madmax2976

I'm going to quibble with Bill just a little bit here. I consider myself a naturalist but I do not hold that the universe is "governed" by physical laws. As Bill says, perhaps in contradiction, - they are descriptions of how the world works. If they are descriptions of how the world works then all that is being said is that the universe is "governed" by descriptions of itself. This seems strange.

I think it needs to be noted that laws are not entities unto themselves. They are not energy beams or mystical forces that cause the natural world to act the way it does. They are simply our attempt at describing how we see the world in action.

bd-from-kg

boneyard bill:

In spite of the prediction in my first post, this thread has not (up to now) turned into another boring debate about presuppositionalism. We have been discussing the question of whether naturalism is self-defeating. But you seem determined to change all that now.

I have no intention of discussing (on this thread, anyway) what I think is wrong with presuppositionalism. I’ll reply to your comments that go to the question of whether naturalism is a reasonable position, but I don’t intend to pursue the subject further unless you want to argue (like scilvr) that naturalism is unreasonable because it is self-defeating. With that understanding, here goes.

True and false. A naturalist, like anyone else who reasons, must assume that reason is valid. But no one with any sense tries to prove that reason is valid. How could anyone who does not already accept the validity of reason be persuaded of it by any conceivable argument? Any such attempt is transparently circular.

The naturalist as such is no more obliged to “account” for reason than he is obliged to “account” for the existence of Neptune. Naturalists typically try to describe the natural world as accurately as possible. This does not involve a presumption that they can account for all aspects of it, or why it’s the way it is in any ultimate sense. At best they account for certain features in terms of other features. For example, things fall because of gravity. Any attempt to account for all features in this way would obviously be circular.

In any case, it’s not clear that the term “reason” refers to anything that really needs to be “accounted for”. If by “reason” you mean logic, there’s nothing to explain. Logic is valid by definition. For example, if you ask me how I “know” that if all men are mortal and Socrates is a man, Socrates must be mortal, I would reply that I know because I understand what “all” means. What exactly needs to be “accounted for” here?

On the other hand, things like the Principle of Induction are not true by definition. But neither are they really “true” at all; they aren’t even the sort of thing that is capable of being true of false. They are simply “principles of action”. The Principle of Induction just says: if you observe that a pattern (such as A being followed by B) has occurred repeatedly, expect it to occur again. Similarly, Occam’s Razor says: go with the simplest explanation that fits the facts. The Principle of Induction doesn’t claim that the pattern observed will occur in the future, nor does Occam’s Razor claim that the simplest explanation is the correct one. So an “account” of these principles cannot be an account of why they are true; it can only be an account of why it is sensible to follow the advice they offer. I believe that a naturalist is able to give such an account.

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If you mean that the naturalist does not believe that “reason” is an entity that “exists” in the natural world (like atoms, stars, etc.), you’re right. If you mean that the naturalist does not consider such things as logic, the principle of induction, and Occam’s Razor to be valid methods of arriving at accurate descriptions of some aspects of the natural world, you’re wrong. If you mean that the naturalist does not believe that any entities in the natural world are capable of applying such things as logic, the principle of induction, and Occam’s razor to arrive at reasonably accurate descriptions of some aspects of the natural world, you’re again wrong. If you don’t mean any of these things, I honestly have no idea what you do mean.

Yes, you can. His argument about the “Rule” aims to show that naturalism is self-defeating: that it contains within itself rational grounds for rejecting it. His point about the impossibility of justifying the Principle of Induction, etc. shows only that it is impossible to use reason to “prove” the validity of reason. This is a problem common to all philosophical theories.

A clear indication that these are distinct arguments is that I, like most philosophers, consider the first argument to be unsound but the second perfectly sound.

Reason isn’t “in” nature; beings capable of reasoning are. Evolutionary theory provides an explanation of how such beings might have come to exist. But you’re quite wrong in supposing that the purpose of evolutionary theory is to prove the validity of reason, or that evolutionists use it for this purpose. The most that can be said is that, if reason is valid, evolutionary theory is probably true, and if evolutionary theory is true, we have an explanation for how beings capable of reasoning came to exist. That is, the naturalist’s position is consistent. Contrary to Plantinga’s claims, naturalism does not contain within itself grounds for rejecting it.

Ordinarily a position is called “coherent” if it is logically consistent. But evidently you mean more than this. Apparently you consider a position to be “coherent” only if it can “prove” on its own terms that it is true. But this is exactly backward. Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem tells us that any system that can prove on its own terms that it is true must necessarily be false. So the fact that naturalism cannot prove on its own terms that it’s true is a necessary condition for its being true.

boneyard bill

bd-from-kg writes:

I agree but then the reliability of reason must be included among the fundamental axioms of the system.

Again, I agree, but in this context, the term reason refers to the reliability of our reason. Perhaps I should have made that clear. When I have used terms like reason and inference, I am referring to the reliability of these processes.

