BarryA Responds to DaveScot
| May 6, 2008 | Posted by Barry Arrington under Intelligent Design |
In Bass Ackwards Darwinism (below) my friend DaveScott writes:
”Good people do good things. Evil people do evil things. Knowledge (like Darwinian evolution and the recipe for dynamite) is inanimate and can be employed by good people for good things and evil people for evil things.”
The issue is not whether “good” people do good things. Of course they do. That’s why we call them “good.” The issue is not whether “evil” people do evil things. Again, of course they do. That’s why we call them “evil.” The issue is what do we mean when we say “good” and “evil.” From the answer to that question everything else about our ethics follows.
Some people (mainly theists of various stripes) say ”good” means that which conforms to a moral standard that transcends place, time, opinion, personality, social constructs and everything else, and “evil” means that which does not conform to that transcendent standard. I will call these people transcendent standard advocates or TSA’s for short.
Other people say no such transcendent standard exists. I will call these people materialists.
Now here is the crux of the matter. TSAs may be wrong. There may not be a transcendant moral standard after all, and the appearance of such a standard (what C.S. Lewis calls the “Tao” in the Abolition of Man) may be an illusion. But at least they can give a rational account for the basis of their morality, i.e., the transcendent standard exists. All of our moral choices are either consistent with that standard or inconsistent with that standard. We can argue about the exact parameters of the standard. There will be gray areas. But to say that some areas are gray is very different from saying everything is gray.
On the other hand, after centuries of striving materialists have failed to provide a rational account for morality. Indeed, thoughtful and courageous materialists (I’m thinking of Frederic Nietzsche and Will Provine) have argued that the premises of materialism absolutely preclude a conclusion that ethics or morality have any firm foundation.
Turning back to DaveScott’s post, he says that he does “good” because he intuitively understands and abides by the golden rule. In other words, Dave bases his morality on his intuition.
Here is the problem with this formulation in classical terms: What is the Good? Dave and the TSAs agree that the Good is that which is desirable. So far so good (so to speak). But the more important question is “what is the desirable?” Dave believes the desirable is that which he actually desires based on his intuition about the golden rule. TSAs believe the desirable is that which Dave OUGHT to desire. If, as is the case with Dave, what is actually desired corresponds with what ought to be desired, there is no problem.
The problem for Dave’s philosophy is what happens when someone has a disordered desire. What if this person (let’s call him Bob) desires to have sex with little children. Dave will say to him “I have a strong intuition that sex with little children is profoundly wrong.” Bob will reply, “Why should I care what your intuition tells you? If I can get away with an activity that gives me pleasure, why should I restrain myself? Surely you are not suggesting your intuition, i..e, your opinion, is in any way binding on me.”
Dave might reply, “But Bob, it is plain that you ought not have sex with little children.” Now, if Dave means by “ought” that he has a strong intuition that sex with little children is wrong because it violates the golden rule, he has done no more than repeat himself using different terms. He has not answered Bob’s objection. On the other hand, if Dave means by “ought” that sex with little children breaks an obvious moral standard that transcends his and Bob’s opinion, he has not acted logically given his premise that no such standard exists.
At the end of the day, Dave can appeal to a standard that transcends his intuition or he can appeal to his intuition. If he does the former, he has implicitly admitted the TSA premise. If he does the latter, he has given Bob no rational reason for refraining from his activity. Dave has only said, “I do not agree with it.”
What does this have to do with Darwin? Darwin’s theory does not compel belief in materialism any more than ID compels a belief in God. But many people believed (especially in late 19th century Europe and North America) that Darwin’s theory was evidence of the triumph of materialist science over the superstition of religion. This had a profound impact on our social institutions.
In most of the recent posts this impact has been explored in the context of the holocaust. I will not add to that debate. Instead, I will give an example from my own field of the law. As I have written before, it is not an overstatement to say that the modern era of American law began with the publication in 1897 of “The Path of the Law” by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. In this seminal work Holmes announced that it was time to jettison the notion that the law has anything to do with morality, because morality has no meaning. Holmes wrote, “For my own part, I often doubt whether it would not be a gain if every word of moral significance could be banished from the law altogether, and other words adopted which should convey legal ideas uncolored by anything outside the law.”
