In my last post, I expressed my happiness to be back to blogging, and it looks like I need some practice, because I posted one topic in the body and another below the fold!
So I've fixed that now, I apologize to those who commented on the last one, but this will be a better target anyway.
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I just can't take naturalism seriously. That is, I can't take seriously any view that entails either the proposition that some contingent fact occurred for no reason or that in essentials, the universe (or world or nature or whatever you want to call it) couldn't have been relevantly different from the way it in fact is. And if I had to accept some set of contingent facts as brute, I'd be strictly guided by the number of types and tokens and parameters postulated by a theory. I also find implausible impersonal accounts of a necessary ground in some "natural" force or fact. The closest thing to naturalism that I can take seriously is the axio-arch-ism Leslie defends. The reason I can take that somewhat seriously is that it has both value and mind at the foundations. And given my views on God and value, maybe I'm not so far apart from Leslie anyway. I reviewed a book of his, so maybe I should go read that.
But apart from my inability to take seriously any kind of naturalism abstractly characterized (fairly minimally, in terms of certain entailments), what really strikes me as wildly implausible is that any kind of information we actually have from "science" (the purpose of the scare quotes is that there's really no such thing: there are the sciences, i.e. the science of Physics, the science of Chemistry, and the science of Biology (not sure if there are any others not built out of these)) makes likely that naturalism is true and, in particular, that theism (minimally specified in a Swinburnian sort of way) is improbable. If I were an atheist, I'd be a nervous wreck. More below the fold.
Now why do I call this a "confession"? Not ironically or to be a smart-alec, I assure you. On the contrary, the fact is I try extremely hard to take seriously all positions, especially rivals to my own views (there weren't always, after all, my views). I read every academic book I can find defending atheism (which excludes about anyone who might appear on television, especially people who's name starts with "D"). I try to enter into the mind of the naturalist, really try to see it from the inside. I publish more against views I hold than in favor (in PR, not Epist/Lang). I spend so much time considering the problem of evil--the only possible rational basis for disbelief I'm aware of--that I may well have damaged my psyche even more. I'm a haunted, hunted man.
But when it comes to "Scientific Naturalism" in its many and varied forms, I draw a total blank. The Dennet/Dawkins/Hitchens/Harris stuff is a total loss. But there's not much better. Worst, I find that otherwise excellent academics who don't write PR are not far above the DDHH level of reasoning. I've said before that I think Draper and Monton and Rowe are the "Trinity" of atheism. I love to read those guys (except the Can God Be Free? book, which I did not enjoy at all). Oppy and Sobel seem very frenetic to me in their writings, though they often make some very good points, it is crucial and rewarding to read them, but there's nothing like the depth one wants and it's mostly negative. I'd like to talk to Even Fales more, he's fair. Gale is very interesting to read. But there's just no good defense of naturalism as such, and, contrary to popular opinion, it does very much stand in need of defence. (Quentin Smith has a lament on this somewhere on his labyrinthine website. Oh, and can someone please remind me where PvI talks about the "failed hypothesis" or "burden of proof" question, I'm going to blog on that soon and I'm at home and can't sift through my books).
So here's a question. Has anyone given a decent academic case for naturalism? The closest I can recall is Melnyk's in his Material Manifesto. Maybe David Papineau's closure argument could be generalized. I think naturalists just assume it's all going to work out. It just seems utterly hopeless to me. The arguments I glean from people--of all levels of education, from high school to emeritus--goes something like this.
1. For many x (witches, souls, demigods) such that x was thought to be both existent and non-physical, "Science" showed x to be either non-existent or not-non-physical.
2. So, probaby, for all x s.t....you get the picture.
But A. this is nonsense, B. the major premise is false as far as I can tell, and C. this doesn't get one anywhere near Naturalism. It leaves the totality of the not-non-physical unexplained. And it's no good talking about all the parts being explained and so the whole doesn't need to be explained. That dog won't hunt.
It would just be helpful if someone--naturalist or not--could suggest some *good* reading on the topic. I'd love to blog through something.
Despite my comment on your previous post, I do find naturalism hopeless. Why do I find it hopeless? Because as far as I can tell, naturalism is the assertion that everything is natural conjoined with an unsatisfying definition of what the natural is. Near as I can tell, there are three definitions of "natural":
(1) X is natural iff X would be included in the ontology of an ideal physics. But (a) we have no idea what would be in such an ontology, and (b) I don't see why I should think that I should believe in only what the physicists tell me to believe in, even if they're ideal physicists.
