tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215077578479252542.post9041643592489996170..comments2024-03-15T17:06:31.642-05:00Comments on The Piety That Lies Between: A Progressive Christian Perspective: On Agnosticism and FaithEric Reitanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06135739290199272992noreply@blogger.comBlogger49125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215077578479252542.post-56461616858981431252011-04-02T16:23:05.245-05:002011-04-02T16:23:05.245-05:00Hi Dianelos
As ever, I was just trying to get you...Hi Dianelos<br /><br />As ever, I was just trying to get you to clarify, because sometimes you use a term to mean two things simultaneously.<br /><br />When you say we all agree that it is better not to torture children, then it rather depends upon what you mean by better. If you mean, we have an inbuilt tendency to feel distaste at the act, then I wholly agree, just as we have inbuilt taste to avoid severely bitter foods. I suspect that evolution is to thank in both these cases.<br /><br />Now, in the sense that agreement equals objectivity, then of course there are objective moral truths (for contemporary humans). This is not however what people here are trying to establish. They are trying to establish there is more to these facts than an evolved behavioural tendency. That their truth is measured by something other than evolution's dictates. They wish to establish that should we evolve to feel differently about torturing children in the future, it would still be wrong. <br /><br />Now, you jump between definitions when you claim that naturalism denies us our ability to believe in moral truths.<br /><br />BernardBernard Beckettnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215077578479252542.post-39012068676462305142011-04-01T12:13:46.530-05:002011-04-01T12:13:46.530-05:00Hi Bernard,
You write: “Clearly not as universal...Hi Bernard, <br /><br />You write: “<i>Clearly not as universally perceived as the elephant and mouse example, given that neither JP nor I seem to perceive this, nor indeed the great majority of people with whom I've discussed It.</i>”<br /><br />I am afraid you have lost me here. The moral proposition under discussion is ““to help a child in need is better than to torture it for fun”. Are you saying you don’t perceive that this is true? I can’t believe you mean that, but then I am not sure what it is you mean. <br /><br />“<i>Here is the very great danger perhaps of failing to differentiate between a belief that is culturally informed, in essence a story, and one that is commonly agreed upon.</i>”<br /><br />I personally don’t think there is one single person of normal cognitive abilities who fails to perceive that to help a child in need is better than to torture it for fun. Similarly I don’t think there is one single person of normal cognitive abilities (including normal eyesight) who fails to perceive that an elephant is larger than a mouse. Whatever exactly you mean by “culturally informed” or “a story in essence” or perhaps “just a feeling” is irrelevant to my claim that some moral truths are as universally agreed upon as the most conspicuous visual truths. <br /><br />“<i>A great many people, while holding both that they would not wish to torture a child, nor live in a world where such action was sanctioned, do not see the undesirability of this action as a moral truth.</i>”<br /><br />I don’t see what the relevance of one’s wishes is. It is very often the case that one wishes what one perceives to be morally wrong, and vice-versa. Neither is taste a good analogy for moral perception; it is often the case that we really like what we perceive to be morally wrong, and vice-versa. <br /><br />“<i>Rather they see it simply as a taste developed over our shared biological, cultural and environmental histories.</i>”<br /><br />But there are also universally perceived truths about tastes. Everybody perceives that fresh strawberries taste better than rotten ones. It may be the case that that agreement is universal because of our shared biological, cultural and environmental histories, but this would not make the proposition “fresh strawberries taste better than rotten ones” any less than true, or not a matter of perception, or not universally agreed upon. After all, by the same logic, our perception that an elephant is bigger than a mouse is also developed over our shared biological, cultural and environmental histories. As is our perception that 5 is bigger than 4. Or our perception that Halle Berry is more beautiful than Winston Churchill. <br /><br />The point I think that Sam Harris makes and Thomas Nagel (as well as I) agree with is that there are many truths in ethics (and I add: as well as in many other fields), which we perceive clearly and directly without the need for some convincing argument or evidence, and which truths are so universally agreed upon that if we found somebody who did not agree we’d have no reason to take her seriously, as Nagel rather diplomatically puts it. (This set of beliefs is I think identical to the set of beliefs Alvin Plantinga calls “incorrigible”.) <br /><br />“<i>This alternative interpretation of moral sense means that we can not assume from the get go that its existence says anything about the existence of God.</i>”<br /><br />The claim under discussion is that as a matter of fact we do clearly and universally perceive many truths, including some moral truths. Apparently you disagree with that claimed fact. It is pointless to discuss what the relevance of a fact is, or to what degree this fact justifies theism, as long as you don’t even agree that this fact obtains.Dianelos Georgoudishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09925591703967774000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215077578479252542.post-8583160379383023862011-04-01T11:51:41.939-05:002011-04-01T11:51:41.939-05:00Hi JP,