With “The Path of the Law” Holmes had founded the school of “legal realism,” and this theory gradually came to be the predominate theory of jurisprudence in the United States. “Legal realism” should more properly be called “legal materialism” because Holmes denied the existence of any objective “principles of ethics or admitted axioms” to guide judges’ rulings. In other words, the law is not based upon principles of justice that transcend time and place. The law is nothing more than what willful judges do, and the “rules” they use to justify their decision are tagged on after they have decided the case according to their personal preferences. At its bottom legal realism is a denial of the objective existence of a foundation of moral norms upon which a structure of justice can be built.
Why would Holmes deny the objective existence of morality? This is where the influence of Darwin comes in. It is one of the darker secrets of our nation’s past that Holmes, perhaps the most venerated of all our Supreme Court justices, was a fanatical – I used that word advisedly — Darwinist who advocated eugenics and the killing of disabled babies. I n Buck v. Bell Holmes wrote “It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind . . . Three generations of imbeciles are enough.” As Phillip Johnson has written, Holmes was a “convinced Darwinist who profoundly understood the philosophical implications of Darwinism.”
“The Origin of Species” was published in 1859. By 1897, when Holmes wrote “The Path of the Law,” Darwinism had had become an unchallengeable scientific orthodoxy accepted as a matter of course by practically all intellectuals. Holmes thought he had no choice but to believe Darwinism and to accept uncritically the philosophical materialism that most people of this time believed followed inexorably from Darwin’s ideas, and his great contribution to American law was to reconcile the philosophy of law with the philosophy of materialism.
Once they were unleashed from any duty to actually apply objective “rules of law,” judges soon found they could impose their political views on the rest of us under the guise of interpreting the United States Constitution. The federal judiciary’s long march through our laws, traditions and institutions began slowly in the 1930′ss but rapidly gathered momentum until, in 1973 in the most stunning example of judicial willfulness in our nation’s history, the Supreme Court invalidated the abortion laws of all 50 states.
So you see legal realism was built step by step, precept by precept, upon a foundation of philosophical materialism that in turn rests upon the triumph of Darwin for its acceptance. And upon this foundation was built a superstructure of judicial willfulness that resulted ultimately in Roe v. Wade. Each link in the causal chain is plain to see for anyone who takes the time to look.
Obviously, I take for granted that abortion — the taking of an innocent human life — is immoral. In the discussion thread I will not debate this topic, as it is beyond the scope of UD. I will just say this: If you believe an unborn baby is not human you are ignorant. If you believe that taking that baby’s life is not immoral, you are deeply confused morally.
204 Responses to BarryA Responds to DaveScot
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My goodness, these threads have a way of growing like a hydra. What with this and that in my life, including Mother’s Day, it’s almost impossible to keep up. Anyway, I hope StephenB will countenance my lateness and won’t mind if I stick my nose in at this point and follow up on his #123 of two days ago:
One may remember that this related to StephenB’s #118:
Now, I agreed (and still attest) that the law of non-contradiction is self-evident. But now StephenB said that it was discovered by Aristotle in the fourth century BC. What’s going on here? How can something self-evident and foundational not have been noticed by anyone in all the previous centuries of human history?
StephenB went on to say,
But assumptions are hypotheses, not first principles. So I take it that he is agreeing with my opinion in #122 that such correspondence is a sensible working assumption:
Further agreement by StephenB about the utility of working assumptions in the pursuit of science followed the above (my emphasis):
I find all of these agreements satisfying. Thank you, StephenB.
Jack if you don’t mind me interjecting, the Big Bang began with a first cause we therefore have two logicaly sound interpretations of what can account for the actions and existence of all things and their form. You have to believe* either some “non-thing” or “non-material” (what we call in philosophy the metaphysical) thing brought the universe into existence or you can believe what the empiricist would go by – that since all we know is that the universe has a first physical cause, that is all we can know and hence that is all that happened.
