punkforchrist

You're right. The Presuppositionalist ought to argue against both subsets of materialism. However, the prevailing view in the most prominent exchanges I've followed (except for the Frame-Martin exchange) is that materialism is synonymous with the belief that all things that exist are physical.

Jade, I'm honestly not sure what the criticism is here. Presuppositionalists don't assume (or presuppose ) that there is nothing of value within non-Christian thought. I fully recognize Einstein's contributions to science, and we are indebted to him, but that doesn't mean we can't internally critique his worldview to look for inconsistencies. Van Til put it this way: "atheists can count, but they cannot account for their counting."

Can you give me an example of this, so I can comment?

This is only done after Christianity is shown to pass the internal critique.

That's not what an internal critique is, though. A non-Christian might attempt to internally critique the Christian worldview by an appeal to the problem of evil, for example. In turn, the Christian must show how the problem of evil does not cause an inconsistency in his worldview, and further how the reality of evil presupposes a "way things ought to be", which is indicative of the existence of moral absolutes.

I hear this claimed a lot, but I rarely get to see it in action. Michael Martin attempted it with TANG, but I think that has been undermined by John Frame and Michael Butler. Nevertheless, the debate between Brian and Jim would have shed much light on the issue.

I think what you're saying is this: If Christians can say logic presupposes Christian theism, why can't the atheist say logic presupposes atheism?

Of course, if this is a reversible claim, then there ought to be evidence for it. If a given worldview is incompatible with abstract, universal, and invariant entities like logic, then it does little good to reverse the claim and say that these entities actually presuppose said worldview. If an atheistic worldview (I'm not calling atheism itself a worldview) can account for logic, then TAG has been defeated, but that's precisely the ongoing debate.

I disagree that this is the approach taken by Presuppositionalists. Bahnsen recognized that there are many alternative worldviews that must be internally critiqued (see his lectures on Islam). Further, I don't believe TAG ought to be used deductively (I actually think Bahnsen was inconsistent on these two points).

Jade

That is a trite soundbyte definition of materialism, like defining evolution by natural selection as 'survival of the fittest'. Such definitions contain a kernel of the true concept, but they are designed more as easily communicated catch-phrases than as subjects of rigorous analysis.

Indeed, depending on what you mean by "things" and "exist" (and "physical"), it is also something I could say...even though I have a rather more pluralistic ontology than you seem to think (this expression of) materialism allows.

Are you sure you are not simply misunderstanding these people when they express their worldviews (and thus unintentionally erecting a straw man)? Especially since this is a soundbyte definition? Even the most radical of nominalistic materialists appeals to immaterial things like sets and classes.
I did not say that presuppositionalists cannot (or do not) appreciate the contributions of non-Christians. In fact, they often show a rather keen appreciation of Hume's invention of the problem of induction...
There are numerous examples. The one I gave in my post (in case you missed it) was about the nature of 'Laws'. But here's another good one from your own post that is somewhat related:
You may not realize it, but you are importing your own ideas about what logic is --and the nature of its basis-- when you conduct your supposedly 'internal' critiques. This undercuts your attempt to successfully critique a non-Christian worldview; because you aren't critiquing their worldview, you're critiquing a weird hybrid of their worldview laced and larded with Christian notions. It is no surprise when such monstrosities collapse into chaos and contradiction.
I'm sorry... just going on the debates (both written and spoken) that I have seen, in actuality this is often simply asserted and/or assumed, rather than demonstrated.
Whether that is true or not, it is what presuppositionalists (in my experience) demand that non-Christians in effect do.
The problem of evil is no problem at all...if, as I said, you start from the 'understandings and perspectives (e.g. about good, evil, and the nature of God) from which Christianity seems to makes perfect sense'.
I don't think you quite understand what I was talking about.
No, you definitely don't. Here, let me try to clarify...

