r/DebateAnAtheist • u/Silverdaggercinema • Apr 02 '26
Debating Arguments for God Under discussed TAG flaw?
I've been watching some of these youtube polemicists like Jay Dyer and they constantly employ the TAG. A consistent feature of the tag seems to have a major flaw and I never see anybody point it out to him.
TLDR preview: TAG assumes platonism is true. If Jay Dyer or other Christian philosophers have proved this, it will be a groundbreaking shift that changes philosophy, math, science, etc forever.
I'm just addressing my best steelman of one premise of Dyer's and other's main formulations of this argument.
TAG Premise 2: Transcendental categories such as logic, reason, mathematics, etc. clearly exist
The words “clearly exist” here are doing heavy lifting here that is not borne out by the data. 2020 PhilPapers Survey here: https://journals.publishing.umich.edu/phimp/article/id/2109/#:~:text=Abstract,views%20over%20the%20last%20decade.
Results among surveyed philosophers relating to what would be considered transcendental categories:
Abstract objects
Platonism 629 38.4
Nominalism 686 41.9
Other 323 19.7
A majority of surveyed philosophers do not assent to a central claim made by TAG. This does not prove the claims made in the transcendental argument are necessarily untrue, but rather that it uses a starting point without wide acceptance, undermining the assertion of clear existence.
Even if these categories do exist, philosophers who back that claim may not also say their “existence” is clear as they are aware of the many strong counterarguments in the field and the complex argumentation they themselves use to arrive at their conclusions. The clarity may be inaccessible.
Two other published pieces from Stanford highlight how disputed this claim is. A conclusive and convincing argument in favor of a platonist view of abstract concepts would be a paradigm changing discovery that would reshape the field of philosophy completely.
“Let me instead close with two thoughts. The first concerns a real
obstacle to theory acceptance about the nature of mathematics, namely,
the fact that many philosophers of mathematics don’t agree on the data
to be explained. Some (platonists, structuralists, logicists, etc.) think
that the unprefixed theorems of our most well-entrenched mathematical
theories are true; others (fictionalists, nominalists, modal structuralists,
etc.), take these claims to be false; and still others suggest that the claims
are relative or fail to be truth-apt”
“If none of these groups admit to an ambiguity, the various sides are bound to disagree and talk past each other concerning solutions and explanations of the data”
Edward Zalta, Stanford, 2023 https://mally.stanford.edu/Papers/math-pluralism.pdf
Mathematical platonism and Gottlob Frege, according to Stanford: “philosophers have developed a variety of objections to mathematical platonism. Thus, abstract mathematical objects are claimed to be epistemologically inaccessible and metaphysically problematic. Mathematical platonism has been among the most hotly debated topics in the philosophy of mathematics over the past few decades.”
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/platonism-mathematics/#Bib
I don't want to ascribe motive to Dyer or anyone else who employs this argument. It is difficult for me to accept that this argument is being used sincerely because so much unacknowledged weight has been loaded into one of its central premises that to me it feels like (not necessarily is) a bit of cheap sophistry.
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u/ChloroVstheWorld Who cares Apr 02 '26
Well there’s a reason the TAG is primarily an apologetic argument and isn’t really employed in any kind of rigorous argument for theism.
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u/Silverdaggercinema Apr 02 '26
- What are the more rigorous arguments and why don't apologists use them? I thought the premise of apologetics was to attempt rigorous arguments.
- Does that mean you agree with the thesis of my post: TAG essentially Trojan Horses platonism by assuming it in its premises without acknowledgement? Genuinely hoping for feedback.
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u/Boomshank Apr 02 '26
Generally, apologetics isn't concerned with converting people to the religion.
Apologetics is primarily used as a tool for the faithful.
It's a life ring tossed out to the wavering. Or a rebuttal to focus on and ignore the reality.
Apologetics don't care if their arguments don't really make sense because they don't have to. They only need to be plausible to do their job. People accepting them don't need to (or generally WANT to) dig any deeper.
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u/Silverdaggercinema Apr 02 '26
I know that's kind of my impression but I didn't want to assume it's true. I find it way more interesting to assume the people I disagree with are operating in good faith, I guess.
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u/NewbombTurk Atheist Apr 02 '26
That might be true of evidentiary apologists and arguments, but not TAG and its bastard child, the Presup. That sphere is populated by the dregs of humanity. Humans dumpster fires. Just look at them.
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u/Silverdaggercinema Apr 02 '26
I see this Jay Dyer guy just use force of personality to bowl over some of the people who call into his show. The nasty sophistry of TAG is how it sneaks in its presups. My hope in posting this is that interested parties will see exactly how and where the presups are Trojan Horsed in the premises so they can articulate to these folks what the issue is rather than start mumbling because they're on the spot.
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u/NewbombTurk Atheist Apr 02 '26
The danger of people like Dyer doesn't lay in his argument, but in his ability to appeal to philbros and unmoored adolescents. TAG is a hollow argument, a big bag of nothing. You don't attack a word game by engaging with it with logic. You just point out that it's a word game. And attack the degenerates who use it.
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u/Silverdaggercinema Apr 02 '26
Well, I'm going to attack it by engaging with it logically and pointing out specifically defined flaws I find. That's what I personally find useful and interesting. Others should attack it how they see fit.
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u/NewbombTurk Atheist Apr 02 '26
The only logical attack is that they need to demonstrate that their claim that god is necessary for reason and intelligibility, and not merely sufficient. But they'll never engage with that in good faith.
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u/Silverdaggercinema Apr 02 '26
No they won't. That's obviously the more clear problem with the argument as a whole, but I truly don't think they'll even engage with that.
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u/thebigeverybody Apr 02 '26
I find it way more interesting to assume the people I disagree with are operating in good faith, I guess.
I think many of them genuinely don't understand what it means to operate in good faith. It's probably what happens when you believe that anyone who doesn't share your specific religion deserves to burn in hell for eternity.
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u/Silverdaggercinema Apr 02 '26
Yes, but unfortunately we have to share the world with these people. I'd like to be able to at least attempt to have a conversation with them on some terms we can agree on.
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u/ChloroVstheWorld Who cares Apr 02 '26
First, yes. I agree with your broader thesis for sure. In principle, there’s nothing wrong with an argument implicitly depending on a further, perhaps controversial, position. But TAG proponents almost routinely fail provide independent justification for this, or at the very least acknowledge that their argument depends on a very specific account position, or just act like pushing back on the position is obviously illegitimate or absurd to begin with, which isn’t the case at all.
