tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post5458875042410550500..comments2023-10-26T22:06:11.166+11:00Comments on Metamagician3000: Currently reading - Plantinga v. DennettRussell Blackfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12431324430596809958noreply@blogger.comBlogger29125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-52100718836091597622012-01-17T07:46:29.923+11:002012-01-17T07:46:29.923+11:00Also, Verbose Stoic, you might be forgetting about...Also, Verbose Stoic, you might be forgetting about Quine's thesis about the indeterminacy of translation. Broadly put, it states that the same physical evidence can be interpreted equally well by two or more incompatible explanatory frameworks. I mention this because you suggest (though don't quite formulate) such a hypothesis, but you add "the not-so-odd assumption that at most one of them can be right." But Quine's point--and, indeed, one of the basic ideas of pragmatism--is that there is no sense in claiming that at most one can be right. If they both are equally good at explaining the evidence, then they are both equally right.<br /><br />You might say this is absurd, because it means that a person from the "outside", as it were, is in just as good of a position to interpret your behavior as you are. But remember the stipulation: the two interpreters make equally good predictions about your physical behavior. So, yes, if another person can predict your own behavior just as well as you can, then what basis do you have for claiming that they are wrong? You might say that you have been fooling them, but that is something they will have predicted, too, isn't it?<br /><br />Perhaps it is impossible to imagine being able to predict people's behavior that well, but the theoretical point remains, and it is a great example of pragmatic reasoning.Jason Streitfeldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06950357341620206095noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-61389952516604267072012-01-17T03:44:03.996+11:002012-01-17T03:44:03.996+11:00Verbose Stoic,
As a matter of fact, I think the m...Verbose Stoic,<br /><br />As a matter of fact, I think the main problem with EAAN is entirely to do with the extent to which our beliefs are understandable in terms of observable behavior. That's the argument I laid out against Plantinga on my blog. (See earlier post for link.) You disagree, which is fine, but I don't know why you disagree. Again, see the link to my blog post for my argument. I'll be happy to try to explain myself further, if you still want me to.<br /><br />You argue that if I allow for a distinction between privately and publicly observable behavior, then my position is no different from Plantinga's. I do acknowledge such a distinction, but it is not the same as Plantinga's. In my view, the public/private distinction is a practical one. There are practical limitations on what is publicly observable. Since there is nothing about our private behavior which it inherently private, private behavior can still be selected for.<br /><br />As for being able to mislead people about all of your beliefs all of the time: No, I really don't think so. I'm well aware that Plantinga's argument is not about fooling people, but about having a set of completely false beliefs. My point was that, if you understand why you cannot mislead everybody about all of your beliefs all of the time, then you will understand what is wrong with Plantinga's argument. It is not possible to live and communicate in a community with a shared language without sharing at least some beliefs, and without those shared beliefs being known.Jason Streitfeldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06950357341620206095noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-75230811882002316252012-01-17T02:57:38.039+11:002012-01-17T02:57:38.039+11:00Jason,
"I should also mention that, while it...Jason,<br /><br />"I should also mention that, while it is obvious that we can fool others about some of our beliefs some of the time, I don't think we can fool people about all of our beliefs all of the time. That's the difference that undermines Plantinga's argument."<br /><br />1) In principle, you absolutely can, as long as you know how to act in all cases.<br /><br />2) Plantinga's argument doesn't rely on fooling, but on building a consistent set of false beliefs that happen to produce the right public behaviours most of the time. CBT suggests that a lot of mental problems are produced by just those sorts of consistent belief systems that break down in specific cases. If those cases are never hit, evolution could not filter those belief systems out since they'd be successful.Verbose Stoichttp://verbosestoic.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-61758576864605357152012-01-17T02:55:33.516+11:002012-01-17T02:55:33.516+11:00Jason,