What you are talking about is an 'offensive move', belonging to 'step 2' rather than the defensive approach of 'step 3' (they aren't really in chronological order, I just thought they'd be clearer this way). A 'defensive move' is used to blunt or deflect an attempted internal critique, and might be something like, "ah but you didn't successfully critique Christianity because you proceeded upon a faulty understanding of it; or in other words, you knocked over a straw man". Theodicy is another example of a 'defensive move' (to counter attempts to critique Christianity via the problem of evil).

My point here is that while presuppositionalists are quick to cry foul when they think a non-Christian is importing non-Christian presuppositions and notions in their attempted internal critiques of Christianity, they are less willing to grant that they themselves might be bringing Christian presuppositions and notions with them when they critique non-Christian worldviews. Additionally, they are eager to point out flaws and mysteries and problems in other worldviews (and eager to see them as fatal to those worldviews), but are all too willing to shrug off similar flaws and mysteries and problems in Christianity as intriguing but inconsequential. For example, can you really say you fully understand how God is both one and many? If not, then why is that mystery and apparent contradiction not destructive to Christianity, but when a non-Christian cannot fully explain how the universe is both one and many this is a fatal flaw?
I (and others) have commented extensively on that very subject here at IIDB. If you like, I can look up some old posts....
Well, I suppose I was being a little unfair at the end, though there are some presuppositionalists (like Gene Cook and Paul Manata) who think the TAG is deductive, and that by 'disproving' one non-Christian worldview they have disproved them all.

Dante Alighieri

As Jade as pointed out, this depends on what you mean by "things." The world is exhaustively into particulars and universals. All that physicalist monism holds is that all actual concrete particulars are reducible to or supervenient upon the physical. This says nothing about the status of particulars. The physicalist may or may not be a nominalist; indeed, they may well be a realist. I doubt that either Stein, Tabash, or Barker were aware of "universals" much less talking about universals. And needless to say, there are powerful arguments against any form of theistic activism or theistic conceptual realism. (We've already had that discussion) [This is, by the way, what I meant when that in the process of refuting presuppositionalism, one need not bother presenting a positive case for explaining induction, morality, or universals. The debate on physicalist monism (or even the mind-body problem) is a wholly different debate than that of the problem of universals. Unless one distinguishes the two, then the presuppositionalist is simply equivocating.

See above. The two "subsets" are the conjunctions of "physicalism and nominalism" versus "physicalism and realism." The latter conjuncts of each represent an entirely different issue.

That makes a great deal more sense than a deductive construal. Technically though, that argument is not inductive, but it seems to be abductive.

This is the aspect of presuppositionalism that I never really got. Perhaps you can elaborate?

Is that even possible? Consider, for instance, the rift between Catholics, Greek Orthodox, and Protestants. Or, for instance, the variety of exegeses offered on the Bible. I can't honestly see how any "internal" critique has any hope of succeeding.

Okay.

How, exactly? Various non-Christian "worldviews" have tackled the problem of universals. The debate between nominalists and realists has been ongoing for quite a while.

Forgive me, but that sounds like sheer nonsense. First of all, there are devastating objections I find to both theistic activism and theistic conceptual realism. (We've already had that discussion) Secondly, I've no clue whatsoever how the Trinity is supposed to relate to the problem of universals. The problem of universals considers that there are particulars and are presumably exemplifications of universals, universals sort of "uniting" particulars in the sense that universals show the commonality between particulars. The Trinity consists of the doctrine that there three persons (three hypostases) which are non-identical but are identical to God. Nothing in the problem of universals involves the notion that particulars are identical with universals; indeed, they are not and cannot be. So, in what way whatsoever do these vague appeals to the Trinity somehow prove or even remotely support theistic activism or theistic conceptual realism?

punkforchrist

That may be true, but there are many who hold to that notion.

Here's a portion from the Butler/Barker debate.

They do, but that would either be an example of the kind of inconsistency that I'm talking about, or else the nominalist would have to say that these things are reducible to physical processes.