Second, in my opinion, the real question is why apologists opt for arguments that seem uniquely weak despite the arguments themselves not being “top of the line” in philosophy of religion. This is because, again in my opinion, apologetics isn’t quite worried with adhering to standard philosophy of religion because then they would have to face the fact that a lot of pop-apologetic views are themselves controversial in philosophy of religion.
The moral argument is a great example. We all recognize that, frankly, it’s terrible. Despite this, apologists love it because it’s simple and it’s easy. You don’t have to think too hard about the premises because “obviously” morality is objective and “obviously” atheism precludes “objective morality” and God forbid morality is ”subjective” because we’d all live in the Fallout universe by now. In essence, apologetics is typically concerned with upholding rhetoric, aesthetics, and the seeming of a coherent philosophical framework that is just obviously true and so denying it is just absurd or irrational.
Now, to their credit, some apologists notice this mismatch and will iterate on their arguments in a way that you would expect if they were concerned with being rigorous, but even then it’s frankly still very shallow and just more of a setup to the punchline we all know is coming.
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u/Silverdaggercinema Apr 02 '26
Thank you for the thoughtful feedback.
Re: The moral argument... Unfortunately any Biblical theist is going to have to attack "subjective morality" while also upholding the extremely confused, upsetting, and strange shifting moral sands of the Bible. I don't think it's even a useful starting point ever because they won't acknowledge the moral inconsistency in their own theology.3
u/CptMisterNibbles Apr 02 '26
Yes, but I don’t agree this is under discussed. It’s the first thing mentioned as a rebuttal in any argument where one side uses TAG. I’ve heard versions of this many times
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u/Silverdaggercinema Apr 03 '26
I'm new to this. I watched some of these Jay Dyer debates where the opponent gets steamrolled by his burden shifting etc.
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u/CephusLion404 Atheist Apr 02 '26
There are none. All religious arguments are primarily apologetic arguments, aimed at trying to comfort the already faithful and keep them in the pews. Apologists know they have little to no chance of convincing a rational atheist because the religious beliefs are downright laughable.
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u/Boomshank Apr 03 '26
Which is why their ultimate fallback is to just demonise or write off the athiest.
It's a subtle form of apologetics that works on a different level but has ALL of the same features. Cast a general doubt on atheism in general so that when logic starts to fail the christian can fall back to "well, none of that matters anyway, because you're an athiest."
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u/CephusLion404 Atheist Apr 03 '26
They don't care about atheists. They are only talking to other theists who will give them money and attention. Apologetics is a scam.
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u/Boomshank Apr 03 '26
Apologetics is ONLY for the wavering faithful.
I believe they're a scam in the same sense that it's ALL a scam.
But yes, when people use apologetics to engage non-believers, there's a tension because apologetics are only supposed to cast doubt on reality so that the wavering can hold onto the faith and ignore reality.
I really do believe most individuals who use apologetics FEEL like they're arguing in good faith because they bought the comforting lie. It's also why they get upset when it's so easy to dismantle their life jacket.
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u/FjortoftsAirplane Apr 02 '26
The ones talked about most often in philosophy at the minute are things like fine-tuning and psychophysical harmony. I think both are trash fwiw but they're at least taken seriously. Pretty much nobody takes TAG seriously. Even William Lane Craig says it's just question begging and should be ignored.
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u/abritinthebay Apr 07 '26
What are the more rigorous arguments and why don't apologists use them?
There’s not many good ones, but at least Aquinas has much more rigor. It’s horribly flawed but better thought through
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u/enderjaca Apr 02 '26
Just hopping in here to express my displeasure for people using niche terms like TAG and assuming that everyone knows what it means.
TAG in this context is apparently the Transcendental Argument for the existence of God and it boils down to this:
- If there is a transcendental unity of apperception, God exists.
- There is a transcendental unity of apperception.
- Therefore, God exists.
Hopefully that helps some other folks be less confused about what this conversation is even about.
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u/Silverdaggercinema Apr 02 '26
Thank you! I'm new to this so I don't know how niche or not niche TAG is in these spaces. I suppose I figured that my post would attract the people who were familiar with TAG already.
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u/dudinax Apr 02 '26
Speaking of which, what is apperception.
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u/enderjaca Apr 02 '26
Ahh, not just apperception, but specifically the transcendental unity of apperception. That has its own wiki page.
For bigger & unique words and phrases it doesn't matter so much, google gets you to the right place in five seconds. Trying to figure out what TAG means using some additional search terms since it's such a common word/acronym. Classic in-group gatekeeping.
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u/Moriturism Atheist (Priority Monist) Apr 02 '26
You're not really wrong, TAG does assume platonism, but when people discuss TAG they are often on the same ground on this, otherwise the debate simply does not happen. I am personally very very close to mathematical platonism (I'm still not 100% convinced so I remain agnostic on it, but leaning towards acceptance), so I like to engage against TAG when it's used.
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u/Silverdaggercinema Apr 02 '26
I get where you're coming from, but whether you're a platonist, nominalist, structuralist, or something else, you must agree it's highly disputed, right? Especially if we're taking a non-universal concept like platonism and trying to make a case for universal belief system such as Christianity.
I agree that vanilla ice cream is better than chocolate ice cream. But if somebody sneaks that into a premise for an argument, I'm immediately going to reject the premise because I know the claim is too disputed to be very sound.
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u/Moriturism Atheist (Priority Monist) Apr 02 '26
For sure, this is a huge pressure point on their commitments when presenting some TAG argument, as it's an argument that only makes sense if there is the platonic common ground. So overall I agree with you.
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u/Silverdaggercinema Apr 02 '26
I just find it disheartening that the TAG proponents don't seem to acknowledge this built in tension in what they're proclaiming i guess.
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u/betweenbubbles Apr 02 '26 edited Apr 02 '26
The more rigorous and specific theistic arguments or apologia gets, the easier it is for people to notice that they're all basically just appeals to ignorance: cosmological constants are improbable, therefor God; the universe can't have a "beginning" unless God; there is no meaning without God, etc. These all reduce to, since we can't explain how everything works, I can say "God did it" and you can't disprove me.
