What do you think?
Rate this book
Square One: The Foundations of Knowledge
"Truth is discoverable. I'm certain of it. It's not popular to say. It's not popular to think. But I know it's true." So begins an examination into the most fundamental questions in philosophy. Does objective truth exist? Can we know anything with certainty? Are there true logical contradictions? Steve Patterson answers emphatically, "We can know absolute, certain, and objective truths. These truths serve as the foundation for the rest of our knowledge." Square One is an examination of knowledge, logic, and the extreme skepticism that permeates modern thinking. It contains several refutations to popular attacks on human reason, including a resolution to the Liar's Paradox. Patterson writes in an easy-to-read, non-academic style. There's no jargon or long-winded pontificating about ideas that don't matter. This book is a response to those who insist that "Truth cannot be known."
- GenresPhilosophy
137 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 28, 2016
20 people are currently reading
69 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
April 20, 2017
My full review can be read at my blog: Exiting The Cave
Here is an excerpt:
The book is a relatively short read (even as a slow reader, it only took me about 6 hours to finish it, including taking notes), and I found it engaging, well structured, and passionately argued. For anyone interested in an overview in plain language of the traditional Rationalist philosophical position, this book is an excellent first step for beginners. Though the book does leave many questions unanswered (I will highlight two of them in this review), it makes for a useful launchpad into further exploration. And as Patterson himself admits: "Square One is the starting point, but it’s not the ending point."
Here is an excerpt:
The book is a relatively short read (even as a slow reader, it only took me about 6 hours to finish it, including taking notes), and I found it engaging, well structured, and passionately argued. For anyone interested in an overview in plain language of the traditional Rationalist philosophical position, this book is an excellent first step for beginners. Though the book does leave many questions unanswered (I will highlight two of them in this review), it makes for a useful launchpad into further exploration. And as Patterson himself admits: "Square One is the starting point, but it’s not the ending point."
December 4, 2019
Great.
The new breed of Rationalism has arrived. Good to see someone going against the current in this day and age.
The new breed of Rationalism has arrived. Good to see someone going against the current in this day and age.
November 13, 2025
A simple introductory overview of some core ideas. The book works through the basic principles of logic and explains clearly and helpfully how they contribute to human knowledge. However, more problematically, the author also insists upon the impossibility of contradictory states of affairs.
The author’s position is one that was widely shared by philosophers in the medieval and pre-modern era. It is the idea that ‘at the very bottom of everything, epistemology and metaphysics blend together. We know knowledge because existents exist’ (p.30). This is the idea that the structure of reality is the same as the structure of the rationality by which humans know reality. They are necessarily linked, so the limits of thinking are the limits of reality.
What that means in practice is that (logical) contradictions are metaphysically impossible in reality. Reality cannot be, and not-be at the same time, in the same way that a proposition cannot be true and not-true at the same time.
Throughout the ages that has seemed to be so obvious, as to be thought to be self-evident. Yet, while it is certainly true that humans cannot think of something being true and not-true simultaneously, does human inconceivability really mean metaphysical impossibility?
The author insists that that is so. Even an omnipotent God wouldn’t be able to break the laws of logic (49). He believes that we can know that fact for a certainty (p.113).
And yet, as Post-Modernists have been quick to note, there can be no argument to prove that point. This is because the issues at dispute relate to the framework of logic ‘within which’ argument and proof takes place. You can’t prove the frame itself, without presupposing the frame as part of the proof. So, you can’t prove or disprove the law of non-contradiction, without begging the issues which are are the very point at dispute. This means that the issues ultimately reduce to just insisting that reality can, or cannot ever lead to a contradictory state of affairs.
The author is absolutely adamant that there is no evidence and no argument that could ever prove or justify a belief that a contradiction could be possible. He may well be right. But that does not provide a rational (or logical) justification for the jump to the stronger position of a conclusion that a contradiction is impossible. That is because the issues go beyond what logic can prove, or disprove.
What humans typically do, is to treat the laws of logic as axioms, within which they prove and disprove other issues. That makes contradictions inconceivable. The human brain typically glitches at the very thought of the idea of a contradiction. Asserting that a contradiction could occur in reality would break human ability to talk or think about the situation. But… that is not a proof that contradictions are impossible.