Option 1 – the universe and all things/events in it are the product of a non-material cause or mover or
Option 2- The universe came out of nothing.
I find the idea that the universe “came out of nothing” to be quite impossible and unintelligent especially when I look around myself and think about all of the amazing things and experiences I have and am aware of. How could everything come out of nothing when on a daily basis (that is all of my experience in my life) I have never seen “anything” come out of nothing.
I would assume that the non-material works through the material by a sort of proxy- a dialectic. Assume that there is a God- if X happens then y and z will happen but if A happens then B and C will happen. That is there is a law like encoding into the universe that was imparted into the Big bang – a natural but uncontrollable Law- that is the laws are not exactly predictable so no one can play the system dishonestly. All things and events such as thoughts are calculated into the proxy. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle and General Relativity supports this kind of a world view. Science actually supports a theistic world view in this case. And of course God or no God there is plenty of room for law like design.
Jack asks: “I spent some time in post 162 elaborating on my question to you about how the immaterial interacts with the material. Is this a subject that you have any thoughts about that you’d like to offer?”
I will defer to GEM of TKI.
Daniel King asks “But now StephenB said that it was discovered by Aristotle in the fourth century BC. What’s going on here? How can something self-evident and foundational not have been noticed by anyone in all the previous centuries of human history?”
DK, you are equivocating on the word “discover.” StephenB used it in the sense of “artiulcated for the first time.” You are using it in the sense of “found that which was not there before.” Thus, your confusion.
Newton “discovered” the law of gravity, but I am fairly certain things fell to the ground before then.
BarryA #152:
Yes, that is a fascinating thread, but in my #150, I asked for evidence regarding the reducibility of a perception to physical properties. Your post is not responsive, since you provided no evidence to back up your assertions that such an explanation is now and forever impossible.
Asking for a “counter-argument” is pointless, because empirical questions cannot be settled by argument.
Daniel King writes: “But assumptions are hypotheses, not first principles.”
Again, an equivocation. StephenB is using the word “assumption” in the sense of that which is accepted a priori. To say that first principles are assumed is the same as saying first principles are accepted a priori.
You are using the word “assumption” in the sense of an educated guess that may be tested and confirmed or falsified, i.e., an hypothesis.
DK’s misunderstanding of StephenB is proof once again that Wittgenstein was right: “Philosophy is the struggle against the bewitchment of our minds by means of language.”
I read both the Tractatus and Philosophical Investigations and don’t remember that line in either of them.
BarryA:
“Qualia” is a conceit of philosophy, not something that has been verified or confirmed in anyway whatsoever. In some formulations it is merely defined as those aspects of experience that cannot be attributed to physical phenomena.
On the subject of color, there are quite predictable innate human responses to specific colors that are well understood in for example the advertising industry.
—–Daniel King: “I say, The law of non-contradiction is a linguistic rule for keeping our discourse coherent. Without coherent discourse, neither deductive nor inductive reasoning are possible.”
Aristotle, a philosopher not a linguist, discovered the principle and used it as a principle of logic. According to logicians, it is the standard for propositional logic.
—–DK: “One may remember that this related to StephenB’s #118:
It all starts with the self-evident truth that a thing cannot be true and false at the same time, a fact that is far more dependable than any scientific discovery you could ever point to.
—–Daniel King: “Now, I agreed (and still attest) that the law of non-contradiction is self-evident. But now StephenB said that it was discovered by Aristotle in the fourth century BC. What’s going on here? How can something self-evident and foundational not have been noticed by anyone in all the previous centuries of human history?”
You have to think about a subject before it becomes self evident to you. The law of non-contradiction isn’t self evident to those who don’t consider what it means to reason in the abstract. When I say that Aristotle “discovered” the “principle,” I mean he formalized it and put it into words. He was the trying to explain the reasoning process in a systematic way. I was pointing out that Aristotle was a philosopher and not a linguist to disabuse you of your misguided notion that the law of non-contradiction is solely about language. That was the context of the discussion, a point you seem to have forgotten rather quickly.