I mean that the naturalist has not included the reliability of reason among his fundamental axioms.

The question is, can creatures capable of reliable reasoning processes arise from non-rational processes? The naturalist says they can.
Lewis' rule says they cannot. How does the naturalist defeat Lewis' rule? He claims evolution by non-rational (but also non-arbitrary mechanisms). But how does the rationalist know that these creatures' reason is reliable? He doesn't. He has assumed that reliability from the outset. This is how the two points relate. The naturalist claims to have defeated Lewis' rule, but he has not actually done so. The question here is not the existence of reason, but its reliability. The naturalist has not included the reliability of reason within her fundamental description of the world whereas the theist has. The naturalist wants to assume the reliability of reason but doesn't want to pay the ontological cost.

"If human reason is valid," we now have a postulate rather than an axiom. But that's progress. But now let's include that postulate in our fundamental description. We now have a non-rational mechanistic world in which human reason is valid. Given that starting point we can show how valid human reason evolved from these mechanistic processes.

But you've shown nothing of the sort. You're saying that valid human reason "evolved" from a condition in which it was already present. It's part of the fabric of your theory. You haven't shown that reliable reason isn't integral to nature in the first place. In fact, you've included it. This is the problem naturalism faces. Naturalists want to leave their primary assumption (that human reason is valid) dangling in some limbo so they can only pull it out only when they need it.

If you include the validity of human reason in your fundamental description you have to pay an ontological price. I don't think that price is necessarily a theistic one. I even think there might be a naturalistic solution. But there isn't a materialist solution, and that's how it appears that the term naturalism is being used in this discussion.

boneyard bill

Turtonm writes:

Thanks for the links. The points you make are interesting, but I think you are addressing a different level of discourse. I don't think anyone here is questioning the pragmatic reliability of our cognitive processes. The question is, if we're going to try to explain the ultimate nature of our existence, do we need a concept like God, for example, to do it? And if so, what nature must we attribute to God? Or can impersonal mechanistic processes account for what we know better than the reliance on metaphysical concepts?

As you know from our past discussions I do not favor either the materialist or the theistic positions. I don't think materialism adequately accounts, even in principle, for the world we actually live in. On the other hand, theism accounts for too much. I cannot reconcile an omnipotent, omniscient, and totally benevolent deity with the world as we experience it.

Vorkosigan

Well, maybe you expect too much . Why should materialism be expected to supply an adequate account of the universe at this stage of the game. The issue is potential. Materialism can potentially supply an adequate account, based on its proven ability to account for much reality. The same cannot be said of theism.

Michael

thefugitivesaint

I don't see why a materialist description of "the world we live in" would not be an adequate one. I don't buy into dubious dualistic approaches to such questions. Given time, i believe that their will be a well detailed materialist description of our world. As Michael already stated, a materialistic description of reality has potential.

Vorkosigan

The question is, can creatures capable of reliable reasoning processes arise from non-rational processes? The naturalist says they can. Lewis' rule says they cannot. How does the naturalist defeat Lewis' rule? He claims evolution by non-rational (but also non-arbitrary mechanisms). But how does the rationalist know that these creatures' reason is reliable? He doesn't. He has assumed that reliability from the outset. This is how the two points relate. The naturalist claims to have defeated Lewis' rule, but he has not actually done so. The question here is not the existence of reason, but its reliability. The naturalist has not included the reliability of reason within her fundamental description of the world whereas the theist has. The naturalist wants to assume the reliability of reason but doesn't want to pay the ontological cost.

BB, it is clear you have misunderstood the thrust of my post. Human reasoning powers are reliable precisely because they have been honed through evolution. We have used our "reason" to find this out. There is no "ontological cost." What we have instead is ontological confirmation.

bd-from-kg

boneyard bill:

Your latest post (addressed to me) leaves me pretty much baffled. I’m not at all clear as to what your argument is.

Ordinarily when someone speaks of a “description of the world” they are referring to an ontology. But I gather that you want the reliability of reason to be a metaphysical axiom. Metaphysical axioms, by their very nature, cannot be part of one’s “description of the world”, since they define what constitutes valid evidence, valid modes of inference, etc. So they are necessarily logically prior to any ontology. Am I missing something?

What ontological cost? One almost has the impression that you regard the “reliability of reason” to be a “thing” that exists, like gravity. But this idea is logically incoherent, so again I must be misunderstanding you.

Again it seems that you want the “reliability of reason” to be a metaphysical axiom. I’m not clear about what such an axiom would look like or what its point would be. Metaphysical axioms are ordinarily understood to define (among other things) what are valid modes of reasoning (or inference). Apparently you want either an axiom that says that the other axioms do indeed define valid modes of inference, or an axiom that says that these modes are “guaranteed” to produce “true” results with some degree of reliability. An axiom of the first type would be redundant; one of the second type would be pointless. No predictions can be deduced or inferred using it. And if applying the “approved” modes of inference consistently yields false predictions, an axiom saying that this won’t happen isn’t going to help. Just the same, such an axiom would seem to be harmless; if it makes you feel better, go ahead and include it.

