Skeppie's big attack on my TS Argument

...................................Jacques Derrida (1930-2004)                   me  

the TS Argument:

1. Any rational, coherent, and meaningful view of the universe must of necessity presuppose organizing principles (Ops)

2. OP's are summed up in TS

3. Modern Thought rejects TS outright or takes out all aspects of mind.

4. Therefore, Modern thought fails to provide a rational, coherent, and meaningful view of the universe.

5. minds organize and communicate meaning

6. Therefore universal mind, offers the best understanding of TS

7. Concept of God unites TS with universal mind therefore offers best explanation

for a view that is Rational, Coherent, and Meaningful (RCM).

defense part 1: https://metacrock.blogspot.com/2019/04/the-ts-argument.html

part 2 https://metacrock.blogspot.com/2019/04/defending-premises-of-ts-argumemt-part-2.html

I am Skeptical was banned because he had reduced discussion here to a battle of the egos, to prove that he is smarter than I am, He seems to have devoted his life to it. He  is busily disseminating lies and misunderstanding about my work and the arguments I make. I will correct his slander of my TS argument this one time, I will not  concern myself with his views after this,[1]

I am skipping over a couple of pages of nonsense and posturing to get to what passes for content,

Skep:

If I may take the liberty of summarizing, based on Joe's extended defense of this argument, it becomes a little more clear how Joe's argument can make the transition from "organizing principles" to universal mind via the"transcendental signified".  It's not a logical progression so much as a stream of theistic thinking that goes something like this:

1 - Organizing principles provide meaning.
2 - A mind is required to organize or structure something.
3 - Without a mind, there is no structure (in nature).
4 - God is the ultimate (or universal) mind.
5 - The TS is the ultimate organizing principle.
6 - God is the ultimate TS.
7 - Without God as the TS, there is no understanding of the universe that is RCM

Meta:

Holy Straw man Batman! He is not quoting me but stringing together ideas he thinks I;m arguing, Some yes, some no,but first of all why is it not a logical progression? He pronounces it not but he says nothing to back that up. Some of it is logical except for certain points where he interprets   himself out of the ball park. 

(1) OPs  don;t so munch provide meaning as they provide order, they are principles around which organisation takes place,
(2) and (3) are perfectly reasonable and one flows out of the other,why is that not logical?

No 3, most design arguments premise on the fact that there is structure in nature! I said nothing that would make one think I don't accept structure in nature. In fact my argument is largely predicated upon the assumption of structure in nature, It;s not self organizing or self creating,

Why are 4-7 not logical and clearly one flows out of the other, Now clearly they  are assumptions Skep doesn't want to take but why does that make them  illogical?

Had you actually just thought about the argument as I make it you would see that it achieves the objective you tried to do here but with less convolution.

the Argument:

1. Any rational, coherent, and meaningful view of the universe must of necessity presuppose organizing principles (Ops)

2. OP's are summed up in TS

3. Modern Thought rejects TS outright or takes out all aspects of mind.

4. Therefore, Modern thought fails to provide a rational, coherent, and meaningful view of the universe.

6. Therefore universal mind, offers the best understanding of TS

7. Concept of God unites TS with universal mind therefore offers best explanation

for a view that is Rational, Coherent, and Meaningful (RCM).

Skep:

The numbered statements do not correspond one-to-one with the statements in Joe's argument.  And of course, this is not a valid argument either, but it seems to express Joe's line of thinking,

Meta:

No it expresses your absurdly unread misunderstanding of my thinking I think you know you missed it. I think that list is his attempt to understand what the argument says. His objections to it are without foundation.

Skep: as I understand it.  It's really a variant of the argument from design, as we see in the unsupported assertion of a mind that must exist to provide structure and meaning in nature.  I would be happy to hear from Joe or anyone else who can shed additional light on how to interpret this argument.