—–Daniel King: “But assumptions are hypotheses, not first principles. So I take it that he is agreeing with my opinion in #122 that such correspondence is a sensible working assumption:”
No, that is not necessarily the case. In science, an assumption can be a hypothesis, but in philosophy, an assumption is a meta-world view that shapes perspective. The world is a lot bigger than you think. Once again, you miss the point about the philsopical world views that shaped the attitudes and actions of the early scientists.
—–“Daniel King: “Further agreement by StephenB about the utility of working assumptions in the pursuit of science followed the above (my emphasis):”
The whole scientific enterprise took off when scientists insisted that they were “thinking God’s thoughts after him.” They assumed, (not proved) that the universe was the kind of place that could be studied systematically. It is not enough to say that “we can apprehend elements of the universe.” The question is, why did all those scientists believe that? It was because they were convinced that a Creator left clues and that we could find those clues if we looked for them. In other words, based on their religious faith, they concluded that the design in the universe was real, meaning that it must have been made with a purpose. Put another way, it is a rational place that can be understood using rational principles. Believe it or not, atheists operate on this assumption every day.
—–Daniel King: “I find all of these agreements satisfying. Thank you, StephenB.”
Why you would feel satisfied about not knowing that philosophy and science use the word “assumption” in different ways? Once again, you miss the major point about the PHILSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS of science.
Stephen,
Take for example these seemingly contradictory statements, that would both be true in certain contexts.
The world is a ball. The earth is not actually a ball.
That’s the thing about metaphor. It is both true and not really true (“straight”, or even “oak-like”) at the same time. Language works by metaphor and that metaphor colors the result to a large degree.
“Contra-diction” literally means “speaking against”. It is a projection that we make into the cosmos. It is a best guess–and really the only way it seems comprehensible to us.
It doesn’t matter that Aristotle was not a linguist, the issue can still be linguistic.
jjcaddidy, I’m as big a fan of Wittgenstien and the linguistic movement as anyone, but I have to tell you, they fell off the edge when they started suggesting the law of non-contradiction is up for grabs. See my 179, which approaches the issue from an ontological perspective.
—–jjcassidy: “Contra-diction” literally means “speaking against”. It is a projection that we make into the cosmos. It is a best guess–and really the only way it seems comprehensible to us.
—–”It doesn’t matter that Aristotle was not a linguist, the issue can still be linguistic.”
I guess the only thing I can do is to keep making the point in different ways until people get it.
The law of contradiction works as follows:
{A] We have rational minds and [B} We live in a rational universe.
With respect to [A} a think cannot be true and false at the same time
With respect to {B} a thing cannot be and not be at the same time.
With respect to {A} it is subjective, appropriate to the mind, and true for the INVESTIGATOR
With respect to {B} it is objective, appropriate for the reality outside the mind, and true for the OBJECT OF THE INVESTIGATION.
{A} has to do with what we say about
the things we talk about (language)
[B} has to do with the things that we talk about
Thus, if the streets are wet, it must be raining. This is true for {A} OUR PERCETION OF THE WORLD and {B} FOR THE WORLD ITSELF.
It is not either or.
To complete the formula, I will repeat it once again with the final loop. {A} We have rational minds, {B} We live in a rational universe, and {C} there is a correspondence between the two. Truth is the correspondence between the mind and reality. That means that unless mind and reality both exist, there can be no truth and no rationality. Two realms (duslism) are required for rationality. One realm (materialism/monism cannot accomodate rationality.
H’mm:
Sigh – it seems a little harder to [semi-]retire than one thinks, when serious matters of grave import are in contention . . . at least, this AM I am a little less sleepy.
First, thanks to Stephen B for some kind words [I was only summarising what we means by “self-evident truth and how it connects to the inference to design], and I will follow up BarryA on the mind-body interaction issue a bit. [Indeed, this morning in offline exchanges with a UD contributor soon to be credited co-author once the app 6 the always linked is revised, the very issue3 came up.]
