27 Responses to “Plantinga on the Irrationality of Belief in (the conjunction of) Naturalism and Evolution”

1. 1 Chris May 14th, 2008 at 1:17 pm

   Interesting argument laid out here. My worry is that the naturalist will argue that the theist’s conception of truth is flawed in that it assumes that truth is something added to our perception other than the actual perception itself. A naturalist might argue that truth is simply that which we (as evolved creatures) come to believe is true via our evolutionarily determined nervous systems.

   I’m not sure that is a step all naturalists will want to take since it into a more relative epistemology. However I suspect some naturalists would be willing to make the leap. After all, only species with different physiologies would actually have different truths and we have ye’t to find any we can communicate with anyways.

2. 2 Matthew S May 14th, 2008 at 7:28 pm

   I’m trying to figure out some things.

   Does this argument hold if the naturalist isn’t a foundationalist?

   And if he is, is it appropriate to apply probabilistic reasoning to foundational beliefs?

   Given that our very concept of truth develops through its utility (on the N&E perspective), shouldn’t a defeater for the belief in N&E need to be functional? In other words, doesn’t showing that belief in N&E is self-defeating require showing that believing it somehow leads to extinction?

   Without a doubt, one of the appealing things about modern naturalism is that natural sciences (by virtue of excluding non-material causes) have proven to be so very beneficial for better living. The counterpart (and very dubious) claim is that non-naturalistic beliefs can be pretty deadly. It seems as though some sort of functionalistic notion of truth is already at work in naturalistic reasoning. I don’t see any reason they ought to shy away from it, and I don’t see how a naturalist who admitted these motivations would still be susceptible to Plantinga’s argument.

3. 3 Cynthia R. Nielsen May 14th, 2008 at 8:38 pm

   Hi Matt,

   Thanks for dropping by. Let me ask a few clarifying questions to make sure that I understand your concerns.

   (1) Why do you think that the argument might possibly only apply to a naturalist who is a foundationalist, and what kind of foundationalist/-ism do you have in mind? (after all, isn’t there a sense in which pre-moderns might also be considered foundationalists of a sort?)
   (2) Why would it be inappropriate to apply probability ratios to a foundationalist based model?
   (3) With your first major paragraph are you saying that given the N&E focus on promoting the organism’s survival, what difference does it make whether some belief is true or not so long as it promotes survival?

   Keep in mind that Plantinga is not claiming to show the falshood of belief in N&E but only the irrationality of such a belief.

   I’ll wait to hear from you before I comment further.

   Best wishes,
   Cynthia

4. 4 Peter Spotswood Dillard May 15th, 2008 at 10:45 am

   Hi Cynthia,

   Although I haven’t studied all the details of Plantinga’s argument, there seems to be a fundamental problem with it. The nerve of the argument is that there is no reason to think that beliefs selected for survival (adaptability, fitness) will for the most part be true, and hence no reason to think that the physical mechanisms the naturalist takes to generate such beliefs will be reliable. This assumes that survival has nothing to do with having true beliefs. Yet certainly that’s wrong.

   Imagine organisms like us who tend to have mostly false beliefs about ordinary facts connected with Churchland’s four “f’s.” For example, such organisms routinely falsely believe that a tiger isn’t about to pounce on them, or that the liquid in the container over there clearly marked “Cynanide!” isn’t really poisonous when they’re thirsty, or that a tornado really isn’t bearing down on them, or that a Mack truck isn’t speeding toward them when they cross the street, etc. Would such organisms survive very long? Nope. That strongly suggests that there is no such thing as survival/fitness/adaptabilty for higher organisms unless they possess cognitive capacities which are for the most part are reliable about what’s going on in the surrounding environment. But then beliefs about the environment generated by those mechanisms will be largely true.

   I am no materialist. Yet instead of trying to discern an alleged inconsistency in the beliefs of materialists who are also evolutionists, I would prefer a direct proof to the effect that at least some of our higher mental capacitities, such as the power of making judgments, are immaterial. Better to break down the front door with a battering ram than to sneak around and attempt to pick the lock on the back door with a wet noodle.

   Best to you,

   Peter

5. 5 Cynthia R. Nielsen May 15th, 2008 at 12:43 pm

   Hi Peter,

   Thanks for your comment. Perhaps looking at some of the details of Plantinga’s argument might address what you say in your comment—at least in terms of counterexamples.

   For though materialists holding N&E, beliefs and behavior are “caused by” neuro-physiological processes. Neuro-physiological processes are themselves adaptive and causes adaptive behavior that promotes survival (beliefs are produces as well). So long as the adaptive behavior that is produces promotes fitness/survival, why does it matter (for the materialist holding N&E) whether the beliefs produces are true or not? Plantinga gives an example of a hominid who needs to produce some tiger avoidance behavior. Perhaps our hominid [quoting Plantinga] “likes the idea of being eaten, but when he sees a tiger he always runs off looking for a better prospect because he thinks it unlikely that the tiger he sees will eat him. This will get his body parts in the right place as far as his body parts are concerned without involving much by way of true belief.” Tons of similar examples could be given depending on a person’s creativity. The point however is that survival is promoted but not as the result of true beliefs.

