Saturday, April 25, 2020

Defense of Hinman's Argument: Organizing Principles


Joe Hinman has posted a new article defending his "Transcendental Signifier Argument".  This is an argument for God that Joe has developed based on Jaques Derrida's philosophical concept of the "transcendent signified", and which I have criticized in a previous post of my own*.  In my review of Joe's argument, I pointed out that the argument is not logically valid, and that it is based on a gross misunderstanding of Derrida's philosophy.  I'm not going to rehash all that here.  But Joe has now provided more detail on what appears to be only the first two premises of his argument, and this alone is worthy of further discussion.  As I read through this article again, I realize that although he only discusses the first two premises, he actually is is defending the entire argument, because those two statements make his case in its entirety, and the rest are nothing more than intellectual fluffery.  I'll explain why.