"The issue is the degree to which our...Jason,<br /><br />"The issue is the degree to which our understanding of beliefs is a matter of observable behavior."<br /><br />No, actually, it isn't, at least not for me and I suspect not for Chalmers and anyone else you're calling out on this. It's about what beliefs really are, not about how we get access to them.<br /><br />Returning, though, to discussions more directly relevant to Plantinga, recall that your initial comment was that your model allowed you to avoid the sorts of misunderstandings that he uses to build his case. I don't think that you can build a model that works to explain misleading and doesn't leave him the same sort of moves. Let's divide up "observable behaviour" into two main types: publicly observable and privately observable. Now, if you claim that we observe our own behaviour only through publicly observable behaviour, you can't explain misleading without taking the odd position that if the public observable behaviour says "Believes X" then that's what they believe regardless of the privately observable behaviour (inner speech, deliberation, introspection, etc, etc). You seem to be trying to avoid that by claiming that you can include privately observable behaviour in your behaviourism. Putting aside that it seems like you then don't really have any difference from the models you're rejecting, this move is what allows Plantinga to make his move. After all, it allows for having two different sets of beliefs -- identified by differing private behaviour -- that are identical at the level of public behaviour. Evolution can only select on the basis of public behaviour, and thus can't select between them. Add the not-so-odd assumption that at most one of them can be right, and you've opened the door to a set of false beliefs being selected for by evolution because they happen to mimic the same behaviour as the true set would. At which point you've hit Plantinga's starting point.Verbose Stoichttp://verbosestoic.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-77307702816354922312012-01-16T20:12:55.467+11:002012-01-16T20:12:55.467+11:00I should also mention that, while it is obvious th...I should also mention that, while it is obvious that we can fool others about some of our beliefs some of the time, I don't think we can fool people about all of our beliefs all of the time. That's the difference that undermines Plantinga's argument.Jason Streitfeldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06950357341620206095noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-4793130294812954382012-01-16T11:36:51.514+11:002012-01-16T11:36:51.514+11:00I am currently reading Hitchens "God Is Not ...I am currently reading Hitchens "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything". He makes some very salient points against the marriage of science and religion. While conceding that the origins of science were founded in religion, Hitchens goes on to elaborate on how the church then chastised and punished those that studied science if the material contradicted church idealogy.<br /><br />The contradictions are clearly and logically explained by Hitchens and seem to also dismiss Platingas fence sitting mentioned here.Andgnatnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-8187782100948659492012-01-16T11:08:28.403+11:002012-01-16T11:08:28.403+11:00The issue is the degree to which our understanding...The issue is the degree to which our understanding of beliefs is a matter of observable behavior. If you concede that our understanding of other people's beliefs <i>is</i> limited to observable behavior, then you grant that, for the vast majority of cases, we are all behaviorists. The question Ockham raises is, why claim that our understanding of our <i>own</i> beliefs is any different? <br /><br />Maybe because of private access?<br />I noted earlier that there are cases where we have private access to our own beliefs. We certainly can mislead people about our beliefs. But that doesn't mean our understanding of our own beliefs is of a different sort than our understanding of other people's beliefs. It just means that we often have better information about our selves than what is available to other people. But how do we get that information? From observing our behavior. <br /><br />We have access to our own behaviors which nobody else has. This is a matter physiology--as I wrote earlier, it's because of the way our bodies are built, and not an essential feature of mental contents.<br /><br />So how do I account for the first-person point of view? Well, I think the logic of first-person language is complex, involving (at the very least) issues about social identity, agency and responsibility, as well as epistemological and phenomenological issues. I don't have a simple account of first-person discourse on hand to offer. But I think it's clear enough that we do have privileged access to certain of our behaviors, and this allows us to often (though also often not) form uniquely accurate predictions about ourselves. We can explain why it is possible to mislead people about our beliefs, and we can do so in terms of observable behavior.<br /><br />By the way, I'm not advocating a form of functionalism. In my view (and Ryle's view), beliefs are not things which could play a functional role in any sort of process. Beliefs aren't things in that sense.Jason Streitfeldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06950357341620206095noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-44953133410573305822012-01-16T08:46:20.313+11:002012-01-16T08:46:20.313+11:00Jason,
