Alvin Plantinga’s Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism has attracted a great deal of serious critical discussion (e.g. Naturalism Defeated?) and has had a substantial impact on ‘popular’ appraisals of naturalism. (For example, William Lane Craig frequently uses it, and it also appears in the dismissal of naturalism in The Experience of God.) Many philosophers have pointed out various problems with the EAAN, and in my judgment the EAAN is not only flawed but fatally flawed. Nevertheless, it’s a really interesting argument and it could be worth exploring a bit. I’ll present the argument here and then we can get into it in comments if you’d like — though I won’t be offended if you’d rather spend your time doing other things!
The EAAN has gone through various iterations, but here’s the latest version, from Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism (2011). Intuitively, we regard our cognitive capacities — sense-perception, introspection, memory, reasoning — as reliable, where “reliable” means “capable of giving us true beliefs most of the time” (subject to the usual caveats). Call this claim R (for ‘reliable’). But how probable is R?
Suppose that one accepts evolution (E) but also affirms naturalism, defined here as the belief that there is no God or anything like God (N). What is the probability of R, given N & E? One might think it’s quite high. But Plantinga thinks that, however high the probability of R, nevertheless the probability of R given N&E is low or inscrutable. Why’s that?
Now, here’s the key move (and in my estimation, the fatal flaw): beliefs are invisible to selection. Why? Because selection only works on behavior. If an unreliable cognitive capacity is causally linked to adaptive behavior, then the unreliable capacity will be selected for (i.e. not selected against). Even a radically unreliable capacity — that one never or almost never yields true beliefs — can be selected for. Selection only “cares” about adaptive behaviors, not about true beliefs. (More precisely, we have no reason to believe that the semantic content is not epiphenomenal.)
So, Plantinga thinks, given N&E, the probability of R is very low. But, if the probability of R is low, given N&E, then that should ‘infect’ the likelihood of all of the beliefs produced by those capacities — including N&E themselves. So, given N&E, we should it think it extremely unlikely that N&E is true. And so the initial assumption of N&E defeats itself. (Here I’m being much too quick with the argument, but we can get into the details in the comments if you’d like.)
Anyway, it’s a really cool little argument, and it’s not immediately clear what’s wrong with it — and I thought it might be worth discussing, given how influential it is.
My guess is he does not have to work for a living, trust fund kid or something. So a life long bubble in many ways.
When you are ready to have that debate be sure to let the people here know, I’m sure some would be interested.
There are several forms such a debate could take. For instance, it has been noted that there are certain questions you appear to be avoiding. Perhaps such would be a good topic for debate as it can be put into a thread rather then being lost in comments, immortalized forever and you can then refer to it when asked about similar issues.
And a structured debate format is especially good as it stops meandering off onto distractions.
Joe and Orge recently had such a debate here: http://ogremk5.wordpress.com/2011/04/22/intelligent-design-is-anti-evolution-a-formal-debate/
Seems a reasonable format to follow.
Do you want to go on the record, as it were, or is keeping it casual in the comments good enough? And a debate might help you structure your ideas into a format that you could publish and obtain some reviews for. I’d love to have the opportunity to comment on some published work of yours William, truly.
If we have come to all believe in logic, then that is the “exterior” standard. We argue about logic and some of us persuade others that their argument is more logical.
William and Eric seem to specialize in inconsequential truisms.
What catastrophe follows from the possibility that like our ancestors and our descendents, we are denied knowlege of absolute truth?
The idea that getting input from other people acts as some kind of “check” against internal error of thought would be meaningful if “getting input from other people” was in some way intrinsically different, or superior to what preceded it. Yet it is not – it’s just more pachinko-machine bouncing as the ball of “self” is bounced around by events of physics. Other people talking and providing input that acts as more pins the ball bounces against is no different an activity than what came before when the system came to its first conclusion. IOW, adding more pachinko pins doesn’t increase the chance that the ball will happen to fall into a bin that happens to represent a true belief.
Unless there is something qualitatively different about the added pachinko pins (whatever causes other people to have the views they have) than was available from the first set pins (whatever caused you to have the views you do), adding the beliefs of more people to the equation does nothing to qualify the first belief as more or less likely to be true.
In order to meaningfully evaluate one’s own views, one must bring into the equation something that has a greater likelihood of producing true beliefs than how one originally came to the view in the first place. Since other people were caused to believe what they believe by the same thing (physics) as you, consulting other people cannot help you validate your beliefs.