(2) X is natural iff X consists of (or is) the kind of particle(s) that make up a table and smaller things. But (a) we don't really know what properties those smaller things have, and (b) I don't see why there couldn't be emergent properties or things not made up of any table-or-smaller particles at all, and (c) couldn't there be particles that are found only in really big things?
(3) X is natural iff X figures in a good explanation. But (a) this doesn't rule anything out, at least potentially, and (b) why not believe that there are things so complex and so hard to detect that they don't figure in any of our explanations at all but still exist?
I don't know of any good readings on this topic, alas.
I'm with you on Hempel's Dilemma--there's good presentation of it by Bas van Fraassen in Kvanvig's Plantinga anthology. (Though you might look at Melnyk's reply.)
However, I think we can characterize the relevant difference in a rather commonsense way--not too differently from the way C.S. Lewis treats it in Miracles: does Mind come from Matter, or Matter from Mind. Like Locke, it seems obvious to me that mind can't come from matter (and you gotta love Leibniz's Mill analogy (Monadology 17, thanks to Todd Burus here) about blowing up a brain the size of a grain mill and walking through it: nothing but parts!). I'm with Plato and Aristolte and on and on that Nous stands behind it all.
Self-ascribed naturalist today seem to think the Tradition has it bass ackwards. They seem to claim that "Science" shows that the concept of mind or person or agency is derivative and novel on the scene. I think that claim has little to no warrant.
...I think we can characterize the relevant difference in a rather commonsense way--not too differently from the way C.S. Lewis treats it in Miracles: does Mind come from Matter, or Matter from Mind.
Isn't the worry in finding a non-question-begging and even-handed way to say of some beings--cats, maybe, or dogs and pigs--that they do not have minds (Cartesian-like minds), but that they nonetheless have phenomenal experiences in something like way we do? If they do have consciousness and some phenomenal life, and it's not explained by the presence of some mental stuff, then it's more difficult to see why, in our case, the explanation of phenomenal experience (perception, for Leibniz, consciousness if you like) requires some mental stuff. But who could be a canine dualist?
@Robert Gressis:
I'm not sure what you're getting at with you're definitions. I'm with you on rejecting your third definition. But then on either of your first two definitions, I don't count as a naturalist. Still, I'm not a theist, either. Perhaps your aim is to individuate a narrow proper subset of non-theistic views? If not, then what?
here's a definition of naturalism that's neither hopeless nor clearly false.
for any x, if x exists and enters into causal relations, then x is (i) a physical object, or (ii) a property of a physical object, or (iii) a state of affairs that has as constituents a physical object or objects and a property of the physical object (if there is one) or a relation between physical objects (if there are many).
suppose naturalism is then a commitment to physicalism. robert, this avoids the worries you raised for your definitions. trent, this is not clearly false or hopeless. moreover, the view makes no claims about brute facts or explanation. it is also consistent with the existence of abstract objects.
moreover, we exclude theism with this picture, if it is correct. that is, we exclude theism if theism is committed to a non-physical thing that exists and enters into causal relations. the picture can be filled out in various ways, some more plausible than others. but the general picture is very difficult to refute indeed.
@exapologist,
I take naturalism to be the view that everything is "natural" and nothing non-natural exists. It's that view, not atheism, that I don't understand.
Naturalism is not co-extensive with atheism, although almost all naturalists are self-confessed atheists. Still, there are also non-naturalist atheists, like (I presume) John McDowell and Robert Brandom. Perhaps you're just a non-naturalist atheist/agnostic?
@Mike,
What's problematic or absurd about canine-dualism? If I were a dualist, my intuition would be that all beings that have phenomenal experiences have some kind of mental stuff.
I just can't take naturalism seriously.
I've come to think the terms "supernatural" and "natural" aren't particularly useful. Discussions around the use of these terms always seem to bog down rather quickly in extended debates about the meanings of the words (and everyone seems to mean something subtly or substantially different). All I would say of the term as it might apply to me is this: I'm a naturalist in the limited sense that I'm not a believer in a God or gods, angels, demons, reincarnation, an afterlife, and any of the other things we generally lump together under the umbrella term "supernatural".
And I am such for the fairly obvious reason: there isn't, in my best judgment at this point in time, reasonable basis for being convinced of the existence of any of those things.
I do have the intuition Robert Gressis mentions. I'm a canine dualist, because they apparently have phenomenal consciousness (which I hold requires some form of a mind). The canine mind is not as complex as the human mind, but it is still a mind. So I'm curious as to why you would ask "Who could be a canine dualist?"
As an aside, if memory serves--and it may not--Aquinas held the view that animals have souls. While this isn't the same as Cartesian mental stuff, it would count as a form of dualism, I think.
Ok, but the way you define things, 'natural' seems roughly synonymous with 'physical' and 'naturalism' seems roughly synonymous with 'physicalism'. And that strikes me as, well, unnatural.
Quine was a naturalist, and yet posited abstract sets. And of course we get even more exotic with Spinoza's conception of nature. And then of course there's Chalmers....
How about something like this:
Conservative naturalism = straight physicalism (Andrew Melnyk, The Churchlands, etc.)
Moderate naturalism = physical objects plus necessarily existent abstract objects (Jeff King, most analytic philosophers)
Liberal naturalism = concrete objects with both physical and informational representational aspects (straight Spinozism, type-F monism, dual aspect theory, etc.) -- with or without an extra doctrine about abstract objects (Spinoza, Galen Strawson, David Chalmers, Daniel Stoljar(?), etc.)
Then we can say the current complaint is: "What's up with those conservative naturalists? I sure find that version of naturalism less plausible than theism"
Something along these lines?
Because of the difficulties of defining "natural" in such a way as not to rule out exotic future physics, I tend to think of naturalism as a mostly negative thesis: a bunch of claims about the world our culture names "supernatural" are false. These claims will share some family resemblances (e.g., they will tend to posit fundamental relationships more "anthropocentric" than we currently find in mainstream physics), but probably no analysis ties them all together neatly. If this picture is right, then establishing naturalism doesn't require establishing anything beyond the probable falsehood of a certain bundle of theories.
What's problematic or absurd about canine-dualism? If I were a dualist, my intuition would be that all beings that have phenomenal experiences have some kind of mental stuff.
If you thought non-human animals were ensouled, and you thought that they were identical to their souls (as presumably you believe you are with yours) you would also think that they are not different in kind from you. You're both souls. Your attitude toward them would be closer to your attitude to human beings whose rational capacities are more limited. But this is not what you think, I'm guessing. They are not different in kind from you, but probably your attitude is that they are not as morally valuable as you. They are not different in kind from you, for instance, but you can use them merely as a means to an end. I don't see how you can reasonably make that work. Of course, I could have your attitude toward non-human animals wrong. Or, maybe you believe that some of the souls God creates aren't worth all that much, and we know who has the shabby souls.
"If you thought non-human animals were ensouled, and you thought that they were identical to their souls (as presumably you believe you are with yours) you would also think that they are not different in kind from you."
This does not follow. Why couldn't I think that they are different in kind from me, given that canines have canine souls and humans have human souls, just as humans have human bodies and canines have canine bodies?
1. It doesn't follow from dualism that we are identical with souls.
2. Aquinas also thought that all plants had souls, but I doubt he felt any pull to denying that one could use them as means to an end. Souls, just like bodies, can be of different sorts.
Right, Alex, there are different views of what souls are. But we were talking about the sort of soul that might explain conscious or phenomenal experience. Naturally the Cartesian souls was under discussion. I've a hard time seeing how the hylomorphic view of the soul (the soul as form) would do anything by way of such an explanation. In the hylomorphic case, the soul seems closer to a property of the body, and not something different from it.
This does not follow. Why couldn't I think that they are different in kind from me, given that canines have canine souls and humans have human souls, just as humans have human bodies and canines have canine bodies?
The soul (Cartesian soul) is a simple substance. How could there be two kinds of soul? How could souls as simple fall under various sortals? Maybe I'm missing someting important here.
I'm probably the one missing something here, but why couldn't simple substance X have different powers from simple substance Y, just as a brute fact?
Moreover, what about physical atomism--it's conceivable to me that there are, say, six different kinds of simple, physical atoms, and that it is their combination that gives rise to all the variety we see. I guess the atomist would have to just say it's a brute fact that there six different kinds of atoms?
Finally, what about Leibniz? On his view, everything is made up of monads, and monads are all simple substances, but monads all differ in terms of the distribution of perceptions and appetitions they have. Perhaps we could distinguish canine monads from human monads in that kind of fashion?
If any of these possibilities could play out, then I think it's possible for one to hold that pigs have simple souls but that it's permissible to eat them because of the lack of sophistication of the thoughts in the pigs' souls.
Regardless, even if dogs' souls are the same as humans' souls in that they're both simple substances, it could be the case that metempsychosis is true, in which case, the fact that soul X is in a dog's body and soul Y is in a human's body is itself of moral relevance.
Mike:
"The soul (Cartesian soul) is a simple substance. How could there be two kinds of soul?"
Parody argument: Elementary particles are simple substances. How could there be two kinds of elementary particle?
But yet there are!
Or for an even stronger argument, say that x is an aoq iff x is an angel or a photon. Then, aops are simple substances. But it is clear that that aops come in two kinds.
"But we were talking about the sort of soul that might explain conscious or phenomenal experience. ... In the hylomorphic case, the soul seems closer to a property of the body, and not something different from it."
Whether the last metaphor is applicable differs between hylomorphic views. On my view, if anything, it's more like the body is a property of the soul. :-)
But even if the soul were literally a property of the body, I don't see why the soul couldn't explain conscious or phenomenal experience. This would simply make hylomorphism a species of property dualism, and property dualists certainly think their dualism helps explain conscious experience.
But even if the soul were literally a property of the body, I don't see why the soul couldn't explain conscious or phenomenal experience.
I think the problem the hylomorphic view has is that it does not attribute an immaterial soul to non-humans, and yet they have consciousness and phenomenal experience. It actually cuts in favor the view I've been defending, that since non-human consciousness is explicable in materialist/naturalistic terms, then why no human phenomenal experience?
Parody argument: Elementary particles are simple substances. How could there be two kinds of elementary particle?
We are very likely using 'substance' in different ways. Small point first, what makes you think that elementary particles are simple (leaving aside 'substances' which they are not in my sense of the word)? I don't think that. I think these particles are both material substances, and I don't think that there is material substance of kind M that is found in humans and material substance of kind M* that is found in non-humans. Similarly, I don't think there is immaterial substance of kind I in non-humans and immaterial substance of kind I* in humans. This is not to say that the accidental properties of immaterial substance do not vary between humans and non-humans, to address Robert's point. The powers might be different (I guess), but I don't see how it might be essentially different stuff. This is my basic point.
@MikeAlmeida- I strayed from talking about souls in the Cartesian sense, so now your comments make more sense to me. My view is a form of non-Cartesian substance dualism which allows for different kinds of souls (human, canine, feline...). But I would add that even if animal souls are different in kind and inferior in their capacities relative to human souls, it doesn't necessarily follow that we're morally justified in using them as mere means.
I think the problem the hylomorphic view has is that it does not attribute an immaterial soul to non-humans, and yet they have consciousness and phenomenal experience.
First of all, according to the hylomorphic view - at least as I understand it - "immaterial soul" is redundant; every physical object is a composite substance of matter and (immaterial) form, and for any living thing - human or otherwise - the form is the (immaterial) soul.
Furthermore, there are three different kinds of souls - nutritive (plants), sensitive (non-human animals), and rational (humans). These correspond to three hierarchical levels of function - growth/nourishment/reproduction, locomotion/perception, and intellect/thought/reason.
Non-human animals thus "have consciousness and phenomenal experience" only to a limited extent, at least when compared with humans - as far as we know, anyway. But then, can any human truly ascertain what it is like to be a bat (or a dog or a pig)?
Mike:
Souls are not material, be they the souls of an oak tree, a mussel, a dog or a human. Therefore, there is no need for the hylomorphist to say that the phenomenal experience of a dog or a human is to be explained wholly materially. In fact, on the hylomorphic view, even respiration and circulation are not to be explained wholly materially.
Now, according Aquinas, the human soul differs from the soul of an oak tree, mussel or dog in that it has an additional operation, the grasping of essences. Aquinas thinks this additional operation is in itself independent of matter (presumably, matter often played some sort of a role in our coming to grasp an essence, but the grasping itself is independent of matter), in a way in which phenomenal experience is dependent on matter. On the other hand, Aquinas thinks that all of the operations of the soul of an oak tree, mussel and dog are dependent on matter. Therefore, he concludes, the soul of an oak tree, mussel and dog ceases to exist when the "body" is destroyed, presumably because there is literally nothing for it to do. The human soul, though, still has something it can do without the body, so it continues to exist. (I think this argument is not conclusive. That the soul of an oak tree would have no operation after the tree was burned down does not show that the soul doesn't survive--it just shows that it doesn't survive and operate. But, I suppose, Aquinas could say that nature does nothing in vain, and there is no point for something that has no operation to survive.)
Alex, I'm no expert on hylemorphic theories, and for all I know you're right. My claim was based on David Oderberg's, 'Hylomorphic Dualism' paper. He claims,
The hylemorphic theory is dualistic with respect to the analysis of all material substances without exception, since it holds that they are all composites of primordial matter and substantial form. When it comes to persons, however, the theory has a special account. The soul of Fido, for instance, is wholly material—all of Fido's organic and mental operations are material, inasmuch as they have an analysis in wholly material terms. The soul of a person, on the other hand, is wholly immaterial, the argument for this being that a person has at least some mental operations that are not wholly explicable in material terms—and we can deduce what a thing's nature is from the way it necessarily acts or behaves. If, however, some such operations are not wholly materially explicable, the soul itself cannot be anything other than wholly immaterial because there is no sense in postulating a soul that is a mixture of the material and the immaterial
That was (and is) the basis of my claim above; and that's all I need to make the point. But maybe his claim is false. In any case, it's an interesting paper, and online here http://www.newdualism.org/papers/D.Oderberg/HylemorphicDualism2.htm
You need to read Richard Carrier's _Sense and Goodness Without God: A Defense of Metaphysical Naturalism_. He pretty much demolishes Christian theism and makes a tremendous case for philosophical naturalism.
Trent,
I'm pretty sure Mario Bunge has written extensively on naturalism, including his 8 volume 'Treatise on basic philosophy'.
cheers
I don't know that Oderberg uses "material" in the same sense in which I've been using it. It seems that what he means by "material" is "having only material operations"--i.e., operations whose objects are movements of matter, etc. What I mean by "material" is "being made only of matter".
Suppose that there were an odd sort of spiritual being. This being is unable to affect anything spiritual (in particular, it cannot affect itself), but is capable of causing results in matter. This is (just barely) imaginable. Such a being would have only material operations, and thus it would be material in Oderberg's sense, but it wouldn't be material in my sense.
But if Oderberg had that sort of hard-to-imagine immaterial soul in mind (i.e. the kind that only affects matter), I don't think the the analysis of all of fido's mental operations would be entirely material. The operations of the immaterial soul on matter would be part of that analysis, or so it would seems.
I suspect you're right. If so, hylomorphists shouldn't say what Oderberg says.
The paragraph after the "-----" sounds really interesting because it sounds like a sincere expression of some cosmological-argument-friendly intuitions that are better thought out than those of most theists, but it isn't really clear what your thinking is from this paragraph. Why do you think supernaturalism is exempt from these sorts of worries?
On why I am not a nervous wreck (the 30,000 ft view)...
1) For X to explain Y, it's not enough for X to precede Y. X must predict Y, at least statistically. That is, every proper explanation reflects a regularity. Denying this principle leads to numerous absurdities, like things explaining themselves, or inexplicable facts being fundamentally indistinguishable from explicable ones.
2) I define naturalism as an expression of this principle. Naturalism says that everything that can be explained (which is not everything) is explicable in terms of regularities. Physicalism is a subset of naturalism because physical laws are regularities.
Naturalistic gods are perfectly okay in my book. Indeed, dualism itself could be natural if mental stuff was basic yet predictive and regular. Psionics would be a pretty cool discipline, if it existed! IOW, I don't demand, a priori, that natural stuff be physical.
3) One problem with dualism is that the non-physical aspect of mind doesn't do anything well-defined. It doesn't predict anything. Its value is religious and ideological, not explanatory.
3b) Dualists are not interested in defining what intentionality or consciousness consists in, so it's not surprising that they cannot imagine how physical stuff could account for them.
4) There are trillions more ways to design life than to evolve it. We evolved, therefore, the odds are overwhelmingly against design. Evolution is all but incompatible with dualism, but necessary for physicalism.
5) If the body were a radio for the soul, we wouldn't need a central nervous system, or a brain, or a physical implementation of memory, etc. After discovering that brains do 10,000 things that souls might have done, the odds that minds are non-physical drops to 1 in in some extremely large number (like 2 to the power 10,000). Souls are revealed as a "gap" argument based on gut, while physicalism is an inference from the evidence.
The scientific cases have extremely strong statistical weight. Under dualism, the world didn't need to be the way it is. Under physicalism, it does. Dualists fine-tune to avoid result, e.g.
"My designer god is the very peculiar kind of god whose activity is indistinguishable from naturalistic evolution."
"My dualism is the very rare and peculiar kind in which it looks exactly like a brain working in a physical world."
Trent,
I am interested in your claim 'the fact is I try extremely hard to take seriously all positions, especially rivals to my own views.' This seems to me a reasonable confession. I am tempted to ask whether -- given the 'especially' you'd include theism among the views that philosophically speaking, don't warrant belief (which is of course different than saying belief in theism can't be warranted). After all, even if we suppose that theism has the most explanatory power overall, which i am not sure about, this fact would hardly warrant believing theism. But then the spirit of your confession would apply to all 'world-pictures' if I can use that phrase: unless there is something beyond philosophy and science that could confer warrant on these beliefs, such beliefs would be vastly underdetermined by the evidence. Some views might fare better than others, but that wouldn't really matter all that much if none of them came close to warranting belief. If that's right, then maybe we should be making a broader confession?
Been away at the Plantinga conference, but wanted to say that I'm a canine dualist as well (and not in the same sense I'm a plant-dualist) though I doubt I believe in any kind of Cartesian soul and very much doubt if they are supposed to be what explains phenomenal consciousness. Here's a fun story.
Somehow, when I went to college, I was both a Cartesian dualist and generally a Thomist (actually, that's true of a lot of young evangelicals). I took Melnyk's class on the problem of consciousness and heard about arguments for souls from consciousness.
I thought, "That's never going to work, animals have consciousness but not souls."
It didn't take long for me to realize I had a bad view of the soul and that I'd under-sold consciousness.
I'm inclined to think some animals will be resurrected, many family pets and perhaps all the fawns caught in forrest fires. They might even be made Narnian. I half suspect it.
Given the perceived weakness of naturalism assumed (or at least believed) by those commenting in this thread, I'd like to expand the discussion if I may. If this takes things too far off topic, please confirm this and I'll get in touch privately.
1. Where can I locate the best academic case against naturalism (either in the form of papers or scholarly books)?
2. Where can I locate the best popular level case against naturalism (either in the form of papers or scholarly books)?
3. Where can I find the best academic case for theism (a big rival of naturalism), again either papers or books?
Thanks
Anon,
1. Mike Rea's book _The Ontological Consequences of Naturalism is great.
2. Goetz and Talliaferro's _Naturalism_ is really nice. Moreland and Craig have several items in between the last two works in terms of sophistication.
3. Swinburne's _The Existence of God_ is the fullest, richest account. Koons's "New Cosmological Argument" is the best in print for a single version of the cosmo arg.
Please just keep this in mind tho:
http://prosblogion.ektopos.com/archives/2009/07/that-the-eviden.html
Bunge is..."interesting" but I'm afraid being a brilliant theoretical physicist doesn't make one even a decent philosopher. Some people are too smart to realize their not smart enough.
You know, I hate to be this way, I'm not an eliteist, far from it (hell, I just tried to spell the word three times and didn't get it right once!).
But the "New Atheists" are just the old "Internet Atheists" who have convince publishers that they can make them money. Carrier is not credible. Your claims are not credible. Think of the wording you use, it can't be taken seriously. Mackie, Rowe, Draper: those guys I take seriously and have spent hours and hours, probably years, cumulatively, before I die, thinking about.
That's all well and good, but the naturalist still owes us an explanation of the existence and nature of the world! Various supernaturalisms--the simplest by far being traditional monotheism--have plausible answers. Naturalists have nothing.
Which seems to me to admit that, unlike theists, naturalist don't have any coherent worldview. I'm happy to go the Plantinga route and define the naturalist as the person who thinks there's no such person as God. We need to add that they thing somehow "Science" shows that. This leaves the naturalist at a disadvantage w.r.t. the kind of explanations used in science and natural theology. The naturalist has no explanation for the origin and nature of the world. The "Scientific Naturalist" must just QUIT when the really interesting stuff gets started. That's bad faith.
Christian, that still seems hopeless to me. That's because physicalism seems hopeless to me. I'm utterly convinced by Adams's "Flavors, Colours, and God" and by Swinburne's stuff (not the cartesian argument). I also think it's incompatible with my being the sort of agent I know myself to be (with a degree of certainty beyond almost any other proposition).
The naturalists have shoved (not argued) the Person off the table, and they'd better. Those of us who refuse to be bullied, and keep the agent at the center, will see a philosophy dedicated to the third-person perspective as hopeless.
Beyond this, there's just no good reason to believe such a thesis. It's not as though we have any sort of inductive evidence for it.
I can only say that I think you're sadly stuck in a philosophy of science that was refuted in the early 50's...