On your first point, no, the misleading ex...Jason,<br /><br />On your first point, no, the misleading example doesn't support behaviourism because no one is denying that beliefs play a causal role in our behaviour, or that if I want to try to get at what someone else believes I'm limited to looking at their third-person observable behaviour. That's not where the clash between the theories is. The clash between the theories is over what it means to be a belief, and the third-person observable behaviour or a set of inferences about what behaviour you might see are not what it means to be a belief, or else you run into the real objection which is that you are committed to saying that what you observe as the belief even in misleading cases is what they really believe, misleading notwithstanding, which is a bit odd.<br /><br />On the second point, you can add as much into behaviour as you want and I'll still be able to fake having a belief that I don't have, so it doesn't save you unless you include things that will leave the door open for the kinds of moves you say you've escaped with that view.<br /><br />Note that even people like myself and Plantinga can adopt the intentional stance as a useful stance, and that you can also take a functionalist position on belief which defines it by the role it plays without having to get down to physical states or be strictly behaviourist. However, that functionality will have to include the first-person stuff to actually accurately describe things like misleading.<br /><br />Finally, no one needs to hold that one has perfect access to their own beliefs. Even conceding that, we can still say that sometimes we can get beliefs from the first-person view that you can't get from the third-person view.Verbose Stoichttp://verbosestoic.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-65214304650150639442012-01-15T20:30:32.816+11:002012-01-15T20:30:32.816+11:00I just found an interesting response to Plantinga&...I just found an interesting response to Plantinga's EAAN: http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/wesley_robbins/contraplantinga.html<br /><br />It's very similar to my own.Jason Streitfeldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06950357341620206095noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-25643849339142849602012-01-15T12:30:13.922+11:002012-01-15T12:30:13.922+11:00I have just been reading 'The Passion of the W...I have just been reading 'The Passion of the Western Mind' by Richard Tarnas, and it beats me how anyone who is religious can reconcile those beliefs with scientific belief. The only way one could possibly manage it is to say that science is about empirically verifiable evidence and religion is about non-empirically verifiable faith (an inner subjective belief) - in which case it has to inhabit a separate part of the brain...and therefore never the twain shall meet. Or, as others above have commented, the concept of "God" is so watered down as to be meaningless anyway.Legal Eaglehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01096038577529334966noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-77625311380341013702012-01-15T11:22:24.478+11:002012-01-15T11:22:24.478+11:00"I rather think that theism is at root, and b..."I rather think that theism is at root, and by necessity, unintelligible."<br /><br />I agree, Jason. As I argued above (I'm the Anonymous up there^) creationist claims can be "compatible with science" only by being virtually devoid of any information. The believers never make any attempt to define God beyond "some kind of omniscient, omnipotent, immaterial being who created the universe" and provide us with no scientifically meaningful definitions of these characteristics, let alone descriptions of how they work. It's not enough to say this immaterial god (whatever that's supposed to be) is "all powerful" and can thus create a material universe - there must be *some way* that he did this, and asking for a reasonably detailed description of it is just asking for some way to rationally and/or scientifically assess this claim. <br /><br />Those believers who say these things are simply "unknown" or "unknowable" are really saying: "we can offer no information content for the basic terms (God, Creation, immaterial etc) we're using, and so might as well be talking about nothing." What these believers actually "believe" is very much less than they've somehow convinced themselves.Bubblecarnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-56285667032361967152012-01-15T05:35:42.320+11:002012-01-15T05:35:42.320+11:00I forgot to comment on Plantinga's first thesi...I forgot to comment on Plantinga's first thesis, and Russell's reaction to it: I think it's conceding way too much to claim that God is a logical possibility. What, exactly, is "God" supposed to mean there? I'm not saying no coherent answer to that question is possible, but I wouldn't assume that a coherent answer is forthcoming. More, I don't think that any coherent notion of God is capable of doing the work required of it by the world's major religions. I rather think that theism is at root, and by necessity, unintelligible.Jason Streitfeldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06950357341620206095noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-59138014455858679582012-01-15T05:11:59.094+11:002012-01-15T05:11:59.094+11:00Verbose Stoic, I think that's the objection to...Verbose Stoic, I think that's the objection to behaviorism that David Chalmers primarily relies on. In any case, I don't think it's a forceful objection. <br /><br />First, the very fact that people can mislead people about their beliefs through their behavior is evidence <i>in support of</i> behaviorism: It implies that people understand beliefs (at least to some extent) on the basis of observable behavior. The question then is whether that is the full extent of our understanding of beliefs, or if there is something more. I think Ockham stands in favor of behaviorism.