You write: “ The existence of evil is cert...Hi JP,<br /><br />You write: “<i> The existence of evil is certainly strong evidence against the existence of a *certain kind* of God – a benevolent, all-powerful God interested in humans. But it certainly does not exclude a sadistic God or, more likely, considering our total cosmic insignificance, a God totally indifferent to humans, for whom we are no more important than specks of dust are to us. </i>”<br /><br />“God” is the English name of a particular person (that’s why we write it in upper case), namely one who is perfect in all respects. We may argue if such a person as God exists, but to speak of a “sadistic God” or of a “God who is totally indifferent to humans”, is a contradiction in terms. <br /><br />“<i>In fact it takes considerable intellectual gymnastics to explain away evil and rescue the concept of a good God – if it succeeds at all.</i>”<br /><br />That’s a complex issue which is irrelevant in our context. I was responding to the claim that there is no evidence for or against God. There certainly is. The only thing we may reasonably discuss is how convincing this or that evidence for or against God should be.Dianelos Georgoudishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09925591703967774000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215077578479252542.post-25213221907893200182011-03-31T01:49:23.173-05:002011-03-31T01:49:23.173-05:00Hi Dianelos
Clearly not as universally perceived ...Hi Dianelos<br /><br />Clearly not as universally perceived as the elephant and mouse example, given that neither JP nor I seem to perceive this, nor indeed the great majority of people with whom I've discussed It. Here is the very great danger perhaps of failing to differentiate between a belief that is culturally informed, in essence a story, and one that is commonly agreed upon.<br /><br />There is nothing wrong with a starting out point of, 'I have a sense that this is a moral truth'. But to go the next step and argue it is 'universally perceived that this is a moral truth' is exactly the sort of misstep agnosticism cautions against. A great many people, while holding both that they would not wish to torture a child, nor live in a world where such action was sanctioned, do not see the undesirability of this action as a moral truth. Rather they see it simply as a taste developed over our shared biological, cultural and environmental histories.<br /><br />This alternative interpretation of moral sense means that we can not assume from the get go that its existence says anything about the existence of God. Once again, your personal starting assumptions drive you to the desired conclusion.<br /><br />BernardBernard Beckettnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215077578479252542.post-6894757716636656462011-03-30T22:22:44.664-05:002011-03-30T22:22:44.664-05:00Hi Dianelos,
You have an interesting choice of ex...Hi Dianelos,<br /><br />You have an interesting choice of examples: <i>[...] the existence of evil is evidence against God. Our ethical sense is evidence for God</i>. And I would disagree with both...<br /><br />The existence of evil is certainly strong evidence against the existence of a <i>certain kind</i> of God – a benevolent, all-powerful God interested in humans. But it certainly does not exclude a sadistic God or, more likely, considering our total cosmic insignificance, a God totally indifferent to humans, for whom we are no more important than specks of dust are to us. In fact it takes considerable intellectual gymnastics to explain away evil and rescue the concept of a good God – if it succeeds at all. If not for the fact that we're so used to this idea, perhaps these attempts would be seen as totally unreasonable.<br /><br />As for our ethical sense, I don't see at all. The idea that our morality evolved through entirely natural means does not seem to present any difficulty.JPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12609837930361362269noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215077578479252542.post-2879265832900785182011-03-30T15:49:49.447-05:002011-03-30T15:49:49.447-05:00Hi Bernard,
You write: “the question seems to st...Hi Bernard, <br /><br />You write: “<i>the question seems to still be, but how do we calculate such probabilities in the first place?</i>”<br /><br />As far as the definition of probable truth (i.e. epistemic probability) is concerned, how one produces one’s estimate of this probability is irrelevant. <br /><br />You write: “<i>You offer that the existence of moral truths are evidence in favour of God's existence.</i>”<br /><br />No, I said that the existence of our moral *sense* is evidence for God’s existence.<br /><br />“<i>The trouble is, I don't think [moral truths exist], and I've never seen any compelling argument to the contrary.</i>”<br /><br />I am with philosopher Thomas Nagel (as well as with philosopher Sam Harris) in this. Moral truths such as that “to help a child in need is better than to torture it for fun” are as obvious and as universally perceived as the truth that “elephants are larger than mice”.Dianelos Georgoudishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09925591703967774000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215077578479252542.post-54807340952785849172011-03-30T01:28:33.387-05:002011-03-30T01:28:33.387-05:00Hi Darrell
Given this very broad agreement, it ma...Hi Darrell<br /><br />Given this very broad agreement, it may well be that our disagreement is one of terminology. At the point where I accept that different people bring different narratives, and the test of the viability of these narratives is personal rather than public, I call this acceptance agnosticism. Why? Because I make the next step, which is that while we can judge the personal success of our narrative, we have no way of judging it against the personal success of somebody else's constructions. Hence we are unable to conclude which narrative is more true, in any useful sense. Hence, when it comes to those matter son which there is rational divergence, what sense does it make to speak in a non-agnostic manner, to say not 'I choose to believe X' but rather 'X is true'?<br /><br />I'm not sure if you go as far as this next step or not. perhaps you do, and prefer not to use the term agnostic for some good reason.<br /><br />BernardBernard Beckettnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215077578479252542.post-50789074141464388282011-03-29T18:17:37.500-05:002011-03-29T18:17:37.500-05:00Burk,