We see some of these issues come home to roost in chapter 5 where the author talks about Copenhagenist interpretations of Quantum Theory. He insists that no Copenhagenist can possibly ever have thought that quantum superposition involved a contradiction of something being simultaneously a particle and not-a-particle. Really? How does he know that? Where is the evidence, citing every Copenhagenist’s views to prove the point? Or is he just assuming what must be the case, given his own assumptions about the nature of reality necessarily conforming to logic?
Yet it has always been the case that there have been radical empiricists who have insisted that any claim describing reality must be in principle capable of verification or falsification by evidence. (Otherwise claims are just tautologies which do not describe any feature of reality). What that means for the most radical empiricist is that in principle, laws of logic too can be disproved. So, the question this raises, is whether any of the Copenhagenists subscribed to such radical empiricism (regardless of whether we think it is ultimately a plausible position)? That is a question which can only be answered by evidence, not be asserting what must be the case.
Overall, this was a well-written introduction to the issues and it was commendably simple and clear throughout most of the text. However, the author’s insistence upon the metaphysical impossibility of contradictions, being a fact which can be known to be true with absolute certainty, seemed to me to go beyond what could actually be proved. That means that the core argument running throughout the book is arguably wrong. This means that I would be reluctant to recommend this book to readers who lack prior philosophical background in the issues and who could thus critically evaluate the author’s position for themselves.
The author’s position is one that was widely shared by philosophers in the medieval and pre-modern era. It is the idea that ‘at the very bottom of everything, epistemology and metaphysics blend together. We know knowledge because existents exist’ (p.30). This is the idea that the structure of reality is the same as the structure of the rationality by which humans know reality. They are necessarily linked, so the limits of thinking are the limits of reality.
What that means in practice is that (logical) contradictions are metaphysically impossible in reality. Reality cannot be, and not-be at the same time, in the same way that a proposition cannot be true and not-true at the same time.
Throughout the ages that has seemed to be so obvious, as to be thought to be self-evident. Yet, while it is certainly true that humans cannot think of something being true and not-true simultaneously, does human inconceivability really mean metaphysical impossibility?
The author insists that that is so. Even an omnipotent God wouldn’t be able to break the laws of logic (49). He believes that we can know that fact for a certainty (p.113).
And yet, as Post-Modernists have been quick to note, there can be no argument to prove that point. This is because the issues at dispute relate to the framework of logic ‘within which’ argument and proof takes place. You can’t prove the frame itself, without presupposing the frame as part of the proof. So, you can’t prove or disprove the law of non-contradiction, without begging the issues which are are the very point at dispute. This means that the issues ultimately reduce to just insisting that reality can, or cannot ever lead to a contradictory state of affairs.
The author is absolutely adamant that there is no evidence and no argument that could ever prove or justify a belief that a contradiction could be possible. He may well be right. But that does not provide a rational (or logical) justification for the jump to the stronger position of a conclusion that a contradiction is impossible. That is because the issues go beyond what logic can prove, or disprove.
What humans typically do, is to treat the laws of logic as axioms, within which they prove and disprove other issues. That makes contradictions inconceivable. The human brain typically glitches at the very thought of the idea of a contradiction. Asserting that a contradiction could occur in reality would break human ability to talk or think about the situation. But… that is not a proof that contradictions are impossible.
We see some of these issues come home to roost in chapter 5 where the author talks about Copenhagenist interpretations of Quantum Theory. He insists that no Copenhagenist can possibly ever have thought that quantum superposition involved a contradiction of something being simultaneously a particle and not-a-particle. Really? How does he know that? Where is the evidence, citing every Copenhagenist’s views to prove the point? Or is he just assuming what must be the case, given his own assumptions about the nature of reality necessarily conforming to logic?
Yet it has always been the case that there have been radical empiricists who have insisted that any claim describing reality must be in principle capable of verification or falsification by evidence. (Otherwise claims are just tautologies which do not describe any feature of reality). What that means for the most radical empiricist is that in principle, laws of logic too can be disproved. So, the question this raises, is whether any of the Copenhagenists subscribed to such radical empiricism (regardless of whether we think it is ultimately a plausible position)? That is a question which can only be answered by evidence, not be asserting what must be the case.