<br /><br />Second, the objection relies on an impoverished version of behaviorism, where mental contents are supposed to have a one-to-one relationship to observable behaviors. The more robust forms of behaviorism aren't like that. The same behavior is not necessarily evidence of the same belief. <br /><br />I'm a fan of Ryle's view, where attributions of belief and knowledge are "inference tickets": they give us license to make certain predictions/explanations of observed behavior without directly corresponding to any particular physical state or event (neurological, behavior, whatever.) This is the basic idea behind Dennett's "intentional stance," even though he tries (or tried) to distance himself a little from Ryle. The Rylean view requires us to be pragmatists (perhaps pragmatic realists, as opposed to naive realists) about mental contents. We shouldn't reduce mental contents to brain states, but we shouldn't reduce them to specific behaviors, either. They aren't things at all, apart from the predictive frameworks in which we attribute them. As such, they relate directly to observable behavior, and cannot be understood in any other terms.<br /><br />As for subjectivity and first-person access, Ryle's view (and Dennett's too, I think) is that our occasionally having private access to "the truth" about our beliefs is contingent, a matter of how our bodies are built, and not a theoretical necessity built into the nature of mental contents. Thus it is not surprising that other people are often in a better position to determine our beliefs than we are.<br /><br />Unfortunately, I haven't read the Plantinga/Dennett exchange, nor have I listened to the original debate. I'm curious to know if Dennett's taken up the sort of argument I'm advocating.Jason Streitfeldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06950357341620206095noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-75107291729654436452012-01-14T22:27:49.629+11:002012-01-14T22:27:49.629+11:00I think the comparison to the Problem of Evil real...I think the comparison to the Problem of Evil really highlights why those sorts of arguments are being used. Both evolution and the Problem of Evil have been used as attempts to DISPROVE the existence of God, to make it so that it can be said that we know that God doesn't exist or at least should not believe that God does not exist. But then as disproofs all that's necessary is indeed to show that the disproof doesn't work, and that it is possible -- well, reasonably so -- for God to exist in light of that evidence and argument. If it is possible for your premises to be true and your conclusion false, it doesn't work as a disproof -- at least not to the level of knowledge -- and then we have to talk about what we can choose to believe and how that should work. But it's quite hard to demand that someone must give up a belief they hold if you don't know that it's false.<br /><br />The same sort of strategy is used against people who oppose evolution. Take, for example, irreducible complexity. Almost all of the counters to irreducible complexity claims do not, in fact, actually show what evolution actually did. All they do is say that evolution COULD produce that complexity by small hops. And this is a valid argument because all the defender needs to do is show that it's possible for evolution to produce, say, an eye, not that it actually did it. The same, then, can apply to the disproofs of the Problem of Evil and evolution.<br /><br />If you treat the two theories from a neutral starting ground, then you might be able to make a claim based on neutral plausibility. But I deny that any such neutral starting ground exists. We always determine plausibility based on our own beliefs and what we consider to be the case. Given that, I ask if the disproofs are plausible enough to force me to abandon an existing belief, and I don't see that they are.Verbose Stoichttp://verbosestoic.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-37895147236298604662012-01-14T22:17:38.901+11:002012-01-14T22:17:38.901+11:00Jason,
"I've always held that beliefs an...Jason,<br /><br />"I've always held that beliefs and knowledge are primarily, maybe even entirely, understandable through observable behavior. This is just the simplest way of thinking about it, in my opinion."<br /><br />The problem is that you run into this odd situation: I can act as if I have a belief or phenomenal experience that I do not, in fact, have. If you consider only third-person observable behaviour to indicate what my beliefs are, then you run into the nasty problem that because I'm essentially lying to you you would conclude that I have a belief that I do not have, and you would make that conclusion despite my legitimately knowing otherwise. You can argue that your observations include the first-person ... but then you walk right back into the problem that you are claiming you avoid by limiting it to observable behaviour.Verbose Stoichttp://verbosestoic.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-13655802211742182122012-01-14T22:17:10.800+11:002012-01-14T22:17:10.800+11:00Good point, Jason.
