Original Post: D'Souza vs. Hitchens: "Is Christianity the Problem?"
Tom Gilson | Homepage | 10.27.07 - 7:42 pm | #

Life's like that, I guess.
Hitchens made the same erroneous comment about morality and Mount Sinai in his debate with McGrath (and everywhere else he's spoken and written on the subject, I'm sure).
McGrath set him straight about what the Bible says and what Christians believe on this subject, but I guess it's all fresh when you are in front of the next audience.
Charlie | 10.27.07 - 7:55 pm | #

There ought to be some value given to learning, not just repeating one's errors--especially if one assumes the position of intellectual and scientific superiority.
Tom Gilson | Homepage | 10.27.07 - 8:56 pm | #

Tom,

I am very perplexed by the assertion that D'Souza sold the Christian farm to the atheists by stating that the existence of God is not "in the empirical domain" - not verifiable using the scientific method - which is my understanding of D'Souza's remarks. Having read D'Souza's _What's So Great About Christianity_, it seems to me that the sold-the-farm accusation is unwarranted. See, for instance: [http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1017/p09s06- coop.html].

Clare
Clare Wilson Parr | 10.28.07 - 4:28 pm | #

Good question.

First, neither Groothuis nor I had read the book at the time of making our comments. I have the book but I'm only a couple of chapters into it. Your assessment of his position may very well be accurate.

In the debate, though, the problem I saw with these remarks was not what you quoted here; it's that he said Christian faith is a matter of belief and not of knowledge. This is not a Christian, biblical way of looking at the situation; for as you can see throughout the Bible, the facts of Christianity are to be known, and God is to be known. Often when belief and knowledge are separated, as D'Souza appeared to do, belief is relegated to a much lower epistemological position--often, it's "believing" something you don't know to be true (which is pretty much what he said at the debate) or even something that you really don't think is true.

For more, please see item 8 here.
Tom Gilson | Homepage | 10.28.07 - 5:26 pm | #

Tom,
I don't understand how you can say that the world hasn't known justice and equality apart from Christianity, or how you can say that the UN Declaration is a statement of Christian values. Please explain.
ordinary seeker | 10.28.07 - 7:10 pm | #

The UN Declaration was the life's work of Charles Malik, a Lebanese Christian. The experience of world history demonstrates that concepts of equality have arisen where Christian influence was strong, and not elsewhere. So as a matter of historical fact, the world has not known real equality, or justice in modern liberal terms (as in the U.S. Constitution, for example), where Christianity has not been the driving influence.

(Note that "modern liberal terms" refers not to the late 20th/early 21st century use of the word "liberal," but to earlier historical conceptions, such as contained in ideas like freedom of religion, freedom of speech, persons being created equal, etc.)
Tom Gilson | Homepage | 10.28.07 - 7:39 pm | #

So the Jews, for example, had no sense of justice or equality? You've got to be kidding.
ordinary seeker | 10.28.07 - 8:16 pm | #

They have a shared heritage of Scripture, so that might be an exception.
Tom Gilson | Homepage | 10.28.07 - 8:32 pm | #

Buddhists have no sense of justice or equality? Tom, I'm afraid you're being ethnocentric, if not downright bigoted.
ordinary seeker | 10.28.07 - 8:41 pm | #

I'm just relaying historical facts. I'm talking about where equality originated from, and how it spread geographically. (And you may have noted that I previously stopped using the term "justice" and am just speaking about equality.)

I've been to China. I've seen the older, footbound women. (Footbinding stopped around the time the Communists came--but Communism in China was hardly a model of liberal equality.) I've seen the Forbidden City. These were products of Buddhism and Confucianism--nothing egalitarian about them at all.

I'm sorry if I don't have the modern PC belief that every culture is exactly the same. But they aren't.
Tom Gilson | Homepage | 10.28.07 - 9:44 pm | #

The "PC" belief is not that every culture is the same, but that every culture has positive and negative elements. Yup, China had foot-binding, America had slavery--what was egalitarian about that?
ordinary seeker | 10.28.07 - 10:24 pm | #

os,

It is common among Christians to hold that the Logos is at work in the world where Christ is not known by name. This view was held by some among the early Church fathers, and is held by the Catholic church today. Christ illumines the mind of all - at least to the degree that they grasp any truth at all; and explicit recognition of the source of truth is not necessary to grasp the truth. (But of course this does not mean that there are not certain goods that are to be achieved only by a explicit knowledge of the source of truth.)

I don't mean to convince you that this is so, only to explain why a non-Christian's grasp of important moral truths (and this certainly does occur - I heard the Dalai Lama speak a few days ago) is something that can easily be explained from a Christian point of view. There is no objection here that a thoughtful Christian should find troubling.
Franklin Mason | Homepage | 10.29.07 - 2:48 pm | #

Slavery has never been abolished in the world except where Christian influence has led the way. Christians may not have immediately abolished it, right after the NT was written--but they have led the way in every case in which it was abolished.
Tom Gilson | Homepage | 10.29.07 - 3:11 pm | #

Tom:

I'm not saying this guy represents the view of all Orthodox Jews, but you might be interested in his view on slavery here. He seems to have a good heart and a strong faith, but some of his views are strange.
Holopupenko | Homepage | 10.29.07 - 3:53 pm | #

Yes, slavery was abolished in the U.S. about 2,000 years after the origin of Christianity. But then the murder of 6 miilion Jews in the center of Europe after 2,000 years of Christian influence can be used as a counter-argument to your view of history, Tom.
Most of the people keeping those death camps going were also good, church-going Christians.
Randy | 10.31.07 - 11:48 am | #

Tom,
"it's that he said Christian faith is a matter of belief and not of knowledge. This is not a Christian, biblical way of looking at the situation;"

Is there anyplace in the Bible that would substantiate the view that the writers of that book would even understand what we mean by the concept of 'empirical domain'?

I even doubt that they would look at concepts like 'natural' and 'supernatural' in the same way we do. E.g., Peter Brown quotes from a divorce case from ancient times in which it was seen to be legitimate to claim demonic activity as a legal justification for divorce.
Randy | 10.31.07 - 1:09 pm | #

Randy:

May I ask you a provocative question? (Please don’t feel obligated to respond.) Just how close are you to crossing the river of faith (hopefully the Tiber !)… or am I misreading into the questions you’re posing?

On an unrelated note, you noted a few weeks ago that you were unfamiliar with the importance and influence of philosopher Anthony Flew—especially in his prime. The best thing is to read his works, and then follow the impact they had. (My understanding is Plantinga considered Flew an important, professional, and challenging philosopher—Dennett, for example, can’t hold a candle to Flew… with Dawkins, Harris, Stenger, and the usual suspects ever further behind.) Short of that, here’s an interview of him by Discovery Institute fellow Benjamin Wiker. It cannot be understated how HUGE of a loss to village-atheists this was, for Flew was the flagship analytical philosopher for atheism.
Holopupenko | Homepage | 10.31.07 - 1:59 pm | #

Thanks for providing that link, Holopupenko.
Flew makes a great point - that he is drawing a philosophical inference from the empirical data.
Just as it should be.
Charlie | 10.31.07 - 2:15 pm | #

Holopupenko,
"May I ask you a provocative question? (Please don’t feel obligated to respond.) Just how close are you to crossing the river of faith (hopefully the Tiber !)… or am I misreading into the questions you’re posing?"

Sorry, not nearly as close as I may (quite unintentionally) have led you to believe. Guess my current position would be closer to agnosticism than atheism, if I had to place myself in one of the three most popular categories.



"On an unrelated note, you noted a few weeks ago that you were unfamiliar with the importance and influence of philosopher Anthony Flew-.......... It cannot be understated how HUGE of a loss to village-atheists this was, for Flew was the flagship analytical philosopher for atheism."

Read the interview. Thanks much for the link. Have to say that Flew's position looks a little incoherent to me. At one point he claims it was the inability of biology to explain the origin of life that led him to infer the existence of God. Then later he says that this God does not interfere in the affairs of the world. And that his concept of God is that of the deist or of Aristotle. But if there is such a God, I would then expect biologist's to eventually be able to explain how life originated through the natural processes and laws that this Aristotelian God created and set in motion.

The current scientific view of the world is quite compatible with Flew's concept of God. So why is he using the so-called shortcomings of science to support his philosophical position?

I found interesting his reference to Anthony Kenny who is indeed a noted philosopher. Hacker in has latest book makes the following statement in the introduction:
"I should like to record my gratitude to Anthony Kenny, whose encouragement in this enterprise, as in others in the past spurred me on. I have learnt more from his luminous writings and incisive remarks than I can say."
Perhaps this means little, but I've never seen Flew referenced in any of Hacker's writings or in those of Rundle and Williams - all of whom are modern philosophers I respect highly.

I may sometime get around to reading Flew, but I have quite a crowd of worthier philosophers to grapple with first: Wittgenstein, Aristotle, Kant and Aquinas to name a few.
Randy | 10.31.07 - 5:15 pm | #

Hi Randy,
I don't mean to interrupt your discussion with Holopupenko, but want to add just a note of clarification on Flew.
You said of Flew:

The current scientific view of the world is quite compatible with Flew's concept of God. So why is he using the so-called shortcomings of science to support his philosophical position?

Randy:

     Charlie is spot-on. I was actually going to follow up, but he beat me to the punch.

     The specific sciences each depend upon foundational principles (metaphysical, ontological, epistemological) that they themselves cannot explain, and they also call for explanations beyond their capabilities (metaphysical).

     In this vein, DL has a deeply flawed view of what philosophy is. (I don’t mean to pick on him but DL’s errors are crucial and at the center of his scientistic reductionism… so I’ll use this paragraph as a digression.) Philosophy is not just about checking presuppositions [stated] in the framework of MES methodologies [never openly admitted], nor is logic somehow either (1) Platonically “existing” out there for us to apply to natural processes [DL’s axioms that “don’t require explanation”], or (2) pseudo-Kantian ideas that we impose upon reality because they’re “the only things we can know.” If one holds a priori to these notions, then positivism, idealism, naturalism, reductionism, scientism, etc. predictably arise in their wake—and we have the history of philosophy as an indisputable witness to this, especially in the wake of Descartes’ error. It is these very errors (in addition, of course, to some emotionally-based “reasons” and ignorance of historical facts) that hamstring DL’s ability to ask questions beyond the epistemological strictures he imposes upon himself. When DL asserts the “why?” question is meaningless, or that metaphysics is empty, he’s proceeding from a meta-view of reality: whether that view is correct, while important, is self-imolating because it itself attempts to answer “why?” from a certain metaphysical perspective! Responses to what DL promotes really are, while lengthy, easier than shooting fish in a barrel: its more like pointing out that the fish are poisoning themselves. When DL refers to the study of being as “ontology-smontology,” you know he’s in trouble.

     Anyway, back to Charlie’s point, and by way of an example I provided earlier, the arguments Flew used to rethink and convince himself to become a Deist can be termed “from apparent design,” but Flew correctly did not buy into such a childish Dawkins-like characterization. He finally understood one does not “verify” the presence of design empirically except in the very first steps of acquiring empirical data about the outside world. (Nor should one entertain the silly notion that empirical prediction is applied per se to design… and many other things we can and do know about reality.) Humans employ reason to infer design, not empirical data to “detect” design—which is central to my criticism of ID being portrayed as an MES. Crudely put: detection is what telescopes and microscopes “do,” reasoning and understanding is what humans “do.” That’s why Aristotle, and then Aquinas after him, were so insistent that while all knowledge comes through the senses, not all knowledge is sensory knowledge… and that an idea is not that which we understand (expected reflexively as second intentions), but that by which we understand things.

     Here’s the example: image one day a man is walking on the beach and notices three pieces of driftwood. The three pieces are laid out in the shape of an arrow pointing to the south and over a grass-covered sand dune. Of course, without more information, the “natural” description of how the three pieces of driftwood came to be arranged in their shape is to be preferred: the efficient cause (action) of wind and waves upon the three independent lines of material causality (the driftwood) “explain” (from the MES perspective) why the driftwood is as it is. One need not (and should not) multiply entities to describe the scene… AND, quite importantly, there is NO meaning (meaning: essence in terms of an intelligent species) to the drift wood: it just is.

     But then, from behind the man, comes a couple. They see the driftwood, and the woman exclaims, “Hey, the beach party is just over that dune!” And, they go racing off in search of Miller time and Jimmy Buffet music. Now, the driftwood really HAS meaning… and the three pieces were designed to fulfill a function (meaning: the designer had an end in mind). There is no “apparent” design, or something that “looks like” design: it’s REAL design with REAL meaning and REAL purpose behind it. Yet, can any of the MESs describe—let alone explain—design, meaning, intention? Of course not. A MES scientist could NEVER explain FULLY why the driftwood arrow came to be through material and efficient causality alone. Meaning in the driftwood (the formal cause) is not like termites in driftwood; design (final cause) in driftwood arrow is not like the designer (efficient cause) in the driftwood arrow, purpose in the driftwood arrow is something like intention in the mind of the designed. (And in criticism of Paul’s ultra-reductionist view of reality: if it’s “all neurons anyway,” then NOTHING about what I’ve described has any meaning what so ever.) Can one teach students about meaning, design, intention in the classroom? Of course: I as a parent would demand these concepts be taught. Should one teach students about meaning, design, intention in the science classroom? No: the MESs are not equipped to handle these… and they never fully will.

