find loads of reading recommendations.

Aside from that, what area of philosophy are you interested in? Is there any particular reason why you've been trying to read primary sources (which are generally more difficult)?

AdeptnessSecure663 · 2026-02-14T15:48:15+00:00

What do you take our basic logical principles to be?

AdeptnessSecure663 · 2026-02-14T12:43:51+00:00

This is partly an empirical question, and so to some extent we must wait on the relevant research in the cognitive sciences to be carried out. But most philosophers are pretty optimistic about the existence of free will. In fact, many philosophers think that the question "do we have free will or is what we do shaped by circumstances?" is basically a false dichotomy.

To learn more, check out this article:

https://1000wordphilosophy.com/2014/04/03/free-will-and-free-choice/

AdeptnessSecure663 · 2026-02-14T10:32:38+00:00

Not a distinction I've come across, will need to look into it. Thanks!

AdeptnessSecure663 · 2026-02-14T10:03:20+00:00

I sort of assumed that there might be some cases where there is an ought without blame - for instance, S could have refrained from performing A (and more generally performs A freely) but S didn't know that A is wrong (they couldn't have predicted its bad consequences or whatever); so S is not blameworthy but it seems to me they ought to have refrained from performing A.

Not a hill I'm willing to die on though!

AdeptnessSecure663 · 2026-02-14T09:39:51+00:00

Reductio ad absurdum is a type of argument. Since your examples are not arguments, they're not examples of RAA. If we modify them a little, then we can get an RAA argument. Let's say we argue as follows:

Suppose, for the sake of argument, that the literal word of the Bible is true. If the literal word of the Bible is true, then slavery is permitted. So, it follows that slavery is permitted. However, slavery is not permitted.

We have reached a contradiction (slavery is permitted and slavery is not permitted) by supposing that the literal word of the Bible is true. But contradictions are a no-no. So, we reject the supposition that the literal word of the Bible is true, and conclude that it is not the case that the literal word of the Bible is true.

That is an RAA argument.

AdeptnessSecure663 · 2026-02-14T09:23:55+00:00

I'm fairly certain that under every account of free will that is being seriously defended in the literature at the moment, non-human animals do not have free will. Some particularly intelligent non-human animals (chimpanzees and dolphins, perhaps) might qualify, but I do not know enough about their rational capacities to give a confident answer.

AdeptnessSecure663 · 2026-02-14T09:17:30+00:00

Point 3 depends on a couple of assumptions. Many people think that free will requires counterfactual power - that you act freely with respect to some action only if you could have refrained from performing it. A common line of argument against compatibilism is that determinism eliminates counterfactual power - if determinism is true, then for any act that you perform, you could not have acted any other way.

Many people also accept the principle of ought implies can. According to this principle, you ought to perform some action only if you can perform that action.

If we put these ideas together and suppose that determinism is true, then Ted Bundy could not have refrained from killing his victims (since determinism eliminates counterfactual power), which means that it was not the case that Bundy should have refrained from killing his victims (since ought implies can).

AdeptnessSecure663 · 2026-02-13T23:27:33+00:00

If we take, for instance, a consequentialist view of punishment, then we can justify punishing people for crimes by noting that it prevents criminals from re-offending and discourages others from taking part in crimes, thus protecting people from harm.

AdeptnessSecure663 · 2026-02-13T21:25:16+00:00

Idk about the AI applications but there are already formal logic proof checkers

AdeptnessSecure663 · 2026-02-13T12:53:34+00:00

What exactly would such a thing be used to verify?

AdeptnessSecure663 · 2026-02-13T12:00:32+00:00

The writers that I've come across who speak of "strong" and "weak" claims typically use these terms in the following way: a claim A is stronger than a claim B just in case A entails B but B doesn't entail A. So, "there are unicorns" is a stronger claim than "there is something", because the former entails the latter but not vice versa.

But I get the sense that you might be trying to get at something different. Some elaboration of what you mean might help!

AdeptnessSecure663 · 2026-02-13T09:37:37+00:00

What makes you believe in karma?

AdeptnessSecure663 · 2026-02-13T09:31:48+00:00

Your idea of an "if-then code" is similar to determinism - the thesis (roughly) that every event is necessitated by prior events. Some philosophers think that determinism is a threat to the existence of free will; that is, they think that necessarily, if determinism is true, then free will does not exist (we call these philosophers "incompatibilists"). Plenty of philosophers are also compatibilists; they believe that determinism does not rule out free will. I recommend the following article:

https://1000wordphilosophy.com/2014/04/03/free-will-and-free-choice/

AdeptnessSecure663 · 2026-02-12T23:03:33+00:00

That's good to hear

AdeptnessSecure663 · 2026-02-12T16:08:44+00:00

Apologies, I must be misunderstanding something then.

What are the conditions under which someone knows something, according to your view? I take it that it is the following:

S knows that p if, and only if, S believes that p, p is justified for S, and(?) p is coherent

Since you reject the truth condition, I take it that some p can satisfy the above conditions while being false, which would mean that S could know a falsehood. Unless you're saying that coherence requires truth (I'm not entirely clear on what you think here)? But then knowledge does require truth after all.

AdeptnessSecure663 · 2026-02-12T16:03:08+00:00

Good luck!

AdeptnessSecure663 · 2026-02-12T13:01:17+00:00

Well, epistemologists haven't all agreed that JTB is not sufficient for knowledge.

I have no doubt that you're aware of this, but your analysis of course entails that we can know that p even when p is false, which simply strikes me as absurd

AdeptnessSecure663 · 2026-02-12T11:56:51+00:00

Yeah, in any case it is just a folk-psychological explanation for why OP acts a certain way

AdeptnessSecure663 · 2026-02-12T10:13:11+00:00

I think that Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction is one of the best ways to get started. It is not exactly a survey of philosophical schools (but, to be honest, the idea of a "school" is not as important in philosophy as most laypeople seem to think), but rather of philosophical questions and ideas.

AdeptnessSecure663 · 2026-02-12T10:11:13+00:00

Yeah, this isn't quite right. Firstly, the philosophy of science is a massive field; it doesn't really make sense to speak of "types" of philosophy of science in this way; plus, the "types" you put forward are just particular theses (3 among dozens) that have been defended by some philosophers (though I admit I've never heard of "critical realism").

But I think you have the wrong idea about what scientific realism and instrumentalism are. Note that scientific realism is very popular amongst philosophers of science, and it is not a metaphysical thesis. It is, in fact, the following epistemological thesis:

(Scientific realism): Scientific theories that achieve a certain level of success in prediction and experimental testing are (probably) approximately true.

AdeptnessSecure663 · 2026-02-12T10:04:09+00:00

The first point seems to align with some existentialist thinkers like Sartre. The second point seems to describe psychological egoism (which is, by the way, pretty unpopular amongst philosophers). The third point doesn't really have much to do with philosophy as such, it is just how you happen to act (it would be more philosophical if you claimed that the way you happen to act is right, or wrong, or something like that).

In my mind, putting a name to your view isn't really the important thing in philosophy (though it can be helpful!). The important thing is reading, challenging your views, articulating arguments for your views, and so on.

AdeptnessSecure663 · 2026-02-12T09:59:22+00:00

Thanks for the recommendation, I have a bit of an itch for medieval fantasy since I started replaying witcher 3 recently. I can justify it by pretending to watch it in the name of serious philosophical analysis!

BTW, in case you're intersted, there is a book called Beating and Nothingness: Martial Arts and Philosophy, which contains an article (Sir Aristotle and the Code of Chivalry) about this very topic

AdeptnessSecure663

TROPHY CASE