WJM, From a non-naturalistic perspective, what is the appropriate yardstick for measuring the truth, or falsity, of our beliefs?
Under N & E, there is no such thing as “logic” exterior to what physics causes any particular human believes it to be, and so it cannot be an “exterior” standard. You’re trying to have your cake and eat it, too.
There must be an assumed absolute standard, and we must assume have some access to it beyond what physics commands, or there is no hope of being able to discern true beliefs from false. Some of our beliefs might be true by chance, but there would be no means to deliberately discern true beliefs from false in any meaningful sense.
Everyone here argues as if there is an absolute (exterior to physics) standard of truth (meaning, beyond whatever physics bumps us into believing as true), and believes that truth is, for some reason, very important … or everyone wouldn’t be nearly as frothed up about what they consider to be not true.
Under N & E, why would “truth” be important? Answer: it wouldn’t be. What would be important is survival and procreation. Whatever BS one believes in order to survive and procreate would be not only acceptable, but applauded. But yet, here we have people denigrating one of the most prolific survival and procreative beliefs ever to exist – theism – as BS, because it’s supposedly “untrue”.
What’s truth got to do with anything important to one who believes in N & E? It’s laughable that any N & E believer spends any time arguing about what is, or is not, true, and spends any time denigrating the evolutionary traits (beliefs) of others. It’s like the leaf of a maple tree calling the leaf of an oak tree “wrong” and “untrue”.
WJM, thanks for your response, but my question was not about why you think N&E doesn’t have access to truth, but rather about the alternative you would propose. You say we must assume an absolute standard and assume we have some access to it. That is what I’m asking about. If there is a standard, can we know what it is and how?
Theism is required for “truth” to have anything other than rhetorical value.
WJM, That may be true, but it doesn’t really answer my question. If there is a standard, can we know what it is, and how do we know?
From what I can recall of WJM’s past screeds, he thinks we don’t actually know. Or maybe he just thinks we can know, except that we can never verify the degree to which our understanding agrees with actual Truth. Or something. As ever where WJM is concerned, it’s not at all clear whether or not anybody else’s interpretation of WJM’s verbiage is anywhere near congruent with what WJM actually does think. so… [shrug]
Nonsense. It cannot be “everyone”, even if I am the sole exception.
I see truth as a human artifact, albeit a very useful and important one.
I think that this is a nice way of getting at some of the relevant issues here, about how to think about the relation between semantic content and behavior. I worry that it would be a mistake to say that the frog has *beliefs* about the fly.
But it would not be a mistake to say that the frog has a mind, and is the bearer of semantic properties, and that it has mental states with both a phenomenal aspect (the what-it-is-like-ness of experience) and an intentional or representational aspect. I balk only at “beliefs” because I think of beliefs as being not just semantical, but propositional, and frog-minds don’t have any propositional content, because they don’t have a language.
So the right way to go, here, would be say that the frog’s semantic properties don’t consist of “beliefs about the world,” but rather consist of its mostly accurate but partial homomorphic maps of motivationally salient objects and relations in its environmental niche. And that clearly is tied to behavior and so is a target of selection. And the same is true of us as well.
So I would endorse the suggestion, already raised here, that Plantinga has pulled a bait-and-switch by stipulating that “reliable cognitive capacities” are those that “produce true beliefs most of the time”. The sophisticated naturalist can provide a naturalistic semantics that ties “reliable cognitive capacities” to overt behavior directly. It would be a further story how the social space of reasons, beliefs, and desires is “installed” on “top of” the more basic neurocognitive system in ontogeny (and emerged from it in phylogeny).
I really need to read Millikan on teleosemantics, I know! I’m hoping to get to it in November or so. The little I know about it tells me that that’s got to be the right direction here.
Two recent articles that get at the relevant issues here, for those interested:
(1) “Naturalized truth and Plantinga’s evolutionary argument against naturalism”, Feng Ye, International Journal of Philosophy of Religion (2011) 70:27–46
(2) “Is Evolutionary Naturalism Epistemologically Self-Defeating?”, Paul Churchland, Philo 12 (2):135-141 (2009). [Note: Plantinga has a reply to Churchland in the same issue of Philo. I recommend both Churchland’s and Plantinga’s quite highly!]
Yes, we can know. Knowledge of truth begins with recognizing self-evident truths, which reveal the objective standard and provide a means of ascertaining necessary and conditional truths.
William,
Suppose that you hold X to be a “self-evident” truth. How do we determine, objectively and rationally, whether you are correct?