“I would indeed take some issue with this d...Burk,<br /><br />“I would indeed take some issue with this dismissal of justification.”<br /><br />Neither I nor Bernard was dismissing justification. The question is—what justifies?<br /><br />“…since truth means literally to correspond with reality, whose test is empricism.”<br /><br />Three problems here: First, what truth? If we were debating the truth of whether morals were objective or not, what “test” would you perform? What would you weigh, measure, touch, listen for, or take a picture of? Second, empiricism is already a way of looking at the world, a world-view, one that is presupposed, not founded empirically! Third, please explain to us how it is that many, many evangelical/fundamentalist scholars, like JP Moreland, take the same view that you do (the correspondence theory of truth) and come to completely different conclusions? Why doesn’t the fact that this is the case, prove Bernard and mine’s point? <br /><br />As to the rest of your response, you are begging the question. I don’t see how you are answering anyone’s true questions or points.Darrellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14078435438689569728noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215077578479252542.post-49961093380481187972011-03-29T16:23:26.310-05:002011-03-29T16:23:26.310-05:00Hi JP,
You write: “ You may be right to point ou...Hi JP, <br /><br />You write: “<i> You may be right to point out that holding back one's beliefs when one has confidence they are true is not always healthy.</i>”<br /><br />Actually I tried to describe what I think agnosticism is, and not my evaluation of it. Having said that, I do think that agnosticism is in general not a good choice. But sometimes it is: Embracing a belief entails taking risks as well as accepting other consequences. There are states of affairs where it is quite wise to choose to be an agnostic even if one thinks that the belief in question is probably true (or, in other words, even if one has some confidence that the belief in question is true). I mentioned such an example previously, namely somebody who judges that naturalism is probably true but who, after considering the consequences of embracing a naturalistic worldview, chooses to become an agnostic instead. <br /><br />“<i>But I don't think this describes accurately anybody's position here - one more example of what happens when we use words differently.</i>”<br /><br />As I said I think that all agnostics think that a belief is either probably true or else probably false when they choose to be agnostic about it. Perhaps Bernard will tell us how he would respond if his life depended on giving the right “yes” or “no” answer to the question of whether God exists. Whatever his answer may be, it will show what he actually believes to be probably true, even though he has chosen to remain an agnostic about this issue. <br /><br />“<i>I don't know which of restaurants A or B is better but it's time to eat, I have to choose one of them. So I do but this is no reason to form the belief that, say, A is the better one. I can very well remain “agnostic” about this even after I make a choice.</i>”<br /><br />In this particular example, I’d say it’s not that one is an agnostic about which restaurant is better, but rather one is ignorant. But you are right, whether agnostic or ignorant one sometimes has to make a choice. In the case of ignorance the choice can’t be reached by any other method than by flipping a coin. In the case of agnosticism though, the reasonable choice is to pick the belief one thinks is more probably true. <br /><br />“<i>[Bernard] is perfectly right. When faced with two hypothesis, taking side, hoping that the one we like the most will win, can only introduce bias and cloud our judgment. How can one look objectively at the evidence if one desires a particular result?</i>”<br /><br />Right, that’s a potential problem. Embracing a belief entails investing in it, which by itself makes it more difficult to think neutrally or freely about it. One of the most common and insidious fallacies is to beg the question, and it is easier to commit that fallacy if one is committed to or has invested a lot in a particular belief. We do see people (in politics, in religion, etc) sometimes become very dogmatic. (That’s why I say it’s a good idea to approach an argument with an agnostic state of mind. I am not really against agnosticism as an epistemic tool; I am against agnosticism as a life stance.) <br /><br />A related problem is overspecialization. I wouldn’t say that scientists like Richard Dawkins are dogmatic, but they still grossly and continuously beg the question for the simple reason that they are unable to see things except through the lens of what their field of specialization happens to be. As they say, to a hammer everything looks like a nail.Dianelos Georgoudishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09925591703967774000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215077578479252542.post-11057705901116313932011-03-29T14:47:52.190-05:002011-03-29T14:47:52.190-05:00Hi Burk
Induction is always the stumbling block f...Hi Burk<br /><br />Induction is always the stumbling block for me. I'm not sure one can call it probably true without appealing to inductive principals. <br /><br />BernardBernard Beckettnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215077578479252542.post-76446079315825430532011-03-29T14:46:41.676-05:002011-03-29T14:46:41.676-05:00Hi Dianelos
