Reason and Rationality – Page 4 – Maverick Philosopher

Seriously Philosophical Theses and Argument Cancellation

Reader C. P. inquires,

Do you think that the arguments for and against every substantive philosophical thesis are equipollent [equal in force], or do you think only that we can never be certain about the truth of the theses? In some of your posts, you suggest that you think the former (e.g. here); but in others, you suggest that you think we can determine some theses as more likely true than others. I'm fairly sure that you hold the former, but I thought I should make sure.

The question, as I would formulate it, is whether every substantive philosophical thesis is such that the arguments for it and the arguments against it are equally plausible and thus 'cancel out,' or whether some substantive philosophical theses are rationally preferable to their negations. I begin by explaining my terminology.

D1. An argument for a thesis T cancels out an argument for the negation of T just in case both arguments are equally plausible, or not far from equally plausible, to the producers(s)/consumers(s) of the arguments, assuming that these individuals are 'competent practitioners.'

Plausibility is relative to an arguer and his audience, if any. With respect to propositions, plausibility is not the same as truth. A plausible proposition needn't be true, and a true proposition needn't be plausible. With respect to arguments, plausibility is neither validity nor soundness as these are standardly defined. Validity and soundness are absolute, like truth herself. Plausibility is relative. There cannot be sound arguments both for a thesis and its negation. For if there is a sound argument for T, then T is true. And if there is a sound argument for ~T, then ~T is true. This is logical fallout from the standard definition of 'sound' according to which a sound argument is one that is deductive, valid, and has only true premises. If there are sound arguments for both a thesis T and its negation ~T, then (T & ~T) is true which violates the Law of Non-Contradiction. Therefore, there cannot be sound arguments for a thesis and its negation.

So I am envisaging situations in which argument and counter-argument are equally plausible or nearly so but only one is sound. Equally plausible to whom? It could be one and the same philosopher. Preston, for example, finds the arguments for and against a regularity theory of causation equally plausible. For him the arguments cancel out and he ends up in a state of doxastic equipoise with respect to the issue. From there he might go on to suspend judgment on the question, or he might investigate further. A third option for one who ends up in doxastic equipoise is to leap to one side or the other. Suppose, after canvassing the arguments for and against the existence of God, or those for and against the immortality of the soul, you find that the cumulative case for and the cumulative case against are equally plausible. You might leap to one side for prudential or pragmatic reasons. You would have no theoretical reason for the leap, but also no theoretical reason against the leap. But the leap might nonetheless be prudentially rational and the refusal to leap prudentially irrational.

Or the plausibility could be to a group of philosophers. Suppose the group has ten members, with five finding the arguments for more plausible than the arguments against, and five taking the opposite stance. I will then say that argument and counter-argument are equally plausible to the group. As I set up the example, none of the members of this group are in a state of doxastic equipoise. But I will make bold to claim that each of them ought to be, assuming that each of them is a competent practitioner. This claim is controversial, and needs defending, but I must move on.

A competent practitioner is not the same as an epistemic peer. A number of individuals may be epistemic peers, but all incompetent. I won't try for a crisp definition of 'competent practitioner,' but if one is a competent practitioner, then he is a sincere truth seeker, not a quibbler or a sophist; he knows logic and the empirical disciplines that bear upon the arguments he is discussing; he is familiar with the relevant literature; he embodies the relevant intellectual virtues, and so on.

The answer to the reader's question will depend on what counts as a substantive or seriously philosophical thesis (SPT). Such theses cannot be denials or affirmations of Moorean facts. Such a fact is roughly a deliverance of common sense. STPs are not at the level of data, but at the level of theory. The distinction between data and theory is not sharply drawn. Border disputes are possible. The theoretical bleeds into the datanic and vice versa. Theories are data-driven, but some data are theory-laden. But I don't believe one can get on without the data-theory distinction.

For example, it is a Moorean fact that some things no longer exist. This cannot be reasonably disputed. Affirm the datum or deny it, you are not (yet) doing philosophy. That Boston's Scollay Square no longer exists is not a philosophical claim, but a proto-philosophical or pre-analytic datum. But if you maintain that what no longer exists does not exist at all, then you go beyond the given to affirm a controversial philosophical thesis known as presentism. Roughly, this is the thesis that, with respect to items in time, only what exists at present exists, period. (It implies that the Wholly No Longer and the Wholly Not Yet are realms of nonexistence.) This is hardly common sense despite what some presentists claim. If Scollay Square is now nothing at all, then how could it be the object of veridical memories and the subject of true predications? A predicate cannot be true of an item unless the item exists.

If, on the other hand, you maintain that what no longer exists does exist, albeit tenselessly, then you are affirming a controversial philosophical thesis known in the trade as eternalism. Eternalism will enable you to explain how a wholly past item can be the object of veridical thoughts and the subject of true predications. But if you try to explain what 'tenseless' means in this context, you will soon entangle yourself in difficulties. Both presentism and eternalism are examples of what I am calling seriously philosophical theses, they cannot both be true, and neither records a Moorean fact.

For a second example, consider the claim that consciousness is an illusion. This is not an SPT, despite its having been urged by philosophers of high repute. It is either beneath refutation or is quickly refuted by a simple argument: illusions presuppose consciousness; ergo, consciousness is not an illusion. There are any number of eliminativist claims that are not SPTs. The claim that there are no claims, for example, 'sounds philosophical' but cannot be taken seriously: it is not an SPT. On the other hand, there are eliminativist claims that are SPTs, for example, the claim that there is no such person as God, or that continuants such as tables and trees do not have temporal parts.

In sum, if you affirm what is obvious or deny what is obvious you are not making a seriously philosophical claim even if what you affirm or deny is highly general and is apt to ignite philosophical controversy when brought into contact with other propositions. For example, if you affirm that some events are earlier than others, you simply a record a datum that no sane person can deny. If, on the other hand, you affirm that everything that people believe is true then you affirm what is datanically false and no object of rational controversy.

I consider all of the following examples of SPTs:

There are no nonexistent objects.
There are uninstantiated properties.
There are no modes of existence.
The properties of particulars are tropes, not universals.
God exists.
The soul is immortal.
The human will is libertarianly free.
Each of us is numerically identical to his living body.
I am not my living body; I merely have a living body.
Anima forma corporis.
Die Welt ist meine Vorstellung.
Laws of nature are just empirical regularities.
Truths need truth-makers.
Only facts could serve as truth-makers.
There are no facts.
Relations reduce to their monadic foundations.
There are no properties, only predicates.
The predicate 'true' serves only as a device for disquotation.
Social and economic inequalities are justified only if they benefit the worst-off.

There are many more examples, of course. Now what do the above examples have in common? None of them records a Moorean fact. That is, none of them, if true, is obviously true or datanically true. Example. There are two tomatoes on my counter, both ripe, and both (the same shade of) red. That is a given, a datum, not subject to philosophical dispute, certain hyperbolic forms of skepticism aside. But it is not a datum, phenomenological or otherwise, that the redness of the tomatoes is a universal, a repeatable entity, whether a transcendent universal (a one-over-many) or an immanent universal (a one-in-many). For there is an alternative theory according to which the properties of particulars are themselves particulars (unrepeatables). On this theory each tomato has its own redness. Accordingly, there are two rednesses in the example, not one. Both theories explain the data, but they cannot both be true. Phenomenology does not suffice to decide between them; dialectic must be brought in. Once you get the dialectical ball rolling, you will have a hard time stopping it. It will roll down a rabbit hole that opens out into a labyrinth . . . .

Having clarified what I mean by a substantive or serious philosophical thesis, I now state two meta-philosophical theses that I am considering.

The strong thesis is that every SPT is such that the arguments for it and against it cancel out in the sense defined in (D1) above. This implies that no SPT is rationally preferable to its negation. I have my doubts about the strong thesis.

The weak thesis is that a proper subset of SPTs are such that the arguments for and against cancel out. I strongly suspect that the theses that most concern us belong to the proper subset, the hard core of insolubilia.

On the weak thesis, some SPTs will be theoretically-rationally preferable to others.

Thought, Action, Dogma, and De Maistre: The Infirmity of Reason

Human reason reduced to its own resources is perfectly worthless, not only for creating but also for preserving any political or religious association, because it only produces disputes, and, to conduct himself well, man needs not problems but beliefs. His cradle should be surrounded by dogmas, and when his reason is awakened, it should find all his opinions ready-made, at least all those relating to his conduct. Nothing is so important to him as prejudices. Let us not take this word in a bad sense. It does not necessarily mean false ideas, but only, in the strict sense of the word, opinions adopted before any examination. Now these sorts of opinions are man’s greatest need, the true elements of his happiness, and the Palladium of empires. Without them there can be neither worship, nor morality, nor government . . . .