Every time this question has come up, you’ve failed to provide a coherent answer. See if you can surprise us this time.
Regarding the EAAN, I’ll offer my usual rejoinder:
Plantinga is correct that under naturalistic evolution, our cognition is not guaranteed to be reliable.
The problem is that he fails to recognize that under theism our cognition is also not guaranteed to be reliable.
In either case we have to do the best we can. We can try to validate our cognition from the inside, but we might be wrong.
Absolute certainty is not possible.
Come on, keiths. WJM’s answer has been perfectly coherent: Since we’re talking about truths which are “self-evident”, you determine you’re correct by the fact that you perceive the correctness of the truth in question. If it wasn’t true, you wouldn’t perceive its correctness, because it wouldn’t be correct!
It’s self-evident. I mean, really—how is it even possible for a false statement to be self-evidently true? Answer: It’s not possible for a false statement to be self-evidently true. The very idea of a false statement that’s self-evidently true, that’s self-refuting and preposterous and wrong!
You know it’s true because you know it’s true.
And if you don’t know it’s true, there must obviously be something wrong with your brain. Right?
I think this misses the point of the EAAN, because there’s a subtle difference between fallibilism and skepticism.
The EAAN is supposed to show us that anyone who accepts N&E has no reason to accept any of her beliefs, including N&E itself. It reaches this conclusion by showing that the probability of R, given N&E, is low or inscrutable. And this estimation of the probability of R includes any and all means by which we might test the reliability of our cognitive capacities. For not only is there a low or inscrutable probability of our cognitive capacities being reliable, but also a low or inscrutable probability of our being able to use those same cognitive capacities to even detect, let alone correct, that unreliability.
So the EAAN yields global skepticism, not local fallibilism. Under local fallibilism, I might have incorrect cognition — perception, memory, judgment, etc. — but it would be detectable (by others, if not by myself) and correctable (by others, if not by myself.) — and it would require particular reasons to motivate the assessment that my cognition was faulty. (I wasn’t wearing my glasses; the trauma of the accident affected my memory of what happened; I wasn’t paying attention and didn’t carry the two, etc.)
So while the pragmatic view of cognition would also say that “absolute certainty is not possible” (subject to important qualifications!), it does so for different reasons than the EAAN and licenses a very different conclusion, since the EAAN yields total, or global skepticism and not just local fallibilism.
Thanks again for replying WJM. I apologize if I’m missing something important, but I’m not clear on what do you mean by “recognizing self-evident truths”. In an earlier post you made an analogy to a ruler, saying, You cannot check the accuracy of a ruler with the same ruler . If you would permit me to adapt that same analogy, for you to say, recognizing self-evident truths, strikes me as equivalent to you saying, recognizing that this ruler is self-evidently one foot long. How can a ruler be self-evidently a certain length, so to speak? Sorry for my confusion, but if you can help me see how a standard can be self-evident, I’d be very appreciative.
Even if “recognizing self-evident truths” is anything like “recognizing that a foot-long ruler is one foot long,” there are three problems:
(1) the capacity for recognition would still need to be certified or guaranteed, somehow. Presumably it is not impossible that different cognizers will regard different truths as self-evident, or disagree about which ones are (or aren’t) self-evident. Of course, it could be that some people are simply irrational — but we first need to establish which of the putatively self-evident truths are really self-evident, in order to subsequently determine which people are irrational for denying them.
(2) Self-evident truths, if they are statements like “a one-foot ruler is one foot long”, are going to self-evidently true by virtue of being analytic, and if that’s so, then they are tautologies. But tautologies have no interesting inferential consequences — one cannot infer anything from them, because there’s nothing to do with “if p, then p.” So if all you start off with are tautologies, then tautologies are all you have, and you don’t have anything worth saying.
(3) “self-evident truths” is in fact deeply ambiguous between (i) noninferentially elicited from normal observers under normal conditions and (ii) presuppositionless, in the sense that one could know that truth even if one knew nothing else.
When I see a red ball, I will be see that it is a red ball and as a red ball. I don’t need to infer that it is a red ball; in that sense, it is “self-evident” that I’m seeing a red ball, and that the red ball is the thing I’m seeing. But is that presuppositionless? I don’t see how. For is it not the case that the self-evidence of the red ball presupposes such things as: I know that I’m not hallucinating or dreaming; I know that I’m not looking at a white ball under red light; I know how to use the words “red” and “ball” under appropriate sensory conditions; and so on? Isn’t a great deal of conceptual mastery required in order for me to see the red ball as a red ball? And isn’t that knowledge?