Your betting strategy definition of p...Hi Dianelos<br /><br />Your betting strategy definition of probability appears circular to me. the question seems to still be, but how do we calculate such probabilities in the first place? And the answer, as best I can see, is we draw upon our personal histories, prejudices and inclinations to do this. At this point, saying something is probably true is saying 'it feels probably true to me.' My interest is how we then treat the person who in good faith, applying the very same principles, concludes 'it feels probably untrue to me.' While under most circumstances one is right and one is wrong, there doesn't appear to be any way of determining which is which. We can't use your proposed principles of game betting, simply because those principles, carefully applied by those with different starting assumptions, yield the different answers in the first place. <br /><br />Perhaps a concrete example raised by you will make my point clearer. You offer that the existence of moral truths are evidence in favour of God's existence. Well yes, if moral truths exist. The trouble is, I don't think they do, and I've never seen any compelling argument to the contrary. It seems the evidence for or against God's existence (whether there is a hard problem with consciousness is another good example) all begins with this culturally informed leap of faith. This is what I mean when I say there is no evidence. There is plenty good evidence of the way the world appears to be, but in every case it seems easy enough to fit it into a picture of a world with or without God.<br /><br />Perhaps this reflects the very danger of rejecting agnosticism. We begin to see all the data through the filter of our preformed conclusions.<br /><br />BernardBernard Beckettnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215077578479252542.post-79671947929000187092011-03-29T11:23:45.674-05:002011-03-29T11:23:45.674-05:00Bernard,
“I'm not sure what you think of this...Bernard,<br /><br />“I'm not sure what you think of this idea that some of our starting positions, though undoubtedly leaps of faith in some respect (and induction seems a classic example here) can still be relied upon by everybody in the conversation.”<br /><br />I absolutely agree.<br /><br />“I do think that's true, and if it does turn out to be the case, then calling reliance upon inductive reasoning a world view has the potential to be misleading, maybe?”<br /><br />I’m not calling induction a world-view. What I’m saying is that we use induction as one tool employed within an overall and comprehensive matrix of world-view.<br /><br />“I suppose what I'm getting at is if any two people are to enter into a conversation about what constitutes a reasonable belief, then leaving off the table those beliefs that are shared by both participants seems a good first move.”<br /><br />I agree to an extent—although did you mean beliefs that are “not” shared? If so, I would say we have done that. I don’t think anyone in this conversation believes gravity to be a myth or the world is flat, to put it simply. <br /><br />“When we move into positions where the participants disagree, it is interesting to me to discover what the disagreement is based upon.”<br /><br />Yes! That is what is interesting to me as well. And one of the best conversation stoppers one can hear from the philosophical naturalist/atheistic side (which I’m not accusing you of) is for them to assert that the disagreement lies with the fact that one side just considers the “evidence” while the other side considers the evidence but then also decides to project fantasies.<br /><br />“…So I will simply own the fact that here I am making a personal leap, in essence telling myself a story in the face of coherent alternative stories. This distinction seems ever so important to me, but that might just be my world view coming through.”<br /><br />I think you have nailed it exactly—it is the most important distinction. The character of all divergent world-views is narrative, including the atheist narrative. This aspect does not make them false. It makes them honest. We are all faced with the “facts” and the “evidence” but we have to tell a story for all those “facts” and “evidence” to make sense of our lives and our world. No narrative, by itself, makes total sense of existence. But some proximate it better than others. How? Some resonate. Some draw us. Some strike us deeply. Some change our lives. Some pull us up short. Some don’t fit with our experience of life. Some do.Darrellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14078435438689569728noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215077578479252542.post-10923592049493817972011-03-29T11:05:55.224-05:002011-03-29T11:05:55.224-05:00Darrell, Bernard-
I would indeed take some issue ...Darrell, Bernard-<br /><br />I would indeed take some issue with this dismissal of justification. I agree with Hume that induction is basically a probabalistic enterprise, as is everything else we call knowledge. But how then to deploy the word "truth"?<br /><br />This is where empiricism turns out to be unavoidable, since truth means literally to correspond with reality, whose test is empricism. Thus it is a tautology to engage in empirical investigation to establish truth, other than in formal systems like mathematics, where one begins with axioms rather than empirical observations.<br /><br />Thus religion is at base an empirical pursuit, where legends and tall tales (staffs turning into snakes, frogs raining from the sky, dead being raised to life, etc.) are taken as signs (evidence) for the operations of forces out of the common run or materialist understanding. <br /><br />Or our mystical feelings are spun into supernatural forces benevolently communicating with our better natures, even when they could just as well be brought on by the proverbial odd bit of beef we had for dinner. It is all an exercise in figuring out how the world works, and the race should go, not to those with greater faith and imagination, but to those with better evidence and more detailed / explanatory theories.