However, the Botanist’s objection is that the use of a non-empirical principle only demonstrates the truth principle’s own validity, but not the validity of the law of causality itself.The truth principle that the Philosopher uses as criterium veri when establishing the validity of the law of causality can itself not be validated by logical analysis - for the truth principle’s own truth, in order for any subject to accept the validity of the principle of truth, must itself rest upon the law of causality. This implies that any assertion that the truth principle is true cannot be objectively founded, only subjectively founded, which is due to the fact that the Philosopher sets out to prove the law of causality’s validity with the truth principle itself, a circulus vitiosus, whereby the Philosopher fails to prove the objective validity of both the principle of truth and the validity of the law of causality.50 Moreover, the failure to prove the principles in question involves a general acceptance of epistemological nihilism, as the subjectivistic standpoint - here represented by the Philosopher’s standpoint - necessitates that not even deductive logic can constitute a firm ground to knowledge.This is because logic, too, must rest upon the assumption that logic itself is based upon deductive causality (causality being a category whose validity the Philosopher has subjected to doubt and rejected). Empirical science has its base in the empirically indemonstrable law of causality. Even more troubling is the fact that the validity of the theory of knowledge is equally indemonstrable. For instance, epistemology, as it is portrayed here, is unable to establish an objective principle of truth on any other basis than the subjective certainty that this very principle is valid. If the objective validity of the principle of truth is based upon the mere subjective conviction that the principle is objectively valid, then any claim for or of the principle of truth’s own objective reality will a ca l l f o r s c i e n t i f i c p u r i t y 183 50 Ibid., pp. 39-42. 2 . 3. 1 ske pt ici sm?
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