Meta:

No it's not an argument from design, although it does entail explaining design, why does he say that my connection of mind and structure is not supported? To the contrary his assertion that they are not connected is unsupported. lt's  Obvious from  life we all know planned organisation is more complex and functional than unplanned, self evident is still supported.

Skep:

But I'm not going to dwell the logical failings of this argument, its question-begging nature, or its unsupported assertions. 

Meta: Holy Hypocrisy Batman!

If anyone is begging the question it;s him with his groundless assertion that my  argument be illogical for no particular reason!

 Skep: I'm going to focus more on the concept of the "transcendental signified" that is at the heart of Joe's thesis.  What does it mean, and how does it fit into Joe's argument?  One thing we can say about it right away is that it is an obscure term for most people.  I have always felt that if you base an argument on obscure language, that is a red flag to be on the lookout for something nefarious.  Obscure language often serves to cover up a faulty argument.  It is difficult to say what's wrong with an argument if you don't even know what it says.  And I do believe that Joe is trying to pull a "fast one" here.

Meta: Yes that's why I quote this:

To explain the meaning of the transcendental signified with reference to the article itself as well as my previous understanding of this concept, I can say that Derrida assumes that the entire history of Western metaphysics from Plato to the present is founded on a classic, fundamental error. This error is searching for a transcendental signified, an “ external point of reference” ( like God, religion, reason, science….) upon which one may build a concept or philosophy. This transcendental signified would provide the ultimate meaning and would be the origin of origins. This transcendental signified is centered in the process of interpretation and whatever else is decentered. To Derrida THIS IS A GREAT ERROR because... 1. There is no ultimate truth or a unifying element in universe, and thus no ultimate reality (including whatever transcendental signified). What is left is only difference. 2. Any text, in the light of this fact, has almost an infinite number of possible interpretations, and there is no assumed one signified meaning.[2]

There are several points about this quote  I hope the reader will oberve: 

(1) Derridia is opposed to metaphysics so his use of the structuralist term transcendental signifier is partly ironic since it;s something Derrida says doesn't believe  exists,

(2) Transcendental does not mean transcendent at least not when used in the context of either Derridian/ structuralist/ or post structuralist /or postmodern thought, or Banhsen;s TAG argument, This is important to realize because Skep thinks it does and he uses that to argue that I'm full of crap.

Now it is true that popular dictionaries will list TS as meaning the same as transcendent but they are not specialists they are not dealing with post Structural   thinking, and I am.

(3) My argument is not TAG it is better than TAG. But don;t think  TAG's use of Trasncendental is proof that TS means transcendent because the reason they use that term in TAG is not because it means transcendent, Here is why, from my prolougemina: 

TAG proceeds from presuppositional apologetics, while my argument is made on an evidential basis. Both assume that God is at the basis of all knowledge and meaning. This is what is meant by “transcendental,” it refers to the basis of the system of thought. My argument uses the TS as an evidential basis for belief while the presupositional argument merely assumes the truth of the argument then rejects the presuppositions of other views. TAG says nothing about signifier. To understand the insufficiency of TAG (thus they need for a new argument) we must examine TAG more closely. Greg Bahnsen was the champion of TAG[3].ⁱ Van Til never really makes the argument, never actually states it.[4]ⁱⁱ 

The key there is " it [transcendental] refers to the basis of the system of thought. " Yes Derrida uses  it of transcendent ideas such as God but he also uses it of naturalistic one;s like science, 

That will   be important because one of  Skep's principal objections is that he thinks i see transcendental as meaning transcendent and thus proving God, which is crazy, 

Skep:

The philosopher Jaques Derrida worked in the field of linguistics and semiotics.  According to Merriam-Webster, semiotics is "a general philosophical theory of signs and symbols that deals especially with their function in both artificially constructed and natural languages and comprises syntactics, semantics, and pragmatics". 