How about Jack Ritchie, Understanding Naturalism, Acumen, 2008, 218pp., $22.95 (pbk), ISBN 9781844650798? Reviewed here by David Macarthur:
http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=18045
From the review:
"[Ritchie's] main claim is that if we are honest in our appeal to actual scientific practices rather than merely paying lip-service to such an aspiration, or misguidedly employing mythical or ideological conceptions of science then we will find there is, on balance, no scientific support for substantial metaphysical conclusions embodied in such prominent '-isms' as physicalism, scientific realism, modal realism and mathematical Platonism."
Sounds very interesting to me.
Here's a passage from Macarthur's review of Ritchie's book that I think is the most salient in the current context:
"Ritchie's strategy of taking up a position within the landscape of current scientific naturalism, however, leads to a blindspot about the range of viable naturalisms on offer in contemporary philosophy. He misses the possibility of a non-scientific or liberal naturalism that is arguably associated with such leading philosophers as Dewey, McDowell, Putnam and Wittgenstein. Such naturalism lies in the largely unexplored conceptual space between scientific naturalism and supernaturalism. It allows that one can respect science without supposing that science is our only resource for understanding humanity. Not everything that exists is explicable, or fully explicable, by science. There are many things in our everyday world of which there is no complete scientific theory but that are, nonetheless, presupposed by science -- e.g. tables, persons, artworks, institutions, rational norms. A liberal naturalism can more readily do justice to such things. It is also in a better position to ask whether there exist non-scientific modes of knowing and understanding tables, persons, reasons, etc. The best prospects for an account of rational or conceptual normativity ("the hardest task") are, presumably, neither scientific nor supernatural."
"liberal naturalism" eh? Sounds like *weak* naturalism to me. I say have some guts and go all Dawkins before that milk-toast approach. Naturalism-and-water? No thanks.
Actually, this might just be part of the *retreat* or demise of naturalism at work. If the future of Christianity depended on "liberal Christianity" then Christianity would have no future.
I might be in the minority of theists--I really don't know--but it's not normativity that I think theism helps with. I want an explanation of the existence and nature of all this puzzling contingent phenomena.
It doesn't sound like "weak naturalism" so much as attempts to address that issue.
Hi Trent,
I'm happy to go with whatever labels for liberal forms of naturalism you like. My main concern is to determine which large-scale hypothesis, if any, is the best explanation of the relevant data.
Best,
EA
Trent, talking about explanations, what do you think of Gregory Dawes' book 'Theism and Explanation'?
Dawes's book is a step in the right direction in both tone and content, but it still has deeply imbedded, unquestioned, unjustified assumptions.
The thing that just drives me crazy is the idea that there is this thing called "scientific explanation" that differs in kind from other kinds of explanation. Hooey. There are good explanations and bad explanations, or, rather, better and worse explanations. The explanations that occur in *the sciences* (as opposed to that great mythological beast "Science") are many and varied, a heterogeneous lot. I think IBE or Bayes is at the base of all of them though.
One natural distinction between kinds of explanations is that between personal explanation and explanation in terms of laws. In the end, I think the latter can be explained in terms of the former, but not vice versa. Personhood stands at the back of the universe.
As is mine. It would be nice, for a start, if a naturalist would *suggest one*!
. . . Gregory Dawes' book 'Theism and Explanation'.
Dawes concludes that current theistic explanations are not up to the standards of naturalistic explanation. So it won't appeal much to theists. There is puzzlingly little discussion of teleological explanation in the (soft) sciences (biology too, for that matter), which might have illuminated theistic explanation. Technical details, where they come up, are not the strongest part of the book. Nice introduction to the problems. Monton has on on-balance positive review forthcoming (it might already be published) in NDPR. We exchanged some notes. I have one forthcoming in F&P.
Hi Trent,
Couldn't one construe Lowe's (and possibly Van Inwagen's) 1996 papers , 'Why Is There Anything at All?' as an argument, postulating a 'weak' naturalism, towards explaining, "the existence and nature of all this puzzling contingent phenomena."?
Oh and and if you had to recommend one piece of Swinburne's work for me to read, which would you suggest?
Cheers
I think those works aren't naturalist really, but just plain skeptical.
Since you're asking in the context of this thread, I'd say a good, *careful* (I mean really really careful) reading of his _The Existence of God_ is simply the best. Few who have read it have really taken in the detail and coherence. The stuff about the explanatory power of theism is wonderful and neglected.
Swinburne doesn't--as I tend to do--think God is metaphysically necessary (fact is, he's not a huge fan of metaphysical necessity (his public views on necessity are expressed in _The Coherence of Theism_ and _The Christian God_).