<br /><br />Perhaps truth is a dangerous explosive, best kept confined to only the most solid, evident, and rationally justified theories. This is especially true when proclaiming truths that, through their social valence, injure those who have reason to doubt. <br /><br />This is the policy of scientists, who are notorious for caveating their claims to the point of obfuscation. Yet it is curiously the opposite with religionists, who not infrequently build cathedrals of nonsense (i.e. absolute truth) on crumbs of evidence. Standards of evidence and reasoning are indeed the issue and the distinction.Burkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11158223475895530397noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215077578479252542.post-64345107468291610172011-03-29T10:08:57.270-05:002011-03-29T10:08:57.270-05:00Hi Bernard,
You write: “So, take something like ...Hi Bernard, <br /><br />You write: “<i>So, take something like the notion of God existing. We appear to have no evidence either way, nor do we have any system of reasoning that can not be called into question by those of another persuasion.</i>”<br /><br />There is plenty of evidence for and against the existence of God. For example, the existence of evil is evidence against God. Our ethical sense is evidence for God. Theists have proposed literally dozens of arguments for the existence of God. So, the only question is how good the various pieces of evidence are, i.e. how successfully they justify belief in the existence or non-existence of God. Now my point is that it is (for all practical reasons) never the case that one finds that the evidence for and against the existence of God exactly cancel each other out, so it’s never the case that one finds no reason to think that theism is probably true or probably false. Similarly a juror at a trial always leans one way or the other, but decides for “guilty” only when the total of evidence is deemed to be conclusive beyond reasonable doubt. <br /><br />“<i>What then does it mean to say there probably is or probably is not a God? I can make no sense of statements like this.</i>”<br /><br />I understand. Interestingly enough the concept of “probable truth” allows for a precise definition, even when it is not possible or practical to directly check the truth of a belief. <br /><br />In Bergman’s “The Fifth Seal” there is this scene where Death comes to the knight, who in order to escape his fate challenges Death to a game of chess. Suppose you found yourself in a similar situation: If your life depended on giving the right “yes” or “no” answer to the question “Does God exist?” how would you answer? If you answer “yes” then it means that, according to the evidence for and against you know of and in your evaluation of it to the best of your ability, it is more probable that God exists than that God does not exist. Conversely, of course, if you answer “no”. Incidentally, this kind of probability is called “epistemic probability” in order to distinguish it from the more common concept based on statistical results. <br /><br />The above is a rough answer. One can define epistemic probability quantitatively based on the concept of the best strategy to win a betting game where one accepts odds according to one’s computation of the epistemic probabilities of one’s beliefs. Incidentally, epistemic probability is a function of a belief and of a set of evidence, and is objective in the sense that it does not depend on one’s cognitive ability, the idea being that if one judges badly then one will get the wrong value of epistemic probability.Dianelos Georgoudishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09925591703967774000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215077578479252542.post-67441511936956105612011-03-29T05:45:54.719-05:002011-03-29T05:45:54.719-05:00Eric,
I am very much with Kierkegaard in this. F...Eric, <br /><br />I am very much with Kierkegaard in this. First and foremost we are existential beings, and therefore all meaning and all truth are relevant only to the degree that they are existentially significant. It is a fact about the human condition that the effect of thought and of embracing beliefs goes far beyond the intellect (or the formation of one’s noetic structure) and impacts not only our expectations and choices but also, literally and significantly, how we experience life. Life is a dialectical and dynamic process, a process by which we evolve as persons. <br /><br />Please give me a little time to put my thoughts in order before responding at any depth.Dianelos Georgoudishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09925591703967774000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215077578479252542.post-91261179420690673082011-03-29T01:42:35.221-05:002011-03-29T01:42:35.221-05:00Eric
A further thought. There appears to be a par...Eric<br /><br />A further thought. There appears to be a paradox of sorts at the heart of religious pragmatism, at least for me. At the point where I acknowledge that the value of religious belief is simply how it helps me feel and behave, it loses its power to help me feel and behave that way. There is a vicious loop here somehow, of the same sort that comes from understanding the joy of believing in Santa. For the child, it brings a sense of magic and wonder into their lives. But at the point where the child can fully understand how the belief brings in its wonder, the wonder ceases to be available, for the child understands they were committing to an invention.<br /><br />So too, to say I choose to believe in God because this gives me access to a sense of peace/purpose/wonder/love falls over for me, because all that baggage is available only if my belief is not a matter of pure pragmatics. I would almost need to believe it was more than that, that it was a belief in something real, and I can't quite marry that to pragmatism. If I could, the religious outlook would be deeply tempting.<br /><br />BernardBernard Beckettnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215077578479252542.post-89030690580466941792011-03-29T01:34:08.362-05:002011-03-29T01:34:08.362-05:00Hi Darrell
Yeah, I accept that. It's a fair p...Hi Darrell<br /><br />Yeah, I accept that. It's a fair point.<br /><br />I'm not sure what you think of this idea that some of our starting positions, though undoubtedly leaps of faith in some respect (and induction seems a classic example here) can still be relied upon by everybody in the conversation. I do think that's true, and if it does turn out to be the case, then calling reliance upon inductive reasoning a world view has the potential to be misleading, maybe? I say that in the sense that there don't appear to be any functioning alternative world views live in the conversation.<br /><br />I suppose what I'm getting at is if any two people are to enter into a conversation about what constitutes a reasonable belief, then leaving off the table those beliefs that are shared by both participants seems a good first move. Hence, if we say we prefer physical models with strong predictive value over those that make consistently erroneous predictions, most of the time everybody in the conversation will say, okay, that's a reasonable belief from the get go, and hence litigating it becomes somehow futile (unless one claims it is not only a reasonable belief, but a stone hard cold fact of the world, which I sometimes think is your objection - and a fair one).<br /><br />When we move into positions where the participants disagree, it is interesting to me to discover what the disagreement is based upon. If it is an error of reasoning from one party, that's excellent, as they may well be grateful to have the flaw exposed. If it's a lack of base knowledge, some fact that when presented is readily accepted, that's grand too. <br /><br />But when it is simply that the world views diverge, so the starting assumptions are profoundly different (as is the case with consciousness I suspect) I am at a loss to know how to proceed. My instinct is to say, well both participants are being entirely reasonable, and there appears to be no good reason to choose one starting assumption over the other. So I will simply own the fact that here I am making a personal leap, in essence telling myself a story in the face of coherent alternative stories. This distinction seems ever so important to me, but that might just be my world view coming through. <br /><br />BernardBernard Beckettnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215077578479252542.post-34324276180750308112011-03-29T00:21:39.616-05:002011-03-29T00:21:39.616-05:00Bernard,
No worries, I have children so I underst...Bernard,<br /><br />No worries, I have children so I understand.<br /><br />“I meant this: If all we are interested in establishing is that no system of thinking can be justified all the way to its core, then I'm not sure anybody in this discussion would claim otherwise.”<br /><br />I would love to hear Burk’s response to that, because I’m not so sure he believes such. But, I agree, and that was where I was going with my response to your observations that, “I'm not sure how far I'd go with this claim that we're all believers” and, “For me, a genuine agnosticism can extend a fair way down.”<br /><br />I think a key point here is that empiricism only goes so “far down” and it still is wielded as a tool within a philosophical framework, and one in which in and of itself cannot be founded empirically. Even to choose empiricism is to start out from a faith position and shows again where the agnostic is still a believer of sorts. <br /><br />“So, take something like the notion of God existing. We appear to have no evidence either way…”<br /><br />It is never that we have no evidence either way. This issue is how do we interpret the evidence we have? And, further, I propose that we are always already interpreting the evidence through our beliefs, our faith, our passions, our hearts really, all the way down as it were, and thus why we “see” the same evidence differently.<br /><br />That one could say “We have no evidence either way” is to already commit one’s self to a certain “belief” about, well, what counts as evidence but many other things as well. One’s hand is already showing.Darrellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14078435438689569728noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215077578479252542.post-68421342044663705252011-03-28T21:12:18.545-05:002011-03-28T21:12:18.545-05:00Hello Eric
Scepticism vs agnosticism? Good questi...Hello Eric<br /><br />Scepticism vs agnosticism? Good question. My thoughts here will be tentative at best. If we confine ourselves specifically to agnosticism/scepticism about God, then the two clearly feed off one another. There are very many things I am not agnostic about - the existence of this computer before me, for example. I am aware of the arguments for idealism, but they do not sway me. I can not be certain the computer exists, but I believe it does. This is not to do with probabilities, which I can't quite grasp the meaning of in such a context, but with the pragmatic argument. I can't see how adopting the idealist stance would help me in my interactions with the computer. I can't quite see what it would add. (And I go further and see this belief as a public belief, insomuch as I am confident I can convince other people that it is helpful to think of the computer as existing).