If logic is not abstract, universal, and invariant, then all the materialist has to do is explain how an alternative is cogent. It is an internal critique because the materialist will often make contradictory claims about the nature of logic. Someone may wish to say that there's nothing wrong with contradictions, but in the process I would ask: is my belief in God compatible with your non-belief? If logic is merely conventional, then can we not believe in God and not believe at the same time and in the same sense?

Let me use an analogy. If I say, "my car is in the parking lot", when it's not the case that my car is in the parking lot, then I'm engaging in a contradiction. If my friend tells me this, and I respond, "you're importing your preconceived notions of logic, so it's not a sound critique", am I not presupposing the very thing that I wanted to undermine?

What I'm trying to get it is that one may (and actually must) bring to the table his or her own presuppositions while attempting an internal critique. That's what Van Til refers to as broad circularity.

I disagree, but then again, we're coming from two different perspectives.

I'm sure this is sometimes true, but then all the materialist has to do is point out that he really does believe in the reality of immaterial things (which I find antithetical to a word like "materialism", but I don't want to quibble). Michael Martin clarified that he believes in a pluralistic ontology, so the Presuppositionalist would have to respond in light of that.

That's okay for now. I'm not actually looking to debate this, but rather to explain perhaps some of the misconceptions of Presuppositionalism.

Jade

Barker appears to be using a very different notion of logic than you are. He is using the idea of logic as a practice (e.g. the practice of evaluating arguments) -- i.e. as something done by people, like running, or playing frisbee. You have this idea of logic as a thing -- an "entity" (as per the example from your post that I highlighted). These interpretations of logic are not necessarily incompatible with each other, though they certainly provide ample room for mutual incomprehension and frustration. Yet I see nothing in Barker's words (at least the words you quoted) that justifies your implication that he is a simplistic materialist who doesn't believe in any sort of abstracta.

That said, from what I have seen of him elsewhere, Barker unfortunately is not very well versed in philosophy; and he may only have a superficial, soundbyte understanding of materialism. But then, there are Christians who only have a superficial, soundbyte understanding of Christianity. Should we split the Christian worldview into two 'subsets' (the sophisticated and the unsophisticated), and treat them both equally as serious subjects of philosophical critique (as you wish to do with materialism)? Or should we only seriously critique those expressions of Christianity that were meant to be seriously critiqued?
Why on Earth do you think nominalists would be inconsistent to believe in sets and classes? Nominalism (at least the nominalism I was referring to) is a position only with respect to universals, not other sorts of abstractions like sets and mereological sums and propositions and such.
That actually wasn't the part I was pointing out -- I was pointing out the "entities" part of your quote. Sorry, perhaps I should have used underlining.
I am afraid we have skipped past each other at some point. Let me attempt another illustration...

To start off, I will attempt to characterize your take on 'Laws of Logic' (correct me if I go wildly astray): A 'Law of Logic' is immaterial (not reducible to atoms) but nonetheless is an entity. Moreover, it 'rules' and has dominion over all things (in that it compels everything to obey its dictates -- e.g. "Thou shalt not both be and not be in the same sense at the same time"), and this dominion holds sway throughout all space and time. Given this understanding, the Laws of Logic sound almost like God (though without the personality and the flowing white beard and the obsession with foreskins).

Now, contrast this with (the quickie version of) my take on laws of logic: A law of logic is a description of the nature of existence itself, a description that happens to be true. As a description, it has no 'power' to compel reality -- reality is what it is, and the (true) description merely reflects reality. Everything everywhere 'obeys' the laws of logic because anything that exists exists, and as a true description of the nature of existence the laws will thus correspond to everything everywhere. Notably, the laws will even apply to anything that can exist (i.e. possibilia), because if they did exist then they would exist and thus be correctly described by the laws. It is no coincidence that impossible things (like square circles and married bachelors) are self-contradictory (and thus not correctly described by a law such as the law of non-contradiction).

Anyway, both conceptions of the laws of logic can make sense of logic (i.e. make reason and rational argument intelligible), though naturally I think mine is better than yours. But while your conception lends itself to theism, mine does not. When you try to critique my worldview's stance on logic, you must be careful to leave your own conception 'at the door', as it were, and instead adopt mine (temporarily); because otherwise it will invalidate your attempted 'internal' critique.

