(May 20, 2015 at 1:20 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote:(May 20, 2015 at 1:01 pm)Pyrrho Wrote: 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.
Can you explain what I had for breakfast? Does that make the subject of my breakfast "supernatural?"
There are many details of history that cannot be explained with present knowledge. We simply don't have any way of knowing what Socrates ate for breakfast on his 43rd birthday. By your definition, that would make his breakfast on his 43rd birthday supernatural. I don't think you really want to call his breakfast supernatural, do you?
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence."
— David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X, Part I.