Overall, this was a well-written introduction to the issues and it was commendably simple and clear throughout most of the text. However, the author’s insistence upon the metaphysical impossibility of contradictions, being a fact which can be known to be true with absolute certainty, seemed to me to go beyond what could actually be proved. That means that the core argument running throughout the book is arguably wrong. This means that I would be reluctant to recommend this book to readers who lack prior philosophical background in the issues and who could thus critically evaluate the author’s position for themselves.
December 15, 2017
Should one not blindly reject "logic" out of hand as some sort of "old white male social construct" then this short, yet weighty, book would benefit any reader in terms of rational argument formulation. Probably best shelved in the "philosophy" section of your library, the author ultimately acknowledges the potentially unpopular position of an omnipotent being constrained by logic's laws rather than the other way around. Diving into greatest detail in illuminating the lack of existence for any true paradox, the author does a decent job in expanding upon the limitations of language against the superior structure of logic. Perhaps best suited for a Socratic starter kit, this work is enjoyable to any amateur Aristotle at potential risk of academia's upturned noses. If you believe, whether by either logic or faith, that truth may be known, then this brief book would serve you well in clubs or cocktail parties.
To end this review with a passage, "In an ideal world, 'things are things' might never need to be stated because it's self-evident. But that's not the world we live in, and swathes of people deny such truths. That's the reason for this book. Logically necessary propositions are foundational, tautological, and yet frequently denied as true."
Hard to deny the truth that this is a set of thought provoking prose.
To end this review with a passage, "In an ideal world, 'things are things' might never need to be stated because it's self-evident. But that's not the world we live in, and swathes of people deny such truths. That's the reason for this book. Logically necessary propositions are foundational, tautological, and yet frequently denied as true."
Hard to deny the truth that this is a set of thought provoking prose.
November 20, 2023
This is a well written book in the fact that it requires no special inside knowledge or vocabulary to follow along. That said, I would recommend getting some training in Foundational Mathematics (Logic, Set theory, Category Theory, etc.) before hand. It also helps to have some understanding of modern physical theories like Quantum Mechanics, Field Theory, Relativity, etc...
A background in Classical Philosophy is helpful too, understanding the likes of Spinoza, Decartes, the Greeks and the various Eastern Philosophies will give much context.
Though I understand Patterson's point of view and his arguments, something about it just doesn't completely fit. The core of his argument is about the equivalence of Logic with Existense. From that flows everything else in the book. 'What is, "is", and cannot be non-existent at the same time'
From these mutually exclusive states, we can build knowledge through logic.
I'm not sure I buy it whole and sole yet.
Still this is a good book to read. It will get you thinking and enjoying Philosophy again.
A background in Classical Philosophy is helpful too, understanding the likes of Spinoza, Decartes, the Greeks and the various Eastern Philosophies will give much context.
Though I understand Patterson's point of view and his arguments, something about it just doesn't completely fit. The core of his argument is about the equivalence of Logic with Existense. From that flows everything else in the book. 'What is, "is", and cannot be non-existent at the same time'
From these mutually exclusive states, we can build knowledge through logic.
I'm not sure I buy it whole and sole yet.
Still this is a good book to read. It will get you thinking and enjoying Philosophy again.
Read
June 1, 2020Excellent book! Gives a simple insight into the world of objectivism. Knowing truth is both possible and probable despite the claims of the naysayers.
December 29, 2021
Basic intro into what is true.
April 22, 2017
I give the book three stars which means it met my expectations. If you're looking for a book that gives the very basic first step to learning about or studying philosophy then I think you'll like the book.
As the title suggests, this is the very first step of thinking about philosophy. A lot of the book is spent defining logic. However, the author does take time to answer, using the logic and foundation of knowledge he explains first, to answer some basic paradoxes. For example, 'what is the sound of one hand clapping.'
I heard this author on a podcast and I really liked what he had to say. I thought this book might help me evaluate some of my political beliefs (one way or the other) but that is not what this particular book is for. It's much more basic.
As the title suggests, this is the very first step of thinking about philosophy. A lot of the book is spent defining logic. However, the author does take time to answer, using the logic and foundation of knowledge he explains first, to answer some basic paradoxes. For example, 'what is the sound of one hand clapping.'
I heard this author on a podcast and I really liked what he had to say. I thought this book might help me evaluate some of my political beliefs (one way or the other) but that is not what this particular book is for. It's much more basic.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews