There was a bit of heated (well, at least luke-warm) controversy a few posts below about the status of a November NYT article about Anthony Flew's coming to be a theist. That article cast aspersions on the genuineness of that change and even made claims of manipulation not in accordance with the evidence. One specific charge had to do with Flew's failing memory and the reality of his association with Brian Leftow and Gary Habermas. I am privileged to have known both these guys for years and they were kind enough to make statements on that article to help set the record straight. I'll post them below the fold. [Interested readers can use the search function on the side bar to see an interview I did with Brian last year.]
Relevant portion of Leftow email: I sent the Times a letter on the subject, which it did not print. The letter read:
Antony Flew may not recall me, but I recall him- as pleasant and lucid. We talked for perhaps an hour. Eventually the conversation turned to politics and old Oxford days.
It is no great surprise if a man of 84 loses track of an hour's conversation two years before. Had Oppenheimer been less interested in doing a hack job, he could easily have jogged Flew's memory a bit.
Relevant portion of Habermas email: Yes, I'm afraid I was quite bothered by that piece in the New York Times Magazine. I've talked to Tony Flew since then, and he said that he was bothered as well. In our case, when asked if he knew me, Tony said something like, "yes, I think we met at a debate." What appeared to question his memory of me was actually the very opposite: a very accurate comment from more than 20 years ago! The first time we met (in 1985) was at a debate, and it was not one of our dialogues, either, so Tony was entirely accurate. Actually, we speak often, and I never give the slightest explanation as to who I am. We simply start talking, which is what old friends do!
By the way, the Lord willing, I have a trip to England coming up in the next few weeks, where I am supposed to debate/dialogue at four different venues (Cambridge U, The London School of Economics, at Edinburgh U, and in Birmingham), as well as lecture many other times, including Oxford U, Westminster, Manchester, etc. What's relevant to your question is that at one of these events, an all day lectureship with Tom Wright and myself at Westminster, Tony Flew wants to be involved with regard to his new book on God's existence. So it looks like the three of us will be spending some time together in London. I would think that Tony will have a lot of things to say about his new book and the interview.
This is a very nice idea, Trent.
Trent,
That was very helpful to hear.
Thanks for this Trent. I suspect, however, that Flew's detractors will remain unconvinced.
Somewhat off-topic, but this provides a nice example of textual ambiguity!
"Yes, I think I met him at a debate."
Interpretation #1: "I vaguely remember speaking to him once at a debate."
Interpretation #2: "As I recall, my first encounter with him was at one of our debates."
Yes Flew was at one time an atheist, now he seems to be a theist, or at least has a cosmological argument supporting the existence of God. But the mere fact that he has changed his mind is of no philosophical interest whatsoever. What matters are the reasons why he changed his mind. Are his arguments supporting his new position sound, or at least plausible? Is that not what matters? It seems to me that the debate on the status of his mental abilities is moot and only serves to promote ad hominum attacks (on both sides). Even mentally ill people can have important ideas, i.e., Nietzsche, Godel. I do not know if this blog ever does a reading group, but maybe a discussion of his arguments would be in order. We all know that Mackie backed off his initial position regarding his claim that there was a logical inconsistency in believing in a theistic God and evil, but people looked at the argument, not the person. What this proves is that people can be affected (persuaded) by arguments so maybe there are some philosophical successes, van Inwagen notwithstanding.
But the mere fact that he has changed his mind is of no philosophical interest whatsoever. What matters are the reasons why he changed his mind. Are his arguments supporting his new position sound, or at least plausible? Is that not what matters?
It's one of the things that matters. And the debate is not unrelated to that point. Why are so many atheists loathe to believe that a lucid Flew might have changed his mind on this matter? No one is more familiar with the arguments on both sides of the issue, or has a (much) better reputation for weighing the evidence; so his coming to the position that theism is credible is evidence that it is credible. That is, the fact that Flew came to that conclusion (assuming he did) is already evidence for it. As far as I can see, this is what explains the resistance, despite the transparently cynical expressions of concern for Flew's well-being.
I have arguments for dualism or God's existence that my office mates (who are both dualists and theists) find quite good and convincing, but it's only when my atheist or materialist friends in the offices down the hall agree that they are good (and convincing!) that I really think to myself, "wow, I guess those were good arguments!" Basically, we can oftentimes judge the strength of an argument by its persuasive power to people who are otherwise opponents of the conclusion of that argument.