     To use an example from C.S. Lewis: what does one see in the staircase of a house? The wood is in the staircase, and the shape (form, i.e., “whatness”) is in the staircase. But also in the staircase is the carpenter and his tools (the efficient and instrumental causes)… AND the architect is in the staircase—whose idea is the final cause. If you only employ the material and efficient causes to “explain” why the stairs are the way they are, then you have explained nothing—you’ve merely described. Yet, because the staircase exists, it must be fully explained. Flew took this reasoning (crudely put) to its correct logical conclusion: if the universe is only material and efficient causality with no meaning, then the material entities and physical phenomena we observe (say, by employing the MESs) cannot explain (at the very least) us and our intention-driven lives… and it certainly can’t explain Dawkins trying to persuade us with great strength of purpose that there is no purpose in the universe. His non sequitur is so brawny it beats up his ability to reason about the simplest (but not simple-minded) of notions.

     The point? One needs to use different, more exacting language to understand what design, intention, and meaning are… but one definitely MUST rely on the MESs for the initial empirical data gathering and sanity check if a possible “natural” explanations are available. Dawkins (and DL) refuse to employ analogical terms from a philosophical perspective because they only want to employ MES language (measurement, material verification, mathematical predictability, etc.). Of course, from his narrow and extremist MES-only perspective Dawkins is correct when he claims there is no meaning, good, evil, etc. in the universe and that design only “looks like” design. (If the only tool one permits oneself is a hammer, all questions look like nails.) But to be “correct” in a bathtub when an entire ocean of reality is out there is, well, silly.

     That’s why you are correct to criticize DL, on the one hand, for applying Bayesian statistical analysis to the Resurrection: it’s like trying to understand a galaxy with a microscope (it’s worse, actually), while on the other hand criticizing attempts by people of faith to “scientifically” validate the Resurrection. It’s much harder to explain this broader perspective (which Plantinga tries to do from the perspective of analytical philosophy) than jumping on one or the other band wagon. Plantinga is correct… which is (among other reasons) why Dawkins fears to debate him. DL is incorrect, which is why all his attempts to reduce reality to fit within his epistemological and ontologically-monist constraints constantly creates problems for him. Dalrymple and Flew and Nagel and you have or are paying the obligatory price of truly challenging their preconceived notions and taking a long time to try to understand reality in its broadest glory… and they are to be applauded for it. Dawkins and Dennett and Stenger, and Smith and DL and Paul want it on the cheap. I think the following metaphor is (analogously) appropriate: rich people never purchase cheap things because they can’t afford them… and wise people never settle for the sound-bite urgency of “smart” people who proclaim themselves to be “bright.”
Holopupenko | Homepage | 11.01.07 - 6:32 am | #

Charlie, and Holopupenko,
Are you saying there were no chemical changes involved in the transition from inorganic matter to organic matter?
That life just sort of poofed into existence outside of the causal mechanisms that were created by this Deistic God?
Randy | 11.01.07 - 9:01 am | #

Holopupenko,
Anthropologists explain things like the driftwood example all the time. Why are you restricting science to physics? We both agree (I assumed) the the unity of science is a myth and that everything cannot be reduced to physics.
The science of anthropology can take into consideration things like language and meaning and also use knowledge from the other sciences (like how humans are able to form pieces of driftwood into various shapes) in order to provide a completely natural explanation of your driftwood example.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by the meaning being in the driftwood. Am going to have to think about that for a bit.

I take meaning to be something that is established by convention. The people at the beach party had an agreed upon method to show the partygoers where to find the party.

Am pressed for time, have to get ready for work.
By the way, thanks (this includes Charlie) for the interesting posts.
Randy | 11.01.07 - 9:30 am | #

Randy:

Regarding your first two questions, did I say that? Did I even imply it? Also, don't you need to have at least a rudimentary definition of life (that can be corrected later) before you ask your last question?

And, you must at least admit to the possibility that inorganic material (by which I assume you mean "non-living") is of a different ontological order than organic living beings... just as the meaning in a word is of a different ontological order than the printed (physical) word on a page, or like the color of the printed (physical) word is of a different ontological order than the ink itself, or that the motion of the gears of a clock are of a different ontological order than the gears themselves?

A final question: does the fact that your "chemical changes" in the transition from inorganic to organic chemicals a priori and necessarily preclude the possiblity that this is not the full explanation? Of course not. Only a scientistic reductionist would make such a claim.
Holopupenko | Homepage | 11.01.07 - 10:01 am | #

Holopupenko,
One of the things I'm having difficulty understanding here is how Flew, on the assumption that science is incapable of explaining the chemical changes that brought about organic (living) matter, can infer the existence of a Deistic God.
By definition a deistic God would not be manipulating things in the universe that he created: he simply sits back and observes, he does not interfere with what goes on in the universe.
So what is bringing about those physcial changes that led to RNA and DNA?
Even if you put life into a different ontological category, there are those physical changes that had to occur. Why doesn't Flew think science is capable of addressing that issue?

By the way, when I ask you a question, its not because I'm accusing you of saying something. I'm simply trying to understand what you really are saying and how that relates to my understanding of the issues.
Randy | 11.01.07 - 10:18 am | #

Randy:

There's not much to disagree with in your first paragraph: I was just driving home the point that physics can't explain "meaning," "intention/purpose" or "design." I wasn't disagreeing with you or implying DL's reductionism to you. (There's a bigger audience out there. )

Having said that, I'm not sure I would agree with you that anthropologists can explain per the meaning in the driftwood. What I mean by that is I'm focusing on WHAT meaning is in the first place rather than on concrete applications of meaning. Second, meaning is not always set by convention. For example, can you identify any time in history by any group of people in any situation that believed "bravery" was a vice? (P.S. be careful not to conflate "fool-hearty" with bravery.)

Regarding what it means for meaning to be "in" a word (or driftwood shaped as an arrow), that's why I specifically stated, One needs to use different, more exacting language to understand what design, intention, and meaning are..., and then I provided not rigorous but merely contrasting examples to begin the thinking process. Paul, for example, would (has!) claimed that ideas "are only neurons"... but that really is simple-minded.

Ontological distinctions are crucial!
Holopupenko | Homepage | 11.01.07 - 10:29 am | #

Randy:

I didn't take it as an accusation: my response to you was more of general surprise. I now better understand. I'll get back to you on Flew. Your work day is starting... my work day is ending here at 50.26 N 30.31 E.
Holopupenko | Homepage | 11.01.07 - 10:33 am | #

Holopupenko,
“A final question: does the fact that your "chemical changes" in the transition from inorganic to organic chemicals a priori and necessarily preclude the possibility that this is not the full explanation? Of course not. Only a scientistic reductionist would make such a claim.”

I think it depends on what one means by a full explanation. In the context of the physical changes that are necessary to go from inorganic to organic, i.e. the physical origin of life, I see no reason not to believe that science is, at least in principle, able to give a ‘full explanation ‘of that process.
Flew was talking about the physical origin of life in his interview. He mentioned the impossibility of DNA to arise from a soup of chemicals.

Am on my coffee break, right now.
Randy | 11.01.07 - 11:40 am | #

Holopupenko,
Just a quick response here. You've raised some very complicated issues here that may take some time just for us to understand the other person's position on them.



”Having said that, I'm not sure I would agree with you that anthropologists can explain per the meaning in the driftwood. What I mean by that is I'm focusing on WHAT meaning is in the first place rather than on concrete applications of meaning. Second, meaning is not always set by convention. For example, can you identify any time in history by any group of people in any situation that believed "bravery" was a vice? (P.S. be careful not to conflate "fool-hearty" with bravery.)”

Good point.
I meant that it was convention that they picked the driftwood to assign the meaning to. In the same sense people have assigned what is meant by bravery to the word ‘bravery’. They could just as easily have assigned it to the letter combination “bugoff”

And why can’t anthropologists talk about meaning or intention or language or other things of that sort? They in fact do so all the time. Why this insistence that they should be limited to the level of physics? We’ve already agreed between ourselves that such a reductionistic view of science is flawed.

”Regarding what it means for meaning to be "in" a word (or driftwood shaped as an arrow), that's why I specifically stated, One needs to use different, more exacting language to understand what design, intention, and meaning are..., and then I provided not rigorous but merely contrasting examples to begin the thinking process. Paul, for example, would (has!) claimed that ideas "are only neurons"... but that really is simple-minded.

Ontological distinctions are crucial!”

I’d say that the meaning of a word is given by the explanation of the meaning of the word. It is a rule that we can follow to use the word properly.
Have you read Wittgenstein’s “Logical Investigations”? If you have, that will make it much easier for you to understand where I’m coming from when I talk about meaning.
Randy | 11.01.07 - 11:52 am | #

Hi Randy,
Since Holopupenko is on a break right now I'll add my two cents.
He can correct me later.

You're still on the point that Flew, "on the assumption that science is incapable of explaining the chemical changes that brought about organic (living) matter, can infer the existence of a Deistic God."
This is not exactly the case. It's not that he's saying science can't find the physical route by which matter became alive. He's saying that the question of chemical process and the question of symbolic processing are different categories.
Life is necessarily telic. It is goal-oriented, it has a purpose or, as in the quote before it has "intrinsic ends". Like Aristotle, he holds that teleology is essential to any definition of life and concludes that this goal-centered organization does not exist in the matter that precedes life. Finding a pathway to life is like finding a pathway to an egg frying in a pan. One might be able to sort through a long and complex (or a short and easy) series of events, all the way through a Rube Goldberg apparatus and point to a physical process from start to finish. But that leaves a teleological problem at the end - eggs frying in pans represent the will and desire of an agent and not the lawful interaction of matter.

You bring up DNA which is a third philosophical challenge to OOL as Flew sees it.
You demonstrate why this is a philosophical problem and not a mechanistic one in your discussion with Holopupenko about "meaning", "convention", "intention" and "language". Each of these requires and presumes "mind". Conventions and codes, such as found in DNA, are issues of the existence and transfer of semantic information.
As you note, the meaning is not in the physical carrier the driftwood) but in the intent. The code itself is arbitrary (not the linkage to the information, but the choice of symbols), but semantic meaning implies the mind. There is no underlying physical principle that can account for code - not merely because one hasn't been found yet, but because the two are different creatures. It comes down not to physical changes but to the origin of information and the existence of a goal.
If physical matter can become life, if "laws" lead from chemicals to life then that is because they reflect the teleology and purpose causally preceding them. This is the product, or the result, of will, agency, or mind - not merely of increasing complexity.

The problems of finding a suitable OOL theory may be indicative of the fact that the problem is not one of physics and chemistry, but it is not merely that gap that leads to the conclusion of intelligent Mind.
"There is no law of nature that instructs matter to produce end-directed, self-replicating entities."

Flew quotes George Wald on the problem of a universe that breeds life:
"This is with the assumption that mind, rather than emerging as a late outgrowth in the evolution of life, has existed always as a matrix, the source and condition of physical reality - that the stuff of which physical reality is constructed is mind-stuff."

Flew agrees:
"This, too, is my conclusion. The only satisfactory explanation for the origin of such "end-directed, self-replicating" life as we see on earth is an infinitely intelligent Mind".
page 132, There Is A God
Charlie | 11.01.07 - 12:58 pm | #

I think I'll throw in another penny's worth or two myself.

Randy, you wrote

I think it depends on what one means by a full explanation. In the context of the physical changes that are necessary to go from inorganic to organic, i.e. the physical origin of life, I see no reason not to believe that science is, at least in principle, able to give a ‘full explanation ‘of that process.

Charlie,

"Flew quotes George Wald on the problem of a universe that breeds life:
"This is with the assumption that mind, rather than emerging as a late outgrowth in the evolution of life, has existed always as a matrix, the source and condition of physical reality - that the stuff of which physical reality is constructed is mind-stuff."

Flew agrees:
"This, too, is my conclusion. The only satisfactory explanation for the origin of such "end-directed, self-replicating" life as we see on earth is an infinitely intelligent Mind"."