Joseph de Maistre, Against Rousseau: On the State of Nature and the Sovereignty of the People

De Maistre's statement above is extreme but it contains a kernel of insight. Let me see if I can isolate the kernel.

Thinking beyond the empirical is endless and leads to no fixed result. The conclusions of the philosophers are inconclusive. The strife of systems rages unabated across the centuries. Nothing is ever settled to the satisfaction of all competent practitioners. In a Kierkegaardian figure, philosophizing without dogma is like sewing without a knot at the end of one's thread. Thoughts are never stayed. Considerations and counter-considerations multiply and ramify, leading to protracted disputes. The protraction is unto infinity. Dispute impedes decision and action, including decisions and actions at the level of thought.

Not only is thinking inconclusive, it entangles itself in contradictions when left to run without sensory or dogmatic input. Think of Nagarjuna's tetralemmae, Sextus Empiricus' mutually canceling arguments, Kant's antinomies, etc. Or just plunge into the arcana discussed in the technical philosophy journals on any topic. Forget the strife of systems; philosophers cannot come to agreement on even the most carefully and precisely defined questions. Can anyone honestly think that real progress is being made on the narrowly defined questions over which philosophers, including this one, obsess? What goes for precisely defined technical questions whose human importance is low or non-existent, goes all the more for the broad questions of great human relevance.

"Human reason reduced to its own resources," if not perfectly worthless, is not capable of establishing any of the substantive and humanly important propositions about God, the soul, the nature of justice, and so on, that we need to know to flourish, and establish them in a manner that secures agreement among well-intentioned and intelligent truth-seekers. We need the ultimate truth about the ultimate matters, and we need agreement on it, but we can secure neither by our own efforts, whether individual or collective. Or at least that is a very good induction from past philosophical experience.

Human reason needs input from a source outside it. (One cannot argue without premises, and not all premises can be argued for.) With respect to the Big Questions, sensory input is obviously of no use. Nor is mathematics, set theory and other formal disciplines. Foundational questions cannot be decided by the will of the people. Do you really want to put the principle of presumption of innocence up for democratic grabs? Consensus does not constitute truth, and in any case uncoerced consensus is not to be had.

One might turn to divine revelation. That would solve the problem if it were available. But revelation cannot be accepted at face value because there are competing revelations that cannot all be true. One is forced to distinguish putative and genuine revelation and to worry about the criteria of genuine revelation. Even if God gave us all the answers in a book, he didn't tell us which book it is.

But then we are back to the dialectic of endless consideration and counter-consideration. We have to think about which Scripture to credit and what any bit of it means. Sola scriptura leaves us in the lurch, and what, pray tell, is its Biblical basis? Theology must be brought in, but what is that if not applied philosophy, philosophy applied to the putative data of revelation. And so we are brought back to philosophy and the disagreement endemic thereto. To take but one example, the Christian and Muslim differ bitterly, and unto bloodshed, about the nature of God: radically One, or triune? And in each major and minor religion there are sectarian splits, and meta-splits on how to heal the various splits and whether it is even necessary to do so. You may be latitudinarian and inclusive, but not unto inclusion of those who are neither.

One can always wax dogmatic, but that is no satisfactory solution for a thoughtful person. Dogmas are decisions at the level of thought. The dogmatic pronunciamento cuts off thought, which is endlessly self-perpetuating, and there is something satisfying about bringing endless talk to a halt. Basta! Enough! We value decisiveness in people, despite the arbitrarity and willfulness of decision. Therein lies the appeal of the dictator who puts an end to parliamentary mewling and hand-wringing. We note in passing the bivalence of these words: 'strong-willed' has a positive, 'willful' a pejorative, connotation. Our very language reflects our predicament.

Action uninformed by thought is willful and one-sided. It is blind. Thought without action is effete and epicene. So we are in a fine pickle indeed, one of the many 'pickles' that make up our miserable but also exhilarating predicament. (And our condition is indeed a predicament: something is deeply wrong and we need to find a way out without the assurance that there is a way out.)

The problem, or part of it, is that considerations of the intellect alone cannot determine action. Will and de-cision come into it. At some point thinking needs abruptly to be cut off by free, hence undetermined, decision. Can the cut-off be achieved by a will that is not merely willful? Or is a free decision necessarily arbitrary in a bad sense?

Both thought and action breed disagreement, often bitter and protracted, and sometimes bloody. In the precincts of theoria there is the strife of systems. In the precincts of praxis, the strife of blood and iron. The conflicts in either sphere feed the conflicts in the other. Conflicts among minds and ideas stoke conflicts among bodies and interests, and conversely. Intra-spheric conflict drives inter-spheric conflict.

So the problem cannot be solved within either sphere. The spheres need to be bridged or mediated. Dogmas are one kind of mediating principle.

Dogmas are decisions at the level of thought. One takes action, or a group takes action, at the level of thought by enforcing a view that must be accepted with no further questions. Dogmas are attempts to stop thought and knot the thread on pain of something dire such as perdition or excommunication or the gulag. But these congealed thoughts are still thoughts and so will be questioned, doubted, and denied. Even if it is granted that the thread must be knotted somewhere, why here?

Dogmas are delivered by indoctrination, by inculcating them. The word is exactly right, its etymology suggesting a stamping in, as with the heel (calx, calcis). Inculcation is most effective with the young and defenseless, those still in de Maistre's cradle: "His cradle should be surrounded by dogmas, and when his reason is awakened, it should find all his opinions ready-made, at least all those relating to his conduct."

But whose dogmas should line the cradle and be stamped into the young? No doubt there are good dogmas and good prejudices, but could a dogmatic method sort the good from the bad? One needs a critical method.

Human actions are embodied thoughts, thoughts made flesh. But if the thoughts are false or pernicious, then the actions will not be good.

What then should we say about the de Maistre quotation above? I believe I have laid bare the kernel of insight it contains: human reason is weak and needs guidance from without whether or not any such guidance is available. Reason is a very poor guide to life. Appeals to 'reason' are useless when not absurd. Whose 'reason'? How applied? And what exactly is this vaunted faculty anyway? And what is its reach? How reasonable was Kant's mapping of its limits in his Critique of Pure Reason? The "Come now, and let us reason together . . ." of Isaiah 1:18 has little application among men, whatever application it has between a man and God.

But what I have written above tenders no aid and comfort to the reactionary extremism of de Maistre. He sees what is wrong with the appeal to reason, but not what is wrong with its opposite, appeal to tradition and unexamined prejudices. The predicament we are in cannot be solved, if it can be solved, by veering off to either extreme.

I am tempted to say what Heidegger said in his Spiegel interview in 1966, the years before his death: Nur ein Gott kann uns retten.

Rationalistic Fideism, Mysterianism, Misology, and Divine Simplicity

I want to thank the perspicacious Lukas Novak for helping me in my endless quest to know myself. Professor Novak comments:

Is Bill a Gnostic?

Well, I am not sure about the precise meaning of this epithet, but to me Bill appears as a strange amalgam of a rationalist and a fideist. The rationalist comes first and sets up certain rather strict requirements on the contents of faith — so that everything that does not fit in comes out as "incoherent" or "incomprehensible". Then, entre fideist and says that we nevertheless are still justified in believing these contents because we can justifiably assume that our intellect is so incompetent.

To me, this puts too much confidence in our reason in the first stage and too little in the last. It seems to me that Bill is always too eager to conclude that there is an impasse, an insoluble problem, a contradiction etc. in a given particular case. In this, he seems to be putting way too much confidence in his reasonings. The overall, habitual outcome of this is, however, the exact opposite: a significantly diminished confidence in the competence of our intellect as such. (This reminds me of the mechanism of how "misology" is generated, in Plato's Phaedo.)

We were discussing ecclesiology and the Incarnation, but at the moment I am revising my Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Divine Simplicity entry, so I want to shift over to this topic since similar structural patterns emerge. What follows is a section I will add to the entry, one on a recent paper by Eleonore Stump of St. Louis University. Professor Stump is a distinguished Aquinas scholar and defender of the doctrine of divine simplicity (DDS).

4.4 Stump's Quantum Metaphysics

Like Dolezal, Eleonore Stump thinks of God as self-subsistent Being (esse). If God is absolutely simple, and not just simple in the uncontroversial sense of lacking material parts, then God must be self-subsistent Being. God is at once both Being and something that is. He has to be both. If he were Being (esse) but not a being (id quod est), he could not enter into causal relations. He could not do anything such as create the world, intervene in its operations, or interact with human persons. Such a God would be "religiously pernicious." (Stump 2016, 199) Indeed, if God were Being but not a being, then one could not sensibly maintain that God exists. For if Being is other than every being, then Being is not. (It is instructive to note that Martin Heidegger, the famous critic of onto-theology, who holds to the "ontological difference" of Being (Sein) from every being (Seiendes) ends up assimilating Being to Nothing (Nichts).) On the other hand, if God were a being among beings who merely has Being but is not (identically) Being, then he would not be absolutely transcendent, worthy of worship, or ineffable. Such a God would be "comfortingly familiar" but "discomfiting anthropomorphic." (Miller 1996, 3)

The problem, of course, is to explain how God can be both Being and something that is. This is unintelligible to the discursive intellect. Either Being is other than beings or it is not. If Being is other than beings, then Being cannot be. If Being just is beings taken collectively, then God is a being among beings and not the absolute reality. To the discursive intellect the notion of self-subsistent Being is contradictory. One response to the contradiction is simply to deny divine simplicity. That is a reasonable response, no doubt. But might it not also be reasonable to admit that there are things that human reason cannot understand, and that one of these things is the divine nature? "Human reason can see that human reason cannot comprehend the quid est of God." (Stump 2016, 205) As I read Stump, she, like Dolezal, makes a mysterian move, and she, like Dolezal (2011, 210, fn 55), invokes wave-particle duality. We cannot understand how light can be both a wave phenomenon and also particulate in nature, and yet it is both:

What kind of thing is it which has to be understood both as a wave and as a particle? We do not know. That is, we do not know the quid est of light. [. . .] Analogously, we can ask: What kind of thing is it which can be both esse and id quod est? We do not know. The idea of simplicity is that at the ultimate metaphysical foundation of reality is something that has to be understood as esse —but also as id quo est. We do not know what this kind of thing is either. (Stump 2016, 202)

Stump, E., 2016, “Simplicity and Aquinas's Quantum Metaphysics” in Gerhard Krieger, ed. Die Metaphysik des Aristoteles im Mittelalter: Rezeption und Transformation, Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter, 191–210.

Dolezal, J. E., 2011, God without Parts: Divine Simplicity and the Metaphysics of God's Absoluteness, Eugene, Oregon: Pickwick Publications.

Miller, B., 1996, A Most Unlikely God, Notre Dame and London: University of Notre Dame Press.

Now for my apologia.

Novak's characterization of me as both a rationalist and a fideist is basically accurate. And yes, the rationalist comes first with exacting requirements. Let me try to illustrate this with DDS. God is the absolute reality, a stupendously rich reality who transcends creatures not only in his properties, but also in his mode of property-possession, mode of existence, mode of necessity, and mode of uniqueness. God is uniquely unique. Such a being cannot be a being among beings. He is uniquely unique in that he alone is self-subsistent Being. Deus est ipsum esse subsistens.

One can reason cogently to this conclusion. Unfortunately, the conclusion is apparently self-contradictory. The verbal formula does not express a proposition that the discursive intellect can 'process' or 'compute.' It is unintelligible to said intellect. For the proposition the formula expresses appears to be self-contradictory. Stump agrees as do the opponents of DDS.

Now there are three ways to proceed.

1) We can conclude, as many distinguished theists do, that the apparent contradictions are real and that God is not absolutely simple, that DDS is a 'mistake.' See Hasker, William, 2016, “Is Divine Simplicity a Mistake?” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, 699-725. For Hasker, DDS involves category mistakes, logical failures, and a dehumanization of God. (One mistake Hasker himself makes is to think that a defender of DDS can only tread the via negativa and must end up embracing radical agnosticism about the nature of God. Stump has some interesting things to say in rebuttal of this notion. See Stump 2016, 195-198.)

In short: God is not reasonably believed to be simple.

2) A second way is the mysterian way. The conjunction of God is esse and God is id quod est is an apparent contradiction. But it is not a real contradiction. Characteristic of the mysterian of my stripe is the further claim that the structure of the discursive intellect makes it impossible for us to see that the contradiction is merely apparent.

In short: God is reasonably believed to be simple despite the ineliminable apparent contradictions that this entails because, as Stump puts it, "Human reason can see that human reason cannot comprehend the quid est of God." (Stump 2016, 205) To put the point more generally, it is reasonable to confess the infirmity of human reason with respect to certain questions, and unreasonable to place an uncritical faith in its power and reach. This is especially unreasonable for those who accept the Fall of man and the noetic consequences of sin.

Besides, if God is not a being among beings, then one might expect the discursive intellect to entangle itself in contradictions when it tries to think the Absolute Reality. God, as Being itself, cannot be subsumed under any extant category of beings.

3) A third way is by maintaining that the apparent contradictions can be shown to be merely apparent by the resources of the discursive intellect. In short: God is reasonably believed to be simple, and all considerations to the contrary can be shown to rest on errors and failures to make certain distinction.

What is my argument against (3)? Simply that the attempts to defuse the contradictions fail, and not just by my lights. Almost all philosophers, theists and atheists alike, judge the notion of a simple God to be contradictory.

What is my argument against (1)? Essentially that those who take this line do not appreciate the radical transcendence of God. This point has been argued most forcefully by Barry Miller (1996). Theists who reject divine simplicity end up with an anthropomorphic view of God.

As for Novak's charge of misology or hatred of reason and argument, I plead innocent. One who appreciates the limits of reason, and indeed the infirmity of reason as we find it in ourselves here below, cannot be fairly accused of misology. Otherwise, Kant would be a misologist. I will turn the table on my friend by humbly suggesting that his doxastic security needs sometimes get the better of him causing him to affirm as objectively certain what is not at all objectively certain, but certain only to him. For example he thinks it is epistemically certain that there are substances. I disagree.

But I want to confess to one charge. Lukas writes, "It seems to me that Bill is always too eager to conclude that there is an impasse, an insoluble problem, a contradiction, etc." It may be that I am too zealous in my hunt for aporiai. But I am deeply impressed by the deep, protracted, and indeed interminable disagreement of philosophers through the ages over every substantive question. My working hypothesis for the metaphilosophy book I am trying to finish is that the core problems of philosophy are most of them genuine, some of them humanly important, but all of them insoluble by us. And then I try to figure out what philosophy can and should be if that is the case, whether it should end in mystical silence — that is where Aquinas ended up! — or fuel a Pyrrhonian re-insertion into the quotidian and a living of life adoxastos, or give way to religious faith, or something else.

An Irrational Attitude for Human Beings?

Is the following attitude irrational for beings of our constitution?

I refuse any truth I cannot know to be true. Hence I refuse any truth that can only be believed, or can only be accepted on the basis of another's testimony. I will not allow into my doxastic network any truth that I cannot validate by my own internal criteria. To believe on insufficient evidence is worse than to lose contact with reality. My intellectual integrity and epistemic autonomy trump all other epistemic values. What is true must pass muster by me for me to know that it is true. It is worse to be fooled than it is better to accept a truth, even a saving truth, that I cannot by my own lights prove to be true.

Better to languish in the dark than to accept light from an unproven source!

If we were mere spectators, then perhaps the above attitude would be rational. But although we are transcendental spectators, we are also materially embodied, culturally embedded, and interested. To be between — inter esse— is our station: to be between angelic spectatorship* and animalic embodiment. Both blessed and cursed, man is a being-in-between. We are not merely observers of life's parade; we march in it as well, and our ultimate happiness may depend on the acceptance of truths that we cannot know here below.

So I say that it is not practically or prudentially rational for beings of our curious constitution to adopt the stance limned above, except when we are pursuing pure theory.

__________________

*My pretty formulation is marred slightly by the fact that angels are not mere spectators, but free agents. In that respect they are like us. Where they have it over us is in their freedom from bodies.

I don't know enough Thomistic angelology to know whether or not the doctor angelicus would say that it is better to be an angel than to be a man. But I do know enough of his anthropology to know that he would hold it to be man's nature to be a composite of form and matter. Pace Plato, we are not accidentally embodied. A man is not complete without a body. Thus the disembodied post-mortem state before the resurrection of the body is a state inferior to the resurrected state wherein man regains a transfigured body. (Would a theologian use 'transfigured' in this context?)