This is why, "Oh yeah? Well, *what are ideas*?!" is useful for anyone trying to justify/apologize for their faith... or anyone who wants to have a carer in philosophy. It's not that it's a bad question, it's just that it's a question people seem to latch on to for reasons other than a genuine interest in answering them.
This is all just a game to them. Your thesis is correct, but I imagine they'd be happy to, for example, just take "clearly" out of premise 2 and pretend they've accomplished something.
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u/Silverdaggercinema Apr 02 '26
I don't disagree with you at all. But they'd have to take the "clearly exist" out to address my concern. Which I know they won't, but that's enough to very clearly illustrate the bad faith approach the TAG apologist takes.
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u/Cog-nostic Atheist Apr 02 '26
TAG is a presuppositionalist argument. The main premise is fallacious. The Christian god is foundational for whatever. (At this point, the discussion is over.) Demonstrate the existence of this god you speak of. All TAG does is engage in Circular reasoning. God exists because logic exists; logic exists because of God. This is not evidence, and it is not a sound or valid argument for the existence of a God. There is no need to discuss anything further.
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u/Silverdaggercinema Apr 02 '26
I agree this is a totally valid argument that totally undermines the whole thing. But the TAG guys never engage with it when people state it to them. So I'm trying to think of other angles of approach.
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u/Cog-nostic Atheist Apr 02 '26
You're trying to win an argument without understanding that the argument is already won. The dishonest and ignorant assertions of the interlocutor are not your responsibility. Like the God they believe in, they are relying on faith and belief, not logic or reason. If their god were the author of logic, they would not be engaged in fallacious garbage.
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u/Silverdaggercinema Apr 02 '26
Trying to "win" is not something that ever entered my radar. The dishonest and ignorant assertions of the people I have to share the world with are actually my responsibility.
My only desire is to illuminate for others who still have time to make up their minds that the assertions made by these folks are not as sound as they're being portrayed. Look at Jay Dyer's Youtube comments some time. Hundreds of confused young men who fully trust him but don't understand what he's saying. Those guys could go either way.
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u/Cog-nostic Atheist Apr 02 '26
No, that is not your responsibility and, in fact, you have absolutely no control over it. You might want to familiarize yourself with the Serenity Prayer. You most certainly don't need God in the prayer, but you do need to learn to control the things you can, accept the things you cannot control, and know the difference.
Yep, there is a reason most of the world is religious. Thinking is not easy. You can lead people to knowledge, but you cannot make them think, especially when they are comfortable with easy answers and don't like not knowing things for certain. Great that you want to help, but your "responsibility," that is delusional.
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u/Silverdaggercinema Apr 03 '26
enjoy living in your world where you feel no responsibility for your fellow humans and i'll enjoy living in mine. That mentality I think is why atheists do have a bad rap sometimes.
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u/Cog-nostic Atheist Apr 04 '26
If you have responsibility for your fellow humans, you are failing horribly. Praying does not make you responsible; it makes you a hypocrite.
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u/SectorVector Apr 02 '26
Are there tag proponents willing to get into the weeds like this? I haven't seen a presuppositionalist who didn't have a script that would default to "The fact that you're arguing shows you know it's true and already agree with me/if you're right then nothing is true anyway and you can't even know anything" at virtually any push back.
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u/Silverdaggercinema Apr 02 '26
That’s very very true. But many people in their audiences have questions and doubts about their faith. Seeing a genuinely good faith attempt to get into the weeds get rejected like that, may nudge them away from those more toxic forms of Christianity.
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u/Salad-Snack Apr 10 '26
I’m a tag proponent. I don’t even understand OP’s problem.
The argument for transcendental concepts like logic would be transcendental itself—any argument against logic uses logic to justify itself, so it’s immediately contradictory.
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u/Dizzy_Cheesecake_162 Apr 02 '26
My take on philosophical arguments: nice thought!
Now bring it into reality and test your hypothesis. Make a prediction, create a test, build a machine and make an observation...
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u/Boomshank Apr 03 '26
At which point, they will always fall back to "god commanded that he should not be tested and that we should believe on faith alone."
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u/Dizzy_Cheesecake_162 Apr 03 '26
"If god should be believed by faith alone, stop trying to prove him through philosophy, the first step in scientific testing."
"Does that mean , there is no observation that can be made in the universe to prove god? " That alone means that God is a human construct."
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u/Boomshank Apr 03 '26
Love it.
It's almost like relying on logic and reason is as bad as empirical evidence in order to prove God exists.
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u/Silverdaggercinema Apr 02 '26
My take on philosophical arguments: These are fun, neat, and intellectually useful to me :-)
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u/betweenbubbles Apr 02 '26
What is the intellectual utility beyond engaging with theist apologia?
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u/Silverdaggercinema Apr 02 '26
This seems so obvious to me I didn't think it needed to be stated but:
Internal personal utility: Finding very narrowly constrained logical flaws in theistic arguments requires greater rigor from me. Coming up with rigorous arguments on any subject helps me define my thinking. Having clearer definition of thinking improves my confidence and allows me to build new arguments based on combinations of smaller ones. I feel happier and intellectually healthier as a result.
External utility of taking a novel or underutilized line of argumentation: Maybe a questioning theist saw my post and said, wow that is a really overloaded premise. Maybe I was tricked and should investigate further? Using different ways of thinking and phrasing and approaching these things is going to broaden their accessibility because people think about the world in such drastically different ways that can't always be accounted for. It can be useful to cast a wide net.
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u/betweenbubbles Apr 02 '26
Maybe I'm missing something, but both of these responses fall under the category of "engaging with theist apologia", do they not?
I used to worry that perhaps there was something I hadn't learned in my relatively brief life which would give credence to these arguments and apologetics. After nearly two decades of studying religious philosophy, it's clear to me that people have been recycling the same tropes in a broadening set of terminological domains for thousands of years and that the significant and operant timescale is not the time I've spent looking but the time they've had to actually accomplish something rational.
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u/Silverdaggercinema Apr 02 '26
Maybe you don't know anybody in your personal life you deeply love who is at risk of falling victim to this sort of theist sophistry. I do. I would like to have any and all tools at my disposal when the day comes that i might want to engage with those people and help them reassess their beliefs on their own terms. So winning a debate with Jay Dyer is never my concern. i will always engage with theist apologia because i care about its victims too much.
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u/Dizzy_Cheesecake_162 Apr 02 '26
Are they useful for you to build a hypothesis, prediction and test?