This sounds like idealism through and through. Holopupenko, do you agree with this?
Randy | 11.01.07 - 2:57 pm | #

Randy:

It’s 11:30 pm, so I apologize for not being able to address your questions at length until tomorrow. Here’s a few quick thoughts:

(1) Regarding “explanation,” I couldn’t agree with you more: it DOES depend on what “explanation” means. The goal is to explain not just what something / some phenomenon is made of and how it acts the way it does, but to explain WHAT it is and what end it tends toward… and centrally tied to explanation is the metaphysical concept of change. (Note: “end” does NOT necessarily entail conscious purpose!) The four Aristotelian question must be answered: (1) What is it? What’s it made of? How did it come into existence? What is its end? A full explanation begin with the simple be-CAUSE… hence the four primary causes. Now, I bet you’d agree with me that limiting explanation to description by jettisoning formal and final causes, if justifiable, cannot be justified by the MESs. (Tom touched briefly upon this.)

(2) I have to go with Charlie and Tom: Flew is not per say limiting himself to physical origins of life as a full explanation: he’s using the MES data to reason to other knowledge. There ARE degrees of knowledge that flow from degrees of abstraction (St. Thomas originally, but then Jacques Maritain for further development on this.) I repeat the important Aristotelian-Thomistic maxim: while all knowledge come through the senses, not all knowledge is sensory knowledge. Another of my favorite examples is that of stealing candy from a baby: you observe with all five primary senses an event, but you also “see” an injustice (the privation of justice) perpetrated. Another example: we have great science and technology to determine (within some range of certainty) what Iran’s current state of developing nuclear weapons might be. But no MES will tell you what one ought to do with that knowledge. We have wonderful technologies for burning the skin of infants in utero or puncturing the base of their skulls and sucking their brains out before extracting them. Which MES can judge whether being able to do something implies that we should do it… or do we simply dismiss moral questions as hopelessly “subjective” (like DL does, which permits anything at the end of the day), and is this last question an MES question?

(3) You note: And why can’t anthropologists talk about meaning or intention or language or other things of that sort? They in fact do so all the time. Why this insistence that they should be limited to the level of physics? We’ve already agreed between ourselves that such a reductionistic view of science is flawed. First, I’m not saying anthropologists should not be permitted to talk about meaning—quite the contrary. And no, of course they should not be limited to physics. My approach in addressing your questions is to keep in mind others listening in to the conversation. It’s not directed at you… except obliquely as related to point (1) above.

(By the way, not only have I in part read Wittgenstein’s “Logical Investigations” but also his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and parts of his notebooks formally as part of a course in analytical philosophy that surveys this movement from before the 20th century up to our day. I think I understand fairly well where you’re coming from—hence (partly) the long e-mail I sent you. It would be very good if you could take a survey course of 20th century philosophy… but only after courses on ancient, medieval, classical modern, and late modern philosophy. The historical perspective is fascinating, breathtaking, and utterly context generating. In particular, the mistakes initiated in the wake of Descartes cogito become quite clear.)

(4) These are, indeed, complex issues. It takes a lot of time, effort, patience—and I will insist upon prayer—to wrap your mind about them. I’m not asking you to agree with me and adapt Thomism as a world view… just hoping you take the opportunity in your autodidactic pursuits to understand what Aristotle and Thomas said and to not dismiss them (as DL directly does) because they’re “medieval.” (Again, the target is not you, Randy.) Consider something else you say in response to my assertion that ontological distinctions are crucial: “I’d say that the meaning of a word is given by the explanation of the meaning of the word.” Well, fair enough… if you limit yourself to the analytic philosopher approach. BUT, as I e-mailed you under separate cover, words are not just meanings in an of themselves: they point to real things—one must know the “whatness” to formulate a proper definition (genus and difference). If you insist “rational animal” is the definition of a human being (which is true) then you are providing the whatness of a substance (human being) which is intelligible through its essence “rational animal.”

(5) Regarding Wald’s quote, I hesitate to comment without reading more for context, but generally no… I think you may have misunderstood Flew: he wasn’t speaking of OUR minds generating reality: he was thinking about THE mind. There is MUCH more that can be said on the Logos, neo-Platonism, archetype ideas in the mind of God, etc. that all tie into what’s behind Flew’s statement. But one thing I think is sure: he’s not talking about classical Idealism where the only thing (it is claimed by Kant with DL as disciple) we can know are ideas, etc. Having said that, I’m way too oversimplifying the issue… and so I’ll stop hoping it generated some thought. Tom’s and Charlie’s points provide more… I need to get my beauty sleep.
Holopupenko | Homepage | 11.01.07 - 6:06 pm | #

Charlie,

There are so many things in your post that I disagree with that I'm not sure it worth the time to try to deal with them in this forum.
Maybe it would help to focus on whether or not Flew's position is consistent with Deism.

You wrote:
"If physical matter can become life, if "laws" lead from chemicals to life then that is because they reflect the teleology and purpose causally preceding them. This is the product, or the result, of will, agency, or mind - not merely of increasing complexity."

In deism, God sets up the parameters: the materials and laws of the universe. He starts the ball rolling, so to speak, and then steps back without any further involvement.
So if life is going to be possible in a universe such as ours it is going to have to come about through those natural processes that the Deity established at the very beginning. He makes no intervention in those activites in order to bring about life.
So under a deistic conception, my expectation would be that science COULD be able to explain things like the origin of life and things like reproduction and how living things are capable of performing the various activities they do.
But Flew seems to be basing his decision to believe in this God on the view that science CAN’T explain those kinds of things.

I think your analogy of the frying eggs may be helpful. When frying eggs a human is deliberately bringing about physical changes: breaking an egg, starting a fire or range, greasing the pan, etc. He is actively involved in the physical changes taking place. But that is not consistent with a deistic concept of God. All that kind of God is doing is observing what happens according to the laws He set in place at the beginning. It is the natural laws and processes bringing about those changes.


Also, you seem to be under the false impression that biology is not able to deal with teleological explanations. But they rely on those kinds of explanations all the time in explaining the behavior of living things. Is Flew also confused about this?


You also wrote:
"As you note, the meaning is not in the physical carrier the driftwood) but in the intent."

I just wanted to comment on this to illustrate the huge gap in our approach to these problems.
I never said the meaning was in the intent. What you are doing here is assuming I share your conceptual approach to understanding the mind and such things as meaning and intention.
I don't think the mind is any kind of a substance: either some kind of mental substance or physical substance. It is simply a way we have of referrring to a set of capacities that are unique to human beings. So I don't think a meanings is some kind of an idea or mental entity that exists in a mental state and that we attach to words and symbols. Basically, in a broad sense, the meaning of a word is best understood as the explanation of the meaning of a work. A meaning can be viewd as a rule for the use of a work. Sort of like how the rules of chess tell us how to use the pieces of chess in order to play the game of chess.
I'm not trying to argue here that you should accept my view, but to help you realize how differently we look at some of these subjects we are discussing.
Randy | 11.01.07 - 7:12 pm | #

Holopupenko,

"I have to go with Charlie and Tom: Flew is not per say limiting himself to physical origins of life as a full explanation:"

So you would agree that biology in principle can give an explanation of all the physical changes that resulted in organic matter? That things like DNA and RNA can be shown to be the result of physical processes?
Perhaps not a complete explanation in the Thomistic sense, but a model that will show how it was possible for all those physical changes to occur which resulted in the transformation from non-living matter to living matter?

I'm sorry don't have more time right now to go into the rest of your post. May have a chance later tonight to start making some comments on it.
Randy | 11.01.07 - 7:58 pm | #

Holopupenko,

You are suggesting that naturalism ignores final causation. It doesn't. I think purpose reduces to expectation and preference, and this is not an eliminative reduction. So final causes aren't "jettisoned".
doctor(logic) | Homepage | 11.02.07 - 12:51 am | #

Hi Randy,

There are so many things in your post that I disagree with that I'm not sure it worth the time to try to deal with them in this forum.
Maybe it would help to focus on whether or not Flew's position is consistent with Deism.

In deism, God sets up the parameters: the materials and laws of the universe. He starts the ball rolling, so to speak, and then steps back without any further involvement.
So if life is going to be possible in a universe such as ours it is going to have to come about through those natural processes that the Deity established at the very beginning. He makes no intervention in those activities in order to bring about life.
So under a deistic conception, my expectation would be that science COULD be able to explain things like the origin of life and things like reproduction and how living things are capable of performing the various activities they do.

I think your analogy of the frying eggs may be helpful. When frying eggs a human is deliberately bringing about physical changes: breaking an egg, starting a fire or range, greasing the pan, etc. He is actively involved in the physical changes taking place. But that is not consistent with a deistic concept of God. All that kind of God is doing is observing what happens according to the laws He set in place at the beginning. It is the natural laws and processes bringing about those changes.

But Flew seems to be basing his decision to believe in this God on the view that science CAN’T explain those kinds of things.

Also, you seem to be under the false impression that biology is not able to deal with teleological explanations. But they rely on those kinds of explanations all the time in explaining the behavior of living things. Is Flew also confused about this?

By the way, since you keep returning to this charge of idealism and have now suggested that it is Flew's view (thanks Holopupenko) I thought I'd quote him on that as well.
"It was Sue Stebbing, with her Philosophy and the Physicists, who taught me how to begin cutting my way out of this particular jungle [Idealism]."

"If this were true [Russell's idealism and claims about perception], I said, then there is no such thing as perception. And since the scientists do and must rely for the ultimate vindication of their discoveries upon direct observation, this conclusion necessarily undermines the findings from which it is derived. In short, this view removes the bases of all scientific inference. Against this I argued that in a normal conscious perception I must have an appropriate sensory experience (e.g., the sound and sight of a hammer driving in a nail); and that, if anything is truly said to have been perceived, then that thing (the hammer and the nail) must have been part of the cause of my having that experience."
pages 36-37
Charlie | 11.02.07 - 2:32 am | #

Randy:

     I’d like to make a remark regarding a general misconception I’ve noticed throughout these discussions (not aimed directly at you): it’s the failure to draw a correct distinction between what is “natural” and what is “supernatural.” Technically and strictly speaking, there is only one supernatural “entity”—that is God. (I’m not happy employing the term “entity” as applied to God… as if He were one entity among others: better to use the Greek term ό ων (ho on) emblazed in the halos surrounding Christ’s head as depicted in eastern icons—which means THE Being.) God is “above” (supra) His creation—whether that creation is real beings, beings of reason, angels, images, privations, etc., etc. Yes, indeed and again strictly speaking, angels are part of the realm of natural entities—even though they cannot be imagined, but they can certainly be conceived of in order to be partly understood. Inferences to what angels are begins in natural philosophy and proceeds to theology.

     Natural philosophy studies “changeable being” in its broadest sense, and though angels are purely spiritual beings and hence cannot be corrupted in the material sense (they have no physical accidents), they do “have” the accidents of quality (say, level of intelligence) and relation, so angels do, in fact, change as, for example, when they contemplate God and grow in knowledge of Him. But “change” here MUST be understood from the much broader metaphysical perspective (the reduction from potency to act) than the merely physical, and hence change is an analogous term. (Be aware: there are some sophistical and stunted (mis)understandings of what natural philosophy is out there—like Quentin Smith’s and Richard Carrier’s visions—that, unfortunately are animated by their a priori naturalism. William Craig has very correctly termed Smith’s rejection of the First Principle of Sufficient Cause “perverse.” I, personally, have stronger words for Smith.)

     I used the example of angels to hint at why the particular sciences (the MESs, anthropology, medicine, mathematics, etc.) understand change ONLY on their own terms (each has different subject areas and objects of study based partially on the level of abstraction needed to acquire knowledge), whereas metaphysics studies change (and being and causality and, etc.) in the broadest sense possible. Finally, this also touches upon an earlier statement of yours, that the “unity of the sciences” is a myth. Well, from a narrow perspective, yes. But metaphysics is, in fact, the “science before science” (meta- here meaning “beyond” and not the mistaken notion of “after”) that coordinates the foundational principles of all the particular sciences. (One cannot employ the particular sciences to fully study the First Principles of real being (non-contradiction, parts-vs.-wholes, sufficient cause, excluded middle, identity, etc.), and certainly one cannot proclaim as “unnecessary” or “not provable” the First Principles without invoking them.) “Science” writ large is not to be understood in the narrow sense of the MES, for science (knowledge—episteme) is “mediate and certain intellectual knowledge acquired through demonstration”… but methodologies and means for demonstration and subject matters differ radically—even among the MES.

     The MESs, in fact and analogously (yet technically and strictly) speaking (this may sound scandalous to DL) aren’t even sciences in the full sense. Why? Because their knowledge is always and everywhere contingent, where as science per se is certain knowledge. (I am certain of many things—as a trite example, I am 100% certain Tom did not paint the Mona Lisa, but not so trite is the knowledge that a deductive syllogism (demonstration) generates certain knowledge.) That is, by the way, why the particular sciences (1) call for broader explanations that they themselves cannot provide, and (2) why they are exceedingly important (because of their efficiency in reaching deeply but narrowly into reality) for philosophy.