Not so. It would seem that you didn’t read my post on this subject carefully. I said that there was no reason to think that Lewis’s “Rule” would apply to processes that stretch out over extremely long periods of time, since we have no experience of such processes.

Of course I have. I showed that there is no justification for believing it, at least as it applies to evolution. Read Plantinga’s excruciatingly detailed discussion of “defeaters” in Naturalism Defeated if you have a few hours to kill.

Once again you seem to be under the impression that evolutionists try to “show” that human reason is valid by appealing to evolution. As I pointed out before, this is false. All that can be said is that if human reason is valid, evolutionary theory (which was discovered by applying this valid human reason) shows how this situation might have come about. The (apparent) fact that human reason is valid isn’t even predicted by evolutionary theory, any more than the existence of horses is. Both are merely consistent with the theory. Thus, just as the existence of horses is not evidence against evolution and evolution is not evidence against the existence of horses, so the existence of valid human reason is not evidence against evolution and evolution is not evidence against the existence of valid human reason. The naturalist/evolutionist just objects to the attempts of people like Lewis, Taylor, and Plantinga to use the theory of evolution to show that naturalism is self-defeating.

How could human reason, valid or otherwise, have been “present” in a state in which there were no humans?

What does it mean to say that reliable reason is (or isn’t) integral to nature?

I don’t know about other naturalists, but I put things like the Principle of Induction and Occam’s Razor right up there near the top of my metaphysical axioms. As I pointed out before, nothing needs to be assumed about logic. And of course I assume that I’m sane – at least sane enough to understand what basic terms of logic mean and apply the definitions correctly, to understand the POI and OR, etc. How does this constitute leaving these assumptions dangling in some limbo?

Also, consider this statement from the Encyclopedia Britannica article on “naturalism”:

Nature could hardly be knowable at all, much less “completely” so, if human reason were not valid. So contrary to your statement, the assumption that human reason is valid is an integral part of naturalism.

It should also be noted that naturalism is normally understood to exclude theism, and this has certainly been implicit in the discussion here. In fact, in the final analysis the discussion has been about whether it is rational to believe that nature is in principle knowable (by humans) without presupposing the existence of God.

I’m still not clear what the problem is to which you think there is no materialist solution, but in any case “naturalism” is not synonymous with “materialism”, nor is it being taken as synonymous in this discussion.

Let’s look at the EB again, this time the article on “materialism”: It defines it as:

Strictly speaking, materialism doesn’t imply naturalism, and naturalism certainly does not imply materialism.

bd-from-kg

Bill Snedden:

You said a while back:

I think that you’re misunderstanding Plantinga here (although his own sloppiness in presenting his argument is largely to blame). What he really seems to mean is that the probability of R is low given N and E and the obvious fact that our cognitive faculties appear to be reliable. Otherwise the argument wouldn’t amount to much. For example, if all we know about a species is that it is a product of evolution, the probability that its cognitive faculties reliably produce true beliefs might (so far as we know) be quite low. Or alternatively, if we are told only that an evolutionary process has been in progress on a given planet for a few billion years, the probability that it has produced a species capable of rational thought is “inscrutable”. But we are not some unknown species, nor is this an unknown planet. We have additional evidence on these questions. The main thrust of Plantinga’s argument is that this additional evidence fails to show what it appears on its face to show.

Thus Plantinga is arguing that we have no grounds for believing R in spite of the fact that, to all appearances, our cognitive faculties are functioning admirably (at least with respect to matters where survival or reproductive success are at stake). That’s why he spends so much time arguing that wildly counterintuitive possibilities such as that behavior is not caused by beliefs, or that beliefs cause behavior, but not by virtue of their content, are really reasonable and plausible (under naturalism). And that’s why I spent so much time refuting these arguments.

To all:

On the other hand, I think that Plantinga totally fails to refute the “maximal warrant” argument. Here is what he has to say on this:

He then claims that his argument is a “defeater” for R, and thus justifies abandoning belief in it. But this is ridiculous. To see this, consider the “evil demon” example, and let’s suppose, not that I come to believe it, but merely that I have no positive reason to disbelieve it. Would this justify abandoning my belief in R? Of course not. As Plantinga himself points out, abandoning R leads quickly to “epistemic disaster”. It is impossible to function as a rational agent without belief in R. So the mere fact that I have no positive grounds for believing that I am not a victim of an evil demon is hardly grounds for abandoning this belief. In fact, so far as I can see I really don’t have any positive grounds for believing that I am not the victim of an evil demon (or of scientists from Alpha Centauri or whatever). And this means that I do not have positive grounds (or at any rate not sufficient positive grounds) for believing R. So if this were a valid justification for abandoning my belief in R, I should abandon this belief right now regardless of the validity of Plantinga’s argument.