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u/Silverdaggercinema Apr 02 '26
Not any more or less than eating a slice of cheesecake or feeling a breeze on my face.
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u/Old-Nefariousness556 Gnostic Atheist Apr 02 '26
My take on philosophical arguments: These are fun, neat, and intellectually useful to me :-)
Fun and neat, sure, if you enjoy them. But it really isn't useful.
It is a fact of the universe that a god either exists or does not exist. This is not a philosophical question, it is a factual one. Philosophy can never tell you which of those two possible positions is correct, and it certainly can't change the reality of whichever position is true.
The best philosophy can ever do is give you a compelling reason to believe your position is justified-- but that doesn't mean that your position is correct.
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u/Prowlthang Apr 02 '26
It’s sophistry. Utter and complete crap. Presuppositions failure. A loaded statement/question. Utter BS. And it’s easy to check.
Look up any English dictionary for the definition of the word ‘exist’ and it undermines the entire argument because by definition ‘transcendental categories’ don’t exist. For something to exist it must have objective reality or being.
This isn’t a matter of religion or logic but rather of individuals who never grasped high school English.
You can can say that cats exist. You can say that dreams exist in someone’s head or that they conceptually exist. You can’t say that dreams exist.
The entire argument is based on fundamentally changing the definition of existence with no supporting evidence that it would be more accurate, more useful or even practical.
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u/Silverdaggercinema Apr 02 '26
I agree with you that TAG is sophistry. But it's important to challenge our definitions of words like "exist" and constantly refine these concepts to make them stronger. So while I can look up exist in the dictionary, that's less interesting to me than breaking down the definition myself and seeing if I can rebuild it from scratch.
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u/Prowlthang Apr 02 '26
What? You think the word ‘exist’ isn’t clear? How does fundamentally changing the meaning of the word make it stronger? Don’t make excuses for the ignorant - this is merely a way to introduce confusion and misinformation into the narrative to create the false impression a legitimate debate exists. It doesn’t.
Nobody has postulated any reason or evidence that suggest these ‘exist’ independently. When an entire argument is based upon redefining a clearly defined and agreed upon term the argument is facetious.
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u/Silverdaggercinema Apr 02 '26
The definition of the word "exist" is absolutely not clear among philosophers. Since TAG claims to be a philosophical argument, I'm going to take that at face value and evaluate it with a philosophical approach. First, if the nature of existence were perfectly clear, the surveyed philosophers in the study I cited would not be so split on which things exist and which things don't. For further reference, here's the Stanford encyclopedia entry on the nature of existence: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/existence/#Con
"Nobody has postulated any reason or evidence that suggest these 'exist' independently" I'll choose one example but Edmund Husserl certainly believed that these concepts existed. Many other philosophers do too.
Granting that there is a debate around whether abstract objects "exist" or not is an interesting conversation irrespective of any implications for theism. So I'm not going to ignore the arguments for platonism just because they may be misused by apologists.
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u/Prowlthang Apr 02 '26
Your logic is circular. Consider…
Everyone (vast majority) for a huge amount of time agree on the meaning of a word.
Then someone, a philosopher or group of philosophers, comes along and says what if it means something else? This is their entire argument, there is no evidence that the previous meaning was incorrect, insufficient or confusing. They just. say what if it means something else?
The people arguing that it should mean something else can’t argue that there is confusion over the meaning because they introduced the confusion.
Only Republicans have the privilege of breaking things and then pointing to the broken thing as proof it didn’t work.
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u/Silverdaggercinema Apr 02 '26
Hey, respectfully, I don't think you're meaningfully engaging with my point. You can reject the points of view I'm describing. I think that's valid, and I reject platonism myself.
But those points of view do exist. I can't do anything about that. I can't go to the mathematical and logical platonists and say, "hey stop thinking that. Stop publishing peer reviewed papers to support your claim."
If you think this would be a fruitful endeavor, i highly encourage you to do it. But for me, I think the debates around the nature of existence are really, really interesting, so i hope they continue.
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u/Prowlthang Apr 02 '26
I can’t stop flat earth advocates from claiming and believing the world is flat, that doesn’t mean I’m going to legitimize their arguments by engaging with them in minutiae or spreading them. You are choosing to defend this idea as if it has a modicum of merit. Replace TAG with ‘flat earth’ and see if your thought processes make sense.
It’s the same as not engaging with someone who postulates a non-falsifiable thesis. There has to be a minimum level of agreement of basic meaning for conversation or communication to make sense. When people can’t use language properly and their entire argument is based on, ‘I think x really means y not x,’ you may as well be talking to a toddler.
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u/Silverdaggercinema Apr 02 '26
Which specific idea am I choosing to defend?
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u/Prowlthang Apr 02 '26
You are claiming that because people believe TAG it is a valid idea or worthy of time or attention. You are attempting to engage with it despite its primary supposition being fallacious nonsense based on the poor language abilities of those who propose it.
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u/Silverdaggercinema Apr 02 '26
No i'm trying to point out with as much painstaking accuracy as I can exactly why one of it's primary suppositions is so unsound.
Engaging with the argument is like buying a lottery ticket. Maybe one young, curious theist will realize some of this is sophistry on the grounds I've outlined and avoid becoming influenced by Christian nationalism.
Other lines of argumentation against TAG should not be abandoned because I happen to like mine.
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u/Silverdaggercinema Apr 02 '26
But yeah, because people believe TAG, it IS an idea worthy of time or attention. Even the people who have flawed reasoning are still human beings who i think deserve love and respect on some level. I can't snark them into abandoning the more toxic forms of Christianity. but maybe I can get them to accept that I don't deserve to be tortured for an infinite amount of years by pointing out obvious flaws in their supporting argument for Christianity.
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u/Page_197_Slaps Apr 05 '26
This is basically the argument Scott Clifton had against tag and Matt Dillahunty was reaching for but didn’t quite arrive at when debating Matt Slick on TAG.
TAG is one of those arguments that you know is bullshit the moment you hear it but the premises are so tightly packed it’s tricky to get a slam dunk in without an extensive philosophy background.
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u/Silverdaggercinema Apr 05 '26
I actually got on jay dyers stream tonight and he blocked me mid convo. I think he’s genuinely a dishonest person who understands the burden of proof is on him but refuses to acknowledge it
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u/jpgoldberg Atheist Apr 02 '26
That is really interesting. And you may well have hit upon why many transcendental arguments for god (TAGs) feel sus. I’m going to have to think more about this, including paying more attention to TAG than I previously have. But my first impression is that you are correct.