     Much more can be said on all this, but I just wanted to clarify some things.
Holopupenko | Homepage | 11.02.07 - 6:30 am | #

DL:

     We’re not talking about eliminative reduction(ism), and you’re incorrect to think naturalism (as a world view, as opposed to the MESs as the habit and means by which we acquire knowledge of material beings and physical phenomena) incorporate final cause as part of an explanation of why things are. Part of this stems from your not being aware of the historical nuances of genesis of the MESs in medieval Catholic Europe (the only place and time the MESs arose—see Jaki and Duhem, which no one to date disputes) with subsequent development during the Enlightenment, and partly from a misunderstanding of what the final cause is. The former issue is fairly straightforward to address so I won’t do it here. The latter is more difficult because it presupposes some understanding of what constitutes an explanation and the relationship between the four causes. I’ve gone over this before, so I’m loath to enter the same debate… so here’s my last “ole college try”:

     First, borrowing and paraphrasing from the Maverick Philosopher, naturalism is the philosophical notion that the totality of entities is nothing more than the space-time system: (1) the space-time system exists, (2) the space-time system is all there is, (3) the laws and methodologies of the MESs and mathematics are sufficient to explain all these existents. The clear implication is that the following cannot exist: God as classically conceived, disembodied minds/souls, unexemplified universals, and a whole range of objects variously characterized as ideal, Platonic, or abstract, including Fregean propositions, numbers, irreducible mathematical sets, etc. In summary, naturalism is the notion that reality is exhausted by the space-time system.
     NOTA BENE: naturalism as defined is not a proposition of the MESs in combination (or not) with mathematics. The MESs study material entities and physical phenomena of the space-time system. The MESs do not and cannot study anything “outside” this system, and certainly do not study things unobservable to the five primary senses. Nor can the MESs pronounce upon the question of whether or not the whole of reality is exhausted by the space-time system. What this means is that if a scientists qua scientist believes the results of knowledge produced by the MESs entail the truth of naturalism, then he is grossly mistaken: neither naturalism nor its negation are entailed in the MESs.

     So, what does naturalism also eliminate? First, perhaps trivially, the study of things that don’t change—like the foundational metaphysical principles upon which the MESs critically depend. (Change—the reduction from potency to act—must be explained!) Second, by definition, the formal and final causes. Naturalism does not and cannot address the essence (whatness) of objects. You yourself on many occasions have asserted against relying on “invisible” explanations such as essence and substance (the former being the intelligible aspect of the latter). (This is a funny claim on you part given that the MESs would be impossible without universal concepts.) A human being (the universal concept of what each of us is) is not nor is he explained by a collection of atoms (material cause, crudely put) and the forces that made him come into being (efficient cause, crudely put). A person (per Boethius, “an individual substance of a rational nature”—a concept utterly outside the ability of the MESs) is a substance (metaphysical concept) that is known through its intelligible aspect the “essence” (metaphysical concept) of what it means to be a human being, i.e., a rational animal. This does not complicate things or unnecessarily “multiply entities”—it, in fact, clarifies what a human being is such that a ontological unity is achieved over and above the collection of atoms that a human being also happens to be. The whole IS greater than the mere sum of its parts—there is no way you can deny this without assuming its terms.
     The final cause is even further out of the bounds of the MESs and therefore naturalism. “Purpose” or “end” cannot be observed or detected or measured by the MESs, but they can be inferred using reasoning beyond the MESs. (Inferring the existence of a neutrino from the apparent violation of angular momentum in beta decays is NOT the same thing as inferring teleology (say, design) from MESs data.) So, one can certainly argue the existence of the final cause, but that’s no longer the MESs working, is it? You may think naturalism somehow entails final causality but it doesn’t simply due to the fact that its epistemological tools are the MESs—which only “see” material causality and a narrow version of efficient causality (with the assistance of mathematics only a very rarified version of formal causality comes into play).

     Here is your misunderstanding of the final cause: Aristotle, by showing that nothing can move itself because it cannot give itself a new actuality it does not yet have, proved that change is impossible unless extrinsic efficient causes (the ordinary and limited understanding of the English meaning of “cause” used by MES scientists) and final causes also exist. (The intrinsic causes are the material and the formal.) Now, by final cause Aristotle did NOT mean either some conscious purpose in things or some other occult type of efficient causality. He simply meant that, since the ability to obtain knowledge is about the study of uniform changes that result in relatively stable states of affairs, the MESs primarily study those natural changes that are repeated and therefore predetermined in their effects (and predictable to throw you a bone). This predetermination of natural efficient causes, their “directedness,” is what Aristotle meant by final causation (teleology or teleonomy) and is necessarily a part of explanation writ large.
     Note that the kind of final causality or teleology involving conscious purpose is, of course, also sometimes natural, but only at the level of animal and human life… and analogously in angles or demons. A brute animal can be stimulated by the sight of food or a mate and can move toward that goal with some kind of consciousness of its goal, and thus such action is “teleological.” But only in the case of being having abstract intelligence can such behavior be called “purposeful” in a strict sense.

     So, for you to reduce purpose to “expectation and preference” just doesn’t work. “Expectation”? What is doing the “expecting” regarding the behavior of a falling stone? Certainly not the stone itself, yet its fall (how it’s changing given the particular example) must include final cause (as shown above) in the explanation. That YOU may expect (or predict, for that matter) the stone to behave a certain is in no way part of the explanation of the stone’s behavior: all your thinking about and expecting it to do something will not affect the stone. “Preference”? Okay, but then you’re talking about something that is of a fundamentally different ontologically order: the “end” of a falling stone is NOT the same kind of thing as your “preference” (hence, purposefulness) in convincing others that naturalism is the way to go… just like the gears of a clock are of a fundamentally different ontological order than the motion of the gears (the gears won’t and can’t move themselves, i.e., they can’t given themselves an actuality they don’t have for to believe otherwise would be to swallow the impossibility that the gear are moving before they move). You are, whether you think so or not, equivocating over the kinds of things you’re trying to address.
     AND, all this doesn’t even address your failure to tell us exactly WHAT “preference” is. You’ve tried, of course, and you’ve been quoted as saying physics may not explain everything but nearly everything. (Your vision of philosophy doesn’t work either, because you’ve reduced philosophy to a mere presupposition “checker” rather than something that helps to explain in the broader sense.) If you reduce “preference” in humans to certain complex, time-dependent patterns of electro-chemical signals traversing neurons (as Paul does and as all eliminative reductionists do), then indeed there is NO preference… which brings you back to square one to contradict your initial contention that “naturalism doesn’t jettison final cause.” If, on the other hand, you don’t reduce “preference” to material entities and physical phenomena (the realm of the MESs), then you’ve got a whole lot of explaining to do (please don’t revive the “emergent properties” fallacy)—explaining that can’t be based on the MESs. That’s what I find troubling (yet fascinating) about your position: you can’t be a reductionist because it would undermine your whole project, yet your promote it (mostly implicitly).

     I likely will not follow up on this topic again…
Holopupenko | Homepage | 11.02.07 - 7:41 am | #

Charlie:
     That was an outstanding summary and exposition (for Randy’s clarification) of the (uncomfortable cough deep in my throat) “evolution” of Flew’s views.

Randy:
     I had to take some time to address DL’s issue on final causality as allegedly covered by naturalism, and some time to provide you a contextual response (supernatural vs. natural). I hope you understand I’m a bit tired after all that, and will now only attempt a quick (famous last words, eh?) response to you 11.01.07 – 7:58 pm question. Note that part of your question was addressed earlier.

     I might agree hesitatingly that “biology in principle can give an explanation of all the physical changes that resulted in organic matter,” but only with the qualification Charlie and I provided in different ways—the clincher being you’ve got to account for the ontological differences between non-living matter and living entities… which of course presupposes you can provide an explanation (writ large) for what life IS so that you can even properly distinguish between living and non-living in the first place. (Note your underlying non-biological (i.e., unscientific) assumption: there is no difference, or it’s inconsequential.)

     Short and sweet: an effect cannot be greater than its cause—that’s an undeniable metaphysical principle. If you have a clock with motionless gears, you cannot assume the gears will suddenly move in and of themselves. No matter how many gears you add to such a system, they will not move without an external efficient cause. You should think about this not in the sense of a “system” as understood by the MESs but through the following analogy: no matter how many morons you put in a room, they will never add up to the intelligence level of an Einstein… or a Randy .
     If you doubt this, I’ll intentionally limit myself to speak of the third Aristotelian category (second accident) “quality” of temperature as inhering in the first Aristotelian category of substance where the substance is a snowball, i.e., (apart from the concepts of “substance” and “accident”) things completely captured by the MESs. Here it is: no matter how many snowballs at +1° Celsius I pack into a room, I will never be able to obtain a giant snowball of temperature +2° Celsius. Why? Because the quality of temperature doesn’t add in the sense the that first accident of real being (second category) quantity (say, the size of a snowball) does. These accidents are “laterally” of ontologically different orders. Now, if this is clear regarding a “lateral” dimensional difference among ontological order in accidents, then I think you can see the situation for the “vertical” dimensions is even greater… hence, the problem for gears to simply come into motion by themselves. A gear is a substance; a clock composed of many gears is a substance of “accidental unity” (the definition of the human artifact know as a “machine”); the motion of a gear or gears is an accident of quality. The difference is (to improperly use the accident of quantity) HUGE.

     So, coming around full circle, I’ll respond “yes” to your question if all the ontological entities necessary for DNA to arise are there. BUT, how are you going to account for the chain of those entities in the first place: chains are used to support things, and chains themselves are attached to something for support. You can’t go on to infinity because that implies the chain has no support… which is a crude exposition of Aquinas’ First Way. I’m hoping you see that, indeed (to agree with you) it’s not an explanation in the full sense of St. Thomas, but it’s certainly begging for a full explanation. When one sees this, one also sees that it lies at the base of the MESs “calling for” and support a fuller explanation for why things are in the first place.

     I hope that helps.
Holopupenko | Homepage | 11.02.07 - 8:37 am | #

Charlie,

“I don't see much point in picking at the label. Flew makes his beliefs clear and whether or not that squares with deism, or a definition of deism, is hardly relevant. Since it is a shorthand way of his saying as much about what he doesn't believe as what he does I don't even find it very interesting in the context you are pursuing. In fact Flew also makes the point that since his philosophical views have matured he has turned "from atheism to theism." page 32
The God he is discussing and accepts is a person. He does not believe in revelation or an afterlife but believes it is a topic open to discussion. Whether this is deism or not, and whether there is any requirement that this kind of God must do anything or nothing after getting the ball rolling isn't really explicit, nor is it that important.”


Well it’s important to me because Flew is the one who specified that he believes in a deistic God in the interview Holopupenko linked to. And he specifically says in that interview that this God does not intervene in the affairs of the world.
Given his understanding of the kind of God he claims to believes, it makes no sense for him to claim that at least one of the reasons he now thinks this God exists is because “the origin of life and reproduction simply cannot be explained from a biological standpoint”. But if he believes in that kind of God one would expect science to be able to explain the things that happen in a universe created by a deistic God. This is not at all the sort of God that Tom or you believe in, one who willingly intervenes in the events of the world and causes things to happen.
This was the only reason I commented on the interview and it was, I thought, on this point that you were trying to correct me. So I’m a little confused as to why now you think it so unimportant???
Randy | 11.02.07 - 8:54 am | #

Randy:

You say, “But if he believes in that kind of God one would expect science to be able to explain the things that happen in a universe created by a deistic God.”

No. First, Charlie explicitly states much more went into Flew’s decision... perhaps it is worth your time to read his book. I would suggest, though, first starting with his work from this atheistic period. Second, one can in no way prove the existence of God by means of the MESs alone: it’s a non-starter—least of all because God is not a being among other beings. One must use natural philosophy (which uses the input of the MES). Third, I also don’t think Charlie was keying on you as such: the “faith” side of the aisle in these discussions has been more engaged in dispelling straw men and other fallacies that stand in the way of understanding what faith is than in substantive discussion about who God is (see Tom’s recent echo of the Maverick Philosopher’s post on “does the atheist deny what the theist affirms”). You’ll note when Tom posts on things like his sister’s suffering, DL and Paul and such hardly comment at all—it’s as if such “categories” are completely beyond the limited tools they employ… and so they’re left speechless. Fourth, if you want to find about more about the nature of God and WHO He is, you’re opening other (infinite!) vistas. That’s were faith, theology, the analogous names of God, degrees of knowledge, etc., etc., come in. The god of Aristotle (or Flew) indeed is not the God of Christianity. There are certain things (to borrow from Budziszewski) you cannot not know and that you can build upon to obtain microscopic cross-sectional insights into the nature of God; Aquinas was keen on the preambula fidei (See McInerny’s latest book on this)...

