BEANO

This is a great website. It's extremely difficult to find people who are willing to sit down, and engage in some real philosophical dialouge.

After reading through many of these messages, i'm a bit suprised to find the lack foundations offered the naturalist and humanist philosophical systems. In fact, I would even propose that not only do they amount to little more then arbirary faith commitments, but they destoy reason, and human dignity-something which many of you what to adhere to. As a philosopher, I'm committed to having some kind of coherent epistimological basis for any system that is offered (as I'm sure many of you are)-but where is the basis for naturalism?

To illustrate, if the natural universe is all that there is, then how do we logically account for the statement "The natural universe is all that there is"? If that's true, then everything that happens in the naturalist's conception of the universe happens as a result of certain natural processes actinging in accordance with other natural processes, and therefore my every thought is simply the workings of electro-chemical reactions to particular stimuli, etc., etc. I'm sure few of you would argue this to be the case. But then, what are we debating for? After all, everything that everyone says is simply the result of naturalistic processes, including the statement "The natural universe is all that there is", as well as the statement "The Christian God is real". Both claims are simply the result of a natural process that occurs within the mind of the one making the statement, and niether can be shown to be true or false. So naturalism, could never be known to be true by the natrualist proponent, because whatever he thinks is bound by the laws of nature. How is naturalism superior to Christianity, when on it's own philosophical terms, neither can be known to be true or false.

How is this materialist system any more then the arbitrary faith claim that Christians are accused have? It seems to me that the Christian conception of reality is the only thing that can save (philosohically speaking) that which is universally taken for granted-like logic, reason, human dignity, ethics, etc. How does any materialist worldveiw account for the non-material laws of logic, or anything else for that matter?

Synaesthesia

BEANO,

There has been quite a bit of debate over the statement of philosophical naturalism posited on the infidels homepage. Suffice it to say that the majority of participants to not agree with it.

Now Philosophical Naturalism is defined amongst philosophers as the doctrine that there is no first philosophy. In other words, we have to improve philosophy in any way we can. As such, we cannot accept any given foundation to our philosophy because that would exclude the possibility of improving upon that foundation.

As for the logical existence of the universe, we really have no way at this time of answering that question. As steven Hawkings famously pointed out, asking what was before time is like asking what is on the surface of the earth, one mile north of the north pole. We currently lack the conceptual framework to answer questions like "where did existence come from" because we really don't know what we mean by existence.

This is, of course, not a problem uniquely faced by philosophical naturalism but by all humans who have the burning desire to understand the universe. In this respect, the theist and atheist stand very much in the same boat.

[ November 11, 2002: Message edited by: Synaesthesia ]</p>

Psycho Economist

I'm of the opinion that metaphysical naturalism, as it's applied, isn't a top-down approach at a secular philosophy disproving the supernatural so much as it is a bottom-up set of assumptions that are necessary for empirical determinations of causation to work.

To restrict cause-and-effect relationships to natural phenomena has the side-effect of implying deities out of existance (or at least into impotence), but it gives us the power to say that natural phenomenon A under circumstances B causes natural phenomenon C. To allow the supernatural into the equation would allow A & B to be short-circuited: spirit D could bring about natural phenomenon C, regardless. That would make systematic examination of the world futile (unless you're a deist).

It would literally put us in the world of the Far Side cartoon where the mathematician has two-sides of an equation held together by a big box with "THEN A MIRACLE HAPPENS" written inside.

(Welcome to IIDB, by the way...)

[ November 11, 2002: Message edited by: Psycho Economist ]</p>

Clutch

Beano,

Would you mind reorganizing your point into an argument with premises and conclusion? I don't see what the problem is supposed to be. Thanks, and welcome.

Psycho Economist

If I might try to characterize (not as a syllogolistically, but just in my own words) his arguments...

1. Metaphysical naturalism, by virtue of defining the universe in terms of natural phenomena, inherantly cannot disprove the existance of supernatural objects and agents.

2. Metaphysical naturalism, by virtue of "explaining away" consciousness as an outgrowth of natural phenomena, regards experience as subjective and therefore cannot objectively prove anything... especially the existance of reality.

Please, correct me if I'm wrong. Unless I take a swing at verbalizing your argument myself, I'm not going to get it either.

And unless you want clutch calling you on fallacious conditional reasoning, I'd put your reply (to him) in syllogistic form.

[ November 11, 2002: Message edited by: Psycho Economist ]</p>

xeren

I like that.

Maybe I'm missing something. Please explain to me why naturalistic processes cannot be shown to arrive at the truth.

How do naturalistic processes like, as you said "the workings of electro-chemical reactions to particular stimuli" not arrive at the truth, while the Christian conception of reality does?

[ November 11, 2002: Message edited by: xeren ]</p>

Vorkosigan

LOL.

You're like a breath of fresh air, Clutch.

Clutch

Thanks, Vork. Yes, I am gaseous, hard to find in most major cities, and only good for, at most, a minute and a half.

BEANO

Hi Synaesthesia,
Thank you for replying. I want to point out you just gave a foundation to your system when you answered: "we cannot except any given foundation to our philosophy because that would exclude the possibility of improving on that foundation". You haved assumed two very profound points in your doctrine of naturalism that I wish to adress.
1) You've assumed the foundational "non-foundation" of naturalism-that is, you already seem to know what it can and cannot be. That seems to imply right there that you have a precommittment to an underlying philosophy of the universe (a conceptual foundation) by which you are able to construct a philosophy of naturalism.
2) In your veiw of naturalism, you seem to think that you can "IMPROVE" upon a foundation that offers no room for improvement, because the very system itself discourges it. There is no basis for improvement, so you don't even know what it means to improve something, or what an "improved" something looks like. It's like saying "I'm going to improve the 2009 model Chevy S-10". But if pressed on how I'm going to do that, I would need to reply "I don't know-I don't know what it looks like"!

It's not that we lack the conceptual framework ONLY for the questions of "existence" and "what was there before time"-on the naturalist veiw, we lack the conceptual framework for EVERYTHING.

Interesting discussion-thank you.
BEANO

BEANO