Y'all beat me to it! Mike made the point I most wanted to make. That an intelligent, informed, and reflective person--one as much so as oneself--thinks that p is one kind of evidence that p. It's a bit more evidence when the person apparently changes their mind in response to the evidence. It's one application of the principle that "Evidence of evidence is evidence." The best responses to the epistemology of disagreement--several pieces by Feldman and especially Christensen 2007 who generalizes Feldman's work--reminds us of this.
It's only rational not to revise one's degree of certainty toward disagreeing epistemic peers when one has some concrete reason to break the symmetry of evidential position. I think we often posses tiebreakers, but that doesn't forestall the need of epistemic revision. If you go in for all out belief, fine, you can retain your belief--I have very little grasp on such a notion--but that belief should have a degree of certainty attached to it and that can't stay the same in light of peer disagreement. I think the current literature on disagreement is a welcome goad to looking harder at our cognitive peers to find reasons to serve as defeater defeaters. This can be uncomfortable, though, because it sometimes involves (might *always* involve) attributing ignorance, apathy, or both. (I touched on this a few posts ago in "Second-order evidence, private evidence, and the epistemology of disagreement.")
I'm glad that James Anderson saw that ambiguity. It shows that it was the author of the piece that was "exploiting" or whatever you want to call it, or at least his bias caused him to give it the worst interp. Having been graduated from the top journalism school in the world (Go Mizzou!) I would have thought it obvious that the principle of charity was of first importance in an interview.
Matthew is surely right that (most anyway) of Flew's detractors will remain unconvinced. It was not for them that I posted the replies. Rather, it was for the large group of people (usually 40-60%) who don't have a dog in the fight and who may well revise their degrees of certainty in light of new evidence.
I think what Andrew is trying to say is surely that that an argument is persuasive is a reason to think it's a good argument. In some cases there will be a defeater nearby, but there are plenty of plausible background conditions in which it is one reason among many.
Mike
“That is, the fact that Flew came to that conclusion (assuming he did) is already evidence for it. As far as I can see, this is what explains the resistance, despite the transparently cynical expressions of concern for Flew's well-being.”
I agree that it is evidence, but it is evidence only that he now accepts what he previously denied. The mere fact that Flew now accepts the idea that God exists is of little argumentative value in itself. If a person’s convictions are evidence of their truth then we should accept that Flew’s original position was evidence that theism is false. But I will bet that theists do not think Flew was correct and base this (hopefully) on a rational assessment of his arguments. The philosophically interesting question is whether or not his beliefs are result of a sound argument or supported by some evidence that favors the acceptance of the belief as opposed to it not be acceptable. If one is really interested in assessing the merits of Flew’s ‘conversion’ then I think a discussion of his new arguments as opposed to his former ones is the most beneficial. As one who does not believe that theism is correct, I look forward to reading Flew’s arguments. Who knows he might be right aned I would then have to change my mind. However, I will not know this until I read and assess his arguments.
I agree that the discussion flew's mental status is misguided and wrong. There is no reason to lower ourselves to the game being played by those who rest their case solely on what they think of Flew’s mental state. Let us raise the bar and discuss his arguments. I am sure you do not disagree with this and that was the point I was trying to make in my earlier comment. Look at the issue this way, the fact that Flew has changed his mind must be gratifying to theists. But imagine that Plantinga changed his mind and came to think that possible world semantics and the free-will defense were wrong. How many of you would think that this is evidence that theism is inconsistent? Would the fact that Plantinga changed his beliefs create a need for you to change yours or would you want to find out why he changed them? I bet all of us, theist and non-theist alike, would be running to find out why he changed his mind and would be reluctant to claim that now we have evidence that theism is inconsistent merely because he changed his mind.
Mr. Alexander,
That Flew--or better Rowe, because Flew's atheism was actually not based on argument so much as it was a presumption, by his own admission--thought there were good arguments for the non-existence of God was evidence against theism. Not enough for most, I suspect, to be sufficient for the epistemic justification of atheism, but it was part of a cumulative case for atheism. That he has now changed his mind, and this time in response to arguments, is part of a cumulative case for theism. Like I said in my previous comments--here and in the one on disagreement--each piece of evidence occasions the need to revise one's degree of certainty.
If Plantinga changed his mind and thought that his free will defense didn't work that would hurt the case for theism. If he himself became convinced that in fact the balance of evidence supported atheism that would be considerable new evidence for atheism. Not, I suspect, enough to occasion the necessity of abandoning belief, but rather an occasion to revise down one's degree of certainty in theism. It would be irrational for anyone sufficiently familiar with Plantinga not to revise down their degree of certainty in theism if Plantinga truly became convinced of atheism. For my own part, if both Plantinga and Swinburne did I would probably have to become agnostic unless I acquired a defeater defeater.