Sorry, that was a non-rigorous stream-of-consciousness dump of what immediately surfaced. I guess the connecting thread for me is that for anyone to claim faith in God is “irrational” is itself an irrational position… all things considered, of course.
Holopupenko | Homepage | 11.02.07 - 9:30 am | #

Holopupenko,
I'm not claiming that believing in God is irrational.
All I've been trying to do is comment on the interview of Flew where he explains his reasons for believing in a deistic God.
So the nature of this kind of God is crucial for examing whether or not Flew is providing a good reason for his change of mind.
If he believed in a God that actively intervened in the world then I think the reasons he gave in the interview would seem more reasonable.

It's my undestanding that one of the reasons peopole came to believe in a deistic God was that they were able to explain what happened in this universe without having to use God as part of that explanation. That an understanding of the laws and entities in the world was sufficient for understanding natural phenomena.
Yet it looks to me like Flew is saying the opposite thing here. That's why his position, as he presents it in the interview, appears to be incoherent.
Randy | 11.02.07 - 10:17 am | #

Hi Holopupenko
Thanks for your comments.
That may cause me some editting of this comment ...

===
Hi Randy,
You first said that Flew's characterization of God and his ideas about biology not being able to explain life and reproduction were at odds.
I tried to clarify his point as I read it and show why I didn't think they were at odds.
You've since repeated your claim, focusing on the word "deism" and I've since repeated mine and backed it up with more of what Flew has to say on the subject.
You now repeat your claim and your objection with no sign at all that you care about the distinctions raised.
As you said to Paul, repetition is kind of a waste of time.

However you do take it upon yourself to contrast the God Flew now accepts with the God I believe in. That hardly makes any point - except, well, I know, it's important to you. Flew uses the same tools to argue for the existence of God, and the same evidences that many of us Christians do, and he has come to his realization sans revelation and without relying upon religious tradition. As he says, it was a journey of reason. This is evidence for one and all who claim that belief is irrational and is a nice exposition of that rationale.

But I think you are missing a point here. Flew is describing the God that he has demonstrated to his satisfaction through philosophical argumentation, and inference from scientific evidence. He has had no experience with this God. He does say though, that Christianity makes an excellent case for revelation which is worthy of consideration. He just hasn't been convinced.
"But of course when I later came to think about theological things, it seemed to me that the case for the Christian revelation is a very strong one, if you believe in any revelation at all."
page 24

If it's of any value to you, Christians from Augustine, to C.S. Lewis to Frank Tipler, all orthodox, believe that God works through His laws and never violates them or sets them aside.
Nobody needs to think of God breaking His own laws in order to believe in Christianity (Tipler says it would be heresy). You can believe, with deists, evolutionary theists, many IDists and Christians of many a stripe that God set up the Rube Goldberg machine with the end-result - the creation of a rational creature - in mind, and just set the ball rolling. Each admits a different level of evidence and submits to a slightly different argument.

This is not at all the sort of God that Tom or you believe in, one who willingly intervenes in the events of the world and causes things to happen.
This was the only reason I commented on the interview and it was, I thought, on this point that you were trying to correct me. So I’m a little confused as to why now you think it so unimportant???

Just a quick thought on Flew's deism. Neither Charlie, nor Holopupenko, nor I are committed to Flew having reached the right conclusion there. We are all theists. Flew says he himself is still in process regarding the question of theism. The deistic position answers several questions that naturalism cannot answer, as he says in the interview, and as Charlie has also quoted from his book. It leaves some crucial questions unanswered as well.
Tom Gilson | Homepage | 11.02.07 - 10:47 am | #

Charlie,
"The only reason you commented was to show us that Flew was giving no support to our positions? It looked more like you were questioning the coherence of his claims but I'll take your correction on your motivations."

That wasn't my motivation Charlie. Please go back to the very first post I made regarding Flew's interview. All along it has been about the incoherency of the position he presents in that article.
I'll admit that my writing was not of the clearest in the post you quote from. But also, you should note that there was a paragraph break between the two sentence you quoted.

Look, if Flew wants to believe in a god whether it is a deistic type or a Jewish type or a Christian type I could really care less. What I do care about is the reasoing that leads him to whatever belief he does have. I simply don't see the reasons he gives in the article (not in his book, which I haven't read, or soething he may have said someplace else but what is actually in the article, which I have read in full) giving good support for believing in a deistic God.
Randy | 11.02.07 - 11:35 am | #

Tom,
"Just a quick thought on Flew's deism. Neither Charlie, nor Holopupenko, nor I are committed to Flew having reached the right conclusion there."

Actually, I think you guys shold be criticizing Flew rather heavily for the conclusion he has reached. His reasons, whether one agree with them or not, appear to me to support a theistic type of God and not at all the deistic type he now believes in.
Randy | 11.02.07 - 11:41 am | #

I agree and disagree with that. It's a matter of perspective. When a prominent atheist says he has reached the conclusion, by means of reflection upon the evidence, that there must be a God, it's hard to criticize that conclusion, because we agree.

What kind of a God? We could certainly disagree with what he is currently saying about that, but that doesn't seem as germane to the kind of discussions we've been having lately here.
Tom Gilson | Homepage | 11.02.07 - 12:23 pm | #

Randy:

Perhaps I can provide you with a world-recognized philosopher (now passed on) who was born into a Jewish family, became an atheist, became a deist, became an Episcopelian, and finally a Catholic. He was, granted, an Aristotelian thinker through and through... so his "habits" of reasoning gave him a leg up on others, and I'll admit helped him reach his final destination. (Which, by the way, is why I agree with Tom's implicit message: that Flew as an anlytical philsopher and atheist eventually became a theist warrents him many kudos.) Anyway, I think you may consider this philosopher's writings interesting, and it may throw some light on the evolution of Flew's thought. The philosopher I refer to is Mortimer Adler. Much can be picked up from a web site he helped to establish: the Radical Academy.

Also (and generally again), my statement against "claims of faith as irrational" wasn't directed at you: I'm using these conversations with you in the hope that certain other people are reading the exchanges. I hope you don't mind.
Holopupenko | Homepage | 11.02.07 - 12:36 pm | #

Hi Randy,

That wasn't my motivation Charlie. Please go back to the very first post I made regarding Flew's interview. All along it has been about the incoherency of the position he presents in that article.
I'll admit that my writing was not of the clearest in the post you quote from. But also, you should note that there was a paragraph break between the two sentence you quoted.

Holopupenko,

You’ve put a lot of effort into explaining your perspective here and I appreciate that. Sorry that I’ve not been able to find the time to comment on them adequately. Just posting some thoughts on what you’ve written here:

“ But then, from behind the man, comes a couple. They see the driftwood, and the woman exclaims, “Hey, the beach party is just over that dune!” And, they go racing off in search of Miller time and Jimmy Buffet music. Now, the driftwood really HAS meaning… and the three pieces were designed to fulfill a function (meaning: the designer had an end in mind). There is no “apparent” design, or something that “looks like” design: it’s REAL design with REAL meaning and REAL purpose behind it. Yet, can any of the MESs describe—let alone explain—design, meaning, intention? Of course not. A MES scientist could NEVER explain FULLY why the driftwood arrow came to be through material and efficient causality alone. Meaning in the driftwood (the formal cause) is not like termites in driftwood; design (final cause) in driftwood arrow is not like the designer (efficient cause) in the driftwood arrow, purpose in the driftwood arrow is something like intention in the mind of the designed. (And in criticism of Paul’s ultra-reductionist view of reality: if it’s “all neurons anyway,” then NOTHING about what I’ve described has any meaning what so ever.) Can one teach students about meaning, design, intention in the classroom? Of course: I as a parent would demand these concepts be taught. Should one teach students about meaning, design, intention in the science classroom? No: the MESs are not equipped to handle these… and they never fully will.

To use an example from C.S. Lewis: what does one see in the staircase of a house? The wood is in the staircase, and the shape (form, i.e., “whatness”) is in the staircase. But also in the staircase is the carpenter and his tools (the efficient and instrumental causes)… AND the architect is in the staircase—whose idea is the final cause. If you only employ the material and efficient causes to “explain” why the stairs are the way they are, then you have explained nothing—you’ve merely described. Yet, because the staircase exists, it must be fully explained. Flew took this reasoning (crudely put) to its correct logical conclusion: if the universe is only material and efficient causality with no meaning, then the material entities and physical phenomena we observe (say, by employing the MESs) cannot explain (at the very least) us and our intention-driven lives… and it certainly can’t explain Dawkins trying to persuade us with great strength of purpose that there is no purpose in the universe. His non sequitur is so brawny it beats up his ability to reason about the simplest (but not simple-minded) of notions.”



What I find interesting about the driftwood example is that if a scientist should learn that it was placed there by a human in order to indicate to others where the beach party was, then his explanation of how the 3 pieces were arranged would have to change. The causal history would be different, it wouldn’t be the wind or action of the surf that helped to position the driftwood, it would have been the force applied by human muscles through the hands and arms of human beings. The physical description would be very different.

The staircase example looks to be quite different from the driftwood one. We need know absolutely nothing about the carpenter or the tools he used or even how he used those tools in the construction of the staircase in order to learn that the staircase enables one to move from one level of the house to another.

Also, I’m not sure it’s reasonable to insist that a biologist gives what you call a ‘full explanation’ in order to answer the question of how life originated on this planet. If he is able to come up with a theory that shows how physical changes in inorganic matter could have led to the molecular structures of things like RNA and DNA he will have done what is needed to explain the origin of physical life within the context of his scientific practice. I really think it unreasonable for a biologist to include in that explanation a complete history of the universe from the big bang in order to accept his explanation as being complete. Or that the scientist needs to speculate on what idea may or may not have been in the mind of a God who may or may not exist.

I don’t see science as a unity with philosophy as its head. Philosophy and science are, I think autonomous. Even within science itself there is not real unity: physics, biology, anthropology, psychology, etc. all share the goal of explaining the real world but their methods, the conceptual tools they use, their forms of explanation, etc. are different. The logical positivist vision of being able to reduce all of the sciences to the physical level was quite mistaken.
Randy | 11.03.07 - 11:25 am | #

Holopupenko,

“(By the way, not only have I in part read Wittgenstein’s “Logical Investigations” but also his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and parts of his notebooks formally as part of a course in analytical philosophy that surveys this movement from before the 20th century up to our day. I think I understand fairly well where you’re coming from—hence (partly) the long e-mail I sent you.”


Then you’ll understand why I am rather hesitant at this point to fully accept your position here. As you know, Wittgenstein rejected the Augustinian conception of language in his “Philosophical Investigations” and explained why philosophy is incapable of practicing metaphysics in the traditional sense of investigating the de re essences of things. In that book he presented a shift in the conception of essence: essences are not conceived de re but de dicto.

Language is self-contained and autonomous, it has no way in which to reach up to or make contact with what is conceived of as the de re essence of a thing.

Wittgenstein’s approach seems to me to be the most reasonable way in which to deal with philosophical problems. It has enabled me to understand why I was so mistaken in my earlier beliefs that the mind is something to be identified with the brain and that it is in principle possible to reduce all knowledge to the level of physics. It has helped me to untangle some of the conceptual confusions that led me into the dark wood from which there seemed no escape.
Randy | 11.03.07 - 12:45 pm | #

Randy:

Analytic Philosophy is not really a “philosophy” in the strict, classical sense but rather a set of varying methodologies… which makes these methodologies susceptible to philosophical overreach, i.e., the kind the doomed positivism. While the overall movement is (ostensibly) a careful and focused attempt to find precise and clear meanings for how we use language and its terms, the “truth” they sought was limited. Why? Because it was assumed a priori that (to one extent or another) philosophical problems could be reduced to and hence “solved” by or eliminated altogether if language was made clear and precise as it distantly echoed the Cartesian clear and precise ideas, i.e., it started illicitly reducing language—and hence philosophy itself—to a science in the spirit of the MESs. Carnap, Ayer, Russell, Wittgenstein, Moore, Flew, etc., etc. tended to either logicism or language games or eventually to anti-realism… but these in turn (as the 20th century progressed) because less and less able to meet the demands of reducing language in order to gain an almost mathematical certitude regarding what we say.

One of the most ridiculous intentions driving especially many of the earlier analytic philosophers was to allegedly demonstrate that metaphysics can and should be eliminated as “meaningless”—itself, of course, a metaphysical position. As only one example, Carnap thought that is was possible to construct a language that could express all the expression of modern science in one coherent way. Not that the various sciences could be reduced to one set of principles but that they could be expressed as one physicalist-based language. This way, he could introduce his (alleged) ‘Principle of Tolerance” which would (with false humility) “permit” other languages (say, philosophical or religious). But by “permit” Carnap and others meant that if the terms of these language could not be verified—either observationally, analytically or methodologically—by the MESs, then they were meaningless. He would permit people to use these languages (what a nice guy!), but it just didn’t matter. You’d be amazed how blind positivism makes, otherwise smart people, to their own principles applied back upon themselves: setting up a metaphysical system in order to get rid of metaphysics.