But lest we forget – and lest we forget the chaotic and tyrannical implications of rejecting such self-evident truths, the actual focus of this thread is acceptance/rejection of MORAL self-evident truth and implications for liberty. That brings Locke’s citation of Hooker’s Ecclesiastical Polity to the fore in Ch 2 section 5 of his 2nd essay on civil gov’t again:
This quote is of course the bulk of that section. Locke then immediately builds on this:
Shades of Paul in Rom 2:14 – 15 and 13:1 – 10!
Compare BarryA’s warning on what the evolutionary materialism-driven rejection of this Creation-anchored self-evident principle has done in US [and wider Western] Law:
It is but a step from such thought to Darwin’s Graveyards, I am afraid – outrage at such exposure of implications of dearly held beliefs notwithstanding. History is warning us, loud and clear, again and again, but are we listening?
For, when “scientifically anchored” rejection of an intuitively obvious principle of morality leads to chaos, tyranny and absurdity, that immediately tells us that we are probably playing with the fire of rejecting self-evident moral truth. Something must be wrong with such science [probably including its core worldview level commitments asd Lakatos discussed] those and/or its applications and extensions. In the case of Darwinist evolutionary materialism, as I have repeatedly pointed out [of course, echoing many far more august voices than that of a mere humble blog commenter], something is drastically wrong with all three:
We have been warned – not least by the ghosts of over 100 million victims of regimes acting on such principles.
[ . . . ]
Now, on the issue of mind-brain interaction:
First, I stand by the point that the first fact of all is that of the conscious, reasoning, understanding, deciding mind. This is the fact that is the premise on which all our other actions as agents is predicated. So, when we see allegedly scientific claims and associated worldviews that would entail that our minds are illusions and/or epiphenomena of material processes that reduce to chance + necessity acting on matter + energy in space-time, we must yell: STOP!
For, we know that such things would put mind under the driving control of mechanical necessity of blind forces and associated chance conditions and circumstances. This would fatally undermine mind, which we have excellent reason to understand is sufficiently reliable for us to have viable intellectual lives.
In short, we are looking at truths per se notum that cut across claimed scientific understanding, which in turn must inevitably rely on said truths they would dismiss!
Now, while we know THAT there is mind-brain interaction beyond what can credibly be accounted for on the basis of C+ N acting on M + E in s-t, we are not so advanced in knowing how. But to have an explanation for a fact comes after we acknowledge the fact, and to deny a fact that in denying we must rely on is absurdity. So, let us start afresh on a humbler footing.
Having said that, let us look in brief at the D-S model as linked above:
In short the mind can beenvisioned as a supervising controller for the brain acing as i/o front end controller of the body and its various effectors and feedback elements.
To get to the interaction we can for instance look at the possibilities of quantum gaps:
In short, serious stimulus to research – just the opposite of a science stopper.
GEM of TKI
StephenB #190:
So, we have two intellectual domains here, that of science and that of philosophy.
And, the symbol “assumption” can be construed in different ways within each domain, so that the proposition “The world can be understood,” is a (non-metaphysical) working hypothesis for the scientist and part of a metaphysical world-view for the philosopher.
Therefore, the claim that the proposition “The world can be understood” is a metaphysical foundation of science is not necessarily true.
(If I recall correctly, Aristotle distinguished metaphysics from physics as a “theoretic” science, concerned with “being as such.” Meta – physics = beyond physics.)
What is the point? That one must believe in the Christian God and/or Aristotelian metaphysics to do science?
DK:
Pardon a few direct words . . .
At the core of scientific research programmes, as Lakatos pointed out, we find embedded core worldview level commitments, often tied to ideas of both epistemology and metaphysics proper. [Cf here the discipline known as phil of science, noting that "what is/is not science" and "how do we know, to what degree of warrant in science" and the like are a PHIL issues not scientific ones.]