There are various questions here that will tempt the philosopher. One is this. If the soul (anima) is forma corporis, and if forms are not substances in there own right, and thus not capable of independent existence apart from their material embodiment, how is it that a person can survive his bodily death as a mere soul? This is a bit of Platonism at odds with Aquinas' Aristotelianism.

It has been said, with justice, that Aquinas was an Aristotelian on earth but a Platonist in heaven. After all, God himself, the form of all forms, forma formarum, is yet the absolute substance. A form that is not the form of anything is, in the case of God, a being in its own right.

Is it Sometimes Rational to Believe on Insufficient Evidence?

I argue the case over at MavPhil StrictPhil.

Remembering Henry Veatch and Rational Man

Douglas Rasmussen and Douglas Den Uyl

Could All Paths be Dead Ends?

I wrote:

Reason in the end must confess its own infirmity. It cannot deliver on its promises. The truth-seeker must explore other avenues. Religion is one, mysticism is another.

Vito Caiati responds:

My concern is as follows: While I agree that “reason in the end must confess its own infirmity,” I am troubled by the possibility that religion and mysticism terminate, for many, in their own dead ends. Regarding religious belief, too many sincere seekers, perhaps those not blessed with a religious disposition, the apparent gift of a minority of humanity, end up concluding, to quote Pascal, that “[J]e suis fait d'une telle sorte que je ne puis croire” (“I am so made that I cannot believe”; Pensées Le livre de Poche, 1991, 464). I realize that there are a variety of theological responses to this declaration, including the debilitating effects of original sin on the human soul and mind, but these attempts merely explain away or rationalize what is for many a painful reality. As for mysticism, its truths, real or supposed, are enjoyed, as you know, by a very tiny fraction of humanity, East and West.

Given these states of affairs, is it not possible that many (most?) of us are trapped in our ignorance of higher things? That none of the three ways—reason, religion, or mysticism—is a viable alternative? That our fate is tragic and miserable?

I hope that the answer to each of these questions is a negative one, for I continue to search for a way forward.

In The Infirmity of Reason versus the Certitude of Faith, I list the following options, omitting mysticism:

A. Rationalism: Put your trust in reason to deliver truths about ultimates and ignore the considerations of Sextus Empiricus, Nagarjuna, Bayle, Kant, and a host of others that point to the infirmity of reason.

B. Fideism: Put your trust in blind faith. Submit, obey, enslave your reason to what purports to be revealed truth while ignoring the fact that what counts as revealed truth varies from religion to religion, and within a religion from sect to sect.

C. Skepticism: Suspend belief on all issues that transcend the mundane if not all beliefs, period. Don't trouble your head over whether God is or is not tri-personal. Stick to what appears. And don't say, 'The tea is sweet'; say, 'The tea appears sweet.' (If you say that the tea is sweet, you invite contradiction by an irascible table-mate.)

D. Reasoned Faith: Avoiding each of the foregoing options, one formulates one's beliefs carefully and holds them tentatively. One does not abandon them lightly, but neither does one fail to revisit and revise them. Doxastic examination is ongoing at least for the length of one's tenure here below. One exploits the fruitful tension of Athens and Jerusalem, philosophy and religion, reason and faith, playing them off against each other and using each to chasten the other.

I recommend (D). Or are there other options?

John Bishop (University of Auckland) has a book , Believing by Faith: An Essay in the Epistemology and Ethics of Religious Faith (OUP, 2007) which is perhaps the best book that I have read on the subject. He argues for what he calls a ‘supra-evidential fideism’ in which one is ‘morally entitled’ to “take as true in one’s practical and theoretical deliberations” a claim that lacks evidence sufficient for epistemically-justified acceptance or rejection.

It is a developed Jamesian’ approach to the right to believe. He does not allow for beliefs that go contrary to the weight of evidence, thus he rejects Wittgensteinian fideism. One may believe beyond the evidence, but not against the evidence. He holds that one must always respect the canons of rational inquiry and not dismiss them, even in matters of faith. Yet, by the very nature of the faith-issue, they can be transcended with moral entitlement.

Nor does he allow for ‘induced willings-to believe.’ He holds that one who already has an inclination / disposition to believe is morally entitled to do so if the issue is important, forced, and by the nature of the issue cannot be decided upon the basis of ‘rationalist empiricist’ evidential practice.I came across the book on a list of important books in philosophy of religion on Prosblogion.

I think that it is a type of fideism that combines your categories B and D – fideism and reasoned faith.

Adoro te devote, latens Deitas, Quæ sub his figuris vere latitas;
Tibi se cor meum totum subjicit, Quia te contemplans totum deficit.

Godhead here in hiding, whom I do adore, Masked by these bare shadows, shape and nothing more, See, Lord, at Thy service low lies here a heart Lost, all lost in wonder at the God thou art.

(tr. Gerard Manley Hopkins.)

But as religion becomes established in the world in the form of churches, sects, and denominations with worldly interests, it becomes less of a quest and more of a worldly hustle. Dogmatics displaces inquiry, and fund-raising faith. The once alive becomes ossified. All human institutions are corruptible, and are eventually corrupted.

Mature religion must be more quest than conclusions. It is vastly more a seeking than a finding. More a cleansing of windows and a polishing of mirrors than a glimpsing. And certainly more a glimpsing than a comfortable resting upon dogmas. When philosophy and religion and mysticism and science are viewed as quests they complement one another. And this despite the tensions among Athens, Jerusalem, Benares, and Alexandria.

The critic of religion wants to pin it down, reducing it to dogmatic contents, so as to attack it where it is weakest. Paradoxically, the atheist 'knows' more about God than the sophisticated theist — he knows so much that he knows no such thing could exist. He 'knows' the divine nature and knows that it is incompatible with the existence of evil — to mention one line of attack. What he 'knows,' of course, is only the concept he himself has fabricated and projected. Aquinas, by contrast, held that the existence of God is far better known than God's nature — which remains shrouded in a cloud of unknowing.

The (immature) religionist also wants religion pinned down and dogmatically spelled out for purposes of self-definition, doxastic security, other-exclusion, worldly promotion, and political leverage. This is a reason why reformers like Jesus are met with a cold shoulder — or worse.

Ancora Una Volta: “Reasoned Mysterianism”

Dr. Vito Caiati writes (minor edits, formatting, and bolding added),

I thank you for your online response (Reasoned Mysterianism: A Defense of an Aphoristic Provocation) to my recent email. In it you offer an impressive, rigorous defense of “reasoned mysterianism” that has impelled me to think more deeply on this subject, so much so, in fact, that I spent part of the night awake in bed ruminating over your argument. Both it and your aphorism of July 21 (The Believing Philosopher) lead me to repeat what I wrote in my first email to you last February: “You have helped me sharpen and deepen by thinking on many questions, and you have made me more assured in turning away from easy or comforting answers.”

In this spirit, I will take up the invitation made in your email of yesterday and respond. In doing so, I would like to draw a clearer distinction between a “reasoned belief” and a “reasoned mysterianism” by referring to your statement,

Vito mentions the leap of faith. As I see it, there is no avoiding such a leap when it comes to ultimate questions. There is no possibility of proof or demonstration hereabouts. One can neither prove nor disprove the existence of God, for example. So if, on the basis of arguments for or against the existence of God, one comes to believe in God or not, there will be a leap of faith either way.

I fully agree with what you say here because while the affirmations of God’s existence or the existence and immortality of the soul cannot be proven, they can be reasonably held. In holding the former, for example, one gives assent to one or more philosophical arguments or calls on other forms of evidence, while acknowledging the powerful arguments and evidence against this belief. But here, most would agree that we are not dealing with what “to the discursive intellect must appear contradictory”; rather, while the intellectual challenges are so enormous that certainty is beyond our grasp and, as you correctly point out, that a leap of faith is required, we respect the intellectual limitations imposed on us by our “cognitive architecture.”

For me, this is the important point: that we not go beyond these limitations however much we would like to do so. Therefore, I agree that “reasoning about God and the soul, etc. is precisely reasoning in justification of a leap of faith or else in justification of a leap of disbelief.” In such matters, the absence of “certainty” is no hurdle for me in affirming the existence of God, which I do.