Meta: I am sorry but Skep does not understand Derrida. a lot of people don't. He;s never read anything  by him.I tried to read him in French, I say tried to because he is one of the most complex and difficult people to read in the world.  I understand him because I had the  inside track. I went to UT Dallas when Alex Argyros was there. Alex Studied with Derrida in  Paris in the 60s.  Who knows more about Derrida? I studied with his student at the Ph,D.level for four years and studied other Postmodernist  things too, Skep looked him  up on Wikipedia one day,

Skep:

It uses the terminology of "signifier" as a word or symbol that represents a concept, and "signified" as the referent for that signifier - the concept that is represented by the signifier.  Derrida wrote about how meaning (in the human mind) is derived from written and spoken language.  His best-known works ("Speech and Phenomena" and Other Essays on Husserl's Theory of Signs, Writing and Difference, and Of Grammatology) are in this area of philosophy, and he used the terminology of semiotics ("signifier" and "signified") in this works.

Meta: 

Brilliant  i can tell you have been at the Wikipedia. that;s really so enlightened how educated you are,

Skep:

 He believed that meaning is derived from a combination of the association of related concepts into a general framework, and differentiation between them to distinguish similar concepts from one-another.

 Meta:

Bxzzzzz that's like saying Picasso believed art should be about abstraction. We can do better than that, One of the first things you learn and one of the most important is that Derrida believed that  the meaning of signers is arbitrary. We call a frog a frog because we don't call it a bat or anything else, It;s just what we call it, it;s arbitrary. 

Skep:

According to the Wikipedia article discussing différance in post-structuralism:

Derrida coined the term différance (a deliberate misspelling of différence) in order to provide a conceptual hook for his thinking on the meaning processes at work within writing/language.[6] This neologism is a play on the two meanings of the French word différer: to differ and to defer. Derrida thereby argues that meaning does not arise out of fixed differences between static elements in a structure, but that the meanings produced in language and other signifying systems are always partial, provisional and infinitely deferred along a chain of differing/deferring signifiers.

Meta:  

Yes and that is because meaning is arbitrary it is not essential so it;s not based upon truth. Derrida opposes the TS as the myth of presence, which stems from Socrates assertion that meaning is present in the mind of  the author and is relayed through signifiers. 

I knew we would get Wiki in there somewhere. my explanations of Derrida:
Part 1http://metacrock.blogspot.com/2008/01/derrian-backgrond-ot-ts-argument-part-1.html
part 2 http://metacrock.blogspot.com/2008/01/derridats-part-2.html

Skep:

In  the structuralist view, a "transcendent signified" would be a central concept that has its own inherent meaning within a particular framework of understanding, and serves to tie concepts together within that framework.  

Meta: wrong it's "transcendental signified" not "transcendent" i never call it transcendent. I doubt Skep knows the difference, I know he thinks they mean the same thing.This is important because through that assertion he will erroneously draw conclusions about the meaning of my argument that   are based upon conclusions  I  never draw.

Skep: Christians may well see God as the ultimate transcendent signified in a hierarchical structure of meaning.  But Derrida was a post-structuralist (or deconstructionist). 

Meta:

see what he did there he substituted transcendent for transcendental that tells me he thinks those are the same, they are not, they are very different, that is a good  example of how  he relies upon assumptions rather than reading and those assumptions lead him astray due to his own lack of understanding,
we've all been there.

Derrida was an atheist very much so point blank, I am under no illusions about that, 

Skep

 He believed that the idea of an ultimate transcendent signified is a myth or illusion.  The term "transcendental signified" was coined as a derogatory way to refer to the more proper semiotic term "transcendent signified".  (See the Oxford Reference.)  It mocks the very idea of God as a transcendent signified.