In other words, the meaning of “self-evident” is not self-evident — and I’m not just trying to be cute — whether we are talking about non-inferential assertions or presuppositionless assertions matters a great deal . For while the former are manifest through our cognitive experience, and indeed across many different domains or registers of discourse — in empirical knowledge, in logic and mathematics, and in ethics — the latter are, I believe, a chimera, a transcendental-cognitive illusion — what Sellars called the Myth of the Given.
If “the probability of R, given N&E, is low or inscrutable”, what’s the probability of R otherwise? In particular, what’s the probability of R, given that
deity could create minds for which R is true. But it is, equally, philosophically possible that 
deity isn’t a Loki-esque trickster who got its jollies by creating massively flawed minds? I honestly don’t see how he can determine that probability! So he’s got no grounds for concluding that the probability of R is lower, given (N&E), than it would be given 
deity-of-choice in as an unspoken premise.
“The EAAN is supposed to show us that anyone who accepts N&E has no reason to accept any of her beliefs, including N&E itself. It reaches this conclusion by showing that the probability of R, given N&E, is low or inscrutable.”
But this part of Plantinga’s argument doesn’t make any sense (now we’re back to all beliefs, not just beliefs about ultimate metaphysical matters!), so what’s interesting here?
There seems to be some assumption on Plantinga’s part that anyone who thinks that non-naturalistic processes were at work in the universe believes that their brain is not-so-fallible and that therefore they can be much more confident in their conclusions than us naturalists should be.
Does Plantinga actually say anything about that part of the argument? I find it fairly hilarious. Certainly I know many people who are convinced that their conclusions are infallible, but my knowing them is not the same thing as me taking them seriously.
I think this is a much stronger claim than Plantinga would make. In a sense, Plantinga’s argument isn’t even an argument against the possibility of a naturalistic world, per se. That is, his argument makes no claim as to whether the world is actually naturalistic or not. Rather, it is only an argument against someone rationally holding a positive belief in naturalism, since, he argues, in a naturalistic world we should have no confidence in any of our metaphysical beliefs.
That said, he has written the following in conjunction with the EAAN argument, “I’m inclined to think that in fact our brains have evolved from something like monkey brains, but it certainly doesn’t follow that they haven’t been evolved to find out the truth. Like other Christians, I believe that God has created us, and created us in his image. That means that he has created us in such a way that we too can have at least some knowledge: of the world around us, of ourselves; and also of God himself.”
I don’t think he would argue the EAAN is proof of non-naturalism, or that people in a non-naturalistic world would always, or even mostly, know the truth. Rather, I think his intent is to claim that it is rationally consistent to hold a belief in a God, particularly the Christian God, while also arguing for the metaphysical truth of such a belief, in a way that it is not rationally consistent to hold a belief in naturalism while also arguing for the metaphysical truth of such a belief.
Nope, sorry William. I do not mean one different from the one I believe we have. You see, unlike you, I have an infallible external standard to determine the accuracy of perception: “I’m hungry”. It works 100% of the time. No god need apply.
Your pachinko machine analogy is horribly erroneous. The amusing thing is that you don’t even care to understand why. You seem stuck in a pre-14th century concept of matter, to say nothing of naturalism, and it’s just hilarious that you can’t seem to grasp some of the newer concepts about the way matter operates.
All I can say is, enjoy your comicbook realm there William. Do let me know if this superdude called “God” ever rights any wrongs…:D
Assuming Plantinga’s argument is correct (though I think it has flaws), it seems to me to be fairly uninteresting. What I mean by that is it seems only to be a defense against a form of strong, positive naturalistic belief; i.e., against a metaphysical claim such as, “Nothing non-natural exists, no gods, no spirits, no nothing, no way, no how, period, QED.” I suspect many believers in naturalism, particularly with scientific training, would avoid making such strong claims of having proved a negative. Rather, I suspect a more prevalent position is that of a provisional naturalism. That is, the adoption of a pragmatic naturalistic belief on the basis of lack of evidence to the contrary. This type of position doesn’t make metaphysical claims to absolute truth, it just seeks to make the most sense out of what we think we see — will full awareness that our knowledge is fallible. Thus, pragmatic naturalism doesn’t seem to be affected by Plantinga’s argument, even if his argument is correct.
Let’s look at the form of the debate here. We are arguing that a proposition is either true, or not true. We argue as if we and others have the deliberate capacity to discern, via argument and evidence, what is true and not true. We also argue as if it matters in and of itself if a thing is true, or not true. Inherent in these debates is the fundamental assumption that true statements can be found and should be adopted whether they comport with our worldviews or not.