<br /><br />Within this context agnosticism with regard to God is not scepticism as such. Sure, I don't buy either the arguments for or against God, but then I am of the opinion that no argument works all the way down. Arguments are just extensions of starting assumptions, and so scepticism, if uniformly applied, would stop me believing in anything, which is pragmatically hopeless. <br /><br />Agnosticism then, differs for me in that it is the claim that the starting positions required to generate arguments for or against God are both easily held by reasonable people, and there is no hope of resolving the argument publicly. One believes in God for pragmatic reasons, and pragmatic worth in this case is built upon the individual biological, cultural and personal context. <br /><br />This is very different from the belief that fire is hot. Was it Protagoras who noted 'the fire burns the same everywhere, but the law of the land differs from place to place'? Scepticism, it seems to me, would lead to a denial of the facts of fire too, as it resists the pragmatic rescue. The laws of the land however take their pragmatic value form the beliefs upon which they are built. Acknowledging this difference is to me at the heart of agnosticism. <br /><br />BernardBernard Beckettnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215077578479252542.post-16295169333844857872011-03-28T19:36:39.686-05:002011-03-28T19:36:39.686-05:00Hi Dianelos,
You have a peculiar definition of ag...Hi Dianelos,<br /><br />You have a peculiar definition of agnosticism when you write that <i>it refers to the choice not to adopt a particular belief one knows quite a bit about, even when one has some confidence that it is true </i>. I have always seen this rather as the affirmation of a lack of knowledge or even the impossibility of knowing. You may be right to point out that holding back one's beliefs when one has confidence they are true is not always healthy. But I don't think this describes accurately anybody's position here - one more example of what happens when we use words differently.<br /><br />You seem to be making the point that we often have to act on insufficient knowledge. You are right, of course. Most of our decisions are like that. I don't know which of restaurants A or B is better but it's time to eat, I have to choose one of them. So I do but this is no reason to form the belief that, say, A is the better one. I can very well remain “agnostic” about this even after I make a choice.<br /><br />One of Bernard's point, I think, is very important. He writes “<i>I find it easier to retain intellectual clarity when I am not seeking to establish or defend a position in advance</i>”. He is perfectly right. When faced with two hypothesis, taking side, hoping that the one we like the most will win, can only introduce bias and cloud our judgment. How can one look objectively at the evidence if one desires a particular result?<br /><br />A classic example is the case of the Martian canals. Here we have Percival Lowell, a trained observer, seeing things that nobody else could and drawing maps of the canal system with details his instrument couldn't possibly show. Lowell took side, wanted the canals to be real and, to use your words, interiorized his belief until it changed his experience. But he was dead wrong. Taking side is no way to find the truth.JPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12609837930361362269noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215077578479252542.post-50310107907493340412011-03-28T16:17:50.178-05:002011-03-28T16:17:50.178-05:00A few very quick thoughts/comments.
1. Dianelos, ...A few very quick thoughts/comments.<br /><br />1. Dianelos, your thoughts on agnosticism relate, I think, to <a href="http://thepietythatliesbetween.blogspot.com/2010/10/some-reflections-on-kierkegaard.html" rel="nofollow">my earlier discussion of Kierkegaard's fideism</a>. It would be interesting to explore further the conditions under which a passional commitment to X is a necessary prerequisite for knowledge about X, or a prior trust in the truth of X is the only way to test it's truth. And it would also be worth considering when, even when some prior trust in the truth of X is required to test X, one should NOT extend that trust (when the risks of error rule out the leap of faith).<br /><br />2. Again for Dianelos--I'm having a parallel e-mail discussion about the nature of belief with my co-author John, who is not sympathetic to defining belief pragmatically and favors understanding "believing X" as a case of "thinking about X" (representing X in one's consciousness) in which one adopts an epistemic pro-attitude towards it--or, put another way, one gives intellectual assent to X. My difficulty here is in unpacking the idea of the act of intellectual assent. Given this parallel conversation, I'm intrigued by your brief mention of having thoughts about the nature of belief and would like to hear more.<br /><br />3. Bernard, I'm curious if you've wrestled with the distinction between agnosticism and skepticism. Is there a difference between being a skeptic about God's existence and being an agnostic, and if so in what does the difference lie? <br /><br />4. Bernard again: I ask about this distinction in part because I'm in the process of reviewing a book that bills itself as the agnostic contribution to the current God debates--but really seems to do little more than raise skeptical arguments against BOTH specific religious doctrines AND the atheist conviction that there is no God (very often rehashing arguments that each side has already leveled against the other). But it seems to me that someone could accept those skeptical arguments and yet not adopt an agnostic posture, and that the really interesting issue is what such a posture involves and what can be said for (and against) the adoption of such a posture. I wish the book I'm reviewing was about THAT (the agnostics deserve a more interesting and original contribution to the discussion).Eric Reitanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06135739290199272992noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215077578479252542.post-25946326741339863532011-03-28T15:05:07.137-05:002011-03-28T15:05:07.137-05:00Hi Dianelos
Thanks for your thoughtful response.
