(October 13, 2014 at 5:40 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: ...the validity of the cosmological argument does not depend on any particular empirical, i.e. evidence -based, physical theory (Newtonian or otherwise) because any rational deduction about the very nature of reality is a more fundamental claim.
...and after sleeping on it, it occurred to me that this statement, above, is entirely intellectually bankrupt. Empiricism is how one demonstrates the soundness of an argument's premises. If you are going to speculate about the "very nature of reality" that is fine, but without evidence to support your premises, you merely have a logical argument that is based upon empty assumptions (which is what we have with the cosmological argument (Logical? yes. Sound premises? No one knows yet because we have no known way to demonstrate their validity).
To actually be true, an argument must both be logically sound AND one must also demonstrate why anyone would accept the permises of that argument as valid statements. That demonstration, at least as far as humanity has been able to determine so far, must use empiricism to do so. We have no other tool that has proven reliable in this task.
...and also, you completely misused the word "deduction" here. I believe you mean "inference"...