We can see beliefs as arrangem...Good point, Jason.<br /><br />We can see beliefs as arrangements of brain matter that affect behaviour. There's no reason why such arrangements can't accumulate information which tracks reality, and no reason why a mechanism for accumulating such information can't evolve. Reality-tracking brain states allow more effective behaviour, and therefore such a mechanism can be selected for.<br /><br />Plantinga considers several possible naturalistic accounts of beliefs, but I think he's caused a lot of confusion by the fact that in his popular presentations he deals with only one or two of them, not clearly identifying them, and often not including the most relevant one. For example, when I heard him in a radio interview he seemed to consider only the possibility that beliefs are an epiphenomenon, having no causal correlation with behaviour. But he didn't identify this assumption or mention that he considers other possibilities elsewhere.<br /><br />Fitelson and Sober (http://fitelson.org/plant.pdf) indicate that Plantinga addresses 5 possibilities (section 1.3) of which the most relevant is this: "(v) beliefs cause adaptive behaviour". It's in addressing this possibility that Plantinga deploys his argument that false beliefs are just as likely to cause adaptive behaviour as true ones. A caveman may run away from a sabre-toothed tiger because he thinks it's part of a game, rather than because he knows the tiger is dangerous. True, sometimes people may do the right thing for the wrong reasons. But in general we should expect reality-tracking beliefs to be better than non-reality-tracking beliefs in making us effective in dealing with reality.Richard Weinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18095903892283146064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-91883803273036088282012-01-14T22:12:44.245+11:002012-01-14T22:12:44.245+11:00Religionists who want a created universe to be com...Religionists who want a created universe to be compatible with evolution just have to make sure their claims contain very little information. If you have an omnipotent, omniscient god, and he wants humans to evolve, he doesn't have to "guide" evolution in an active interventionist sense, he just has to choose an evolutionary history that will result in humans from amongst all the other possible evolutionary histories. Within that history, natural selection will be seen to be doing its thing. Alternatively, religionists could embrace the multiverse concept and say that God simply let every history unfold, in the knowledge that this one would be amongst them. Of course, none of these claims make any attempt to explain how God did these things, or even what he is, in any remotely detailed sense. But that's religion for you - it shouldn't be confused with knowledge :-)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-37633717560786770962012-01-14T19:29:52.069+11:002012-01-14T19:29:52.069+11:00I was recently (for the second time in a relativel...I was recently (for the second time in a relatively short span) placed in a position that made me consider very carefully what I take for granted and what I'm thankful for.<br /><br />One thing I'm very thankful for is the sort of considered discussion of philosophy and science I regularly find here (and at most of the "new atheist" hotspots generally).<br /><br />So thanks, Russell. You're a trouper. I don't have the patience to mull over most apologetic philosophy, but I do gladly read thoughtful analysis of it. Thanks again.Jambehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06373677455129413039noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-10300279033459873622012-01-14T19:07:53.587+11:002012-01-14T19:07:53.587+11:00Unfortunately, there's a strong tendency for m...Unfortunately, there's a strong tendency for many philosophers (some very prominent ones, like David Chalmers) to completely detach epistemological or phenomenological content from observable behavior. This makes it extremely difficult, perhaps impossible, to account for true beliefs in terms of evolutionary theory. However, these philosophers are not against evolutionary theory. Chalmers has even expressed disapproval at the way his own arguments have appropriated in religious arguments.<br /><br />I've always held that beliefs and knowledge are primarily, maybe even entirely, understandable through observable behavior. This is just the simplest way of thinking about it, in my opinion. So it's easy for me to reject common arguments against physicalism (like the knowledge and compatability arguments) as well as Plantinga's argument against naturalism. I've blogged about these issues in some depth before, including <a href="http://specterofreason.blogspot.com/2009/03/plantinga-against-naturalism.html" rel="nofollow">a post about Plantinga's argument</a>.Jason Streitfeldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06950357341620206095noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-53611528085127905842012-01-14T13:11:36.780+11:002012-01-14T13:11:36.780+11:00We might say that it is epistemically possible tha...