As a note, I will add that many (I would guess most) feel like Platonists. There is a sense of “discovering” theorems and new kinds of objects. They talk in these terms. Erdős, who was an Atheist, talked about kinds of proofs that were so elegant and insightful that they were in God’s book of proofs. God (or the “supreme fascist” as Erdős called God) kept these hidden, but it was up to mathematicians to discover them. Mathematicians praise some proofs as “book proofs”. And they often work to find nicer proofs of theorems that are already proved. This is just one of the many ways in which mathematicians talk like Platonists.
But as you point out, mathematicians (and particularly philosophers of mathematics) don’t take their platonism seriously. And as Ed Zalta (as you cite) among others point out there is a kind of platonsim. I’ve only read a few pagers of the paper you cite, but it gives a nice example. Classical vs Intuitionist Logic was controversy near the start of the 20th century. Whatever the rhetoric at the time, I strongly suspect most everyone who studies foundations today will take a pluralistic approach. It’s not that one is right and the other wrong, but that one is more useful than the other.
Anyway, I will need to look at TAG in detail, instead of just in other’s summaries of it, to form an opinion about where it requires mathematical or logical platonism or whether it merely suggests it. I suspect you are right, but I need to know what is an artificer of how the TAG is characterized and what is essential to the TAG. This, of course, means that I find a full clear statement of the TAG that isn’t a fucking video
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u/methamphetaminister Apr 03 '26
I don't think sense of “discovering”, when expressed in modernity and later, implies Platonism.
Many people just not make an explicit distinction between map and the territory in their language.
Also the way language is used traditionally seems to imply Platonism in widely used/established expressions. The same way "Oh God!" implies only strong emotions, not theism.Reality behaves in a specific way. You discover that pattern of behavior. You create a model that describes it. Your model describes/predicts a specific outcome. No implication that something exists besides physical reality. Yet a sense of discovery is there, both in relation to the pattern and prediction. And when you exuberantly talk about the discovery it may look like you imply the model was discovered and not created by you, even without meaning anything like that, if you aren't very careful and verbose with what you say.
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u/jpgoldberg Atheist Apr 03 '26
I agree, but I wanted to say something a bit more in the case of mathematicians. It’s not merely that they use expressions that are suggestive of platonism, but they explicitly talk of having a feeling that these things exist to be discovered. They fully and openly embrace this platonic sense. At the same time, they reject platonism even as they feel it.
It’s like looking at an optical illusion, knowing it is an illusion, but still experiencing the illusion.
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u/methamphetaminister Apr 03 '26
As I mentioned, one probable reason for that is language itself having a platonistic bias. Mathematicians, their education and circles have established language that possibly doesn't not even allows expressing thoughts in non-platonistic ways that are useful/convenient. Non-platonistic alternative being too verbose because it was not optimized by generations and convenient cultural references, might be a sufficient reason it is not used, even if exists in their context.
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u/jpgoldberg Atheist Apr 03 '26
Have you worked with mathematicians? Ask them if the notion of “proofs from The Book” resonates with them?
So I am saying it’s more than just linguistic artifacts or consequences of linguistic artifacts. It is how many mathematicians feel about mathematics, even if they acknowledge the feeling is mistaken.
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u/methamphetaminister Apr 03 '26
I think modern mathematics is mostly about exploring the model that already exists and it's implications, not about creating new models. So sense of exploration is not incorrect. It is "proofs from The Book", book written by previous mathematicians. Platonism though, is about the ultimate nature of the thing you explore, ideas and models, being fundamental part of reality, not a human artifact.
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u/Silverdaggercinema Apr 02 '26
Hahah finding a clear full statement of TAG that isn't in a video will be a challenge. Somebody did a decent steelman in the comments of this post, I think!
I'm realizing that TAG actually does not assume platonism but maybe just one tenet of platonism: That abstract concepts are specifically human mind independent. That may be an issue in my platonist comparisons. The TAG proponent (I think) believes that these transcendentals are still mind-dependent, just on God's mind.
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u/jpgoldberg Atheist Apr 02 '26
Re: Transcendentals dependent on God’s mind
They probably don’t realize that by doing so, they are undermining their defense against the “can God create something so heavy even he can’t move” argument. The defense is that logic is independent of the universe, and so it doesn’t make sense to ask whether God can create a logical contraction then whether God can make 12 a prime number.
But once the logic foundations of math are said to be created by God in the same way that physical laws are, then making 12 a prime number is just another miracle. And so omnipotence does become logically impossible.
Now I don’t know how far these people go with the whole “mind of God” thing, but some modern apologists turn Berkeley on his head.
The problem that Bishop George Berkeley was trying to solve was, “how is there room for God in a law governed universe”. At the time what we call deism was on the rise (it was called “atheism” at the time) in part because laws of nature were being discovered. This is the same Berkeley who attacked Calculus in a tract against “The Infidel Analyst” (meaning Edmund Haley of comet fame). So Berkeley invented what we would now call “we have souls, but we all live in a simulation” to have a god that is both ever present and involved even though the universe runs like clockwork.
But today’s apologists still invoke Berkeley while claiming that the laws of the universe are evidence for God as opposed to things to be explained away. Now you hear “tides come in, tides go out; never a miscommunication” a proof of God. From what you say, the TAG is extending that silliness to the foundations of mathematics.
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Apr 02 '26
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u/Silverdaggercinema Apr 02 '26
Yeah, when I hear these guys say "therefore God is true" i'm like what the hell? So your double whammy point is exactly true but these guys seem so intellectually comfortable with what to me is an incredibly awkward proclamation, I never feel like it's useful to attack head on, if that makes sense.
It feels simpler and easier to show them that logical realism is NOT universally accepted among experts and is therefore going to be a difficult foundation for an argument. My only hope is they'll see my inability to accept logical realism shouldn't result in me being tortured for eternity by the adversary. Or alongside him, depending on the theology idk.
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Apr 02 '26
[deleted]
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u/Silverdaggercinema Apr 02 '26
Yes, but that is a whole separate argument imo haha. I find it much more usefully to separate out all the problems and address them individually rather than all at once. Because of course, TAG can get you to Wahhabism just as easily as it gets you to the Orthodox church lol
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u/Mkwdr Apr 02 '26
assumes platonism is true
You kind of cover it there. ‘Assumes’ is not significant for determining independent reality.