Second you full well know — or on long being referred to adequate documentation [e.g. cf here -- again -- for a start] SHOULD know — that it is a common allegation to day that the Christian worldview is hostile to science as such, when in fact it is also not well discussed in education and media circles — no prizes for guessing why — that in fact modern science and the scientific revolution were birthed in a Judaeo-Christian matrix, by men who sought to understand God’s order for the world, viewed as a revelation of God’s nature.
“Thinking God’s thoughts after him.”
Third, a basic fair-minded reading of the above will show that SB has emphasised that we must accept certain self-evident truths about e.g. rationality [not (A ANSD NOT_A)], before we can reason to do science.
So, in the light of so much of such significant value from SB that has gone on above, claims like your:
now begin to come across as grating, frankly disrespectful strawman caricatures driven by objection for the sake of objection and dismissal without serious consideration of serious issues, not a constructive contribution to a serious dialogue.
Pardon my directness.
But, I am sure we can do better — a lot better — than the above quote!
GEM of TKI
—–DK: “What is the point? That one must believe in the Christian God and/or Aristotelian metaphysics to do science?”
The point is that science, which normally investigates material realities, owes its existence and its practice to many non-material, philosophical realities, one example of which is the law of non contradiction. Science cannot survive without a metaphysical foundation. First principles are philosophical, not scientific. More importantly, these first principles are articles of faith. That means that it useless and irrational to ask for “evidence” or “proof” of their existence. They are to be accepted as given, so they can be used to prove everything else. It is not necessary to accept Christianity or Aristotelian metaphysics to do science, but it is necessary to accept a theme common to them both and one which can be found in few other places—belief in a rational, orderly universe.
So much complex talk for something so intuitively obvious is never a good sign of either our intelligence or our submission to reality.
It is strange that those who are the most rebellious to reality are the materialists and agnostics – who claim we cannot know yet argue as though they do!
Imo, Lewis still says it best because he states it most simply:
“Those who would like the God of scripture to be more purely ethical, do not know what they ask…All men alike stand condemned, not by alien codes of ethics, but by their own, and all men therefore are conscious of guilt.” – CS Lewis, The Problem of Pain
“If nothing is self-evident, nothing can be proved. Similarly if nothing is obligatory for its own sake, nothing is obligatory at all.”
–The Abolition of Man
“When you are arguing against Him you are arguing against the very power that makes you able to argue at all.”
“There is nothing indulgent about the Moral Law. It is as hard as nails…If God is like the Moral Law, then He is not soft.”
–Mere Christianity
“If naturalism were true then all thoughts whatever would be wholly the result of irrational causes…it cuts its own throat.”
“Unless thought is valid we have no reason to believe in the real universe… A universe whose only claim to be believed in rests on the validity of inference must not start telling us the inference is invalid…” –Christian Reflections
“First, and self-evident truths, the affirmations of reason, consciousness, and the testimony of God, can never conflict with each other.
There is always a fallacy in whatever is flatly inconsistent with either of these.” – Charles G Finney
BarryA #179
Spot on, BarryA. Ontology is the key concept that separates the linguistic analysts from the metaphysicians.
As a logical principle, the law of non-contradiction is self-evident, correct, and useful. But as a metaphysical principle, it is useful only to metaphysicians. Why? Because non-metaphysicians (scientists) have no tools to investigate the properties of “being” or “existence.”
You may say that non-metaphysicians implicitly operate under metaphysical rules of which they are blissfully unaware. Perhaps non-metaphysicians are invincibly ignorant. If so, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia,
—-DK: “As a logical principle, the law of non-contradiction is self-evident, correct, and useful. But as a metaphysical principle, it is useful only to metaphysicians.”
It is useful for anyone who wants to live as a rational person.
—–DK: “Why? Because non-metaphysicians (scientists) have no tools to investigate the properties of “being” or “existence.”
As I pointed out @193, the law of non-contradiction is applies to both realms. It is no less self-evident in either case. No “tools” are needed to “investigate” a self evident truth, though a little reflection would certainly help.