Stepping back into the 19th century to understand the underlying sentiment (as opposed to the a priori intentions) that led to analytic philosophy to come into being, western philosophy was dominated (roughly) by two movements: idealism and realism. The battle boiled down to whether one could know extra-mental objects (DL, for example, claims we cannot) or whether one could know immediately the sense reports of extra-mental objects and our own ideas. The analytic philosophers, therefore, were interested initially in exploring terms, grammar, and language because they despaired of the difference between idealism and realism and hence wanted to mediate between the two of them. This itself gave rise to two movements: either to “atomically” reduce something to something small and more understandable, i.e., analytically; or synthetically by seeing how these parts fit together with the presuppositions that “wholes” were “real.” Now, coming back full circle to what I mentioned above: this is what highlights philosophy descending from wisdom or overall understanding of reality to a mere methodological approach very reminiscent of the MESs. Plantinga, while an analytic philosopher, employs the clarity and precision of his work in seeking a language to defend truth in the broader sense.

Let’s return to the start of the 20th century so that I can address your Wittgenstein question: The attempt to reduce reality to a mathematical or logical basis (Russell & Moore followed by Ayer—utterly destroyed by Godel’s Incompleteness Theorems) where certitude was number one was spawned by Descartes craving for mathematical certitude, i.e., they tried to capture the ontological within the certitude of logic—equivocating over modes of being. The “verification criterion” tried to become the epistemological arbiter over all knowledge based on MES confirmation. At the end of the day, not only could the criterion itself not be verified (since it doesn’t allow fro judgments), but even aspects of science (e.g., the “scientific methods) could not be empirically verified, and analytical statements became very suspect as productive of no new knowledge. Then, Carnap’s “principle of tolerance” was a non-starter because it left us with no ability to decide which language was best, i.e., it pointed to nothing and even undermined learning itself. Quine went after even more: he tried to eliminate the “dogmas” of analytic/synthetic distinction and empirical testing because he felt we adjusted own language based on what science-based reports came in. At the end of the day, even all scientific propositions are socially constructed (as a result), and there is no way to choose an overall language. The ever present problem haunted Quine as well: he was guilty of advancing a standard of truth while denying its existence. Dummett believed “thoughts expressed” (terms, propositions) are not mental entities but “truth conditions.” In other words, the meaning of a term or sentence is a method for determining its truth value. Even verificationism is attacked because (per the definition of anti-realism) propositions within a language or “discourse space” cannot transcend verification. If we don’t have a procedure for verifying, we must even give up the Principle of the Excluded Middle. Finally, Rorty (who the Maverick philosophical correctly characterized as “showing us how not to philosophize) even jettisons the vaulted position of science because there is no clear way (according to Rorty) to distinguish concepts: philosophers are merely poets describing their version of reality but with nothing being true or false.

Wittgenstein? He argues that learning to use a language depends on learning to use the rules of use for words and sentences in a language. There are no “private” rules, and the only way to assess the rules of whatever language “game” being “played” is from within the language itself—whether the language “played” is scientific, religious, philosophical, etc. Talk about intentional circularity! It is absurd not only because it could not address how a human learns a language in the first place, but ended putting itself in the bottle from which Wittgenstein wanted to show the escape route. To escape the bottle to what exactly? An overall view which is denied in the first place? To “wormhole” our way into another bottle that is just as constrained? For what possible reason? Surely not for truth.

That summary was exceedingly unfair in its brevity. Nonetheless, I find it a bit presumptuous you should join Wittgenstein in his de dicto approach: “Language is self-contained and autonomous, it has no way in which to reach up to or make contact with what is conceived of as the de re essence of a thing.” (Which is the “fly in the bottle” issue I noted above.) Well, that claim itself is one that has a huge presumption of understanding the essence of reality in order to claim essences of things can’t be reached, isn’t it? In other words, why should I trust your language if you can’t get outside your own constraints, i.e., upon what basis should I believe you? Wittgenstein’s approach is, in fact and at the end of the day, not a reasonable way to deal with philosophical problems: philosophy is not reducible to methodology, unless you bring that assumption in a priori… but then we’re not talking about truth per se being a goal, are we? You are correct, of course, not to equivocate the mind with the brain (per Paul) or to reduce “almost everything” to physics (per DL). But I strongly doubt Wittgenstein’s approach will get you there rigorously… or truthfully for that matter. There is, in fact, an escape from the Cartesian “dark wood,” but it’s based on the “whatness” of everything you discuss and not on language or words as merely arbitrary symbols: I alluded to his in my e-mail to you. Meanings are directly connected to essences, and essences are the intelligible aspects of real things. Yes, our human language is limited—that’s why we strain to project the deepest of our longings not just with syllogism, but dialectically, rhetorically, and poetically. And, just because “objects in the mirror appear closer than they really are,” doesn’t mean we can’t adjust our mirrors or turn our heads a bit.

Keep going, Randy, you’re doing great. But also take the opportunity to consider broad historical sweeps in philosophical thinking as well. You can always dive deeply into things that are interesting (Wittgenstein IS interesting!), but perspective is always helpful. As the MESs developed and gained strength, don’t you think it remotely possible that the habit of science could have been idolized into a vice as applied to areas of thought to which it is partially or wholly inappropriate? That’s basically the story of philosophy since Descartes… to a great many peoples’ detriment.
Holopupenko | Homepage | 11.04.07 - 8:23 am | #

Holopupenko,

Thanks for the detailed and thoughtful reply. Am looking it over carefully and hope to give a response to most of the points you raise within the next day or two. Am afraid that I am having trouble finding time to make a reply that such a serious post deserves.

Would like to make one quick comment regarding Wittgenstein's position in the analytical movement. Many of the remarks you make about that movement apply to Wittgenstein's early philosophy: that which is found in the Tractatus. Soon after finishing that book he came to realize that it was fatally flawed and took a turn toward the understanding of language and the methods of philosophy that are to be found in the "Philosophical Investigations." It is the later Wittgenstein that I am interested in and that I think is so helpful in understanding how philosophical problems can be addressed. I think it important to point out that one should be careful to distinguish the early from the later Wittgenstein.

Wittgenstein would have been in agreement with much of your criticism of Frege, Russell and others in the analytical movement.
Randy | 11.04.07 - 10:59 am | #

Randy:

I agree with you completely that Wittgenstein changed--substantially, in fact--and that much of his stuff is found in his notebooks... but he's still operating in a methodological "tradition" whose "foundational principles" (we we can call them that) trouble me. (I admit I avoided raising the early-vs-late issue--not to be secretive but to keep the 20th century "story-line" going... so to speak.) There is a particular difficulty with 20th century philosophy in that for many reasons--including the almost constant problem of patching up the "boat" so that it doesn't take on water so fast. It's as if, when you try to study these guys, you have to go off in 16 different directions to account for or patch-up inconsistencies or down-right non-starters. No doubt you can tell I'm quite skeptical of anything after Descartes... except in the sense that learning the mistakes helps one see the richness of a good solid realist philosophy. I wish I were financially independent enough to do another degree, but this time focusing on what happened just before, into, and just after the Enlightenment where the MESs took off like a rocket while philosophy took a nose dive.

A personal plea: I've been trying to be responsive to your questions and concerns as part of a mini-"penance" for my initial poor approach with you. The time it's taking, however, is really eating into my other responsibilities. I hope you don't mind I take a break for a while. I hope I've given you some food for thought, and I really encourage you to continue. I think you're way ahead of the game on these issues, and am very impressed by your autodidactic knowledge. Keep asking those questions!
Holopupenko | Homepage | 11.04.07 - 11:54 am | #

Holopupenko,
"A personal plea: I've been trying to be responsive to your questions and concerns as part of a mini-"penance" for my initial poor approach with you. The time it's taking, however, is really eating into my other responsibilities. I hope you don't mind I take a break for a while."

Not at all. I'm having trouble responding adequately to the excellent points you raise for the same reasons. Plus I'm still in the process of tryiing to understand better the philosophical positions Wittgenstein did take. Part of the delight of reading his later work is discovering how much I had misunderstood his views and coming to a better understanding of them.

By the way, I have no intent of not studying more closely Aristotle and Aquinas in order to come to a clearer understanding of their positions. Thanks for urging me to continue in a better understanding of the history of philosophy.

Also, I think one needs to approach great philosophers in the same way one approaches a great work of literature: with a sympathetic and and emphathetic stance, to try and see things as they see them, and then, by absorbing their viewpoints, one can later critique them for what they actually thought instead of a strawman version of their philosophy.

Thanks much for all the time you have taken to present your thoughts on these issues. I really do appreciate it. You've more than paid your dues here. Not that I thought you owed me anything. Any misunderstandings we had were as much or more my fault as yours.
Randy | 11.04.07 - 12:50 pm | #

Holopupenko,
Forgot to add: I did receive Machuga's book "In Defense of the Soul" in the mail yesterday. Hope to be able to read it within the next couple of weeks.
Randy | 11.04.07 - 12:53 pm | #

Holopupenko,
"Nonetheless, I find it a bit presumptuous you should join Wittgenstein in his de dicto approach: “Language is self-contained and autonomous, it has no way in which to reach up to or make contact with what is conceived of as the de re essence of a thing.” (Which is the “fly in the bottle” issue I noted above.) Well, that claim itself is one that has a huge presumption of understanding the essence of reality in order to claim essences of things can’t be reached, isn’t it?"

It's not a claim about the essence of reality, but of the limits of language.
Can you show how language is able to reach to the de re essence of things? That looks to me to be a rather big presumption by those philosophers who wish to practice metaphysics in the traditional sense of that word. How do words connect to that sort of an essence?

We can indeed talk about the essential qualities of a thing, but I see no reason to assume that those are de re essences. And once one realizes the flaws in the Augustinian conception of language, there are some good reasons for not making that assumption.
Randy | 11.05.07 - 10:07 pm | #

Holopupenko,

Oops! The rest of my post got cut off for some reason:


Holopupenko: "In other words, why should I trust your language if you can’t get outside your own constraints, i.e., upon what basis should I believe you? "


You can trust my language if I demonstrate that I know how to use it. We have well-established criteria for that determination. If you think I am not using a word correctly or having trouble making sense of what I am saying, you can query me: ask for my understanding of a particular word, ask me to give its definition or point to other words that have a similar meaning.

One of the reasons we can trust what the other person is saying is that language is not private. It is not always as easy in determining nonsense in the use of language as it is in determining an illegal move in chess, but it is possible because in both games the rules are public and not something private and hidden away.


"Wittgenstein’s approach is, in fact and at the end of the day, not a reasonable way to deal with philosophical problems: philosophy is not reducible to methodology, unless you bring that assumption in a priori… but then we’re not talking about truth per se being a goal, are we?"

If one of the main reasons we have some of these philosophical problems is because we’ve become conceptually confused, then his approach seems to be the most reasonable to me.
Truth is not the goal of philosophy because it is truly not one of the cognitive sciences. It can play a crucial role in helping one come to the truth because while no longer the queen of the sciences it is the tribunal of sense. So if scientists become conceptually confused (like many neuroscientists are in attributing psychological attributes to the brain, for example) then science will not be able give us a truthful picture of the world.
Randy | 11.05.07 - 10:14 pm | #

Randy:

For readability, could you please embedded lengthy text you quote from me in blockquote delimiters, or shorter text by italicizing it? Thanks.

Okay, first, I will not immediately address your question “Can you show how language is able to reach to the de re essence of things?” because you violate the very claim you make, to wit “Language is self-contained and autonomous, it has no way in which to reach up to or make contact with what is conceived of as the de re essence of a thing.” Well, isn’t this a huge presumption that you know the nature or essence of a thing called “language”? In other words, when you can demonstrate that you are able to step outside any language to make the claim that “Language is self-contained and autonomous, etc.” then we can move forward. But that’s going to be impossible, isn’t it? Why? Because you’ll need to express your claim by means of a “language” that touches upon the essence of, well… language. This is not a word game on my part: it’s reflecting your criterion back upon itself… by which I’m hoping you not only see the double-standard as applied to languages, but the nature of the fallacious thread running throughout any analytic philosophy that purports to be able to step outside the human condition in order to provide an objective, neutral assessment. You may try, of course, to qualify your criterion… but then that largely defeats the initial purpose, and you will eventually end up “dying the death of a thousand qualifications” positivism died.

Hint: there IS a way out… but it calls for an ontological distinction between real things and beings of reason used to express our ideas of those real beings. It also involves distinguishing between the order of knowing something and the order of being of that thing. Finally, it involves clearly distinguishing between substance and essence. The mistake made is one is trying to obtain certain knowledge about the language before obtaining knowledge about real objects: you can’t start that way because it’s a form of idealism. If one cannot (as you claim) obtain to the essences of real things (i.e., that thing which makes a being intelligible to us), then you have no contact with the extra-mental world whatsoever. (DL to this day is stuck in this trap with his claim that “the ONLY things we can know are the ideas in our minds.)

