Malcolm Pollack solicited my comments on an article by Tomas Bogardus that appeared in Religious Studies under the title, If naturalism is true, then scientific explanation
is impossible.
Malcolm summarizes:
I’ve just read a brief and remarkably persuasive philosophical paper by Tomas Bogardus, a professor of philosophy at Pepperdine University. In it, he argues that, if we are to have confidence in the explanatory power of science (and he believes we should), then the naturalistic worldview must be false.
Here is the abstract:
I begin by retracing an argument from Aristotle for final causes in science. Then, I advance this ancient thought, and defend an argument for a stronger conclusion: that no scientific explanation can succeed, if Naturalism is true. The argument goes like this: (1) Any scientific explanation can be successful only if it crucially involves a natural regularity. Next, I argue that (2) any explanation can be successful only if it crucially involves no element that calls out for explanation but lacks one. From (1) and (2) it follows that (3) a scientific explanation can be successful only if it crucially involves a natural regularity, and this regularity does not call out for explanation while lacking
one. I then argue that (4) if Naturalism is true, then every natural regularity calls out for explanation but lacks one. From (3) and (4) it follows that (5) if Naturalism is true, then no scientific explanation can be successful. If you believe that scientific explanation can be (indeed, often has been) successful, as I do, then this is a reason to reject Naturalism.
Keywords: philosophy of religion; philosophy of science; scientific explanation; naturalism; supernaturalism; theism; atheism
The gist of the argument is that science, which is in the business of explaining observable phenomena, must offer for every explanandum (i.e., that which is to be explained) some explanans (that which explains). But if the explanans itself requires explaining, the explanation is incomplete, and must rest upon some deeper explanans.
Bogardus’s paper explores the varieties of possible explanatory regression. Either a) we bottom out on a “brute fact”, or b) we encounter an infinite stack of explanations (“turtles all the way down”), or c) our explanations loop back on themselves (so that at some point every explanandum also becomes an explanans), or d) we come at last to some explanans that breaks the chain, by requiring no further explanation.
Bogardus argues that of all brute facts, infinite regressions, and circular explanations explain nothing; the only kind of thing that will serve is (d). But the “laws of nature” do not meet this requirement, because they do not (and cannot) explain themselves.
The heart of Bogardus’s argument, then, is that only some sort of necessary truth, some teleological principle that stands outside of the chain of scientific explanation, can serve as the anchor to which that chain must be fastened. And because Naturalism admits of no such entity, then if scientific explanations are to be considered valid, Naturalism must be false.
My Evaluation
It is given that nature is regular. She exhibits all sorts of regularities. Some of them are codified in scientific law statements. Coulomb's Law, for example, states that particles of like charge repel and particles of unlike charge attract. Another regularity we are all familiar with is that if a gas is heated it expands. This is why I do not store my can of WD-40 in the garage in the Arizona summer. The regularity is codified is Gay Lussac's law: the pressure of a given amount of gas held at constant volume is directly proportional to the Kelvin temperature. Now why should that be the case? What explains the law? The kinetic theory of gases. If you heat a gas you give the molecules more energy so they move faster. This means more impacts on the walls of the container and an increase in the pressure. Conversely if you cool the molecules down they will slow down and the pressure will be decreased. The temperature of the gas varies with the kinetic energy of the gas molecules.
But invoking the kinetic theory of gases is not an ultimate explanation. What about those molecules and the laws that govern them?
So here is a question for Malcolm: Is Bogardus assuming that a genuine explanation must be or involve an ultimate explanation? And if he is making that assumption, is the assumption true?
Here is another example. Farmer John's crops have failed. Why? Because of the drought. The drought in turn is explained in terms of atmospheric conditions, which have their explanations, and so on. Question is: have I not explained the crop failure by just saying that that drought caused it?
Must I explain everything to explain anything? Is no proximate explanation a genuine explanation?
But we are philosophers in quest of the ultimate. That's just the kind of people we are. So we want ultimate explanations. And let us suppose, with Bogardus, that such explanations cannot be non-terminating, that is, they cannot be infinitely regressive or 'loopy,' i.e. coherentist. Ultimate explanations must end somewhere. Bogardus:
. . . I believe many Naturalists subscribe to scientific explanation in the pattern of Brute Foundationalism, either of the Simple or Extended variety, depending on the regularity. Here’s Carroll’s (2012, 193) impression of the state of the field: ‘Granted, it is always nice to be able to provide reasons why something is the case. Most scientists, however, suspect that the search for ultimate explanations eventually terminates in some final theory of the world, along with the phrase “and that’s just how it is”.’31
My question to Malcolm (and anyone): Why can't scientific explanations end with brute laws and brute facts? Has Bogardus given us an argument against brute laws? I don't see that he has. Or did I miss the argument for (2) below in Bogardus's main argument:
1) Any scientific explanation can be successful only if it crucially involves a natural
regularity.
2) Any explanation can be successful only if it crucially involves no element that calls
out for explanation but lacks one.
3) So, a scientific explanation can be successful only if it crucially involves a natural
regularity, and this regularity does not call out for explanation while lacking one.
4) If Naturalism is true, then every natural regularity calls out for explanation but
lacks one.
5) So, if Naturalism is true, then no scientific explanation can be successful.
Bogardus tries to argue for (2), but I don't see that he succeeds in giving us a non-question-begging reason to accept (2).
I myself reject naturalism and brute facts. My point is that Bogardus has failed to refute it and them. He has merely opposed it and them. As I use 'refute,' it is a verb of success. To oppose me is not to refute me. I will oppose you right back.
There is another question that I will address in a separate post: Can it be demonstrated that there is a Necessary Explainer? Pace the presuppositionalists, the demonstration cannot be circular. A circular demonstration is no demonstration at all. You cannot prove a proposition by presupposing it. You are of course free to presuppose anything you like. You can even presuppose naturalism and then 'argue': it is true because it is true, and then try to account for everything is naturalistic terms.
