RE: Open challenge regarding the supernatural
May 20, 2015 at 1:20 pm
(This post was last modified: May 20, 2015 at 1:22 pm by Angrboda.)
(May 20, 2015 at 1:01 pm)Pyrrho Wrote:(May 20, 2015 at 12:59 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote: ... First of all, we have a definite semantic sense of what the term supernatural means. ....
And what, precisely, would that definite sense be?
(May 20, 2015 at 10:33 am)Jörmungandr Wrote: Normally, the supernatural is designated as that which can't be explained by natural means.
(May 20, 2015 at 1:01 pm)Pyrrho Wrote: As for whether it applies to anything or not, some things can be known to not exist from their very description. For example, there are no round squares. "Supernatural," I suspect, is different in that it is not so much self-contradictory, but that it is probably simply an incoherent pseudo-concept. But we can decide that after you tell us about the "definite semantic sense" of the term.
It doesn't seem incoherent unless you beg the question by assuming that there is no such thing as a thing that can't be explained by natural means.