Meta:

Totally wrong. the reference he links to above says: "Derogatory term used in some poststructuralist writing to denote an external, objective, language independent point that fixes reference or ...Access to the complete content on Oxford Reference requires a subscription or purchase. Public users are able to search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter without a subscription" 

As you see Skep probably never  saw the rest of the definition. Notice also the term is transcendental not transcendent. It is not called transcendental to make any derogatory reference to a transcendent reality. The term,  is used because it refers to an analysis of the overarching logic structure of an idea.  It includes science. in PM analysis science is just as vulnerable as religion.

The source he links to does not say anything but: "Derogatory term used in some *poststructuralist writing to denote an external, objective, language independent point that fixes reference or ..." then you must be subcribed to get more, That is not documentation, That one sentence is not enough  to shed any light on the issue, that is misinformation because  it has nothing to do with how i use the term.

Skep: So what does this have to do with Joe's Transcendental Signifier Argument for God?  It seems that Joe has once again come across a philosophical idea that he doesn't really understand,

Meta: I studied it four years in Doctoral work  from an actual Student of Derrida so the odds are the one who has never even read one thing by Derrida is the one who doesn't understand, he doesn't know enough to get where my argument is going so he concludes i'm wrong,

Skep:

 and tried to force-fit it into his own theological framework of understanding.  He starts out by discussing organizing principles as a source of understanding, and then the Transcendental Signified as a concept that is somewhat consistent with the semiotic literature of Derrida.  But those things relate to linguistics and human understanding of concepts.  They aren't about "the logical structure of nature" (see Joe's discussion of premise 2), 

Meta:

He thinks I'm forcing Derrida into my God argument mold, that can only be because he doesn't know enough about Derrida to know what he said and he doesn't follow the argument closely enough to understand how I use him.
Derrida clearly and famously says that Western thought is based upon the myth of presence,that this myth including the search for a TS.-- Important to point out here there are many transcendental signifiers but only one signified --so there;s a search for the right one, Derrida does not believe there is one. That is important because Skp thinks I use Derrida  as a positive source to point to God, That's wrong,I used to call this argument the reverse Derrida argument, So all i use him for is to say the western tradition has been searching for a TS,that  he clearly says! Of that there is    no question.
Derrida says it;s a myth this is the reverse Derrida argument so it I say it is not a myth, Derrida is wrong,he;s right that there;s a search  wrong that the thing searched for is a myth, Notice in the above quote he says:

(repeating SKP)
Transcendental Signified as a concept that is somewhat consistent with the semiotic literature of Derrida.  But those things relate to linguistics and human understanding of concepts.  They aren't about "the logical structure of nature" (see Joe's discussion of premise 2), 

Meta:

That is totally wrong and  it really highlights his ignorance of Derrida. Derrida was one oft he most arrogant people who ever lived, This is coming from  his student who knew him well. Yes Derrida thought he was deconstructing the structure of reality, yes He  actually argued against the reality of logic. He thought he was disproving truth itself. These  are famous things about his thinking. Not to know this is pretty ignorant, 

For Derrida all thought is flitted through language,The linguistic problems he  discovers about language impinges upon  science,  To start from a place of assuming facts about the physical  world accrued by science are true implies a host of metaphysical assumptions and logical impossibilities that will come unraveled  with deconstruction, that is Derrida's position, Now in all fairness he thinks God is unraveled too,For Derrida there is no truth and no meaning,

Skep: or the ultimate meaning and purpose of the universe (see Joe's discussion of premise 4), as Joe seems to think.  The transcendent signified is said to transcend other sources of meaning, but it isn't a concept about the transcendental. 

Meta:

"The transcendent signified" is not a phrase I use, he;s just changed it from transcendental because he doesn't understand the distinction this is just another example of  his ignorance, he really thinks transcendent and transcendental mean the same thing, Now look what he says:
The statement he just made above might have been motivated by his first glimmer of   that realization that Transcendnet and transcendental are not the same, when one speaks structuralist literature, but his hatred of me will not allow him to see that I know that.

Skep:  And the terminology of "signifier" and "signified" are appropriate in semiotics, but they don't make as much sense in a discussion of God as the ultimate source of meaning and structure in nature. 