—–DK: “You may say that non-metaphysicians implicitly operate under metaphysical rules of which they are blissfully unaware.
If they are rational, they will act according to that principle, whether they are consciously aware of it or not.
—–DK: “Perhaps non-metaphysicians are invincibly ignorant. If so, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia,
—–DK: “Invincible ignorance, whether of the law or of the fact, is always a valid excuse and excludes sin.”
You might want to reread those last two sentences and ask yourself if they are relevant in any way.
“As a logical principle, the law of non-contradiction is self-evident, correct, and useful. But as a metaphysical principle, it is useful only to metaphysicians. Why? Because non-metaphysicians (scientists) have no tools to investigate the properties of “being” or “existence.” ”
Here is the problem, or at leat one of them. Many scientists and so called scientific types treat their empiricism as if it is not rooted in metaphysics. From this launching point they then take their metaphysical empiricism and claim a privileged position against all other forms of knowledge.
One of the most eloquent spokesperson of this type of thinking was the late Steven Jay Gould where he articulated what I call the fact/faith distinction. That which can be and has been empirically confirmed is fact everything else is faith. Others have gone so far to apply this to rationality itself. Only those things we can empirically confirm conttutes what is rational and everything else is irrational.
This why the subject of morals, reigion,etc, are said to be non factual and in the case of faith irrational.
However science itself is based on several metaphysical presuppositions. Given this no metaphysical position is entitled to claim a privileged position or monopolize what is or is not knowable. This does not stop scientists from doing so but as KF and Stephen have shown and so far no one has refuted them their scientism is nothing but metaphysics.
Those who fail to see this arrogantly tell those who understand that we all operate from certain first principles, that such and such cannot be because we cannot emirically confirm certain things.
How else could Jack for instance make statements that certain people only deal with what is “knowable” and do not make assumptions. Or that the law of non contradiction is not metaphysical.
It comes to a shock to many that what they so smugly think is some kind of objective knowledge is rooted in what they would call subjective, faith based, irrational, ie something that cannot be empirically conirmed!!
Vivid
—–”vividblue: “It comes to a shock to many that what they so smugly think is some kind of objective knowledge is rooted in what they would call subjective, faith based, irrational, ie something that cannot be empirically conirmed!!”
Excellent point!
DK:
In re, 200:
First, though, kindly note at 194 – 5 above on your remarks above in which you claim – incorrectly BTW, right from the outset of the discussion in the previous thread at 98, and especially once the Wales example was on the table at 112 there [disagreement on your part does not constitute lack of evidence on mine . . . as was said in that previous thread] – that no “evidence” has been put in the context of the reality of mind beyond the reach of matter + energy acted upon by chance + necessity. Do you still insist there is “no evidence,” given say 194 – 5 above, as you seem to wish to say; and if so, on what grounds? While you are at it, can you state your disagreement without implying the reality of the law of non-contradiction, etc as first and self-evident truths?
Thence also, show us how since on your presumed worldview, your words presumably trace to chance + necessity acting on matter + energy, we should treat the apparent message as credible? That is, we are back to the force of the Welcome to Wales example:
Similarly, we need to soberly reflect on the moral issues tied to the original post: self evident truths include certain moral truths and we reject such truths at our peril. As our civilisation seems ever hastening to do.
But, the even more revealing issue is your idea that “scientists” are “non-metaphysicians.” It is worth the while to pause and address this, step by step:
1 –> Metaphysics, proper, is best understood as analysis of worldviews [roughly: our key ideas on what the world is like and how it works and where we fit in, thence what we should do (vs. what we actually do . . ), why], and so the real issue is whether science is worldview-neutral, or more properly, whether individual scientists and schools of thought are worldview-neutral. (This last especially holds for evolutionary materialism, which commonly views itself as “science,” and the associated ideas of so-called methodological naturalism, which boil down to only allowing into scientific discourse entities and ideas that comport well with the idea of a wholly materialistic evolution from hydrogen to humans.)