Here's a truth: evidence of evidence is evidence. Testimonial evidence is one kind of evidence, perceptual evidence is another. I testify to you now that I appear to perceive light snow outside. Guess what? You now have evidence that it's snowing outside my condo. You have testimonial evidence that there's perceptual evidence. Your evidence is not as good as my evidence because testimony does not transmit perfectly (except when God is the witness).
My brother in law who is in medical research thinks that there is not sufficient evidence that the new cholesterol pill causes heart valve problems. He's probably right. I haven't seen the direct evidence, but he is honest and reliable in such matters so it would be irrational not to take his testimony as evidence.
That Flew thinks the arguments now favor theism is evidence that they do. There is no (substantive) reason to question his sincerity or his ability to assess the arguments. This evidence is added to the evidence that Plantinga and Swinburne think the balance of evidence supports theism, and somewhat (though not wholly in my view) offset by the fact that Rowe and Draper think they do not (though Draper thinks it's close). All this expert testimony is one cell in a total partition of my evidence. Another cell is my own assessment of the arguments they consider.
Note that we can't say in advance which kind of evidence is going to be stronger. Depending on who we are either expert testimony or personal assessment can take precedence. I recall someone saying that in the matter of whether some wff of first-order logic was valid they would trust Quine's word over the strongest of personal intuitions. I can definitely say the same for Kyburg and probability. Even if I'd thought I'd worked out a clear proof of some theorem in probability, if Henry had said it was mistaken I'd have to be agnostic at best. In other matters, not so much.
Here's a truth: evidence of evidence is evidence
But that's a truism, Trent. Of course, evidence of anything is evidence, since evidence is evidence. Do you mean rather (1)?
1. Evidence of evidence of p is evidence of p.
I'm not sure. Suppose I come across evidence E for p, and E makes p probable to degree n. Now take the proposition P which is true of me, viz., P = I have evidence E. I realize that P entails E, so P counts as evidence for E. But P + E does not make p any more probable than E does alone. So evidence of evidence of p does not in general seem to be evidence of p.
I agree that it is evidence, but it is evidence only that he now accepts what he previously denied. The mere fact that Flew now accepts the idea that God exists is of little argumentative value in itself.
It is evidence that theism is true, too. If your surgeon looks up from the operating table and says "I thought he was much more badly hurt, but Smith is fine". You have evidence that Smith is fine. You don't have evidence merely that your surgeon changed his mind.
Trent (please call me John)
"That Flew thinks the arguments now favor theism is evidence that they do. There is no (substantive) reason to question his sincerity or his ability to assess the arguments.'
Nowhere have I questioned anyone's sincerity or anyone's ability to assess an argument. I take it that is one of the contentions that many of you have re critics of Flew's new position, that they do think he is not competent or is not sincere. That is certainly not the case with me! I have only suggested that what I think is really important are the arguments and that is why I wish this blog would initiate a comprehensive discussion of them.
As far as your truism is concerned that evidence of evidence is evidence, the question is of what is it evidence of - that there is additional evidence that needs to be examined? If so, then we are looking at the argument (or some sort of independent evidence)to rational support the position, because the initial evidence of a particular belief that x is true is not sufficent to support a conclusion that x is true. You seem to accept this, so why the concern over what I am suggesting?
Frankly I do not see what we are at odds about here. It may be of interest for you to know that my father was a minister and a very good one. I know that my father was sincere in his beliefs and competent to assess arguments, both pro and con, for his beliefs. At one time I shared his beliefs. I taught Sunday School, was active in the Church's youth group, sang in the chior (not well), and even gave an occasional sermon. At one time I thought of becoming a minister. However, I had a crisis of faith; one that I was unable (and continue to be unable) to resolve within a theistic framework. I think I was sincere in my efforts to think critically about the issues involved, and I think I continue to be sincere. I am 61 years old and have struggled with the problem of evil for over 40 years. This is why I studied, and continue to study philosophy, it provides me an opportunity to examine my beliefs. My crisis of faith and my inablity to resolve it theistically does not prove that theism is false. I doubt that theism is true, I have reasons to believe that is is not true, but I do not know that is is not true. Because, I am not a Plantinga or for that matter a Flew, my crisis of faith will not serve as evidence for many (or anyone) that theism is false even though at one time I was a committed theist, or at least thought I was. I bring my story up only to show that my crisis of faith demonstrates nothing except that I had a crisis of faith that I was unable to resolve within a theistic framework. My crisis of faith simply refers to my psychological state and as such is not very interesting, to me anyway, philosophically. My crisis was enough to cause me to doubt, but the fact that I had a crisis should not lead anyone else to doubt. My beliefs could be wrong. One reason I read this blog and sometimes make comments is because I am challenged to keep thinking about the issues.