We do have immediate and direct knowledge of extra-mental entities, Randy. That’s not to say that knowledge is perfectly refined, but we can always add to and improve on that knowledge. The example I like to use is the following: As I stand on one hilltop, I spot something dark moving on top of another hilltop in the distance. As I move closer, I notice that thing is not moving erratically… which leads me to believe it may be a living being. Then I notice it has four legs as I get even closer. And, a little closer yet, I realize the “thing” is a “horse” (which is a universal concept that expresses the essence of the thing). Finally, I get close enough to realize it’s Flicka, my neighbor’s gelding. You do know “horseness” Randy—maybe not as well as a Kentucky breeder does, but you do know the essence of that being. Similarly, a chemist knows the essence of salt (NaCl) more rigorously than you, but you still have “an idea” (as it were) of the essence of the salt.

When you claim We can indeed talk about the essential qualities of a thing, but I see no reason to assume that those are de re essences. Agreed—qualities are not the essences of a thing. (Note: you’re being a little sloppy with terminology: there are essential “accidents” of extra-mental beings and there are “accidents” of relation of extra-mental beings—which is what I think you meant to say. “Quality” is the second accident of real beings.) But accidents must inhere in something because they can’t exist in and of themselves: something that can be “red” because “red” cannot exist by itself. (“Red” must exist in some capacity or mode, for to not exist means to not be there, which means you can’t experience it, which means you’re not cognizant of it, which means you can’t talk about something you know nothing about.) The technical way of saying this is red can be predicated of substance, but not the other way around: a ball is red, but a red is not ball… I can place a ball in my pocket, but I can’t place “red” in my pocket. Finally, a thing is not simply the sum of its accidents—not only because of what I just covered, but because the metaphysical principle “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts” rules.

You say, “You can trust my language if I demonstrate that I know how to use it.” Perhaps, but so what? “Use it?” To what end? Isn’t your use of a language to express (I hope) the fact that (supposedly) your concepts correspond to reality, i.e., that they’re truthful? I find it interesting you provide the example of chess. The rules of chess are, technically speaking, beings of reason. They don’t express correspondence to something “out there” extra-mental and existing independent of those rules: they were set up to regulate the play of a game, and as such impose upon rather than reflect reality. But that’s not what language is. A language, using words, expresses concepts (universals) regarding the essences of extra-mental objects, and it also expresses relations between beings of reason (say, “predicate,” “causality,” “privation,” etc.) which are reasoned to or set up to deal with the extra-mental world. That a language (when using imperatives) can “impose” upon other reasoning beings certain courses of actions is not debated. But even those imperatives rely upon concepts that must refer to real things in order to be understood and acted upon. Read what Machuga has to say about words being at the very cusp of material beings and immaterial concepts.

“Truth is not the goal of philosophy because it is truly not one of the cognitive sciences. It can play a crucial role in helping one come to the truth because while no longer the queen of the sciences it is the tribunal of sense. Ooh, I have big problems with that assertion. There’s so much misdirection in what you say that, frankly, I’m going to avoid it… for now. Just a thought: you are (at least implicitly) reducing truth to that attainable by the MESs (cognitive sciences?). And yet, the MESs depend on foundational principles that they themselves can’t (without descending into circularity) study: causality, first principles, etc. Don’t you need a science [mediate intellectual knowledge obtained through demonstration] that studies and regulates these? Moreover, didn’t you just make a non-scientific meta-truth claim?
Holopupenko | Homepage | 11.06.07 - 6:45 am | #

Holopupenko,
Thanks for your suggestion on the editing. Is there a place on the web that demonstrates what kind of coding or tagging can be used here? I’ve had trouble applying some of the tags I’ve used on other sites.



Holopupenko: “the very claim you make, to wit “Language is self-contained and autonomous, it has no way in which to reach up to or make contact with what is conceived of as the de re essence of a thing.” Well, isn’t this a huge presumption that you know the nature or essence of a thing called “language”?”


I’m not following you. We do have a legitimate way to speak of the nature of things and their essences. What I’m denying is the ability of language to be able to step outside of itself to describe the de re essence of language.





Holopupenko: “In other words, when you can demonstrate that you are able to step outside any language”

But you are the one who is claiming we can step outside of language, not me. You are claiming that we can use language to step outside of itself to reach to the true de re essences of things.
Please show how that is possible? Where and how does language make contact with the metaphyscial essences of things?



Holopupenko: “Isn’t your use of a language to express (I hope) the fact that (supposedly) your concepts correspond to reality, i.e., that they’re truthful?”

The correspondence theory of truth is incoherent. If I assert something to be the case and it is the case, then I am speaking the truth. No extra step to see if my concepts ‘correspond’ to reality needs to be made.



Holopupenko: “A language, using words, expresses concepts (universals) regarding the essences of extra-mental objects, and it also expresses relations between beings of reason (say, “predicate,” “causality,” “privation,” etc.) which are reasoned to or set up to deal with the extra-mental world. That a language (when using imperatives) can “impose” upon other reasoning beings certain courses of actions is not debated. But even those imperatives rely upon concepts that must refer to real things in order to be understood and acted upon.”

That is the Augustinian conception of language: it views the essence of language as referring to real things. It is that conception of language that Wittgenstein critiques at the beginning of the “Philosophical Investigations”.
Randy | 11.06.07 - 9:00 am | #

Holopupenko,
"And yet, the MESs depend on foundational principles that they themselves can’t (without descending into circularity) study: causality, first principles, etc."

Of course. Philosophy has to clarify those concepts that science relies on. That is a very important task. In philosophy is to be found the tribunal of sense.
If scientists misuse concepts and language they are going to end up presenting a very untruthful picture of the world. Hacker and Bennett have devoted a whole book dealing with the conceptual errors of many neuroscientists.
Randy | 11.06.07 - 9:20 am | #

Randy:

Do a Google search of "basic html tags" and you'll be inundated with information.

I'll get back to you on the substantive issues you raise.
Holopupenko | Homepage | 11.06.07 - 9:48 am | #

Holopupenko,
Thanks, I think I've got it working now:



"Similarly, a chemist knows the essence of salt (NaCl) more rigorously than you, but you still have “an idea” (as it were) of the essence of the salt."


But if philosophers can reach out to the true essence of things simply by manipulating concepts through language why didn’t they discover a long time ago that part of the essence of salt is NaCl?
Randy | 11.06.07 - 10:11 am | #

I've just written a formatting guide, following the comments policy at the bottom of each comments page.
Tom Gilson | Homepage | 11.06.07 - 1:44 pm | #

Oh, the humiliation!
Charlie | 11.06.07 - 1:50 pm | #

I was hard on you, I know... but now that you've seen it I'll take that part off .
Tom Gilson | Homepage | 11.06.07 - 2:18 pm | #

Actually, I was rather

enjoying

being immort

alized.

Thanks much.
Randy | 11.06.07 - 8:13 pm | #

Randy:

I must say I find myself rushing to get things completed at work so that I have some time near the end of the day to respond to your questions. Regarding the last points you raised (I probably won’t follow up—too busy, but am interested in your thoughts):

     (1) “We do have a legitimate way to speak of the nature of things and their essences. What I’m denying is the ability of language to be able to step outside of itself to describe the de re essence of language.”
     First, what is that “legitimate way” and what legitimizes it? Just because you apply the rules of your “language game” and I can see you know how and do apply those rules consistently? Nope: that’s circular reasoning. Second, a good Socratic enquirer would challenge you: perhaps you are correct, but that presupposes you can tell us WHAT essence (as well as substance, language, etc.) IS before proceeding to provide us examples of “essence” through the use of your language. Third, I think you know you’re expressing not so much Wittgenstein’s position but Quine’s regarding the (alleged) illegitimacy of language to describe the de re essence of things (am I wrong on this?)… but you tell me Hacker argues against this (generally speaking)… which leaves me confused by what you’re trying to say. Fourth, of course, the use of a language cannot legitimize the use of a language: languages can’t “step outside” themselves, but our ability to reason can because language is a tool—a being of reason—that helps wrap out minds around things. Moreover, if you focus on language too much you will do so to the detriment of the THINGS to which languages direct our attention (crudely put). I’ve covered this before.

     (2) “The correspondence theory of truth is incoherent. If I assert something to be the case and it is the case, then I am speaking the truth. No extra step to see if my concepts “correspond” to reality needs to be made.”
     You should be more carefully, Randy, before making such categorical claims. Your second sentence, in fact, contradicts your first: the second sentence only works if what you “assert” corresponds to the “case it is,” doesn’t it? There is no “extra step” as you claim: either the idea in your mind asserted by means of your “language” corresponds to what you’re trying to convince me of, or it doesn’t. Also, if you believe the correspondence theory is “incoherent,” then what connections do our ideas have to anything… or don’t they need “connection” to truth? I’m confused. (Please note: I’m well versed in the various “theories” of truth.)

     (3) “This is the Augustinian conception of language: it views the essence of language as referring to real things.”
     No, this is not correct… primarily because language, concepts, images in the mind, etc. are beings of reason or symbols pointing to real things. In fact, if you understand Aristotle, you’ll realize only real, extra-mental entities have essences per se. Consider the following statements: (a) Rand is; (b) Uncle Sam needs Randy; (c) Definitions abound. Only the subject of (a) can be said to BE without qualification for it signifies positive or extra-mental being. ONLY what enjoys positive or extra-mental existence has an essence. Essence is not a “thing” nor can it be identified with the actually existing thing: essence is a principle (that from which something proceeds in any way whatever—differing from a cause in that the latter is that from which something proceeds with a dependence in being: matter and form are both principles and causes, for example) which, when viewed in isolation (but which cannot exist in isolation) signifies a mode or manner of intelligibility of thing under consideration: it is the element that provides a full explanation of the whatness or quiddity of an existent as being.
     Also, when you reject that the essence of language refers to real things, well then, to what does language refer… “unreal” things? What good is language, then?

     (4) “Philosophy has to clarify those concepts that science relies on… [is the] the tribunal of sense. If scientists misuse concepts and language they are going to end up presenting a very untruthful picture of the world.”
     Let me describe all too briefly what natural philosophy is and see if you agree: as a science (mediate intellectual knowledge obtained through demonstration), natural philosophy must first investigate (not just clarify) the principles of the its subject (changeable being) and then use these principles to delineate the proper objects (trees, comets, salt, galaxies, etc. as beings that undergo change) it considers. Then, it must investigate the various attributes or properties (accidents) of these objects and show how they can be demonstrated from proper principles or causes. If you agree, that’s great. But then we must step back to what philosophy writ large is: it doesn’t just study changing being, but includes the pursuit of wisdom, i.e., the search for knowledge of all things in as far as they can be known by the light of reason. Ordinary scientific knowledge is satisfied when it assigns the immediate or proximate causes of things that come under our observation, whereas wisdom (philosophy) refers those same things to their still higher and more universal causes—it seeks to explain and understand them in their essence. Crudely put, philosophy gets to the bottom of things. My overall point (repeated from previous comments) is you seem to be focusing too much upon the language rather than the things to which language refers. DL does the opposite and does, in fact, use terms quite sloppily… which leads me to believe your second sentence I quote above refers to DL, doesn’t it?

     (5) “But if philosophers can reach out to the true essence of things simply by manipulating concepts through language, why didn’t they discover a long time ago that part of the essence of salt is NaCl?”
     Sorry, I now see that was sloppy writing on my part: the only reason I included the chemical symbols for salt was to distinguish table salt from any other—I was not talking about essences at that point. The essence of salt is NOT NaCl, any more than the collection of atoms that make up the physical aspect of a human IS the essence of a human being. Essence (above) is a principle of being. Also, it’s the job of chemists, etc. to deal with understanding salt from their perspective. But that doesn’t gain for them the full understanding of what salt IS. Recall: it’s the four Aristotelian questions that must be answered—even if partially—to begin to gain a full explanation for why the particular, concrete, specific salt “being” you’re observing exists at all. I realize this doesn’t sound very satisfying, but retentiveness from before and current time constraints don’t permit a more serious exposition.

     It’s also occurred to me, Randy, that understanding what’s called the degrees of knowledge (per Maritain—which stem from the degrees of abstraction we employ to gain knowledge of the world—per Aristotle & St. Thomas) is very important to understanding where I’m coming from in trying to explain all this stuff. Having said that, I’m again begging for a break. There’s way too much to cover… which leads me to a slightly embarrassing admission to myself: I’m becoming ever so slightly more sympathetic to DL’s concerns and plight—not because of the concerns themselves, but because he really doesn’t have a grasp of the huge vistas philosophy opens. Perhaps it would help if DL considered an analogous case: if a graphics designer wanted to comment on the nuances of QCD without having the scientific and mathematical training to do so, it would be strange for that person to dismiss as “superstition” those things he doesn’t understand… wouldn’t it?
Holopupenko | Homepage | 11.07.07 - 12:12 pm | #

Holopupenko,

"Third, I think you know you’re expressing not so much Wittgenstein’s position but Quine’s regarding the (alleged) illegitimacy of language to describe the de re essence of things (am I wrong on this?)… but you tell me Hacker argues against this (generally speaking)… which leaves me confused by what you’re trying to say. "

Randy:

     I was going from memory when I wrote that... but upon checking, my point still stands: Quine was a champion of the alleged illegitimacy of language capturing de re essences. So, I’m not sure what you mean by “attacking W’s views...” Am I missing something? I still remain confused by what you’re trying to say.

