Necessary Truths Exist

[Rational AKD]

You're using the Principle of Sufficient Reason, right? Perhaps you should read up on some of the devastating problems with it, especially Hume's criticism. The online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has a good article on it.

Not to come off as a bit of an asshole, but if you're going to be posting arguments you didn't make and/or using concepts (the PSR) without specifying what they are, it's a bit less likely people will be likely to respond.

I didn't base the argument off the PSR, but rather my own reasoning. I suppose P2 would presuppose the PSR, but the conclusion is nothing within the PSR.

As for your argument, where to start? P3 is false by definition. Reality refers to EVERYTHING that exists. It is thus incoherent to say that "there is something that transcends everything that exists".

what I meant by reality was physical reality, or perhaps more accurate, contingent reality. by the fact that it is necessary, it transcends all contingent truths meaning it is not affected by or a part of contingent truths.

Furthermore, truth necessitates the existence of a mind, which is a subset of reality. I truth is the correspondence between a belief or assertion and reality, there can be no truths without minds.

this is not the definition I'm using when I say truth. the standard definition i'm using is "Conformity to fact or actuality." meaning truth is what is actually reflective of reality, which is separate from the perception of reality.

But ALL of that aside (and assuming this argument does not assume the PSR), I can answer this argument with what necessary truths there are:

-The Law of Identity

-The Law of Non-contradiction

I would agree that these truths are necessary. and by what I mean by transcendent, I would say they transcend reality.

-My existence as thinking thing ("I doubt therefore I think, I think therefore I am")

this is really an argument rather than a necessary truth. it is contingent upon the "I doubt" part. though you may know this to be true, it is not necessarily true. it's contingent upon your existence which is also contingent.

Those first two are self-attesting truths that cannot be denied without first assuming them as true. They aren't "transcendent", they are necessary features of language and thought. They're very much rooted in reality and the reality we experience.

what you say here seems to contradict. you first say they are "necessary features of language and thought" but then say they're rooted in reality. if they're entailed by features of language and thought, then they would be contingent upon our existence. but if they're rooted in reality, then they're true regardless of whether we exist or not. so that means they must be something other than necessary features of thought (or features of thought and something else), or they couldn't be true regardless of whether we exist or not.