However, while I grant that “it may well be that there are certain objects and states of affairs and phenomena whose internal possibility we cannot discern due to our irremediable cognitive limitations. [And that] Apparent contradictoriness would then not argue unreality,” I hold that such objects and states of affairs are best left alone. If the objects and states of affairs of “reasoned belief,” such as God’s existence, remain as open and debated today as they were in the distant past and as cloudy to the human mind, what can we possibly know of those shrouded in absolute mystery and apparent contradiction? Here, it seems mere hubris to make a leap of faith; rather, is it not better to acknowledge the mystery and grasp what aspects of the Unknown, albeit small, that reasoned belief permits? Why not be content with the latter and leave the rest to God, who, after all, either intended or permits our having a constrained “cognitive architecture”?

The misery of our ignorance, perhaps the greatest evil, is not to be undone by mere conjecture and hope, however well intended. Thus, while I agree that we must choose, I think that the possible choices are quite circumscribed.

REPLY

I will begin on a note of deep agreement: the misery of our ignorance is indeed a great, and perhaps the greatest, evil. It surprises me that this is not usually mentioned when people recount the evils of the human predicament. Surely it is awful that we are almost totally in the dark about the ultimate whence, whither, and wherefore, and that bitter controversy rages on every side. To my mind the human condition is indeed a predicament, a 'situation' deeply unsatisfactory, the solution to which is either impossible or, if possible, then such as to require a radical revision of the way we live.

Now on to the meat of our disagreement.

For most of my philosophical life I have held the position sketched by Vito Caiati according to which only what we can see to be rationally acceptable may be accepted. So if, by my best efforts, I cannot bring myself to see how a religious dogma satisfies the exigencies of reason, then I ought not accept it.

But lately I have been re-examining this position. Such re-examination is in the spirit of philosophy as critical reflection that spares nothing, not even itself. There is nothing unphilosophical in questioning the reach of reason.* Note that this questioning remains within philosophy: from within philosophy one can question philosophy and raise the possibility that philosophy can be and perhaps must be supplemented ab extra.

One type of supplementation is via divine revelation. Now philosophy cannot prove the fact of divine revelation, nor can it validate the specific contents of a putative revelation, but it can reasonably allow for the possibility of divine revelation. Without quitting the sphere of immanence it can allow for the possibility of an irruption into this sphere of salvific truths that we need but cannot access by our own powers.

Vito will grant me that it is reasonable to believe that God exists. If so, it is reasonable to believe that there is a transcendent Person capable of revealing himself to man. I would argue that the possibility of revelation is built into the concept of God. Our concept of God is a concept of a personal being who could, if he so desired, reveal himself to his creatures in specific ways, via prophets who leave written records, or even by revealing himself in person in a special man who somehow is an, or rather the, incarnation of God. Our possession of such a concept of God is of course no guarantee that there is such a God. But without straying from the precincts of philosophy one can articulate such a concept.

This implies that it is reasonable to be open to the possibility of receiving 'information' of the highest importance to us and our ultimate well-being from a transcendent Source lying beyond the human horizon. This possibility is one that we can validate from within our own resources and thus without appeal to divine revelation.

One who grants the existence of a personal God cannot foreclose on the possibility of the receipt of such 'information.' To foreclose on it one would have to adopt some form of naturalism or else a non-personal conception of God. Spinoza's deus sive natura, for example, is clearly not up to the task of transmitting any saving truths to us.

Now suppose some of these bits of 'information' or revealed truths are beyond our ken not only in the sense that we cannot validate them as true from within our immanence, but also in the sense that we cannot validate them as possibly true. That is, we can generate no insight into their logical possibility. Suppose they appear, and indeed must appear, logically impossible to us within our present (fallen) state. The idea is not that they are logically impossible in themselves, but that they must appear logically impossible to us due to our current 'cognitive architecture.'

Supposing all this, would it be reasonable to take Vito's advice and leave these putative truths of revelation alone, on the ground that it would be hubris to make a leap of faith in their direction when, by our own best lights, and after protracted examination, they appear logically impossible?

It is not clear to me that it would. For then the measly creature would be valuing his intellectual integrity over the possibility of an eternity of bliss.

There might well be more hubris is setting up ourselves as arbiters as to what is possible and what is not. Weak-minded as we are, who are we to judge what is possible and what is not? If God exists, then we are his creatures. We are in the inferior position and ought to listen to God's teachings and commands whether or not they pass muster by our criteria, and especially since our ultimate happiness is at stake.

If we really understand what is meant by 'God,' and we believe that God exists — which I admit itself requires a leap beyond what we can legitimately claim strictly to know — then how can we insist that God, his actions, his commands, and his revelations satisfy the exigencies of our puny intellects in order to be admissible?

There is much more to be said, but I have gone on long enough for one post.

________________

* Think of the academic and the Pyrrhonian skeptics, the empiricists, the critical philosophy of Kant, phenomenology with its anti-dialectical orientation and invocation of the given, logical positivism, and the ordinary language philosophy of the later Wittgenstein.

The Believing Philosopher

The religious belief of a believing philosopher is a reasoned belief, and even if his belief extends to the acceptance of mysteries that to the discursive intellect must appear contradictory, his is a reasoned mysterianism.

When Reasoned Faith No Longer Strikes One as Reasonable: What Then?

Thomas Doubting inquires,

I’ve met and talked to a number of people who, while originally atheists, have found faith in God and become active Christians as result of their intellectual pursuit that led them to the conclusion that God is logically necessary.

There is an ambiguity regarding 'logically necessary' that needs to be removed. Suppose there is a sound deductive argument A for the existence of God. Necessarily, if the premises of A are all true, then A's conclusion — God exists — is true. That is not to be confused with: If the premises of A are all true, then A's conclusion — God exists — is necessarily true.

The necessitas consequentiae must not be confused with the necessitas consequentis. See my separate post on this topic. The premises of a sound argument logically necessitate its conclusion, but that does not imply that the conclusion is logically necessary.

So even if one succeeds in demonstrating the existence of God, one has not thereby demonstrated the existence of a necessary being. For one might have succeeded only in demonstrating the existence of a logically contingent being.

I will read you as saying that there are people who come to faith in God via deductive arguments that they consider to be sound, just that, without the additional idea that the God so demonstrated is a necessary being.

Other relevant sources of ambiguity: Are you thinking of persons whose faith is SOLELY based on argumentative considerations? Are the argumentative considerations demonstrative only, or are probabilistic considerations relevant?

I will assume an affirmative answer to both questions.

I've always wanted to know, but was a bit uncomfortable to ask, how well are they prepared to deal with a quite conceivable situation where they should accidentally discover that their investigation was logically flawed and from the rational point their conclusion is not valid and, therefore the their faith in God’s existence has no logical grounding.

In other words, if your intellect guided you on the road to God and in the years following the finding of God you developed strong faith in and love for God would you still cling to your faith if you had suddenly discovered that the reasoning that brought you to Him was defective?

Suppose someone comes to accept the existence of God on the basis of one or more arguments, but then discovers that those arguments are flawed. It would not follow from this that the person's reasoned faith has no logical grounding. For there could easily be other arguments that establish the existence of God.

So your question is better put as follows. "Suppose a person who became a theist solely on the basis of arguments comes to believe that there is no extant argument that demonstrates the existence of God. Would that person be justified in clinging to his faith in God?"

The question is interesting and important but also very complicated. I'll just make a couple of points.

Does the person also believe that there is no extant argument that demonstrates the non-existence of God? Suppose that is the case. Then the person has three beliefs: that God exists; that God's existence cannot be demonstrated; that God's non-existence cannot be demonstrated. Is he rationally justified in holding all three? The theoretically-rational course would be to suspend judgment on the question of God's existence by neither affirming that God exists nor denying that God exists.

But there is also prudential rationality to consider. If the arguments pro et contra cancel out, then God might or might not exist for all we know. Believing would then be the prudentially rational thing to do, and pragmatically useful to boot. This is because the question of the existence of God is not a merely theoretical question, but one that bears upon our ultimate happiness and well-being.

If, on the other hand, the person in question has come to believe that some argument demonstrates the non-existence of God, then to be rational he ought to reject belief in God. Or so it will seem to most.

But it is not that clear. Suppose one believes that there are no good arguments for the existence of God, but there are good arguments for the nonexistence of God, arguments from evil, say. Suppose the person is also skeptical about the power of reason to decide such a weighty, metaphysical question.

Would it not be prudentially rational for him to go on believing? After all, God might exist. And what would one lose by believing? What one would lose by believing would be as nothing as compared to what one might gain by believing and coming into right relation with God.

No Voice for Men in Abortion Debate? Do Arguments Have Testicles?