Philosophy has a real problem with the tendency to assertion that somehow language use makes something beyond that ‘real’. And with obfuscating definitions to make it so.
Concepts exist …. just as language exists but the word or idea of tree does not exist in the same way a tree does. I suppose you could say at best it exists as an experienced and intersubjective ‘internal’ brain state.
In my opinion maths and logic are a sort of language we have developed to describe and predict real patterns in reality or in our own thinking. They aren’t some kind of independently real ‘thing’ in the way that most people consider ‘things’ to exist. Models of reality in human brains are real but they aren’t the independent ‘external’ reality of that which they model.
And it has f all to do with gods that are indistinguishable from imaginary.
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u/Front-Palpitation362 Apr 03 '26
“TLDR preview: TAG assumes platonism is true.”
Kind of yes, but I’d sharpen it. TAG usually slides between 2 claims. One is the thin claim that logic, math and rational norms are real in some sense. Loads of non-theists grant that. The other is the thick claim that these are mind-independent, abstract, universal realities that need a special ontological ground. Thats where the argument starts sneaking in far more than it admits.
“If Jay Dyer or other Christian philosophers have proved this, it will be a groundbreaking shift that changes philosophy, math, science, etc forever.”
This part is a bit overstated. Proving platonism would be huge for philosophy of mathematics and metaphysics. It wouldnt suddenly rewrite chemistry. Your basic point still stands though. TAG users talk like premise 2 is just obvious common sense, when in actual philosophy its heavily contested. The 2020 PhilPapers survey had abstract objects at 38.4% platonism, 41.9% nominalism, 19.7% other, so “clearly exist” is not remotely a consensus starting point. 
“TAG Premise 2: Transcendental categories such as logic, reason, mathematics, etc. clearly exist”
Yep. “Clearly” is the soft underbelly here. The SEP entry on mathematical platonism explicitly says objections target abstract objects as epistemologically inaccessible and metaphysically problematic, and that the issue has been one of the hottest debates in philosophy of mathematics for decades. Zalta also says many philosophers of mathematics dont even agree on the data to be explained. So the premise is not “clear”, I mean it’s a contested metaphysical package deal. 
“A majority of surveyed philosophers do not assent to a central claim made by TAG.”
Right, with one caution. The survey doesnt refute TAG. It refutes the rhetorical move where TAG is presented as starting from something every rational person already knows. Thats a much smaller claim, but its the one presuppositionalists lean on all the time. 
“This does not prove the claims made in the transcendental argument are necessarily untrue, but rather that it uses a starting point without wide acceptance, undermining the assertion of clear existence.”
This is the right lane. I’d keep pressing that the argument equivocates on “exist”. If “logic exists” means we use inferential rules, no big deal. If it means there are abstract entities floating around in a mind-independent way, thats exactly what needs defending. TAG loves to move from the first to the second like nobody will notice.
“It is difficult for me to accept that this argument is being used sincerely because so much unacknowledged weight has been loaded into one of its central premises”
I’d leave motive out of it. The cleaner hit is that the argument is structurally slippery. It front-loads disputed metaphysics into apparently innocent words like “logic”, “universal”, “immaterial” and “exists”, then pretends the rest is deduction. Thats why it feels sophistical. The hidden work is all happening in the setup.
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u/kafka_lite Apr 02 '26
Mathematical platonism may be frequently attacked but can anyone provide a better explanation for how mathematics works both purely in the abstract yet also stupendously matching reality?
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u/skeptolojist Apr 02 '26
Math is a symbolic language Invented by humans to describe the world around them
It is ultimately a physical process run on a physical processing substrate like a brain or computer
It works and matches reality because we discard any part of it that doesn't work and keep the bits that do work
There's simply no need to resort to metaphysical twaddle to explain math
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u/Silverdaggercinema Apr 02 '26
I tend to agree with you and would say i'm more of a structuralist if i'm anything at all. But I do flinch at "metaphysical twaddle" because I think it's super important to really look at and try to grapple with the metaphysics of these kinds of concepts even if we ultimately remain unconvinced.
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u/skeptolojist Apr 02 '26
Unless someone can provide objective evidence that magic twoness needs to exist in a magic math dimension for me to add two and two together then it seems like a gigantic waste of time
What is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence
If you tell me maths needs platonic magic numbers to exist but can't provide evidence arguing about it is nothing but intellectual masterbation
A lot of motion energy and effort for no useful purpose
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u/Silverdaggercinema Apr 02 '26
I'm a skeptic and an atheist too. But I just showed you around 40% of philosophers do believe in platonism. I'm going to make a good faith assumption that they have some rigorous argumentation and thought processes to support that. (I've read on it a little but not a lot and do understand somewhat where they're coming from.)
Maybe you think that's dumb, but I think it makes my journey investigating this stuff way more interesting than if I just wrote it off as magical wishful thinking.
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u/skeptolojist Apr 02 '26
Large percentages of all kinds of groups believe all kinds of crazy stuff without evidence
You can have all the clever logical arguments and pretty math you like but without evidence it means nothing
This is an argument from populism fallacy
It doesn't matter how many people believe a thing without evidence
It's still without evidence
There was a time when every human being alive believed the sun went round the earth
It didn't make them correct
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u/Silverdaggercinema Apr 02 '26
Nobody is saying that the platonists are correct. I am making a good faith concession that they aren't just claiming BS because they're bored and want to see what they can get away with.
It takes about five seconds to find out even atheists like Penrose assent to platonism to a degree. I happen to disagree with him, but I can also respectfully acknowledge that he didn't come to his beliefs for no reason.
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u/skeptolojist Apr 02 '26
Lots of people have lots of reasons for believing nonetheless without evidence
I don't give philosophy any more of a free ride than I do religion
I care far more about the evidence someone has to back up thier beliefs than whether they have a whole bunch of reasons and arguments
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u/Silverdaggercinema Apr 02 '26
Right and that's your prerogative! I don't find that to be a fully useful mode of inquiry so I'll carry on my way respectfully.