     Recall the last line of the Tractatus: “That whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” I would say this applies orders of magnitude more to DL than you, Randy. Nonetheless, Wittgenstein (whom I admire for the evolution of his thought from an “addiction” to logic and grammar as the indispensable foundation for philosophical thought… to a contempt of modern philosophy for throwing the baby out with the bathwater by subsuming itself under the models of science and mathematics) was inescapably of the tradition of philosophers concerned (to a fault) with method over substance. When I say “to a fault,” I mean that his forcing philosophers to think about his ideas was good, and he did have interesting—and in some cases useful—things to say. But his analysis is not completely correct, and it certainly is not a reflection of reality in all its glory. One doesn’t start with method (logical, grammatical, etc.) but with real things, and then work on (a) distinguishing, (b) drawing closer to truth, (c) checking one’s methods, language, terms, etc. against reality. (The echo back to Descartes is clear… and it is a grand error.)

     I understand you are enamored with Wittgenstein: that’s quite clear—especially when you repeat apparently verbatim Wittgenstein’s point in using the term “game” (although, interestingly, you don’t use this word) has a variety of uses and refers to no outside “object” or essential nature. In the earlier Tractatus, Wittgenstein argued that thoughts are pictures or images of how things are in the world. That was a non-starter: many words have multiple meanings… and then there are words such as “and,” “or,” “when,” etc., that pose a great difficulty Later, Wittgenstein tended toward the notion that language did not mirror reality in the manner that analytic philosophy tried to demonstrate. For him it was more likely the case that our view of reality is dependent on our use of language—as I just noted above: words should be understood by the way in which they are used within their social context, i.e., there is no objective meaning for a word that is present every time the word is uttered—only the circumstances surrounding its use give a word meaning. This is where you, Randy, follow Wittgenstein to the letter: meaning cannot be found in the world or in any mental act. That’s what leads you to believe—categorically (forgive me)—that words have meanings only within the context of the language-game (or “use” as you put it). But that doesn’t make his position correct. It seems convenient (and at least a tiny bit disingenuous) for you to decry the correspondence theory of truth when, in fact, it undermines Wittgenstein… and that’s only one problem. Consider some others:

     (1) What about infants and non-human animals? Does Wittgenstein’s account imply that they cannot think simply because they do not use a language? It would seem that if Wittgenstein is correct, infants and non-human animals could not feel pain or experience other sensations because they have not learned the concepts associated with those sensations.

     (2) How human being come to learn a language in the first place? Per Wittgenstein’s account, language is a crucial part of our ability to conceptualize the world—language shapes the world. Yet, how do we then come to learn the concept of certain words like “cup” or any other word? Before we learn how to use language, we must have some way of picking out objects and recognizing other instances of those objects. If we did not have that ability, it seems that it would be impossible for us to ever learn a language. We could never learn the meaning of the word “cup” if we had no way of identifying that object and picking it out from other objects. From this we also have to question the ancestral origins of language: how could our ancestors have ever developed language without first having a way of conceptualizing their environment and the objects it contains?

     (3) Here I echo back to why I raised the specter of circular reasoning in your earlier comments, Randy, as well as your incorrect jettisoning of the coherence theory of truth. According to Wittgenstein, the meaning of a word is not an object for which a word stands or of which it is the name (hence your rejection of “correspondence”). Rather, it is what is given by an explanation of meaning, and an explanation of meaning is a rule for the use of the thing to be explained: a language rule implies one is behaving more or less in harmony with the consensus of other people who form a speech community. But that’s strange, isn’t it? A “rule” means what the use of the word has in any speech community… and that the meaning of the word “rule” is how the word “rule” is used. But this is circular reasoning! And, this is almost exactly what you assert: the validity of the whole argument depends on the validity of the argument. Ahhh, but it gets worse: what counts as following a rule within a given speech community is not determined (somehow) by the rule itself but by what the speech community accepts as following the rule. So, whether two plus two equals four depends not on some abstract, extra-human rule of addition, but on what we, and especially the people we appoint as experts, accept. Truth conditions are replaced by asserted conditions. In other words, what counts is not what is true or right (which by common sense one would think is somehow independent of the speech community), but what one can get away with or get others to accept.

     So, for me to stand accused of “not understanding” Wittgenstein’s views reminds me of a joke I heard here in Ukraine. What is a communist? A person who has read the works of Karl Marx. What is an anti-communist? A person who read the works of Karl Marx... and understood them. So, just because I don’t embrace Wittgenstein, please don’t draw the conclusion that I’ve misunderstood him. His views have serious problems if applied in a meta-sense… and these problems must be faced sooner or later.

     I’m a sucker for continuing these discussions—primarily because I love them. BUT, honestly, I can’t keep up… I wish I could, but it’s time to call this particular string off… if for no other reason than I will get more and more brief, and hence more and more unfair to you. Sorry, but I need to get a life… and I also think we’re straying away from the spirit of Tom’s blog.
Holopupenko | Homepage | 11.07.07 - 2:34 pm | #

Holopupenko,
" So, for me to stand accused of “not understanding” Wittgenstein’s views reminds me of a joke."

Look, I think you are a very intelligent person. I in no way meant to imply that you are incapable of understanding Wittgenstein.
But the mere fact that you kept making reference to the Tractatus in this post indicates that you are sort of talking past me here. I'm concerned with the Wittgenstein of the "Philosophical Investigations." You know there is a big difference between early and late Wittgenstein philosophy. It's simply mistaken to think you are addressing the points I'm making by constant reference to that early philosophy.

I don't know how long it's been since you studied W.'s philosophy. I thought it would be helpful for you to take a look at the book I mentioned becasue the explanations there are brief and very well-written so you don't have to slog through volumes in order to get to the essence of what W. was talking about in the "Philosophical Investigations."

I'm sorry, but if you don't actually understand the position you are attacking, you are not going to build a very strong case against it. Some of that misunderstanding is likely due to my poor writing skills. There's a lot that you wrote in the post above this last one that I don't understand regarding Aristotle's philosophy. I am going to have to do some more reading simply to know better what you are saying. There's nothing anyone need be ashamed of when it comes to admitting ignorance. We all are to one degree or another ignorant of a large number of things and ideas.
Randy | 11.07.07 - 3:32 pm | #

Holopupenko,
"I understand you are enamored with Wittgenstein: that’s quite clear—especially when you repeat apparently verbatim Wittgenstein’s point in using the term “game” (although, interestingly, you don’t use this word) has a variety of uses and refers to no outside “object” or essential nature."

No I didn't say that language cannot refer to outside objects. I said that is not the essential nature of language. Pointing or referring is only one of the things language is capable of being used for.

But because we can use words to refer to things does not mean it is pointing to the de re essence of a thing. There is no direct contact between language and the outer world, there is no way for that de re essence to enter into language.
Randy | 11.07.07 - 3:40 pm | #

Randy:

Please, lighten up: I meant what I said with the best of intentions by trying to inject a little humor (hence the winking smiley). I could have been much more critical of what you wrote, but frankly there's no need because I know you're still working through it all. Moreover, it would be unfair for me given I have the benefit of formal training that included historical perspectives and connections. I'm trying to help you out by injecting, at times, some historical/contextual comparisons because I think you're diving deeply at the expense of swimming broadly. Wittgenstein is not easy because even his students had a devil of a time producing his notebooks... and you know yourself he sometimes wrote in an aphoristic style.

Also, my second paragraph makes clear I'm not concentrating on early Wittgenstein. But even more importantly, the three numbered problems I raise refer primarily to the later Wittgenstein.
Holopupenko | Homepage | 11.07.07 - 4:02 pm | #

Randy:

Regarding your 11.07.07 - 3:40 pm comment, I think you're cherry picking. I write contextually, so you need to step back and digest all I say to get the picture. This is coming from memory, but I think your position is diverging a bit from Wittgenstein's... which is why I need to repeat I'm again left a bit confused.
Holopupenko | Homepage | 11.07.07 - 4:09 pm | #

Holopupenko,
According the W.'s (Wittgenstein's) critique of the Augustinian conception of language, the essential feature or use of language is not to point to outer objects. It can do so, but there are many other uses for language.

According to W.'s view of the autonomy of language, words, if they are used to refer to other things, do not refer to the de re essence of those things. This also relates to the critique of the Augustinian conception of language, because one of the assumptions of that conception is that words are connected to outer objects by ostensive definition.

Also, W. held that the rules of language cannot be justified by language. He is not so much presenting a theory of language, but trying to show that there is another way of looking at it, of thinking about language. We should not be focused on the word/world nexus (descriptions) but on the uses of words (the rules).

I see you often saying 'your language' or 'how can I trust yout language'. This makes no sense to me because language is not private, it is public. I can't have my own, private language game. We all play by the same rules. But language is not a neat, nicely structured thing like the rules of chess and so it is all too easy for us to fall into conceptual confusion, to misapply the rules of the public language game.

And it should be the primary object of philosophy to unentagnle those confusions. This may seem like a trival thing compared to the view that philosophy should be dealing with all the big questions relating to what reality 'really is' or what things could possibly exist in all the possible worlds we can possibly imagine. But I find it to be very non-trivial.


I hope some of this clarifies a little bit my position here. Sorry but I just don't have time to elaborate more right now.
Randy | 11.07.07 - 6:01 pm | #

Holopupenko,

"According to Wittgenstein, the meaning of a word is not an object for which a word stands or of which it is the name (hence your rejection of “correspondence”). Rather, it is what is given by an explanation of meaning, and an explanation of meaning is a rule for the use of the thing to be explained:"


Rather, the meaning of a word is what is given by an explanation of meaning, and an explanation of meaning is a rule for the use of the word explained, a standard of correct use.


"a language rule implies one is behaving more or less in harmony with the consensus of other people who form a speech community."

Rather a language rule helps others to determine not only whether or not one is using language correctly, but if what one says really does make sense.
Randy | 11.07.07 - 6:40 pm | #

Holopupenko,

I was going from memory when I wrote that... but upon checking, my point still stands: Quine was a champion of the alleged illegitimacy of language capturing de re essences. So, I’m not sure what you mean by “attacking W’s views...” Am I missing something? I still remain confused by what you’re trying to say.

“But his analysis is not completely correct, and it certainly is not a reflection of reality in all its glory. One doesn’t start with method (logical, grammatical, etc.) but with real things, and then work on (a) distinguishing, (b) drawing closer to truth, (c) checking one’s methods, language, terms, etc. against reality. (The echo back to Descartes is clear… and it is a grand error.)”

Holopupenko,
Sorry, have been very busy at work this week. Just a few quick replies on some important issues you've raised.

I understand you are enamored with Wittgenstein: that’s quite clear

“It seems convenient (and at least a tiny bit disingenuous) for you to decry the correspondence theory of truth when, in fact, it undermines Wittgenstein… and that’s only one problem.”

What about infants and non-human animals? Does Wittgenstein’s account imply that they cannot think simply because they do not use a language? It would seem that if Wittgenstein is correct, infants and non-human animals could not feel pain or experience other sensations because they have not learned the concepts associated with those sensations.

How human being come to learn a language in the first place? Per Wittgenstein’s account, language is a crucial part of our ability to conceptualize the world—language shapes the world. Yet, how do we then come to learn the concept of certain words like “cup” or any other word? Before we learn how to use language, we must have some way of picking out objects and recognizing other instances of those objects.

A “rule” means what the use of the word has in any speech community… and that the meaning of the word “rule” is how the word “rule” is used. But this is circular reasoning!

Moreover, it would be unfair for me given I have the benefit of formal training that included historical perspectives and connections.

Randy:
     I promise I'll get back to you--been very busy--but please don't expect a long response. My bona fides: Ph.D. (MIT) nuclear engineering; M.A. (Harvard) Soviet Studies; B.S. (RPI) nuclear engineering and physics; M.A. (ICU) philosophy (Aristotelian-Thomistic). I don't teach, but am currently looking for a teaching position.
Holopupenko | Homepage | 11.10.07 - 11:47 am | #

Holopupenko,

ICU, is that the International Christian University? Looks quite good from what I saw on their website.

Thanks for the info. Best of luck in finding a teaching position.

No rush on getting back to me on the other stuff. Am busy myself. Still slowly working through Machuga's book.
Randy | 11.10.07 - 12:06 pm | #