Michael in Russia writes,

Got a question for you. I am a pro-abortion man (or even more generally a pro-death man since I support capital punishment too). You strongly oppose the former. I'm not going to repeat all familiar pros and cons. Rather, I've got one peculiar premise which I have never met in discussion of the issue and which I take to be the first step in dealing with it—namely, I hold that we, men, should have no voice at all in this business. Since no man has ever known what it is (like to be a bat) to conceive, to bear, and to give birth, and it appears that no one is going to, I maintain that this issue must be decided on strictly by women whatever the outcome. It's utterly undemocratic, but I'm not a fan of egalitarian democracy. So, what do you think of this: no voice for men in abortion debate, that's strictly women's business?

Thank you for reading, Michael, and thank you for writing.

It warms my heart to hear that you are pro-death – – when it comes to capital punishment. You are probably aware of my arguments for the latter's moral justifiability in some cases and in some venues. (In a place where the justice system is unfair, I would be inclined to support a moratorium on the death penalty.) I also maintain, pace the late, great Nat Hentoff, that it is logically consistent to be for capital punishment and against abortion.

My view in one clean sentence: Abortion is morally prohibited in most cases while capital punishment is morally required in some cases.

Now on to your question: Ought men have a say in the abortion debate? Here is my short answer:

Arguments don't have testicles!

But that bumper sticker wants unpacking.

An argument for or against abortion is good or bad regardless of the sex of the person giving the argument. And similarly for race. One doesn't have to be black to have a well-founded opinion about the causes and effects of black-on-black crime. The point holds in general in all objective subject areas. For purposes of logical appraisal, arguments can and must be detached from their producers and consumers.

Here is an argument. "Infanticide is morally wrong; there is no morally relevant difference between infanticide and late-term abortion; therefore, abortion is morally wrong." The soundness/unsoundness of the argument cannot pivot on the sex of the producers or consumers of the argument.

Suppose someone argues that repeat-offending rapists should be be chemically or in some other way castrated by the state. Would the fact that men and men alone would bear the burden of the punishment be any reason to maintain that women have no right to a say in the matter? No.

It is also clear that one can be a competent gynecologist without being a woman, and a competent specialist in male urology without being a man. Only a fool would discount the advice of a female urologist on the treatment of erectile dysfunction on the ground that the good doctor is incapable of having an erection.

"You don't know what it's like, doc, you don't have a penis!"

What's it like to be a pregnant woman?

In objective matters like these, the 'what it's like' made famous by Thomas Nagel is not relevant. One needn't know what it's like to have morning sickness to be able to prescribe an effective palliative. I know what it is like to be a man 'from the inside,' but my literal (spatial) insides can be better known by certain women.

What's more, we white men can have a sort of knowledge by analogy of what women and cats and blacks feel. For example, men and women both urinate and defecate, and typically a certain pleasure accompanies these activities. I know by analogy what it is like for a woman to micturate and feel relief and a modicum of pleasure even though my modus micturiendi is somewhat different.

Defecation triggers orgasm in some women. I have never experienced that, but I can imagine it. Similarly with menstrual cramps, morning sickness, and other miseries of pregnancy. I am a sympathetic and sensitive guy as everyone knows. To be honest, I am a bit womanish in this regard, and I don't intend 'womanish' as a term of derogation.

I don't know what it is like to be a bat, and I will grant that bat qualia are beyond our ken even analogically; but I have some sense of what it is like to be a cat inasmuch as cats manifestly feel analogs of such human emotions as fear, surprise, annoyance, etc.

I have no idea, however, what my cat Max Black feels when he retromingently takes a leak.

Do I know what it is like to be black? Well, I know what it is like to disrespected. So I know what it is like to feel the hurt and the rage of a black motorist who is stopped by a cop merely for 'driving while black.'

But do I know what it is like to be a slave? About as well as contemporary blacks do in the West none of whom are or have ever been slaves.

"But you have never faced the prejudice blacks experience." Not that particular prejudice, but plenty of other kinds.

At this point tribalism enters the discussion. The more we tribalize, the more we shrink the space of objectivity, reason, and argument. The more we tribalize, the more we reduce ourselves to mere tokens of racial, ethnic, and other types. The more we do that, the more we miss the person, the free agent, the rational being.

There are blacks who would say to me, "You have no idea what it is like to be black!" I say, "Bullshit! You have incarcerated yourself in your tribal identity." Same with women who feel (that's exactly the right word) that abortion is a women's issue exclusively. Well, it is not. It is an objective issue that affects both males and females. Stop feeling and start thinking.

That should be obvious. Among those aborted are males and females. So abortion cannot be solely a concern of women.

So let us set our tribalism aside and approach the question as rational beings on the plane of reason and argument where no testicles are to be found.

The Constitution, Reason, and Abstract Principles

This entry continues the 'religious test' discussion. (Last installment here.) The Canadian writes,

I agree that there's no incoherence in a statement such as "(1) The Constitution guarantees freedom of religion and disallows religious tests. (2) The Constitution guarantees these things subject to the proviso that the religion in question is compatible with the principles of the American founding." But why is the most reasonable interpretation one that projects such a proviso on to the text? What are the criteria for a reasonable interpretation? On the one hand, a reasonable interpretation might be one that results in a constitution that reasonable people could accept. Naturally, if this is the criterion, no reasonable interpretation can produce a constitution that, in practice, would create a society where that same constitution would be destroyed. On the other hand, it might simply be one that's adequately supported by the textual evidence (and other evidence, e.g., reasonably hypotheses about the authors' intentions). Or maybe a reasonable interpretation is subject to both constraints. In any case there is a tension between the two. As you say, there's really no good textual evidence (or any other kind, as far as I know) to indicate that the Constitution really does implicitly limit the scope of religious freedom so as to preclude the freedom to practice traditional Islam, or that it limits the scope of 'No religious test' so as to allow for tests with respect to Islam. I'd argue that a reasonable interpretation in the second sense–the most reasonable one, in that sense–is unreasonable in the first sense.

"What are the criteria for a reasonable interpretation?" I agree that there is no evading this difficult question. One answer is that a reasonable interpretation is an internally coherent one. The First Amendment guarantees the "free exercise" of religion and "freedom of speech," inter alia. Now if "no religious test" (Article VI, section III) is interpreted in so latitudinarian a fashion as to allow Sharia-supporting Muslims to gain political power, then we are on the road to an internal contradiction. For these Muslims, once in power, will of course try to shut down the free exercise of religions other than Islam, and they will attempt to prohibit freedom of speech if it involves any criticism, no matter how respectful, of Muhammad or of any aspect of their religion. They will have used the Constitution to destroy the Constitution. They will have exploited our freedom of religion to eliminate freedom of religion, and our freedom of speech to eliminate freedom of speech.

It seems to me that the Constitution cannot be interpreted so as to allow the emergence of the following logical contradiction:

a) Under no circumstances shall (i) the freedom to practice the religion of one's choice (or to refrain from the practice of any religion) be prohibited by the government, or (ii) the freedom to express one's view publicly be abridged.

b) Under some circumstances (e.g., when enough Muslim fundamentalists gain power) the freedom of religion and the freedom of speech many be prohibited and abridged.

Note that the (a)-(b) dyad is logically inconsistent: the limbs cannot both be true. What we have here is a strict logical contradiction.

But to embrace a logical contradiction is the height of unreasonableness.

I conclude that to interpret the Constitution in such a way that it allows for the emergence of the above contradiction is unreasonable. The solution is obvious to me: one cannot allow a destructive political ideology such as Islam to count as a religion for purposes of Constitutional interpretation. I am conceding that Islam is a religion and not a mere political ideology masquerading as a religion, and I am conceding that it is a religion in its own right and not a Christian heresy; the point is that it is a religion-cum-political ideology that is incompatible with the principles and values of the American founding.

Therefore, Islam ought not count as a religion when it comes to interpreting the Constitution. It may well be a way to God for those brought up on it and who know no better way, and it deserves respect for that reason. But this is no reason to abstract from its totalitarian and theocratic political nature, a nature at war with our political principles.