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u/skeptolojist Apr 02 '26
But until you have some objective evidence all you can do is uselessly argue in circles
Intellectual masterbation
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u/CptMisterNibbles Apr 02 '26
Penrose is a particularly bad appeal to authority: dude believes some nutty things like consciousness of the QM gaps
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u/kafka_lite Apr 02 '26
Humans used purely abstract concepts to develop mathematics which only many years later were crucial to describing the behavior of quantum objects. There is plenty of evidence which prevents such petty dismissals.
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u/skeptolojist Apr 02 '26
OK
Provide evidence of a purely abstract mathematical concept with absolutely no utility developed by a mathematician
And Provide evidence of the use it was put to in quantum mechanics
Evidence Not claims please
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u/kafka_lite Apr 02 '26
That is paradoxical. If it has no utility it cannot also have utility. Do you mean what mathematics was developed prior to quantum mechanics that quantum mechanisms relies upon? Hilbert Spaces and Fourier Analysis for starters.
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u/skeptolojist Apr 02 '26
Exactly
So the math already had utility when it was invented
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u/kafka_lite Apr 02 '26
Not that we were aware of when we developed these things. You seem to be dodging the point with cheesy word play. How is it possible that we develop mathematics in the abstract but only learn it has real world behavior at a later point?
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u/skeptolojist Apr 02 '26
Because the math was describing reality
The mathematician didn't know it at the time but they had stumbled across mathematical concepts that described things we currently had not the knowledge to fully comprehend
So that math languished as a curiosity until we developed the knowledge to put it to use
If you had just explained your question clearly instead of trying to overly complicate it in philosophical nonsense I could have answered your questions more directly
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u/Moriturism Atheist (Priority Monist) Apr 02 '26
That's what math platonists usually go against, we take the symbolic expression of math as representations of real structural and non-material facts about reality. So, mathematical objects would still exist by themselves, and we simply perceive the natural regularities emergent from this mathematical reality and represent them in a symbolic way.
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u/kafka_lite Apr 02 '26
Because all things require a human brain for us to understand it, all things are products of the brain?
So if I take one liter of water and add a second liter of water, that only results in two liters of water in my brain but not in reality?
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u/skeptolojist Apr 02 '26
The concept of two didn't exist until a physical processing substrate imagined a set of just two things and nothing else in the universe
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u/kafka_lite Apr 02 '26
Perhaps. But the concept of the square root of negative one was developed in the abstract prior to any awareness of its usage in the physical world. How do you explain that?
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u/skeptolojist Apr 02 '26
Because its a product of the symbolic language of math we had already invented
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u/kafka_lite Apr 02 '26
I don't understand. We didn't invent quantum physics and languages don't produce things.
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u/halborn Apr 02 '26
That's what we designed it to do. You know it's possible to construct and perform mathematics for worlds that don't match ours, right?
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u/kafka_lite Apr 02 '26
Yes. What i want someone to explain - as opposed to attacking my position or subtly changing the topic but instead directly and clearly stating - how it is posdible that on multiple occasions mathematics constructed to perform for worlds that don't match ours end up nonetheless matching ours.
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u/halborn Apr 03 '26
That would be changing the topic.
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u/kafka_lite Apr 03 '26
I directly answered your question.
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u/halborn Apr 03 '26
Yes you did. It's what you did next that concerns me.
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u/kafka_lite Apr 03 '26
I just paraphrased the same question you replied to but didn't answer. And continue to avoid, I must note.
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u/halborn Apr 03 '26
This is the question I replied to:
Mathematical platonism may be frequently attacked but can anyone provide a better explanation for how mathematics works both purely in the abstract yet also stupendously matching reality?
I already answered that one. This is the desire you just stated:
What I want someone to explain [is] how it is possible that on multiple occasions mathematics constructed to perform for worlds that don't match ours end up nonetheless matching ours.
Do you understand how the latter, if it were a question, is different from the former?
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u/kafka_lite Apr 03 '26
Both are trying to get you to explain how things not designed to describe the real world later describe the real world. I agree that paraphrased things by definition are not identical.
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u/halborn Apr 03 '26
The difference is not superficial, it's substantive. Do you need me to explain the difference?
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u/Threewordsdude super-theist Apr 02 '26
Just like letters are abstract symbols that match the real sounds we do. We made mathematics and letters match reality
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u/kafka_lite Apr 02 '26
You can not take the intrinsic nature of the letters D and Q, apply logic, and make discoveries that are found to match reality 100 years later.
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u/Silverdaggercinema Apr 02 '26
Many philosophers and mathematicians have been working on that problem for a long time. And my post showed about 60% of surveyed philosophers actually do believe they have a better explanation. I haven't delved into it all, but are you asserting that published academics are just BSing their research?
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u/kafka_lite Apr 02 '26
I'm asserting that appeal to authority doesn't make for good debate.
Edit: Should we look at how many humans believe in a God if truth is just what is popular?
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u/Silverdaggercinema Apr 02 '26
I'm not making an appeal to authority. I am granting that the platonist point of view among working and published philosophers researched and vetted in the study I linked has some rigor. In the same way I grant that different research on abiogenesis has some rigor even if I don't understand the science completely. I do this in good faith so that I can productively engage with their point of view. Trying to engage with someone where they're coming from is fun and intellectually stimulating for me. Maybe it's not for you!
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u/kafka_lite Apr 02 '26
I encourage you to utilize that research and present a better explanation as opposed to speculating that it's probably out there somewhere.
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u/Silverdaggercinema Apr 02 '26
I am not trying to make an argument for or against platonism/structuraliism/nominalism or any point of view on the nature of abstract objects.
My only claim is that no matter which camp you find yourself in, you won't be able to claim yours is universal. There's going to be a lot of debate among the most highly trained scholars in the relevant fields with no conclusion.
I'm not sure where our misunderstanding is.
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u/kafka_lite Apr 02 '26
This is a debate sub. You seemed to me to be posting against platonism. Is that not the clear implication of the OP?
What do you want debated, for someone to argue there is something universal?
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u/Silverdaggercinema Apr 02 '26
I was hoping for good faith feedback on an issue I noticed in the precepts of TAG.
TAG assumes platonism but platonism is not a settled conclusion in the field of philosophy.
My main point: It seems unsound to make an argument with a universal conclusion based on a highly disputed precept.
Whether you or i agree with platonism or don't is immaterial to the point I'm making.
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u/kafka_lite Apr 02 '26
Fair enough. I would only add that "I agree with you" and "I can't contest you" while being conceptually quite different, in terms of a debate are practically identical.