My problem (one of them anyway) with presuppositionalism as it tends to be practiced is that presuppositionalists too often are (apparently) not even aware that their theism-flavored notions (e.g. the notion of 'Laws of Logic' as sovereign entities) are not the only ways of understanding things; much as the incompatibilist-determinist in my previous post was unaware that one could think of the whole 'free will vs. determinism' debate in a completely different light. While they can (for the sake of argument) assume the axioms of a non-Christian worldview, they carry so many of their own theism-flavored notions with them that they never actually 'see' the non-Christian worldview for what it is. Instead, they see only their own worldview with the 'square peg' of the non-Christian axioms in place of the 'round (or rather, God-shaped) hole' of the Christian axioms. Their brash declarations of the unintelligibility of reason and the like given the axioms of non-Christian worldviews are thus vacuous, amounting to nothing more than someone noticing that their own worldview becomes incoherent when one removes several key presuppositions.

punkforchrist

I would listen to the debates. They were asked specifically that question. At the least they seemed uncomfortable with the idea of universals. Here's a clip from the Bahnsen/Stein debate.

I agree.

I would say it's both. TAG attempts to present Christianity as the best explanation by inductively demonstrating the incoherence of alternative worldviews one at a time. The Presuppositionalist then generalizes that non-Christian worldviews are incoherent.

"Human autonomy" simply refers to the notion of indepedence from God. It is closely related to what Van Til calls the "fallacy of neutrality"--the concept that one can reason apart from one's precommitments. An advocate of human autonomy might say, "Empirical evidence is my final standard." When asked why, he might respond that he finds no other acceptable standard. His precommitment is to human reason as the ultimate standard in questions of science, morality, the mind, and human experience in general. The Presuppositionalist argues that human autonomy is not a rational standard, but that the God of the Bible has revealed Himself and demonstrates this by the futility of human thought apart from Him. Now, that's the claim of Presuppositionalism; I'm not offering that as an argument. The only way to argue this is by appeal to an internal critique.

I'm hesitant to give to many examples, but one will suffice. As a Catholic, I would argue that the Protestant rule of sola scriptura is self-defeating, since it is not taught in the Bible.

I agree, and I'm not trying to disregard nominalism by one sweeping statement. At this point, I'm just wanting to explain what it is that's behind a Presuppositional method.

Van Til actually wasn't discussing theistic activism or theistic conceptual realism, but rather that the world's co-ultimacy of unity and plurality are expressed in God's tri-unity. The co-ultimacy solution is a reflection of God's triune nature. This argument is only convincing within a pre-existing theistic worldview. Van Til sums it up like this: "As Christians, we hold that in this universe we deal with a derivative one and many, which can be brought into fruitful relation with one another because, back of both, we have God the original one and many. If we are to have coherence in our experience, there must be a correspondence of our experience to the eternally coherent experience of God. Human knowledge ultimately rests upon the internal coherence within the Godhead; our knowledge rests upon the ontological Trinity as its presupposition" (An Introduction to Systematic Theology, pg. 23).

punkforchrist

It may be best to listen to the whole debate. In fact, his exchange with Manata makes it even clearer, since he claims that the law of non-contradiction is falsifiable.

Since Barker publicly debates, then I would say yes. The belief that all things, including abstract objects, are reducible to physical processes, is a belief held by many. I'm not saying I take this view as seriously as others, but it is a position that ought to be answered.

Further, Barker's view is consistent with a reductionistic materialism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism

I wrote a bit hastily. What I was referring to was a reductionistic materialism that entails nominalism.

I don't think I have any disagreement with this description. I don't believe that logic has any causal efficacy, but that it is a reality nonetheless.

I don't think our views on logic are radically different, but further exposition would be needed.

