Self-Evident Truths

[davidm]

They may be self-evident to your mind, but you're wrong.

Your first so-called self-evident truth depends upon your idiosyncratic definition of "self." If we were to try to define a self-evident truth, one idea is that it would be a truth such that, if one were to deny it, one would bring about a logical contradiction. On this account, it might be a self evident truth to say, "I am conscious" because to state its converse, "I am not conscious," is logically self-contradictory, since the very statement presupposes a conscious agent making the statement. However, I don't think you use "self" in this way.

The second, that there was a first cause, not only fails to be self-evident, but is factually false according to modern physics.

The third is so vague as to be meaningless.

[bobsavegan]

Originally Posted by davidm

They may be self-evident to your mind, but you're wrong.

Your first so-called self-evident truth depends upon your idiosyncratic definition of "self." If we were to try to define a self-evident truth, one idea is that it would be a truth such that, if one were to deny it, one would bring about a logical contradiction. On this account, it might be a self evident truth to say, "I am conscious" because to state its converse, "I am not conscious," is logically self-contradictory, since the very statement presupposes a conscious agent making the statement. However, I don't think you use "self" in this way.

The second, that there was a first cause, not only fails to be self-evident, but is factually false according to modern physics.

The third is so vague as to be meaningless.

All these self-evident truths are self-evident to my mind only as far as their existence is concerned. Their essence (what they are) is not self-evident. They are metaphysical so modern physics has nothing to do with the question of their existence.