2 –> Immediately, it is plainly evident that evo mat is hardly worldview neutral, and that methodological naturalism only manages to shield the iron fist in a velvet glove. From this, too we see much of the reason for the stout resistance to evidence that points to design in ways that may be uncongenial to evo mat thought: much more is at stake than mere theories of science when some candidates for design may lend some credibility to theistic views in the minds of hoi polloi.
3 –> Further to this, we come back to Socrates’ principle: the unexamined life is not worth living. One implication of which is that none of us fails to have a worldview, the question is whether we have seriously and critically reflected upon it and especially its core assumptions, assertions and warranting arguments. Thus the value of metaphysics as critical reflection on worldviews in light of comparative difficulties across factual adequacy, coherence and explanatory elegance and power. From that, it is but a step to the related issues of the unpopularity and sad fate of that founder of the Noble Order of the Gadfly. [He is the one who first used that metaphor on the record . . . ]
4 –> Thus also, we come to the principle that we cannot but have metaphysical commitments, in a context where the most dangerous metaphysics is that which is unexamined, merely assumed “true” or “fact.” But, given Josiah Royce’s truth no 1 — “error exists” — to love wisdom [i.e philo sophia, in its basic sense] must among other things entail willingness to critically assess one’s own views; not just those of others. [For ALL worldviews bristle with difficulties; the issue is to compare and come to a mature view on the balance of the evidence and issues.]
5 –> Further to this, we must see the implications of chains of warrant. Start with a claim, say A. Why accept it as well-warranted? Because of B. But then, why accept B? Well, C, then D, . . .
6 –> In short, we face either infinite regress or we come to a point, F, where we acept things as so without further “proof.” F is our faith-point: first plausibles, presuppositions, axioms, intuitions, self-evident truths, accepted/trusted sense perceptions, etc. Thus, F defines the core of our worldview.
7 –> Are we all then in the end inevitably irrational? Some indubitably are irrational or closed-mindedly question-begging, but that we start from core ideas etc and work our way out to account for the world, is to say that worldviews are EXPLANATIONS. As, by the way, are scientific hypothesies and theories.
8 –> This brings us to the logic of abuction. In deductive proofs, we reason from premises to conclusions per logical inference: P => C. In induction, per principles of cogency, we reason from observations and experience to things that are made more credible or probable — however provisionally — based on the empirical data. In abduction [a species of induction] we argue by explanation. Namely, observed facts F1, F2, . . . Fn are puzzling but would at once be coherently explained if we were to suppose that an explanation E were so. E explains F1 to Fn, and is empirically supported by them. If it goes on to predict further expected facts P1, . . . Pm, . . . and we see that as we test, the P’s are confirmed, this lends more support. If E is also coherent and elegantly simple but powerful relative to live option alternatives E1, E2 etc, it lends even more support.
9 –> But of course all of this is a balance of judgements, not a proof. Indeed there is a telling counter-flow between facts and implications. That is, empirical support is not proof. And indeed, the very premises of deductive arguments are arrived at by abduction or similar means. We must live by faith, the question is which one, why.
10 –> And, closing the circle, among the first plausibles are self-evident truths. Those things which we see are and must be true on understanding what they are saying based on our core experience as conscious agents living in a real world. Such truths we can test by observing that they are often undeniably true [e.g. “error exists” -- to deny is to instantiate its truth, and thus also that truth exists as what refers accurately to reality . . .], or are so at one remove: to deny them lands one in absurdities, incoherence and confusions [the law of non-contradiction – one cannot even state the denial without assuming what one tries to deny (and BTW, remember, language refers to reality, or at least attempts to do so) . . .].
11 –> Similarly, there are moral first truths, and we should beware of any worldview that tries to subvert such. Citing Hooker from Locke again as he grounds principles of liberty [as opposed to licence] in Ch 2 section 5 of his 2nd essay on civil government:
Plainly, much is at stake . . . [hence my willingness to make the effort to comment, even in semi-retirement . . . ]
GEM of TKI