The problem I see with this is that if we carry it out to its logical conclusion, then there can be no internal critiques whatsoever. To offer my earlier and rather trivial example earlier, if I tell a relativist that his view if self-contradictory, could he not say the same thing?--that I am importing my own conceptions of reality? The point is not that I am presupposing my own worldview in the internal critique, but that there are many worldviews that are inconsistent, so long as they first accept some of the necessary preconditions of reason.

An illustration would go like this. Imagine John and Mike have fundamentally different worldviews. One day they go to the beach. Now, John finds it peculiar that Mike does not believe in the existence of the sun. Yet, Mike is found laying on the sand, putting on sun-tan lotion. As a result, John says, "You know, Mike, that's something that a believer in the sun would do." Notice in this illustration that John is importing his own preconceptions about the reality of the sun, but his point is still valid. It does no good for Mike to say, "well I don't accept your logic", since otherwise there would be no logical reason to put on sun-tan lotion in the first place.

Of course, your materialism is much more sophisticated, but I'm just trying to bring to surface the point that everyone has their preconceptions and everyone brings them to debate.

Jade

Barker said a lot of rather silly things (or at least seemingly silly), especially in the travesty loosely disguised as a debate that he had with Manata. I hate to say harsh things about the man, but he clearly had not prepared well and was not well versed in certain philosophical fields that were germane to that debate.
The link you gave is instructive. Pay close attention to the phrase "matter is the only substance" -- that is a critical phrase for understanding materialism and why it is compatible with abstracta and universals and such. When a materialist says "only matter exists", this phrase is only really meaningful if by "exist" you mean "is a substance". With other, broader definitions of "exist" (such as "to be is to be truthfully predicated") materialism is trivially false. The principle of charity would suggest that one ought to seek out the best and strongest possible interpretation of someone's utterances, even when they either don't understand the strength of their own position or cannot clearly express their position in its strongest form (as I think was the case with Barker in his debates).

Anyway, perhaps you have heard of substance described as a kind of pincushion, where the substance is related to the properties that are instantiated in it much as a pincushion is related to the pins that are stuck in it. Materialism, properly understood, is the rejection of types of 'pincushions' that are of a different kind from matter (perhaps in that they are not spatiotemporally located). It is not, however, a rejection of the existence of 'pins'. The 'pins' (properties) are not themselves pincushions (i.e. they are not substances, and so do not 'exist'), but that does not mean that properties (whether considered as universals, or nominalistically) are not proper and fully fledged denizens of a materialist ontology.
Not necessarily. It is possible to be aware of one's own preconceptions (to a significant extent). But one must be careful in conducting an internal critique, that is for sure. The principle of charity is key. Internal critiques are also much easier for certain stances and belief-systems than they are for others -- complex (and often rather vaguely formulated) worldviews (like Christianity) present a greater challenge to a successful internal critique than something with a few well articulated axioms. For instance, strict Empiricism is much easier to poke holes in than something like Buddhism.
Of course, if Mike cannot provide reasons from within his own 'worldview' for why he is on the beach putting on suntan lotion then his behavior is inconsistent with his 'worldview'. One need not assume the sun exists in order to listen to Mike's reasons (assuming he proffers any) and decide if they make sense on their own terms, or are otherwise consistent with Mike's broader 'worldview' and other behaviors.

Dante Alighieri

Where, here, is a discussion of universals? When Bahnsen speaks of the "laws of logic" is he speaking of the activity of reasoning generally, or of specific logical relations such as the law of noncontradiction, excluded middle, identity, and other such things? Needless to say, I'm not sure which one Stein understood Bahnsen to speaking about. Moreover, when Bahnsen asks whether these laws are universal, it's critical to note that he isn't speaking about universals (abstract objects that unite particulars and so on) but whether or not these "laws" are universal: that is, to they apply for all things? And this question itself is predicated by (a) what does Bahnsen mean when he speaks of the "laws of logic" (principles of reasoning or logical relations?) and Stein's understanding thereof. If it were principles of reasoning, then pretty clearly those are human conventions, but those are human conventions made in response to our epistemic condition. For instance, Ockham's Razor or the principle of induction. If Stein is talking about logical relations, it's pretty clear that they apply to all things, but they do so by definition; at best, the only "conventions" we have are the definitions of terms such as "implies" "contradiction" and so on, but given those definitions, those laws hold true by definition. It would be like asking "What is the explanation for all bachelors are unmarried?"