The Canadian continues:

In any case, I think that for your argument you need the first notion of reasonable interpretation. But then there's a problem: Leftists, whose ideas about reasonable political principles are very different from ours, can now argue on a similar basis that we should just ignore the seemingly plain meaning of the Constitution in cases where it conflicts with their values. For instance, they can argue that since it's just not reasonable to let citizens buy AR-15s, the 2nd Amendment must be interpreted in such a way that citizens don't have that right. That seems worrisome. If there isn't even a generally agreed meaning for the constitution, the only way to politically resolve such disagreements is by some kind of debate over ultimate aims or values; but I know you agree with me that that isn't likely to happen either. So it seems wise to insist that the constitution's meaning is the meaning of the text, not the meaning that we think it would have or should have in order to be most reasonable. But then we're back to the problem that the text just doesn't seem to exclude Islamic freedom of religion, or to allow for a "religious test" in that case–or even to exclude the possibility that the Constitution is just internally inconsistent in some respects…

In many cases there is no "plain meaning." The meaning has to be 'excavated.' Does "establishment of religion" have a plain meaning in the First Amendment? (That's a rhetorical question.) "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion . . . ." The meaning is open to interpretation. Or take the Second Amendment:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Does 2A bear its meaning on its sleeve? Of course not. What is the Militia? Is the right individual or collective? Does the initial clause supply a reason, or the only reason, in justification of the right to keep and bear arms? I have argued elsewhere that it supplies a reason, not the only reason. I am sure many if not most would disagree.

So I deny the Canadian's assumption that the Constitution has a plain meaning that can just be 'read off' the text. There is no avoiding interpretation in the light of principles that are not themselves articulated in the Constitution. The Law of Non-Contradiction, for example, is not stated in the Constitution. We bring that principle to the text, and reasonably so.

Or consider the Principle of Charity in interpretation. To save keystrokes I won't formulate the principle. My astute readers know more or less what it is. Well, does "All men are created equal" in the Declaration have a plain meaning? There are benighted souls who think it implies the empirical equality of all human beings. But this violates the Principle of Charity since if the declaration in the Declaration were so interpreted it would come out false! The Charity principle, however, is not to be found in any of the founding documents; we bring it to the text and we do so reasonably.

There is no avoiding interpretation. The text does not have a plain meaning. The other extreme, however, is far worse. There are those who say that the Constitution means whatever SCOTUS says it means. But then there is no text; there is a tabula rasa upon which people in black robes write whatever they want. The most SCOTUS can do is decide upon an enforceable meaning among candidate possibilities that find support in the text. That alone is the reasonable view.

For example, are 2A rights collective or individual? It was decided that they are individual. SCOTUS in this decision came to the 'right' decision. Yes, my use of 'right' is tendentious. More on this problem below.

What I am saying, then, is that there is a text, not a tabula rasa; the text has a meaning; the meaning is not obvious; the meaning is subject to interpretation in the light of principles brought to the text.

But whose principles are these? Those of a reasonable person. But what constitutes reasonableness? Here is where the crunch comes, as my Canadian interlocutor fully appreciates. SCOTUS has the power to lay down the law and enforce an interpretation of the Constitution. But who has the power to decide what the principles of rationality are? Logically prior question: Are the principles of rationality matters of decision at all?

The Canadian concludes:

We might be back to a recurring deeper disagreement here. I don't think that any system of abstract principles and values is enough to provide a framework for a workable society. I think some kind of pre-rational or pre-conceptual horizon of meaning and practice and natural community is the basis; explicit principles and values have a role, but only when they're understood by everyone to operate within that specific cultural world. The principles of "no religious test" or "freedom of religion" were just fine when they were only being applied to a fairly small range of fairly similar religions, practiced by relatively similar people. (And, sure, there were always some who were not so similar–Africans, Amerindians–but they were small in number and had no real influence.) Once every religion on earth was included in American society, that was bound to create insoluble problems. Of course, one option is to simply say that there will be freedom of religion for a specific list of religions, and only those ones. But that seems contrary to other traditional American principles. I suspect that the very idea of "religion" that we in the west tend to take for granted is really an artefact of our specific religious and cultural heritage. There is probably no useful general account of "religion" across all human cultures. So it would be unwise to propose any kind of freedom for that kind of thing.

I agree that abstract principles and values are not enough. They have to reflect a (temporally) prior pre-conceptual shared understanding that is taken for granted. The principles and values cannot be imposed ab extra, but must be a sort of distillate or articulation on the conceptual plane of what is already tacitly understood and accepted at the pre-conceptual level. Otherwise we will argue about the principles.

Argument about first principles is the province of philosophy and is legitimate there. In philosophy, nothing is immune to scrutiny. I should think that 'nothing immune to scrutiny' is a constitutive rule of the philosophical 'game' or enterprise. But if our politics becomes a philosophical free-for-all, then we are in trouble.

There is no place for dogmas in philosophy. But in politics and religion we seem to need them. We need propositions that are unquestionably accepted.

For example, if we don't all accept that there is a sense in which we are all equal, equal as rights-possessors, then we are in deep trouble. And if we don't all accept that certain ideologies such as Islam are incompatible with the principles enshrined in the U. S. Constitution, then we are in deep trouble. Examples are easily multiplied.

I think we agree on why we are in the mess we are in. As you put it, "Once every religion on earth was included in American society, that was bound to create insoluble problems." But benign non-Christian religions such as Buddhism are not the problem. The problem is Islam. The solution is extreme vetting of immigrants from Muslim countries. "Of course, one option is to simply say that there will be freedom of religion for a specific list of religions, and only those ones. But that seems contrary to other traditional American principles."

I disagree. Which traditional American principle are you referring to? Don't tell me "freedom of religion." Islam is not a religion in a sense that could allow it to be on a list of acceptable religions given American principles.

Can a multi-cultural society flourish? There is reason to be skeptical. A society cannot flourish without shared principles and values. But the latter presuppose and grow out of a shared public culture. Acquiescence in and assimilation to that shared culture — Graeco-Roman and Judeo-Christian — must be demanded of all would-be immigrants. Otherwise we will break apart and become easy pickings for foreign aggressors.

I suspect it is already too late to turn things around peacefully. Civil war is a real possibility.

Incarnation, Resurrection, and Rational Acceptability

A while back I was talking with my young theological friend Steven about Christianity. I had remarked that its essence lies in the Incarnation. Without disagreeing with me, he offered the bodily resurrection of Christ as the essential pivot on which Christian belief and practice turns. This raises a number of questions. One is this: Can, or rather may, a scientifically-trained mind accept the literal truth of Christ's bodily resurrection? I don't think that there is an insurmountable problem here. But there may be an insurmountable problem when it comes to accepting the literal truth of the Incarnation. This entry, then, falls into two parts.

A. The Rational Acceptability of Christ's Resurrection

Ian Hutchinson, professor of nuclear science and engineering at MIT, writes:

We really believe in the bodily resurrection of the first century Jew known as Jesus of Nazareth. My Christian colleagues at MIT – and millions of other scientists worldwide – somehow think that a literal miracle like the resurrection of Jesus is possible. And we are following a long tradition. The founders of the scientific revolution and many of the greatest scientists of the intervening centuries were serious Christian believers. For Robert Boyle (of the ideal gas law, co-founder in 1660 of the Royal Society) the resurrection was a fact. For James Clerk Maxwell (whose Maxwell equations of 1862 govern electromagnetism) a deep philosophical analysis undergirded his belief in the resurrection. And for William Phillips (Nobel prize-winner in 1997 for methods to trap atoms with laser light) the resurrection is not discredited by science.

To explain how a scientist can be a Christian is actually quite simple. Science cannot and does not disprove the resurrection. Natural science describes the normal reproducible working of the world of nature. Indeed, the key meaning of “nature”, as Boyle emphasized, is “the normal course of events.” Miracles like the resurrection are inherently abnormal. It does not take modern science to tell us that humans don’t rise from the dead. People knew that perfectly well in the first century; just as they knew that the blind from birth don’t as adults regain their sight, or water doesn’t instantly turn into wine.

Maybe science has made the world seem more comprehensible – although in some respects it seems more wonderful and mysterious. Maybe superstition was more widespread in the first century than it is today – although the dreams of today’s sports fans and the widespread interest in the astrology pages sometimes make me wonder. Maybe people were more open then to the possibility of miracles than we are today. Still, the fact that the resurrection was impossible in the normal course of events was as obvious in the first century as it is for us. Indeed that is why it was seen as a great demonstration of God’s power.

To be sure, while science can’t logically rule miracles in or out of consideration, it can be a helpful tool for investigating contemporary miraculous claims. It may be able to reveal self-deception, trickery, or misperception. If someone has been seen levitating on a supposed flying carpet in their living room, then the discovery of powerful electromagnets in their basement might well render such claims implausible. But if science fails to find defeating evidence then it is unable to say one way or the other whether some reported inexplicable event happened, or to prove that it is miraculous. Science functions by reproducible experiments and observations. Miracles are, by definition, abnormal and non-reproducible, so they cannot be proved by science’s methods.