<i>We might say that it is epistemically possible that there's a solution the problem that we haven't thought of,</i><br /><br />There could always be "something we haven't thought of" that solves any difficulty in any theory, or that disproves any view we currently hold. But relying on such a slim reed more than minimally and temporarily is some combination of special pleading, wishful thinking and desperation.<br /><br />If Plantinga seriously pushes that sort of thing, he's...pathetic.Eamon Knighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04262012749524758120noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-59087820716092922932012-01-14T10:12:15.117+11:002012-01-14T10:12:15.117+11:00Charles, I talk about this in my own essay in 50 V...Charles, I talk about this in my own essay in <i>50 Voices of Disbelief</i>. There may be some sense in which the existence of evil (suffering, etc.) is not inconsistent with the existence of an omnibenevolent God. We might say that it is epistemically possible that there's a solution the problem that we haven't thought of, or that it is logically possible that a loving God would have reasons for allowing evil, or some such thing. It does end up becoming a matter of what is plausible as the theists describe their God, offer whatever explanations of suffering, etc., that they can, and we contemplate the enormity of it all. Hence, my essay is entitled "Unbelievable!" not "Logically Impossible!"<br /><br />Among the things that make Plantinga's views unbelievable to an outsider - or to an insider who has any real doubt and distance from her beliefs - are his resort to evil beings such as Satan to explain why evil existed before any acts of human free will (bracket off whether we do have free will in any meaningful sense) and his claim that theists (but evidently not atheists) perceive God through a special <i>sensus divinitatus</i>.<br /><br />These claims are not logically impossible in themselves. Nor do I know any way of ruling them out with evidence. However, they are highly implausible, and any theology that resorts to them will seem unbelievable to most of us.Russell Blackfordhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12431324430596809958noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-57012759659041968632012-01-14T09:58:04.696+11:002012-01-14T09:58:04.696+11:00Yes, Jean - that's the second thesis that Plan...Yes, Jean - that's the second thesis that Plantinga defends. More on that later!Russell Blackfordhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12431324430596809958noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-33596089367612963682012-01-14T08:59:06.309+11:002012-01-14T08:59:06.309+11:00Plantinga does something similar is his response t...Plantinga does something similar is his response to the problem of evil. He simply claims that the existence of both the Omni-God and evil are not logically inconsistent, because God may have had his reasons (of which we know nothing) for allowing evil.<br /><br />He refrains from engaging in a genuine theodicy because he thinks we cannot know the mind of God.<br /><br />Rachels mentions this in Problems from Philosophy (3rd ed.), chapter 3, p. 29.Charles Sullivanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09206043266782731176noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-15386689610693183522012-01-14T07:45:22.809+11:002012-01-14T07:45:22.809+11:00As I read it, Plantinga thinks natuaralism says ou...As I read it, Plantinga thinks natuaralism says our individual observations are faulty and cannot yield true beliefs. It may be true that sometimes our faculties fail. See the <a href="http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2003097,00.html" rel="nofollow">gorilla experiment</a>. But it is not our individual ability that sustains the claim of naturalism.<br /><br />Science is a collective, self correcting enterprise (50% of the observers do see the gorilla). And it is this self correcting enterprise that confirms naturalism. <br /><br />So Plantinga is wrong to jump from individual error-prone observations to the conclusion that god did it. Science is what concludes that evolution is true and requires only naturalism, on which, one would expect individual error-prone observations given the jury rigged nature of evolution. No god required.Davehttp://nssphoenix.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-75904105206221579752012-01-14T05:05:15.152+11:002012-01-14T05:05:15.152+11:00Eamon, Jean,
Yes, Plantinga's basic argument ...Eamon, Jean,<br /><br />Yes, Plantinga's basic argument over the years has been the EAAN, the evolutionary argument against naturalism, see http://www.naturalism.org/plantinga.htm <br /><br />According to EEAN, we can't possibly track truth or be rational unless we have some supernatural epistemic capacity bequeathed us by God during (guided) evolution. But we are rational, therefore evolution was guided and naturalism is false. <br /><br />But it isn't naturalism that shows evolution to be unguided, it's science. As Russell and Dennett and others have pointed out, there are no good *scientific* grounds for supposing anything supernatural played a role in evolution. And we have perfectly defensible naturalistic accounts of truth-tracking and rationality.Tom Clarkhttp://www.naturalism.orgnoreply@blogger.com