Allan Hillman, Kevin Meeker, and I were talking about Plantinga's reply to the great pumpkin objection yesterday and it seems to hang on this: there is a de jure objection to certain traditions that is independent of a de facto objection. Plantinga says that the de jure objection can't be sustained against many forms of monontheism, but it can be sustained against voodoo, flat earthism, philosophical naturalism, and humean skepticism. I see the de jure argument against naturalism and skepiticsm but the voodoo and flat earthism examples seem different. Isn't just that we have overwhelming evidence to think the central claims there are false? I wonder whether you all think of the reply to the great pumpkin objection (or the son of the great pumpkin objection) in these terms and also whether, if that's right, it's a sustainable reply (I've got my doubts about that).
Plantinga's Reply to the Great Pumpkin Objection
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Following up from the previous post, I want to sketch a reply to the GPO that saves the central Plantingian model of theistic belief, the A/C model. The GPO illustrates that Plantinga's anti-independence strategy (the strategy of arguing that there's n... Read More
I was wondering if you have read crossing the divine threshold by William Abraham. You might find his response to Plantinga's Epistemological projects interesting.
Hi Ted,
I'm actually teaching the GPO tomorrow in Intro so let's see if I'm getting any of this right...
First, where does Plantinga say that the "de jure objection can't be sustained against many forms of monotheism, but it can be sustained against voodoo, etc."? Does he say that? Plus, I'm having trouble understanding what you mean by "can be sustained" in this context. I'm quite sure that Plantinga allows that the GPO could cause one to no longer rationally believe in God. And I suppose that if a Christian who (say) hasn't read WCB considered the GPO, lost belief in God, and then was killed not long after, there is a sense in which the de jure objection was sustained. Whether it is sustained will depend on the kind of resources one has for fending off bad arguments.
I feel like I'm missing what you're getting at. So please allow me to just run through(briefly and in a nutshell) how I think Plantinga replies to the GPO; maybe this will help. Similar things can be said for the Son of the GPO
First, the GPO itself:
1. "If belief in God can be properly basic, then all bets are off, and anything goes" [i.e., a theist should be committed to accepting that anything is warranted to believe, voodoo and what have you].
2. Suppose, belief in God can be properly basic.
3. Well then all bets are off.
4. But this is absurd. Therefore, etc.
Plantinga's reply: There is no good reason why a theist must accept 1. In fact, 1 "is plainly false. To recognize that some kinds of belief are properly basic with respect to warrant doesn't for a moment [rationally] commit one to thinking all other kinds are."
I'd like to say more, but that's it for starters. I feel like I'm not saying anything profound or all that interesting, so maybe I'm missing what you're looking for entirely. Gotta run!
I've always felt that the Great Pumpkin objection was pretty obviously ridiculous. Does Plantinga attribute the objection to anyone in particular?
dtlocke,
In WCB, he seems to have in mind Michael Martin when he discusses the Son of the Great Pumpkin and another related complaint.
Hi Tully,
A crucial paragraph in Plantinga’s WCB is the first full paragraph on p. 350. In particular see his reply to the question: "For any such set of beliefs, couldn't we find a model under which the beliefs in question have warrant, and such that, given the truth of those beliefs, there are no philosophical objections to the truth of the model?" (p. 350) This is where he talks about various forms of monotheism, voodoo and flat earthism.
I think the GPO is fundamentally an objection to Plantinga’s anti-independence strategy, the strategy to argue that there is *no* rationality objection (i.e., de jure objection) to theism that isn’t an objection to the truth of theism (i.e., de facto objection). What the GPO illustrates is that the anti-independence strategy is a very weak strategy. Many sets of beliefs are such that there's no de jure objection to them that's independent from a de facto objection.
BTW, your discussion of Plantinga's reply to the GPO tracks his first pass at the objection (see p. 344). But that response is amazingly underwhelming.
In "Is Belief in God Properly Basic?," Nous 15 (1981): 41-51, which is what I have handy (it's downloaded onto my computer), Plantinga simply introduces the objection as follows, with no footnote explaining who in particular he is talking about:
A second objection I've often heard: ...
(p. 48)
That matches my (fallible!) recollection of how he usually treated the objection in the late 70s and the 80s: it was an objection he reported hearing frequently, but he wasn't naming names.
But it seems that some such objection is very natural and important to consider. (I certainly believe that he did hear objections in the vicinity quite often. And I think that those raising the concerns were wise to do so.)
I have some thoughts about objection & Plantinga's responses (old & new) here:
http://pantheon.yale.edu/~kd47/voodoo.htm
Ted,
Why is that first response (the one Tully brought up) "amazingly underwhelming"? There doesn't seem to be any good reason to accept (1) (in Tully's formulation).
Hi Keith,
Thanks for the link. That's cool!
Andrew, I think Keith's comments explain why the first response (and other responses) is (are) underwhelming. Here’s a quote from Keith’s comments: "But I think Plantinga is even now still making things too easy on himself by construing the objection in some needlessly weak ways, and much of his response takes advantage of this needless weakness." As Keith says later on "The real pointed question [is] 'Now couldn't this be argued with equal cogency with respect to some weird/bizzare aberrations of irrationalism?' where 'this' refers to Plantinga's defensive strategy." I'd put the point this way: Plantinga's anti-independence strategy can be applied to pretty much any set of entrenched beliefs (or Quinean revisions of such beliefs).
Ted,
Are you saying that the objection could be better formulated than the way Tully formulated it (say, as DeRose might?)? Or are you saying that Plantinga's response to Tully's formulation of the argument is insufficient?
Do you think that we have good reason to accept (1)? Just look at it. Doesn't it seem obviously false?
(My guess is that you're worried about a formulation of the argument that's different from Tully's.)
Hi Andrew: Yes, the problem is with Plantinga's formulation of the objection. As I said above, "the GPO is fundamentally an objection to Plantinga's anti-independence strategy, the strategy to argue that there is *no* rationality objection (i.e., de jure objection) to theism that isn’t an objection to the truth of theism (i.e., de facto objection). What the GPO illustrates is that the anti-independence strategy is a very weak strategy. Many sets of beliefs are such that there's no de jure objection to them that's independent from a de facto objection." What I find underwhelming about Plantinga’s response to the GPO is that he works through several papier-mache versions of the objection before we even get a discussion of the fundamental issue. And the only discussion of that issue I can find (haven’t looked very hard, though) is the brief and unconvincing paragraph on p. 350 of WCB. Plantinga’s a great philosopher and I’d like to see some more sustained thought on this fundamental issue. I wonder if Plantinga responded to DeRose’s comments, perhaps only in conversation. It’d be nice to hear what he said. Given that the anti-independence strategy is very weak, the argument for an independence objection (a de jure objection that’s independent of a de facto objection) against some set of beliefs has to be *very* strong. I can see how it works with theories that imply that are no rational beliefs (e.g., Humean skepticism and, perhaps, evolutionary naturalism) but it’s hard to see how the strategy goes against sets of beliefs that lack that implication.
Hi, Keith. Thanks for the link! Interesting stuff.
You seem to agree with me that the GPO, as Plantinga understands it, is 'needlessly weak'. But you think that there is a nearby objection that is 'important to consider'. The objection that you identify at the link above is:
Would you mind giving some examples of such beliefs? (You of course consider, voodooism, etc, at various points in your paper, but as far as I can see you never explicitly identify these as candidates for the beliefs mentioned in the above objection---i.e., the objection that you find to be 'worth considering'.)