At the heart of any debate is A = A, the principle of identity.Without it, no argument means anything. That and the principles of the excluded middle and non-contradiction give our arguments a fundamental basis from which arguments can extend. Nothing can prove these axioms of logic; it is from these axioms that other things are proven. Nothing meaningful can be said about any ruler unless we accept as self-evidently true the axioms of logic. A ruler cannot both be 12 inches long, and not 12 inches long, at the same time in the same way. Without those principles, all arguments are mush.
And so we hold these axioms as absolute, self-evident truths. Even if we deny them as such, every word we utter, every argument we make uses them as if true.
Other self-evidently true statements, such as “I exist”, “error exists”, and “It is always morally wrong, regardless of the circumstances, society, or time, for a person to torture children for personal pleasure”, combined with logical axioms, generate necessarily true statements, where denial of such destroys one’s grounds for argument in the first place.
Thus, properly used logic grounded upon necessarily true views generated by self-evident truths demonstrate that certain views are internally faulty. N & E cannot provide self-evidently true moral statements such as the one above. One cannot argue from N & E that N & E provides a basis where logical axioms are absolute and self-evidently true, or should be accepted as such, or that one should concern themselves with “truth” at all.
IOW, self-evident and necessary truths is not the same as asserting that “the ruler is 12 inches long”, but rather provides the necessary grounds by which any argument about anything can be made and considered, by showing us that the same ruler cannot be both 12 inches and not 12 inches at the same time, and that this particular ruler should be 12 inches, and that without a definition of what 12 inches means, and without the agreement that it matters, there can be no sound argument or reason for making one in the first place.
Inherent in any argument is the assumption that those involved in the argument are responsible for their positions and have the capacity to change those positions due to reasonable argument and evidence – but, there is no such grounding for this consideration under N & E. There’s no telling if it is even possible for a person to change their mind at all, much less because of reason and evidence, because of the nature of the physical system assumed to cause beliefs and views in the first place. Who knows what might make the mind of a particular system change? A pepperoni pizza late at night, a particular confluence of events, a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil … who knows?
And again, under N & E, what is the point of trying to get a person to change their views? Why hold that truth matters, when in reality all you are doing is what physics compels you to do? You’re going to do and believe whatever happenstance physics compels, whether true or not, whether rational or not. Physics can make you bark like a dog, drool like a madman, and believe that you have just made a profoundly rational argument. Physics can make you deaf to any rational appeal. Physics can make you believe anything at all, at any time, because all you are in that system is a pachinko ball going wherever physics commands.
It is because of what is self-evidently true, and necessarily true from that, that the N & E worldview fails; it cannot account for any of the fundamental truths we must all hold to engage in these debates, and the necessary expectations we have and what they require at the rood of such debates. Even if one argues against libertarian free will not compelled by physics, and against an absolute standard of truth based on self-evidently true axioms, the only way to argue against them, and the only reason to make the case, is under those assumptions, whether one realizes it or not.
So yes, one can find self-evidently true statements, if they are willing to dig down and find what they are necessarily assuming to be true when they are making any argument. Unfortunately, most people are incapable recognizing, much less considering the ubiquitous, assumptive truths that ground all of their behavior, thoughts, and arguments.
This is why arguing with N & E- ers is so bizarre; they argue against the very things that are required for their argument to be valid and meaningful in the first place. They saw off the branch they must sit upon, loudly proclaiming that the branch isn’t necessary, that there is in fact no branch at all.
Most of the debating that I see here, has to do with disagreements over meaning, though the arguments are often presented as if they were disagreements over truth.
I don’t think this is quite correct, Hobbes. I do think Plantinga is quite literally arguing against naturalism. He even says so a few times:
Plantinga’s argument is directly against naturalism and specifically when bundled with the acceptance of evolution. Naturalism, in Plantinga’s view, cannot exist because in order for any belief to have validity in the long run, there must be a god of some kind (and he has said on many occasions that it must be the Christian God, but that’s another subject). Like William’s argument regarding an absolute standard for objective morality, Plantinga insists that there must be an absolute arbiter of truth (in who’s image we must have been created) for us to really know what truth is.
Note also, Plantinga is no limiting his argument to metaphysical beliefs. He is very specifically claiming that ALL believes are suspect under naturalism.