John, what we are at odds about is this, as Mike and I have been trying to impress: That Flew is of a type T and theism is of a type T' such that, in general, if S is of type T and p is of type T' and S believes p then this is an epistemic reason on behalf of p. I think Mike and I have both illustrated this well with particular examples. This is in *addition* to all the other things it's evidence for: that there are rational arguments, that there's a guy named Flew, that Flew believes such and such, that Flew didn't once believe such and such, etc.
The more evidence I had that you were sincere and capable and had reflected sufficiently on the right arguments in the right way, the more evidence I would have that theism was false.
Mike, like all principles, the principle that E of E is E needs certain special cases--like self-reference as your case--that need to be Chisholmed out. I don't take such technical curiosities to be a threat to their general applicability. I did almost say: "Here's an extremely reliable statement" for just the reason you cite though.
Trent:
I think I do understand what Mike and your have been trying to demonstrate. I have been trying to suggest that it does not get us very fair, or at least that it is not as epistemically significant to me as it is to you. I suppose we are at an impasse.
“That Flew is of a type T and theism is of a type T' such that, in general, if S is of type T and p is of type T' and S believes p then this is an epistemic reason on behalf of p. I think Mike and I have both illustrated this well with particular examples.” If we change the names and designates we can come up with a reason for believing that atheism is true. I must admit that I do not understand the significance of T and T’ but I take it that it is not T = T,’ so what is the relationship between T and T’?
“The more evidence I had that you were sincere and capable and had reflected sufficiently on the right arguments in the right way, the more evidence I would have that theism was false.”
What counts as a ‘right’ argument? What counts as ‘reflected sufficiently?’ What is the ‘right way?’ Is it possible to meet all the requirements of being sincere and capable and reflecting “sufficiently on the right arguments in the right way” and be wrong?
By the by, I am enjoying this exchange. Thanks
John, epistemic significance is an objective matter. For almost ("almost" because of technical curiosities and maybe a few substantive special cases) any body of evidence E and proposition p there will be some degree of support that E objectively gives to p. [I'm writing a paper right now on how vagueness might effect this, but I'm going to bracket that for now.]
So when you say "it is not as epistemically significant to me as it is to you" either you are asserting a false subjectivism about epistemic significance, confessing an instance of irrationality (which I doubt), or it must be the case that on your total evidence E(J) the reliability of flew is less supported than on my total evidence E(T). If our total evidence equally supported his reliability then if his testimony had differing subjective epistemic "significance" to us, then one of us would of necessity be unjustified.
Whether Flew's testimony that the evidence supports theism or your own assessment of the evidence with respect to theism have more epistemic significance depends on whether your total evidence supports Flew's being more reliable in such matters than you are or you than he, and whether you are aware of any defeaters which make this a special case. What I assert is that it is unreasonable not to count Flew's testimony as a reason to believe theism. It is one reason among many. One would have to be pretty close to counter-balanced for it to be a tie breaker. But whatever one's degree of certainty, in either direction, this is cause for moving one's degree of certainty somewhat in the direction of theism: there's now more reason to believe theism than there was before. Again, whether this is enough to make it more probable than not on one's total evidence will depend on the state of one's total evidence prior to adding this new evidence.
"If we change the names and designates we can come up with a reason for believing that atheism is true."
That's right, and there are several such reasons the best examples of which, in my opinion are Rowe and Draper (and I can't resist stating for the record that duh, de duh, de Dawkins's and Daniel D. Dennett's opinions on the matter of of no epistemological significance (in either the subjective or objective sense)). Also Melnyk, though I've expressed my doubts about his case for physicalism and of course the truth of physicalism is of only limited relevance to theism. Both the reasons for and the reasons against go into the pot and one tries to asses the overall results (as for me I have an MS Excel spreadsheet where I try to keep myself honest).
Now, briefly I'm afraid, I relativised the statements to *types* of people and *types* of statements because Flew might be very unreliable when it comes to, oh, I don't know, what ought to be done about Muslim immigration and Dawkins may well be reliable in matters of zoology (though I have reasons for and against that). That someone is really smart and really well-informed about matters of type K does not mean they are at all reliable on maters of type T. The right arguments are the serious ones that philosophers talk about in peer-reviewed journals, not the ones that most blogs, newspapers, and online magazines talk about; sufficient reflection is both quantitative and qualitative (along both intellectual and moral dimensions): too often "I've thought about this for years" just means that for years one has every now and again re-asked oneself whether they now think the argument valid and just got the same answer. And I take it to be a truism that one can have done one's epistemic duty to a T and still be wrong. That is a sad fact about life.
