Vorkosigan

Looks like BEANO, unable to provide coherent arguments showing that Christianity is the one true foundation for epistemology and others are false, has retired from the field.

Vorkosigan

Plump-DJ

Vork..

Evolutionary epistemology is just one big begged question and doesn't deal with the problem.

I personaly might start by saying that a case can be made for the inabaility of an atheistic cosmology to justify any knowledge claim thanks to the likes ot Hume, Descartes, Rorty and Co.

The history of epistemology shows how man attempted to justify knowledge on his own, and failed miserably. In fact he showed that if he had no help he must give up the game of knowledge all together.

Hence we seem to be left with Pragmatisim which rather then justifying knowledge simply redefines the long used term from "it's true because it correlates with reality" to "it's true cause it works".

[ November 13, 2002: Message edited by: Plump-DJ ]</p>

Jack the Bodiless

What is the question being begged?

How does it fail to deal with the problem?
Until Darwin came along...
And evolution explains just how important "cause it works" is. Our ability to process knowledge owes its existence to its functionality: it's a survival-enhancing mechanism. It roots naturalistic epistemology in the most "meaningful" of all phenomena: life and death. Those who can process knowledge with reasonable accuracy will live to pass on this trait to be refined by future generations: those who cannot will die, ending their line.

What's arbitrary about that?

Dr. Retard

This amuses me, because this is essentially the solution that Hume came up with. And he's the one who first recognized the problem of induction.

Of course, as usual, philosophers have been more interested in Hume's problems than his solutions.

[ November 13, 2002: Message edited by: Dr. Retard ]</p>

Plump-DJ

We have to be in a position to have knowledge before we can say our musings on this or that are correct or true. This goes much deeper then evolution.

Perhaps a short dialogue will indicate why I think there is a problem.

A: How can we justify knowledge?
B: Look at Evolution, here's a reason to think we have knowledge about the world.
A: Yeah, but how did you know about Evolution?
B: We used our sense perceptions to gather information about Evolution.
A: But didn't Hume and Descartes call into question the accuracy of our sense perceptions?
B: Yes they did, but I see no reason to doubt that my sense perception is giving me *some* knowledge about reality. They prove themselves everyday.
A: Well I think the problems of Hume & Descartes are quite serious in regards to the justification of knowledge. Hume mentioned that causes are not like effects. Think about how different a flame is to a match, or the chemicals that ignite the fire? But if our senses are caused by the world around us what reason do we have for thinking that any sesne perceptions we have bears any resemblance to the data about evolution. I understand that we believe it to be the case but how can we justify that? What reason do we have for thinking, in light of Hume's and Descartes problems that we know anything about Evolution. Do we simply take it on faith?

Now let's for a small moment imagine that God exists and that theism is true. If that were the case then we could say in response to that justification question "Because God created me to know the world and the world to be known. Therefore I have a reason for thinking I know things about Evolution." But without help from God what reaosn can we give to that question because it seems there *is* no reason why this universe came to be or why any thing is like any thing?

Well i don't think it's arbitray, i'm simply saying it proves that we've given up on the game of knowledge cause we couldn't beat it. As Rorty notes..

“For the pragmatist, true sentences are not true because they correspond to reality, and so there is no need to worry what sort of reality, if any, a given sentence corresponds to – no need to worry about what “makes” it true. … He drops the notion of truth as correspondence with reality altogether, and says that modern science does not enable us to cope because it corresponds, it just plain enables us to cope.” (“Consequences of Pragmatism” p.xvi-xvii)

[ November 13, 2002: Message edited by: Plump-DJ ]</p>

HaysooChreesto!

No, no, no. Christians simply make the mistake of presupposing that a god exists and that the bible is is the unerring word of that god...God is perfect, therefore his book is perfect, therefore the resurrection story is true and accurate.
This argument from authority has enough holes to strain four tons of pasta-rotini pasta at that, because rotini is circular as well as your logic.
Presuppositions of the supernatural kind are hopeless and tend to turn the Christian argument into an agnostic one.

HaysooChreesto!

I've never heard that logic was supernatural. Either that or El Beano has a very strange interpretation of the words natural and supernatural.
As someone else pointed out, naturalsim is not the philosophy that ALL atheists adhere to. Please do check out objectivism (Ayn Rand the obvious authority) and if you Christians are really feeling crazy, pick up a book called "Atheism, the Case Against God", by George H Smith.

[ November 13, 2002: Message edited by: Lamma ]</p>

Vorkosigan

Evolutionary epistemology is just one big begged question and doesn't deal with the problem.

Details, please.

Yes, Dr. Retard, that was Hume's solution, because it is the only possible solution. But he couldn't say why, and he didn't do any experiments to see if in fact humans do have in-built processing systems/biases

Vorkosigan

I personaly might start by saying that a case can be made for the inabaility of an atheistic cosmology to justify any knowledge claim thanks to the likes ot Hume, Descartes, Rorty and Co.

Can you describe this "athiestic cosmology?" As far as I know, atheism entails a lack of belief in gods, it says nothing about cosmology, save that it doesn't haev anything to do with gods.

SanDiegoAtheist

I find CP quite silly for the simple reason that a presuppositionalist needs to make at LEAST one more basic presupposition than the naturalist to even be able to PRESENT their case.

Is there anyway to 'absolutely' justify knowledge?

No. We COULD be simply constructs in a Matrix-like system.

Is this a problem? Nope. Why? Because it applies to everyone equally, and there is simply no getting around it. A Christian can SAY that their 'presuppositionalism' requires a Deity to justify knowledge, but by doing so, they have ALREADY made the same properly basic presuppositions that the naturalist has:

1) That 'I' exist.
2) That the 'universe' exists.
3) That what 'I' perceive of the 'universe' is to a large degree accurate.

To this, a presuppositionalist adds:

4) Ergo, God created 'I' & the 'universe' because without a 'God' how would I know 'I' was 'I'?

The naturalist simply says that 1-3 above are simply assumed to be true - but they are assumed to be true just as much by the theist as by the nontheist. Without assuming 1-3 to be true, the theist could not even SPECULATE about 4.

It is true that theism DOES give an 'answer' for why 1-3 might be true - but theism purports to have a lot of 'answers' that may or may not be true. Essentially, it's the God of the Gaps all over again - if we do not have an answer, it's "Goddidit".

I don't KNOW why 1-3 should be true. I don't even know IF they are true. I only know that to make any sense out of the universe, I must BEHAVE as if they are true - but the theist must as well, and, more importantly, to draw any conclusions at all about 1-3, they must PRESUPPOSE 1-3 BEFORE they can make the leap to an explanation of 'Goddidit'.

Cheers,

The San Diego Atheist