I disagree. I think Plantinga is quite literally attempting to use the EAAN to prove (or at least as evidence) that naturalism must be false. He’s not claiming at all that it is rationally consistent to hold a belief in God or gods; rather he is stating outright that since God or gods are beliefs that people hold and those beliefs might well be true (and for him, most definitely are true), naturalism is questionable at best. To support this conjecture, he presents the EAAN. He goes further to point out that assuming non-naturalism – that is, that God or gods exist – and going further, assuming the Christian God who created us in His image, we have every reason to conclude that such beliefs are reliable. Why? Because being created in the image of God by definition creates a basis for reliable beliefs (would God allow His creation the possibility of false beliefs about their own Creator?)
This does beg the question, but nonetheless, Plantinga’s argument most definitely relies on the assumption that naturalism is false.
Willam, here’s the fallacy in your argument right here. Matter, particularly at the quantum level, but also in chemical and biological systems, does not behave like balls on billiard table or in a pachinka machine. Not all processes are reduced to physics or the products of simple physical laws. When you can actually grasp how matter actually behaves, then you might be able to formulate an argument. Until then, you’re not even wrong.
Believing a proposition to be self evidently true does not make it so.
We accept formal propositions by convention.
William would like to win simply by declaring that people who disagree with him cannot be party to the convention.
That seems to be common among ID supporters. Win by defining oneself as the winner.
Edited.
petrushka,
Indeed. And declare all those who cannot understand the consequences of their worldview as incapable of seeing outside their ideological blinkers, terrified of those consequences, or some similar intellectual armour plating, just in case the argument itself is inadequate on its own merits. Same old same old. Fancy a game of WJM bingo?
It’s a form of dehumanizing your opponent. If your opponent is subhuman you don’t need to address messy things like evidence. I would say it’s a first cousin to accusing your opponent of lying.
Fundamentalists are not the only people who have trouble with evolution. Noam Chomsky used the irreducible complexity argument in the learning of language and got away with it. He spent a lot of time divorcing himself from the claim he was an evolution denier, but he never really accepted the proposition that human language faculty could evolve stepwise.
Yes, I think that’s right — that’s what Plantinga wants to say. In other words, if it is the case that the traditional Judeo-Christian theistic conception of the deity exists — not just any conception of God, but that very specific one! — if that’s the case, then the probability of R is very high, whereas the probability of R is low or inscrutable given N&E.
(Importantly, Plantinga does not think that any of the traditional proofs for the existence of God work. He calls the belief in God a “properly basic belief”, analogous to my belief in other minds. I have no proof that there are other minds, but it would be unreasonable to deny that “basic belief” — and God is a mind — ergo, it is not unreasonable to believe that God exists. I haven’t read his book, but the basic structure of argument strikes me as deeply and hopelessly confused.)
So I don’t think the EAAN either assumes that naturalism is false (at least not in an obvious way) or shows that naturalism is false. If the EAAN were successful, it would show that it is irrational to believe that naturalism is true, because it would be irrational to believe that anything is true. The EAAN lands one in total skepticism.
Plantinga sometimes likes to cite a well-known passage from Darwin, in which Darwin wonders whether natural selection could have generated a mind capable of knowing ultimate metaphysical truths. (Call this “Darwin’s Doubt”.) I can think of one philosopher who accepted the Doubt, or was at least strongly tempted by it, and that’s Nietzsche. And I myself have been persuaded that Nietzsche was a skeptic — or, perhaps better put, a global non-cognitivist.
If there are questions being begged in the EAAN, I think the clearest one concerns semantic content. Plantinga seems to take it for granted that we don’t have a naturalistic theory of content, and that indeed there aren’t even any attractive candidates for a naturalistic theory of content. And this is clearly false, if one thinks of, say, Dretske, Millikan, or Churchland, or some other version of teleosemantics. Bear in mind that the EAAN is supposed to be addressed to the naturalist and to show that the naturalist that her own assumptions undermine themselves. But the EAAN proceeds on the assumption that there isn’t any naturalistic theory of semantic content, and therein lies the whole trick.
For under a naturalistic theory of content, the naturalist has every reason to believe that content is a target of natural selection, and so the probability of R given N&E can be very high after all
WJM,
Thank you for your lengthy, and quite interesting, response. Much of your response has to do with your criticisms of “N&E”, which wasn’t the subject of my question, but you were probably addressing other posters. In fact, and I apologize for being dense, I’m afraid I can’t really find the answer to my question within your response. I suspect that’s due to my inability to articulate my question clearly, so please indulge me to try again.