No time to proof read this, sorry.
Trent
"What I assert is that it is unreasonable not to count Flew's testimony as a reason to believe theism." You have convinced me that you are correct in this given the conditions you have enumerated that must be met in order to reasonably accept testimony as evidence.
Now I hope that in the future someone will initiate on this blog a reading group to deal with Flew's arguments.
("almost" because of technical curiosities and maybe a few substantive special cases
There is something intuitive about the claim that, in some sense, "evidence of evidence is evidence". It seems right, and there are cases that seem to confirm it. In any case, I'm inclined to believe it. But I'm less inclined to call the exceptions 'technical curiosities' or 'special cases' rather than plain counterexamples to specific formulations. Hector Castaneda, I'm told, called such things 'interesting consequences'. By any name or none, the hard work is in actually finding a formulation of the princple that avoids these problems.
Mike wrote:
"the hard work is in actually finding a formulation of the princple that avoids these problems"
Perhaps, but I'm not convinced it's not a fool's errand or a wild goose chase. Think of the principle as an axiom schema in an epistemic logic. Then it's tacitly quantified and that quantifier has some domain. What is it and how does it get selected. David Lewis suggests that contexts pics a domain that makes the utterance true if at all possible. Then the statement has no exceptions because it's limited to a domain.
If Lewis's idea is plausible at all (and you might not think it is) then it's especially plausible here because the case is clearly not relevant to the conversation for various reasons.
I think it's a good methodological point to think about since so many good tools often just get cast to the wayside because of odd cases that have nothing to do with the domain in which they are being applied. One example would be the Axiom of Comprehension in "Naive" set theory. Russell's Paradox shows that this principle cannot be understood in absolute generality, but (i) absolute generality presents some pretty serious problems of its own, and (ii) it's not like we're at *all* likely to run into problems in applying it in ordinary contexts. In fact, restricted to ordinary discourse, it's *absolutely* true if you will because the domain of the quantifier has been restricted. I think the restriction here and with "E of E is E" (in context) is principled. One person says it's "ad hoc." I say "What's ad hoc-ness" and the discussion becomes unfruitful.
Another example is in the use of subjunctives in analyzing concepts. We all know that almost any definition of the form "a is F iff were a A, a would be B" are liable to almost automatic counterexamples. Yet subjunctives seem like really good ways to understand certain concepts.
I just think we need to take seriously the idea that the quest for exceptionless absolute generalizations isn't really what philosophy is about, and the idea that what really counts are domains of limited aplicability.
I'm not convinced it's not a fool's errand or a wild goose chase. Think of the principle as an axiom schema in an epistemic logic. Then it's tacitly quantified and that quantifier has some domain. What is it and how does it get selected. David Lewis suggests that contexts pics a domain that makes the utterance true if at all possible. Then the statement has no exceptions because it's limited to a domain.
I've no quarrel with conversational scorekeeping, since it does seem to describe what we do. And I'm sympathetic to the broader point that domains shift in modal contexts generally, some making the relevant claims come out true and some making them come out false (depending on which worlds count in the evaluation). As a diagnosis of what the fatalist is doing, for instance, and what the non-fatalist is doing, this seems exactly right. It seems right as a diagnosis of what is happening between those who affirm that you can kill your own grandfather and those who claim you can't. Naturally I think it is right in diagnosing disagreements about the possibility that a perfect being does something wrong (Almeida thinks such a being can!). But it doesn't mean that, when we are in the philosophy room, we stop trying to find exceptionless analyses (or the least exceptioned analyses, or the least dreadfully exceptioned analyses) of causation or event or material object, etc.
I try to go for truly exceptional analyses! :-) Hopefully no one will take exception to that (present company excepted).
Here's something I wonder if you epistemologists can help me out on (it's February 25, so probably I'm entering this comment too late):
I'm a theist, and normally I would take Flew's changing of mind about atheism to give me evidence for thinking that theism, or at least deism, is true. However, after having read There Is a God, I came away impressed by the poor reasoning I think Flew displayed in that book. So, here's the question:
If, at age 80, Plantinga became an atheist, but became an atheist on the basis of what to you looked like a transparently shoddy argument (say: if theism were true, God would have to be worshiped; but it's necessarily morally wrong to worship any being; therefore, theism is necessarily false), what would you think? Would you think that maybe this transparently shoddy argument was actually better than you thought, or would you question Plantinga's cognitive functioning?