...Hi Dianelos<br /><br />Thanks for your thoughtful response.<br /><br />Your points capture for me very well the things that make me nervous of taking a believer's stance. <br /><br />One thing that I do find interesting is the notion of a thing being probably true. In practice, we must make best guesses all the time, particularly when it comes to anticipating outcomes. I understand what it means for something to be probably true in a measurable sense then, when we have past outcomes as our guide and can use the notion of long run averages as a rough and ready reckoner.<br /><br />When it comes to conceptual truths though, I have no sense at all of probably true and probably not true. So, take something like the notion of God existing. We appear to have no evidence either way, nor do we have any system of reasoning that can not be called into question by those of another persuasion. What then does it mean to say there probably is or probably is not a God? I can make no sense of statements like this. They appear only to take on the feeling of probability when filtered through one's personal story telling devices.<br /><br /><br />BernardBernard Beckettnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215077578479252542.post-39711291644734905302011-03-28T04:16:21.862-05:002011-03-28T04:16:21.862-05:00Hi Bernard,
I wasn’t thinking of you specificall...Hi Bernard, <br /><br />I wasn’t thinking of you specifically, but it’s interesting to discuss this matter directly with an agnostic. I have a few comments on your list: <br /><br />1. Honesty. Imagine two people evaluating the pros and contras of a particular belief, and both deciding that even though the evidence is not conclusive that belief is probably true. One then embraces that belief, but the other remains agnostic about it. I don’t think “honesty” describes the latter’s choice, nor “dishonesty” the former’s. If anything, the agnostic chooses a position that kind of hides from others that she does in fact find the belief in question to be probably true. <br /><br />2. Curiosity. When one adopts a belief, especially when one adopts it not only intellectually but also in faith, then one interiorizes this belief, lets it impact one’s life, change one’s experiences, affect one’s choices. In all these senses one is then much better capable of continuing to evaluate the truth of that belief, than one who keeps her distance. So, it seems to me, curious people will not tend to be agnostics. <br /><br />3. Definitional clarity. I suppose there are beliefs the truth of which can only be warranted individually, but I don’t see why an agnostic has some advantage in this context. Rather, it seems to me, the agnostic has the disadvantage of tending to reject true beliefs of this kind. <br /><br />4. Respect. That’s a curious idea. I mean it is a fact that there are true and false beliefs, and that many (indeed all) people hold some false beliefs. Therefore it’s a fact that some people have found some truths others have missed. So what’s the idea? That by limiting the beliefs one holds to a minimum, the agnostic does not become part of the successful group thus showing more respect to the unsuccessful group? I don’t see that at all. Wouldn’t it show more respect and more consideration doing some work to clarify where truth lies, work that is hampered by choosing not to adopt a belief? <br /><br />5. Celebration of fiction. If you think that the narratives by which we interpret our experience of life are a matter of “conjuring narratives out of nothing but our imaginations” then I think you have misunderstood very badly what “interpretation” means. To interpret means to conjure (I’d rather say to “build”) a view which seems to explain an experience (whether private or public). The fact that building such interpretations is creative work does not mean that they are based on nothing but our imaginations. And such interpretations are *testable* both in the public arena of society and in the private arena of one’s subjective life. Indeed testable on different levels, such as empirically, conceptually, esthetically, pragmatically, etc. <br /><br />I think that truth, Bernard, is like a beautiful woman. One must take risks to know her, indeed one must fall in love with her and open one’s life to her. That’s the only way. Keeping her at arm’s length until “compelling” evidence is found that she is worth one’s while – that is not how knowledge is found, not conceptual knowledge and certainly not experiential knowledge either of other people or of God.Dianelos Georgoudishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09925591703967774000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215077578479252542.post-53322287242658573702011-03-26T20:16:16.396-05:002011-03-26T20:16:16.396-05:00Sorry Darrell
That last comment was cut impolitel...Sorry Darrell<br /><br />That last comment was cut impolitely short by a fourteen month old boy, eager to establish his keyboard skills.<br /><br />I meant this: If all we are interested in establishing is that no system of thinking can be justified all the way to its core, then I'm not sure anybody in this discussion would claim otherwise.<br /><br />But, just because all systems of thought require beliefs, doesn't in itself make all beliefs equal, and the interesting (non-trivial) question becomes, what makes one set of beliefs better than another?<br /><br />My agnostic answer is that when we can establish a belief that stands at the best available hypothesis, which we can measure by the fact that no alternative hypothesis is being promoted, then this is worth believing in, at least tentatively, in order to get the ball rolling. Can I be sure the observed laws of physics won't collapse tomorrow? No. Can I use the assumption they won't as a starting point? Sure. Because those with whom I investigate will be making the same assumption, and because if we give up induction it is not clear what alternative method of consideration we could use.<br /><br />Should we, for now, make use of general relativity, or the laws of electromagnetic radiation? Sure, not because we're sure they're right, but because we know of no better-established alternative.<br /><br />My claim is that when it comes to considering the narrative component of these beliefs, so whether the laws of physics sit as part of some master plan for example, there appears to be no way of judging one proposal against another, beyond testing its compatibility with one's other personal stories. <br /><br />Now, to some extent you and Dianelos are right, I do still choose between these stories, I yield to their emotional appeal. My agnosticism is about explicitly acknowledging this is all I am doing, promoting one story over another, purely for matters of personal taste. I don't often hear theists doing the same, and entertain the suspicion this is because they see their beliefs as something more than just culturally invented stories.<br /><br />BernardBernard Beckettnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215077578479252542.post-5811492108486026712011-03-26T19:13:23.846-05:002011-03-26T19:13:23.846-05:00Hi Darrell
If that really is your point, then sur...Hi Darrell<br /><br />If that really is your point, then surely it's a trivial one. <br /><br />BernardBernard Beckettnoreply@blogger.com