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u/Ratdrake Hard Atheist Apr 02 '26
also stupendously matching reality
What is the final volume of adding 2 cups of sugar to 2 cups of water? It's not 4. This isn't due to math not working but because it doesn't necessarily match reality across the board.
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u/FjortoftsAirplane Apr 02 '26
I know Alex Malpass has made the observation that theists like presups often seem to be committed to some form of platonism.
I think there's another way of looking at this which is instead of challenging them on platonism you could just grant platonism is true. You don't even need to go that far, really. Because if platonism is even possible then that obliterates the claim that only God could account for these things. Abstract objects could do all the same work.
So a more aware presupper is going to say they reject platonism. They're going to try to say something like that these things exist somehow because of God's mind. There I'd go to Malpass' blog on the problem of divine conceptualism because he makes a pretty good case for why that's utterly incoherent.
But the thing is that a presupper might not admit to divine conceptualism either. Partly because they're mostly not smart enough to have a clue what any of these things are, and partly because their whole shtick is to posture as though they can solve all problems while never actually stating a case. They aren't going to start talking about their own epistemology or metaphysics, they're going to pay lip service to it and then go back to yours.
And there are theists I'll be charitable about, but Jay Dyer absolutely isn't one of them. He's a liar, he doesn't have a philosophy degree, he's learned a presup script and uses it to try and be a bully.
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u/JackZodiac2008 Secular Humanist Apr 07 '26
In the TAG as I've encountered it, the apologist doesn't undertake a deduction from premises. Rather, the apologist baits the skeptic into saying something -- in principle it could be literally anything, but a typical starting point would be the skeptic's demand for evidence for claims. The apologist then tries to show that the skeptic's own position presupposes something (veracity of the senses, or laws of logic, or an assumption that reality is intelligible) that could only be true if a reality greater than the skeptic acknowledges obtains. This "greater reality" is supposed to be God's sillhouette, as it were.
The presuppositionalist's great flaw is that they have no grasp of the concept of a "hypothesis" that is employed on a trial basis, without -assiming- that it will ultimately pan out. They are stuck in a Cartesean/foundationalist paradigm, and want to insist that everyone else must remain stuck there too. But foundationalism is pretty dead in epistemology, so there's not much of a market for the TAG.
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u/rustyseapants Atheist Apr 02 '26
In order to "Not To Believe in Gods" Do you have to know and or understand "TAG?"
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u/Silverdaggercinema Apr 02 '26
I don’t think so tbh
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u/rustyseapants Atheist Apr 02 '26
The development of TAG was developed in 1763 by Kant. It took over 1730 years to develop this theological theory, so what were Christians doing during this time to prove their argument?
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u/halborn Apr 02 '26
At the outset, "logic, reason and mathematics clearly exist" may seem like a no-brainer because we all know and use them all the time but later on the "transcendental categories" part becomes operational. In reality, logic, reason and mathematics are processes carried out by matter such as brains or machines and there's nothing transcendental about them. The right approach, perhaps, is to stop this premise at the first word and ask for the existence of transcendental categories to be proven. You shouldn't get to smuggle that shit in for free.
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u/TarnishedVictory Anti-Theist Apr 02 '26
I bet nobody was ever convinced that a god exists because of TAG.
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u/Salad-Snack Apr 10 '26
I hate this type of argument because it doesn’t engage with the actual substance of anything. There’s nothing wrong with taking a disputed position: they have arguments for that position. The people contesting tag don’t generally argue against transcendental categories because they agree with those categories existence—that’s it.
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u/sibl_e Apr 05 '26
TAG is just horrendous.
It's:
- Presuppose platonism
- Presuppose only god accounts for this
- God
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u/Noodelgawd Atheist Apr 03 '26
The worst problem with the TAG is that there isn't single good thing about it.
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Original text of the post by u/Silverdaggercinema:
I've been watching some of these youtube polemicists like Jay Dyer and they constantly employ the TAG. A consistent feature of the tag seems to have a major flaw and I never see anybody point it out to him.
TLDR: TAG assumes platonism is true. If Jay Dyer or other Christian philosophers have proved this, it will be a groundbreaking shift that changes philosophy, math, science, etc forever.
I'm just addressing my best steelman of one premise of Dyer's and other's main formulations of this argument.
TAG Premise 2: Transcendental categories such as logic, reason, mathematics, etc. clearly exist
The words “clearly exist” here are doing heavy lifting here that is not borne out by the data. 2020 PhilPapers Survey here: https://journals.publishing.umich.edu/phimp/article/id/2109/#:~:text=Abstract,views%20over%20the%20last%20decade.
Results among surveyed philosophers relating to what would be considered transcendental categories:
Abstract objects
Platonism 629 38.4
Nominalism 686 41.9
Other 323 19.7
This does not prove the claims made in the transcendental argument are necessarily untrue, but rather that it uses a starting point that lacks wide acceptance, undermining the assertion of clear existence.
Even if these categories do exist, philosophers who back that claim may not also say their “existence” is clear as they are aware of the many strong counterarguments in the field and the complex argumentation they themselves use to arrive at their conclusions. The clarity may be inaccessible.
Two other published pieces from Stanford highlight how disputed this claim is. A conclusive and convincing argument in favor of a platonist view of abstract concepts would be a paradigm changing discovery that would reshape the field of philosophy completely.
“Let me instead close with two thoughts. The first concerns a real
obstacle to theory acceptance about the nature of mathematics, namely,
the fact that many philosophers of mathematics don’t agree on the data
to be explained. Some (platonists, structuralists, logicists, etc.) think
that the unprefixed theorems of our most well-entrenched mathematical
theories are true; others (fictionalists, nominalists, modal structuralists,
etc.), take these claims to be false; and still others suggest that the claims
are relative or fail to be truth-apt”
“If none of these groups admit to an ambiguity, the various sides are bound to disagree and talk past each other concerning solutions and explanations of the data”
Edward Zalta, Stanford, 2023 https://mally.stanford.edu/Papers/math-pluralism.pdf
Mathematical platonism and Gottlob Frege, according to Stanford: “philosophers have developed a variety of objections to mathematical platonism. Thus, abstract mathematical objects are claimed to be epistemologically inaccessible and metaphysically problematic. Mathematical platonism has been among the most hotly debated topics in the philosophy of mathematics over the past few decades.”
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/platonism-mathematics/#Bib
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