Sneaky little Megaric

Diodorus Cronus is said to have given this argument:

1. That which you have not lost, you still have.
2. You have not lost horns.
3. You still have horns.

The paradox here is that none us have horns, and yet each premise is supposedly true. How can we address this?



We could argue that premise 1 is false, since it does not follow that I have something if I have not lost it. Why? Well, it could have been stolen! Though true, this response is unsatisfactory. We could argue that premise 1 is true, but only under the strict domain of objects attainable by humans, or even things we have, or some other scope of reference excluding horns. That is a far better approach, I think.

What about premise 2? We could say that it is false, though here I would stress that in rendering this proposition false, we should not affirm the proposition "You have lost horns". Instead, we say this: it is not the case that you have not lost horns, or stated simply: it is false that you lost horns. And it is false simply because we, you or I, do not, nor did we ever, have horns. Why? Well, because we cannot lose some thing we never had! If it were otherwise, then, we might also say that I lost a hundred trillion dollars. Of course I didn't lost that much money, since I never had access to or responsibility of that sort of cash!

Socrates and Philosophical Conservatism

If we listen to Aristotle, Socrates contributed to the pool of ideas in at least two ways: universal definition and inductive argument. The first is what makes me a heir of Socrates. Let me explain.

Speaking amid the relativism of the Sophists, Socrates embarked on a mission to secure constant standards of knowledge, that of universal definition. Particular things change and exemplify universals to various degrees, but the universals themselves are forever constant. We might not know the definition of some universal, but we know that there are universals; and if we can to know them, that is, know their definition, then we can have secure and constant knowledge of some thing. What is more, if there are universals, then not everything is relative, and indeed people can be objectively wrong when they speak about matters of justice, piety, and so on.

I am a heir of Socrates because I, too, seek objective standards amid a culture of relativism and nominalism. From these standards I see the world and live my life; and from them I scorn the relativistic philosophies of the day that scorch our culture, universities and intellectual life.

Philosophical conservatives should be proud that we have such a towering figure amongst our ranks--one who exemplifies the quintessential philosophic spirit.