Meta: 

Why not?  We are still  using signs and signification. That;s the best expression for the distinction between the terms of the concept and the referent to which those terms point, The argument revolves around the concept of the TS and so the termenology from the field that gives us the TS is appropriate.

 Skep: And yet Joe has silently transitioned from Derrida's philosophy to something that is entirely outside the realm of linguistics and semiotics - from the meaning of signifiers to the meaning of the universe.  Joe has appropriated Derrida's use of these terms for his own purpose, without regard for what Derrida is actually talking about.

Meta: Clearly he does not know shit about Derrida, to think that Derrida is just about language and has no import beyond that shows his complete lack of knowledge about anything to do with Derrida. the statement that I;m going beyond Derrida is is inane since Im turning him on his head, That's a totally legitimate move it;s done all the time.

Skep:

We've seen this before.  He did exactly the same thing with Jean-Paul Sartre's ontology of being en sui and pour sui, as I pointed out in my article The Butchering of Jean-Paul Sartre.  And in both of these cases, there is a common element: their writing includes the word 'transcendent'.  In Sartre's ontology, being pour sui transcends the simple (en sui) existence of a rock.


Meta: 

That is just an inane complaint, What i  did was to use Sartre;s designation of two aspects of being inanimate and one for conscious  being. It sounds suave to say en soi and por soi but it just comes to inanimate  and conscious. That's what he's having a hissy fit about. Because I expropriate those designations he;s acting like that proves I don't know shit about Sarte. That is a bullshit pipsqueak argument. I rather think it proves he doesn;t know what those  terms mean,

Skep:
 In Derrida's semiotics, a transcendent signifier transcends an ordinary signifier as a source of meaning.  In neither case are they referring to something that would be described as "transcendental", and yet in both cases, Joe has interpreted it that way.  It is a misunderstanding based in Joe's inability to see any philosophical view from a non-theistic perspective.

Meta: 

Once again he shows he doesn't understand the terms, I don't recall Sartre usig the phrase transcendent signnifer  but as i have pointed out I do not use it it's transcendental signifier. It does not mean something from the spiritual realm,  it ,means an analysis of the overarching linguistic nature of an expression, Derrida's deconstruction is transcendental not because it;s magic but because it understands the structure of signification from the top down. 

Derrida calls transcendental signifier and that;s why I call it that, he does not mean mysticism or supernatural. I never thought he did.

Skep:

And in this case, Joe intends to write a whole book based on this misunderstanding.

Meta: 

the misunderstanding to which he alludes  is the one he made that I just cleared up.
I've written the book   you will never read it you know you wont, you will go on  pretending you know what it says when you don't. you know you don;t know shit about Derrida or anything I talk about, my work is way over your head stop pretending cretin,
He does not understand these things they are way over his head, he;s makimng connections I don;t make and attributing them to me because he doesn't  have the brains to read my  work. He is trying to poison the well agaisnt my work.
Skep will never read this I just tore his criticisms  to pieces  he will never know it. 

Notes

[1] I am Skeptical, "Transcendental Blunder," The Skeptic Zone, (April 10, 2019)

https://theskepticzone.blogspot.com/2019/04/transcendental-blunder.html

[2] Ayman Elhallaq. “Tramscemdemtal; Signiofioed as the basis of Deconstruction theory,” Literary Theory in Class,

(July 17, 2005) bloh URL: http://iupengl752-elhallaqayman.blogspot.com/2005/07/transcendental-signified-as-basis-of.htmlaccessed 5/19/16

[3]Greg L. Bhansen. Pushing the Antithesis, Powder Springs, Georgia: American Vision Inc. 2007Ibid., 6-7

[4]  Gordon H. Clark, in Nash, op cit 301.original, Gordon H. Clark, "Apologetics," Contemporary Evangelical Thought (Carl F. H. Henry, ed.), 140.