You earlier made a statement that there must be an “absolute standard” for truth. As someone who works in science, I have an idea about standards. If a colleague and I disagree about the accuracy of a ruler, we can ultimately take it to the National Institute for Standards and Technology and compare it to the standard that has been agreed upon, and thereby adjudicate our dispute. But in the case of the ruler the standard is an arbitrary one that has been agreed upon by convention. However, regarding truth, I take your absolute standard to be one lying outside human convention (please correct me if I’m wrong). So my question is about that standard.
To illustrate my question, let me take one of your examples of a “self-evident truth”, specifically the moral one about not torturing children. You claim that to be a self-evident truth. I am certain I can find someone (many in fact) who would disagree with you about that being a self-evident truth. (Keep in mind, these would generally not be people who would condone torturing children, but who would simply disagree with you as a matter of philosophical principle).
So if I hear you claiming some belief as self-evident truth, and I hear another disputing that claim, where is my metaphorical NIST? Where do I find the standard for truth, lying outside of human convention, to adjudicate this dispute? Again, I apologize if I’m being dense, but I can’t find that you’ve answered that question. I look forward to learning more.
That also sounds like defining oneself to be the winner.
Just once I’d like to see a philosophical discussion in which people did not talk past each other.
KN: I am not accusing you of talking past anyone. I think you are trying to clarify things.
But I think your task is thankless and futile.
Ha! Well, my task may indeed be thankless and futile! But here’s why I don’t think it is: because of the task that Plantinga has set up for himself.
Plantinga wants to set up the terms of the debate such that the naturalist herself must recognize that her views are self-defeating. And my point is that Plantinga has mischaracterized the naturalist’s position from the very start, and underestimated the theoretical resources available to her.
I don’t think that pointing that out is defining myself to be the winner, is it?
As for the fruitfulness (or lack thereof) of philosophical discussion: in my experience, philosophical discussions are fruitful when there is enough shared background so that certain assumptions can be taken for granted, and then the discussion can be an exploration of what does and doesn’t follow from those assumptions. Endlessly rehashing the foundational assumptions themselves will end in tears for all. And there has to be a shared vocabulary and shared levels of expertise to make things go smoothly, so the wheels aren’t being reinvented in every conversation.
In addition, philosophical discussions are best conducted either face-to-face, where the nuances of tone and gesture enrich the discourse, or in print, where the discussants can take the time to refine and hone their views in writing before sharing them with each other. Philosophical discussions on-line are the worst of both worlds — on the one hand, we often don’t reflect on what we’ve written after we’ve written it, so our posts lack the refinement of publishable philosophy; on the other hand, forums such as these strip away a lot of emotional nuance from what we write — and of course the anonymity or pseudo-anonymity makes things worse. It’s very hard to be both thoughtful and sincere under these conditions.
For me, I engage in these debates because I enjoy the intellectual sparring (usually), and because the dialogue helps me refine my presentation of my ideas. But it’s a very different thing than writing and publishing professional philosophy.
I’ve seen good discussions online. For a good discussion to take place it is necessary that participants want to understand each other and not be so concerned with winning.
I am biased and admit it. My concern is to prevent bad science from being taught.
I differ somewhat from some participants because I enjoy learning about the history of science. As a kid I read things like Microbe Hunters. Most of my early science education came from reading about the history of discovery, rather than from memorizing established discoveries.
Naturally, I think that is the “correct” way to approach science education in the primary grades. It worked for me.
As a result I am not really fearful of teaching ID as part of the history of evolutionary thought. I would like to see kids in eighth or ninth grade have a history of science class in which Ptolemy, Copernicus, Galileo and Paley and Darwin are all taught, and kids are challenged to see how ideas evolved.
Actually, I went to a private school, and this was pretty much the approach for ninth grade general science. Biology and evolution were skipped, sadly.
I must confess that I find it difficult to accept this. Admittedly I’ve not read all that Plantinga has ever written, but I can find no reference anywhere in which Plantinga either implies, let alone outright states, that naturalism is philosophically possible. It seems to me he pretty much assumes the opposite simply in terms of the way he defines naturalism and insists that the existence of God is plausible and rational. On what are you basing the conviction that Plantinga does not assume naturalism is false?
Good question. Perhaps I’m just trying to give Plantinga too much benefit of the doubt?
I certainly agree that Plantinga thinks it is irrational to accept naturalism, as he defines it (“the thought that there is no such person as God, or anything like God”, WCRL, ix).