But he's very good about pointing out the alternatives and about the role of science. I'd read _Is there a God_ and _Simplicity as Evidence for Truth_ as primers. Both are very short.
"I think those works aren't naturalist really, but just plain skeptical."
Hi Trent, do you mean the works are skeptical (if so what of?) or that you're skeptical of the works/weak naturalism in general?
If I recall correctly, they're just skeptical that there couldn't have been nothing, skeptical of the idea of a singular necessary being or of our warrant for inferring one or of the premise that there must be an explanation of the existence and nature of the world. Earl Conee argues that the question Why is there something rather than nothing? is answered by how many more ways there could have been something! (Metaphysics: Riddles of Existence)
I think Richard Taylor answered his student in advance. As I recall, Taylor's Cosmo arg already had the resources to answer PvI's worries (PvI's dissertation was at Rochester with Taylor). It's been awhile though, and I've read reams and reams of PvI, so I might be mixing up passages.
Hi Trent,
No, I think you're right with respect to Van Inwagen, his paper does argue that it's just very improbable that there could have been nothing. However, Lowe argues for the much that stronger claim that it is impossible for there to have been nothing. It's been a while since I read them too, but if I remember correctly, Lowe's argument is something like the following:
1. Abstract objects depend for their existence upon there being concrete objects.
2. Some abstract objects, like natural numbers, exist of necessity.
3. Therefore, it is necessary that there are concrete objects.
(Although don't take that as 100% verified...in fact, think I might try and dig out my copy!) I think he had quite a bit of dialogue with Rodriguez-Pereyra about this too.
Cheers
No, I think that's right re Lowe, and I'm inclined to think along essentially the same lines. It's just that the simplest model which satisfies the conclusion is that God's ideas are the concreta which ground the abstracta. In fact, since they are the *same* abstract in each world--seven in this world is identical to seven in another--I think it ought to be the *same* concreta which they depend on in each world.
God's mind is the untapped paradise of metaphysicians. Unfortunately, due to the prevalence of naturalists in the academy, you get more credulous stares from this move than from Lewis's paradise. Yet the theistic view posits ONE THING (of a familiar kind) as the foundation whereas Lewis is stuck with this PLENUM!
As I've said many times, there might be *some* kind of type/token tradeoff, but it can't be infinite! It can't be that positing a plenum is worth reducing modality! Give me irreduceable modality and one primitive any day!
So you don't share Bill Craig's worries then?: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5985
And I also just wanted to say this may be the most thought provoking blog post I've ever read, good work Trent!
Thanks, that's extremely gratifying and very kind of you to say. I wish I had more time to devote to writing on the subject--and I will in a few years--so it is at once very relieving and frustrating to write briefly on it now.
Oh, forgot to mention the link. I don't have time to look at it, but I'm guessing it's about his fictionalism. He's been thinking about this a lot for several years. I discussed this with him and Al Plantinga at Notre Dame about four years ago where I was pressing the middle view between Al's usual Platonism and Bill's fictionalism. Al actually seemed to like the conceptualist view and had seemed to have been thinking a lot about it around that time. I was very pleased to hear this, hopefully he'll write on it more.
In the interim I've suggested readings to Bill both friendly to and hostile to fictionalism.
At any rate, I only used seven as an example. I don't really believe in seven, I think, but I do, I think, believe in *some* abstracta. And even if I don't, I still think that what takes their place have to have the property of being the same in all possible worlds to be the right kind of truthmaker for statements about whatever statements which purport to be about abstracta are about.
The article talks about the ontological status of abstracta and expresses some of Dr Craig's concerns with conceptualism: "Someone might try to avoid this problem by espousing a modified Platonism, according to which numbers were necessarily and eternally created by God. But then a problem of vicious circularity arises: explanatorily prior to God’s creating the number 3, wasn’t it the case that the number of persons in the Trinity was 3? Of course; but then the number 3 existed prior to God’s creating the number 3, which is impossible!"
Interestingly he then says he's become more attracted to various Nominalistic or anti-realist views of abstract objects.
Also whilst I'm here, seems appropriate to draw some attention to this conference: http://www.heythrop.ac.uk/outreach/centre-for-philosophy-of-religion/upcoming-centre-events.html
Yeah, that's exactly what he was saying then. I'm not moved. The Godhead has always been *such that* there are three persons, but that can come "explanatorily before" the "threeness". God's suchness is the basic fact.
I think to put the objection into a syllogism you'd have to rely on a very questionable premise. Mike Bergmann has some stuff on this and Kenny Boyce has some very interesting replies.