Similarly, regardless of whether I assume that God exists, I have no way of knowing that I’m not insane. I know that this is possible because, if I am sane, I know that there are people who are insane (and many of them believe themselves to be sane), and if I’m not sane, it’s possible by definition. So do I have any grounds for believing that this is not the case? No. By the nature of the case, I can’t have any such grounds. If I’m sane, I can estimate the probability that I’m insane (for example, by estimating what percentage of the population is in this condition), but if I’m insane, any estimate that I make will be meaningless. So in fact I have no idea whether I’m sane and no way to make a meaningful estimate of how likely it is that I am. According to Plantinga this constitutes a justification for abandoning the belief that I’m sane. But if this is correct, on one is justified in believing himself to be sane; it is irrational to believe that one is sane.

But as Fitelson and Sober point out, Plantinga’s argument merely (at best) shows that the probability of R given N&E is inscrutable - i.e., there is no way to figure out what it is. But all that this shows (even if the argument is correct) is that evolution provides no positive grounds for believing R. This is essentially the same conclusion that we reached above regarding the proposition that I’m sane: there’s no way to figure out what the probability is that this is true, so I have no positive grounds for believing it. And as we have seen, this is not a sufficient justification for abandoning belief in my sanity. In fact, for arbitrary A and B it is absurd to suggest that the fact that A provides no support for either B or ~B is a reason to stop believing B if we come to believe A. It is particularly absurd if B is an absolutely basic belief the abandonment of which is tantamount to insanity.

So unless one is prepared to stop believing in one’s own sanity on the grounds that one can give no positive justification for believing it, the only possible conclusion is that some beliefs are so basic that we are justified in believing them even in the face of the realization that we have no good grounds (in the normal sense) for believing them. Clearly both R and the belief that I’m sane are in this category. And therefore Plantinga’s argument that we have no good reason to believe R if we believe in naturalism and evolution fails even if we grant (as I do not) that P(R|N&E) is indeed inscrutable.

boneyard bill

bd-from-kg writes:

Sorry, I'm not trained in philosophy so perhaps I am using some philosophical terms incorrectly. I will go back to the starting point of our discussion which is that you have mischaracterized Lewis' argument. You are claiming that Lewis is making two separate arguments while I claim he is making a single argument. Let's look at what Lewis says:

But Lewis anticipates a refutation of this rule. This, I think, is the key to why this must be seen as a single argument. He doesn't claim that his rule is irrefutable. He accepts that it is. But he claims that the refutation also leads to an unacceptable conclusion.

You respond to this by challenging Lewis' rule and claiming that there is no reason to believe it.

I will concede the point about intuition. The question is, have you successfully defeated Lewis' rule. Yes you have, but you have defeated in just the way that he has already responded to. You have simply added an extended time period to the argument. Your refutation of Lewis argument leads to the same unacceptable conclusion that Lewis has already anticipated.

Later, in a post in response to me, you claim that the theist and the naturalist are in the same boat on this question, and posted the following quotation:

Essentially, you are claiming that one must presuppose reliable reason in order to carry on any sort of rational discussion whatsoever. Of course, this is true in a certain sense. But the theist and the naturalist are not in the same boat. The difference is that the theist claims that reliable reason is in nature from the beginning. This is what I meant by a fundamental axiom. Perhaps that is not the right word. In any case, reliable reason is not a pre-supposition for the theist. The original theistic description of the world includes it.

Such is not the case for the naturalist. The naturalistic description of the world makes no room for reliable reason. There is no basis for the naturalist claim other than the bald necessity to accept it or give up reasoning altogether.

But this claim, this presuppostion, implies something about the nature of the universe being described. After all, it is quite impossible for creatures capable of reliable reason to arise in a universe that couldn't be reliably reasoned about. So the universe must have rational characteristics to begin with. But the naturalist has omitted such characteristics from her initial description. This is why she is vulnerable to the accusation that she has assumed what she set out to prove while the theist is not.

By separating Lewis' argument into two separate arguments, you obscure the fact that Lewis accepted the validity of your refutation but pointed out that it still led to an unacceptable conclusion. Thus you can say that you disagree with Lewis' first argument but agree with his second. But Lewis says the same thing! He starts with the rule but admits that there is a valid response. But that response, though valid, still leads to an unacceptable conclusion. And you agreed with that. As you stated in another response to me:

So does Lewis. It is the consequences of the refutation of the first argument that are the key to his argument.

Perhaps by avoiding philosophical terms which I may sometimes misuse, I have been able to make my point more clear.