In any case though, it's pretty clear that Stein isn't well-versed in philosophy, so I doubt that he was thinking about universals.

Um, inductively? Incoherence is to show a formal contradiction such that (p & ~p); such arguments would be deductive. TAG does not attempt to address the implausibility of a position, but to demonstrate the incoherence of a position presuppositionalists disagree with. For instance, even if we take the strawman version of physicalism, then presumably (according to the presuppositionalist) it follows under that position that principles of reasoning and laws of logic are material, from which it follows that physicalism is false since neither the laws of logic nor principles of reasoning are material. So, demonstrations of incoherence are deductive arguments (since they establish a logical contradiction) not inductive.

Yes, that is an induction, but that seems like a very fallacious induction. Recall that presuppositionalism only proves a subset of Christian belief. So, the only plausible way I can see to construe TAG is abductive.

Alright then. That simply seems to refer to foundationalist epistemology.

Okay. Needless to say, I find enormous epistemological problems with that viewpoint.

Perhaps. That (at least according to Protestants) is quite debatable.

Yes, and I addressed that latter part as a nonsensical equivocation: "The problem of universals considers that there are particulars and are presumably exemplifications of universals, universals sort of "uniting" particulars in the sense that universals show the commonality between particulars. The Trinity consists of the doctrine that there three persons (three hypostases) which are non-identical but are identical to God. Nothing in the problem of universals involves the notion that particulars are identical with universals; indeed, they are not and cannot be." You have to understand: if universals hold, if anything, it reflects the nature of the world, in which particulars have similarities. Nothing about universals involves the particulars being identical to the universal, so in what way at all is the Trinity remotely relevant here?

See above. In any case, it's pretty clear that if universals exist, they exist (at least some of them) necessarily. So, in what way then are universals related to God? They can't be (we've had that discussion) so there is no argument to be made here. Moreover, what prevents, for instance, a person accepting a Quadrine ontology? Or a dual ontology? (One need only point out the enormous popularity of that position) Or so on? There seems to be nothing magical about the number "three" even if we ignore the equivocation here.

punkforchrist

I think Barker is an intelligent man, but I agree that at least some of his positions are untenable.

They are compatible if we are talking about a non-reductionistic materialism, but reductionism attempts to reduce abstract objects to matter. The latter is the kind of materialism that I most often hear defended.

I agree, which is why it is important to figure out if one is taking a non-reductionistic view of materialism, such as yourself.

The analogy is helpful. Thank you.

Right, but now suppose we factor in something else that Mike denies: logic. If he doesn't accept consistency as necessary for his worldview, is it unsound for John to bring his logical preconception into their discussion?

In this instance, he's speaking about the latter, but throughout the exchange he is referring to reasoning in general.

Right, and I think we were talking past each other on that point.

Bahnsen's point throughout is that even though our codifications of these laws are conventional, what these laws refer to is universal. He adds that if logic, in this sense, is merely conventional, then we ought to find different cultures with different standards of logic. It might be rational in one society to say, "my car is in the parking lot", when it's not the case that my car is in the parking lot.

Yes, but I'm anticipating my later statement: "The Presuppositionalist then generalizes that non-Christian worldviews are incoherent."

Fair enough. Either way, I agree that TAG cannot be deductive.

Trinitarianism doesn't assert that the plurality is identical with the unity. Rather, God is one being in three persons; there is one what and three who's. In any case, I'm not arguing that this is a sound argument, at least not entirely. If it works at all, it would only demonstrate the incoherence of belief systems like Islam, which contend that God is one in both person and being. Indeed, it does leave open the possibility of a quadrine ontology, but then again, this is not part of a broad deductive argument.

I think further discussion would be required, but as I've said, I'm not too familiar with the relevant literature.