Necessary Truths Exist

[Angrboda]

The past few months I've been warming to the notion which, likely due to epistemological holism, implies that for any fairly substantive description of the world or existence to be true and valid, it must be linked arm-in-arm with all the other necessary views on which it is dependent. In a recent argument about morals, two members were arguing about the importance of a pseudo-linguistic message, and what messages are real messages, and what messages were only apparent messages. Unfortunately the two differed in which they thought was which, and engaged in rounds of mutual assertions contradicting the other. What to my mind was occurring was a conflict between two very different theories of meaning, being fought out using the periphery fruit of each. I doubt this occurred to either, and so it went. One path to progress in that instance would have been to realize the critical dependence of arguing from a shared theory of meaning, and until one was achieved, to concentrate on the question of which theory of meaning was most appropriate and why.

The older I am getting, the more I'm persuaded that theories that only speak to a narrow slice of that holism established by the interdepency of theorems are only going to produce works of temporal, provisional utility, of no great strength, little power to persuade, and less to compel. Such narrow approaches typically lean on theories and assumptions, many of which have little or no justification for them, being largely products of consensus and culture, rather than analysis and investigation. Thus many times houses of cards, which may themselves be sturdy, are built upon shifting sands. To my mind, if you want a secure and valuable response to a question, you can't worry solely about closing the explicit links that are up front; you have to close all the loops, whether they are visible or hidden, even though practically, this is an unattainable goal. But you must strive for it. If you don't, or do so weakly and less successfully, no matter how 'apparent' the truth of your visible logic, it is likely ultimately a weak and sickly thing of little value. As it relates here, there are massive holes where you've plugged in conventional components less through justification of them selves than by their justification in terms of their ability to make your work whole. And there are massive holes where the entrails just lead off impotently into the darkness. A less serious objector might point these out, and thus weaken the effectiveness of your argument. A better philosopher will locate where these empty spaces are, and which ones can be used to make the entire structure implode. Weak or strong objector, the strongest objector is time. Eventually, the flaws will out, given time. The less well you've connected up all the loops, or made defenses at junctures where loops can't be closed, the less effective, and less long lasting your new "truth."

I haven't formally analyzed your argument, but it appears to me to have some rather massive and troubling holes, specifically in the areas of epistemology, ontology, theory of meaning, and the question of nominalism. If those superficial impressions bear out, and you've plugged many holes with "conventional" reasonings, then it's likely this argument, even if received as sound, is not long for this world.