Today’s widespread materialist view that events contrary to the laws of science just can’t happen is a metaphysical doctrine, not a scientific fact. What’s more, the doctrine that the laws of nature are “inviolable” is not necessary for science to function. Science offers natural explanations of natural events. It has no power or need to assert that only natural events happen.

So if science is not able to adjudicate whether Jesus’ resurrection happened or not, are we completely unable to assess the plausibility of the claim? No. Contrary to increasingly popular opinion, science is not our only means for accessing truth. In the case of Jesus’ resurrection, we must consider the historical evidence, and the historical evidence for the resurrection is as good as for almost any event of ancient history. The extraordinary character of the event, and its significance, provide a unique context, and ancient history is necessarily hard to establish. But a bare presumption that science has shown the resurrection to be impossible is an intellectual cop-out. Science shows no such thing.

I agree with Hutchinson.

B. The Rational Acceptability of the Incarnation?

Please note that if a man was raised from the dead by the power of God, it does not follow that the man so raised was God. So if Jesus was raised bodily by the power of God it does not follow that Jesus was or is God. The orthodox Christian narrative, however, requires the doctrine of the Incarnation codified at Chalcedon according to which God, or rather the Second Person of the Trinity, became fully human, body and soul, in Jesus of Nazareth while remaining fully divine. Given the identity of the Second Person and the man Jesus, if a man was raised bodily from the dead by the power of God, and this man is God, then God raises himself.

This doctrine violates our ordinary canons of reasoning. It is, to put it bluntly, absurd in the logical sense of the term: logically contradictory. (Tertullian, Kierkegaard, and Shestov would agree.) Or so it seems to me and Dale Tuggy and many others. But others, equally sharp and serious and committed to the truth, think that if one makes the right distinctions the Incarnation doctrine can be shown not to be in violation of the ordinary canons. I think their fancy footwork avails nothing. Tuggy thinks the same.

Well, suppose Tuggy and I are right. Then it seems there are two ways to go, the Tuggy way and the way of mystery. Tuggy, if I undertand him, rejects the Trinity and the divinity of Jesus. Standing firm within what I call the Discursive Framework he argues cogently that the doctrines in question are logically impossible.

But there is this 'possibility.' There are true propositions that appear to our intellects as either logically self-contradictory or as issuing by valid inferences in logical contradictions. They are not contradictory in themselves, but they must appear contradictory to our fallen intellects here below. It is not just that these propositions are true, but we cannot understand how they could be true; it is that they seem to us as evidently not true. And yet they are true, and contradiction-free in themselves.

A similar sort of 'possibility' is invoked by materialist mysterians. If a non-eliminativist materialist tells me that a sensory quale is real but identical to a brain state I will say that that is logically impossible since the two items differ property-wise. (These items are in the same logical boat with the man Jesus and the Second Person of the Trinity: they cannot be numerically identical since they differ property-wise.) The materialist might just insist: quale and brain state are identical — it is just that we don't know enough about matter to understand how the identity could hold despite the discernibility. It's a mystery!

Are mysterian moves kosher ploys for showing rational acceptability?

I don't know. But I do know it is Saturday Night, time for a drink, and my oldies show.

On Relative Poverty and Status

I have a little disagreement going with the Dark Ostrich. He asserts, "Relative poverty is all about status." In an earlier entry, I quoted him as maintaining that

We are born with a natural inequality which soon turns into economic inequality. The reason it turns into economic inequality, I believe, is that humans have a natural desire for status.

I replied,

Yes, we are naturally unequal, both as individuals and as groups, and this inequality results in economic inequality. But I wouldn't explain this in terms of the desire for status. Status is relative social standing, and depends on how one appears in the eyes of others. But this is relatively unimportant and has little to do with money and property which are far more important. I can live very well indeed without name and fame, accolades and awards, high social position and the perquisites that come in its train. But I cannot live well without a modicum of material wealth.

It is not desire for status that [primarily] explains economic inequality but the desire for money and property and the sort of material security they provide.

I would guess that no one who reads this weblog is absolutely poor, i.e., bereft of life's necessities, and that every one who reads it is relatively poor, and significantly so. What do I mean by 'significantly so'? Suppose A has a net worth of four billion USD and B a net worth of 3.9 billion. Then B is poor relative to A. I will call this insignificant relative poverty. But the Ostrich and I, though we have far more than we need, are significantly relatively poor as compared to, say, the late Fidel Castro, that man of the people and hero of the Left.

The Ostrich tells us that relative property is all about status. I take that to mean that it is the drive for social status alone that brings about economic inequality and with it relative poverty. That is empirically false. I am the counterexample: I live wisely and frugally and my net worth keeps going up. But I don't care about status, which is relatively unreal, being mainly a matter of what's going on in the heads of others. I carefully husband my resources because I want to be in a position to take care of myself and others when the inevitable disasters occur and not be a burden on others. What others think of me, though of some importance, is of less importance to me than my material well-being.

But let's be charitable. Perhaps what the Ostrich means to say is that it is the lust for status that mainly brings about economic inequality and relative poverty. I concede that that might be so. It is an empirical question and cannot be answered from the arm chair.

But there are a couple of normative questions in the vicinity and these are what really interest me. One is whether it is morally permissible to pursue loot and lucre, property and pelf, for social standing. The other is whether it is rational to pursue these things for social standing. I will leave the moral question for some other time.

As for rationality, it can be understood in two different ways.

An agent is instrumentally rational if he chooses means conducive to the achievement of his ends. A rational agent in Phoenix who intends to travel to Los Angeles by car in eight hours or less will head West on Interstate 10. If he were to head East he would show himself to be irrational, at least in respect of this particular goal or type of goal. This says nothing about the rationality or irrationality of driving to Los Angeles. Indeed, there are those who will say that it makes no sense to speak of ends as either rational or irrational, that such talk is meaningful only in respect of means.

On a second way of thinking about rationality, one can coherently speak of ends themselves as rational or the opposite. Consider social status and material security. Which is a higher value? Which is more choice-worthy? Which would it be more rational for a being of our constitution to pursue? To me the answer is obvious. Material security, which includes wealth well beyond what one needs physically to survive, is a higher value that social status. Modifying slightly what I said above,

I can live very well indeed without name and fame, accolades and awards, high social position and the perquisites that come in its train. But I cannot live well without material wealth in excess of what is needed for necessities.

Given how benighted human beings are, it may well be instrumentally rational to pursue wealth for the sake of status. That's an empirical question. But no reasonable person prefers status to wealth, just as no reasonable person prefers transient sense pleasures to long-term physical health.

So the Ostrich and I may be at cross-purposes. I am making normative claims while he remains at the level of the merely factual.

Now suppose someone asserts that the good is whatever satisfies desire, and that there is no way of ranking desires as objectively higher or lower, and their objects as more or less choice-worthy. Could I refute such a person? I don't think so. Contradict yes, refute no. For it all comes down to whether one has correct value intuitions. Some of us do and some of us don't. Just as some of us are color-blind, some of us are value-blind, wertblind in the terminology of Dietrich von Hildebrand. While color blindness is a defect in the eye of the head, value blindness is a defect in the 'eye' of the soul.

Faith, Reason, and Steven Pinker

John Gray's review of Pinker's latest book starts like this:

"Opposing reason is, by definition, unreasonable.” Steven Pinker is fond of definitions. Early on in this monumental apologia for a currently fashionable version of Enlightenment thinking, he writes: “To take something on faith means to believe it without good reason, so by definition a faith in the existence of supernatural entities clashes with reason.”

Why are scientists so silly when they stray from their specialties?

Let's think about the second quotation. The first independent clause is plainly false. Suppose my belief that Jones shot Smith is based solely on the testimony of a number of reliable witnesses all of whom agree. My belief is reasonable despite its being based on faith in the veracity of the witnesses.

Most of us have a justified true belief about our birth dates. How did we acquire these beliefs? Did we glance at a calendar as we emerged from the birth canal? No. I reasonably believe that I was born on such and such a date because I remember my mother telling me so, a telling never contradicted by anyone, and because I have an official-looking birth certificate in my possession. My belief is reasonable despite being based on the testimony of others.

There are reliable authorities in all fields. What I believe on the basis of their testimony and what they have recorded in books I believe reasonably.

I could go on, but this is boring, so enough. Pinker has done very good work, but when he tries to play the philosopher he makes a fool of himself. Another example: Pinker on Scientism.

Gray's review here.