In his terms, naturalism is irrational to accept because it conflicts with science, so if it is rational to accept science, but naturalism conflicts with science, then it is irrational to accept naturalism. But the argument for why naturalism conflicts with science relies on the EAAN. So the irrationality of naturalism is supposed to be a consequence of the EAAN, not a premise of it.
But, insofar as the EAAN assumes that a naturalistic treatment of content is unavailable, or available for some kinds of content but not the interesting kinds that matter to us, then it simply begs the question.
For the interested: Plantinga and Millkan had an back-and-forth on this recently in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. Her article is “Troubles with Plantinga’s Reading of Millikan” in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 87 (2):454-456 (2013). I don’t have a citation for his “Content and Natural Selection”, but I know it appeared in PPR.
Robin, I think the disconnect between your understanding and what KN and I have written is more semantic than substantive. I think we can clear up that disconnect if we distinguish between the totality of Plantinga’s beliefs and arguments on the one hand, and the EAAN specifically on the other. I’m no expert on Plantinga’s work, but it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that Plantinga rejects the possibility of naturalism, and it was certainly not my intent to argue otherwise. My point, as I suspect is KN’s too, is quite narrow: the EAAN is not an argument against the possibility of naturalism, per se, but against the rationality of believing in naturalism. But that does not mean that Plantinga might not have a larger project to attack naturalism altogether, with the EAAN being just one arrow in his quiver.
As best as I can tell from how Plantinga phrases the EAAN, he is using a kind of correspondence theory of truth (since his examples discuss the belief, behavior, and the state of the world). That approach which works for me in this context. Other common theories of truth might as well.
I think rationality is overrated when trying to think about things for which there is no evidence.
Such as the existence of god or the meaning of life.
I will offer up what to me is a useful analogy. For centuries people — very bright people — tried to derive the nature of matter and the forces of nature by reasoning about them.
That simply no longer works.
I’m still not buying this stuff from Plantinga and Murray. The wordiness of their “arguments” appears to be only obfuscation of a much crasser sectarian self-righteousness.
I would suggest that it is all pretentious sophistry that presumes to rise above “mere science” and the Enlightenment and, from its assumed position of “absolute spiritual and moral purity”, looks down upon them and everyone outside their sectarian community with smug distain. Plantinga is just a bit slicker at it than is Murray.
Looking for an outside frame of reference just pushes the problem back. Another infinite regress settled by asserting that I win.
Hobbes,
Yes, that’s very helpful — thank you! I’m interested in focusing on the EAAN because it is often accepted at face-value by certain strands of contemporary apologetics, and that has a significant impact on culture. William Lane Craig takes the EAAN at face value, and so do several of the regular participants at Uncommon Descent. They don’t see it as an argument to which there even could be any reasonable objections.
BruceS,
Yes, although I have no objections to the correspondence theory of truth per se.
I used to think, as a formerly faithful follower of Rorty, that the correspondence theory of truth was something that pragmatists ought to reject as a relic from previous stage of historical consciousness. But I changed my mind on account of (i) recognizing that Rorty’s argument for this position is grounded in his reading of Donald Davidson, and Davidson’s views are really quite problematic; (ii) appreciating better pragmatist re-conceptualizations of the correspondence theory, namely with Wilfrid Sellars and the unjustly neglected Frederick Will.
No, the problem is that you refuse to understand the point. The motion of billiard balls are determined by physics, even if such outcomes are not predictable. Billiard balls do what physics commands. Under N & E, people think what physics commands, regardless of if the analogy refers to billiard balls or quantum interactions.
This article provides a recent summary of Millikan; the frog example I quoted is used there.
http://www.philosophy.ox.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0014/11444/Shea,_Millikans_contribution,_MatPrem_06.pdf
In the SEP article on Science and Religion that he wrote, Plantinga says:
I read this as saying the he believes that a naturalistic explanation for true content is possible if one assumes God arranged for it to be that way. I do find that a strange view alongside the EAAN assuming I am reading both correctly.
Fitelson & Sober in a review of the EAAN reconsider the conditional probability P(R|E&N) that EAAN uses. They suggest we partition the reliable beliefs R into (say) two groups, R1 and R2. R1 includes basic, atomic propositions where true belief must be tied to behavior for evolution to work. R2 includes complex beliefs which could very well be fallible. With this partitioning, they show problems with the EAAN. So, to get going, one needs naturalistic content only for the basic propositions; complex ones, like theories of science, can rely be fallible and checked by other means for determining truth (this is Joe Fs point, I believe).
http://fitelson.org/plant.pdf