   Plantinga looks at some of the common models held by materialists holding N&E—the focus being on what is the relationship b/w behavior and belief. The epiphenomenalist position (as put forward by T.H. Huxley) suggests that beliefs do not cause behavior. As Plantinga explains, according to this position, “beliefs would be invisible to evolution. And hence, the fact that they arose during the evolutionary history of these beings would confer no probability at all on the idea that the beliefs are mostly true or mostly nearly true rather than being wildly false. Indeed, the probability of their being mostly true would have to be estimated at being fairly low. The probability that a randomly chosen set of propositions would contain vastly more true than false beliefs is low. So it could be that one of these creatures believes that he is at that elegant Oxford college dinner when in fact he is slogging his way through some primeval swamp. Point: on the account of epiphenomenalism, the P/(R/N&E) would be low.”

   Plantinga also addresses semantic epiphenomenalism where the idea is that perhaps beliefs do cause behavior. On this model beliefs have neuro-physiological properties and semantic properties (e.g., the property of being the belief that p for some proposition p). So here as Plantinga explains, “beliefs perhaps cause behavior but only by virtue of their neuro-physiological properties not by virtue of their content (semantic properties). Another way to put this then is to say that even if their content were totally different and the neuro-physiological properties were the same, you would get the very same result—the very same causal result with respect to behavior” […]. Then he adds, “So what semantic epiphenomenalism means is that semantic properties, such as the content of the belief don’t have any bearing on whatever causal role it plays in the generation of behavior. There too, if you think about it, you can see that natural selection by modifying the beliefs in the direction of greater adaptivity would only be modifying the neuro-physiological properties not the semantic properties—the semantic properties would be “invisible” to natural selection.”

   Lastly, Plantinga engages the view held by materialists holding N&E that beliefs cause behavior and are adaptive both by way of content and by way of neuro-physiology (which I take to be the position that you were suggesting to a certain degree—not your position but the model that you had in mind). Here Plantinga says, “So what’s the probability of R on N&E together with this fourth possibility? It is not as high as you might think. Beliefs don’t cause or produce behavior just by themselves. Rather, it’s belief, desires and other factors that do so together. Then the problem is clearly that there will be any number of different patterns of belief and desire that would issue in the same action. Among those patterns of belief and desire, there will be some in which the beliefs are wildly false.” Here you can insert the hominid/tiger example and as many others as you can think of. Here the P(R/N&E) ends up being something like .5. As I mentioned in the post, on the first two possibilities (epiphenomenalism ) and (SE), P(R/N&E) is low and on the last the P(R/N&E) is .5 or perhaps somewhat better. If you put these all together, the P(R/N&E) will be fairly low, certainly below half.

   So on all the options discussed by Plantinga, the P(R/N&E) is low. Plantinga then argues that if we accept N&E, then we have a defeater for R [=reliability of our cognitive faculties]. Thus, anyone who believes N&E has a defeater for R. The rest is just a kind of repeat of the post.

   I’m not a materialist either (nor an expert on Plantinga) and also think that a good path to go is to show the reductionism involved in most materialist positions (Robert Sokolowski had done a great job in this direction in his phenomenology). I do, however, think that Plantinga’s insights are worth pursuing and building on.

   Best wishes,
   Cynthia

6. 6 Peter Spotswood Dillard May 15th, 2008 at 1:55 pm

   Cynthia,

   The tiger/hominid case brings out Plantinga’s attack against N&E better. Thanks! So the point of this and related cases is to show how some false beliefs are compatible with survival. In the tiger/hominid case, the false beliefs are not like “There’s no dangerous tiger over there” but like “That tiger over there won’t eat me” which, combined with the subject’s desire to be eaten, motivates him/her to go off in search of a better tiger, and thus to survive.

   My concern is that this depicts holistic attributions of beliefs, desires, and other psychological states with semantic content as totally independent of consideratons about survival/adaptability/fitness. I doubt that evolutionary psychologists would concede this. Sure, we can cook up all kinds of wild belief attributions to higher organisms and then project them onto biological reality. But if we start with biological reality as a touchstone of content attribution (in your schema, the position according to which psychological states are adaptive both by content and by neurophysiology), then our options are considerably limited. Given that organisms have a natural instinct for survival as self-preservation, how plausible is that they will have deeply entrenched desires to be eaten, and hence wildly false beliefs that nearby tigers won’t eat them which will then motivate them to run off in search of a suitable tiger? In short, I wonder whether basic instincts for survival, species propagation, and so forth serve the evolutionary psychologist as a sort of constraint on content ascriptions, in the way that Quine’s notion of stimulus meaning serves as a constraint on radical translation. E.g., given the stimulus meaning associated with “Gavagai!” uttered by natives when queried in the presence of a rabbit, “There’s a rabbit!”, “There’s an undetached rabbit part!”, and “There’s a temporal slice of a rabbit!” are also possible translations, all true sentences. “There’s no rabbit!”, which is false, is not compatible with the stimulus meaning. Similarly, for the evolutionary psychologist, fundamental survival instincts fix fundamental desires (the evolutionary version of “The will is prior to the intellect”), which in turn structure ascriptions of (mostly true) belief about the environment.

   I’m not an evolutionary psychologist, of course. Just thinking out loud. And just giving the devil his due. Your summary of Plantinga is very helpful and thought-provoking.
   Thanks again.

   Peter

7. 7 Cynthia R. Nielsen May 15th, 2008 at 3:01 pm

   Hi Peter,

   Thanks for interacting–this is a good conversation. Hopefully some others who have a good working knowledge of Plantinga and this topic will chime in as well.

   Best wishes,
   Cynthia

8. 8 Peter Spotswood Dillard May 15th, 2008 at 5:56 pm

   Hi Cynthia,

   Yes, it’s a good conversation to have!

   I think the point I’m trying to make begins by acknowledging that all parties to the debate agree that biological organisms have a natural instinct for survival. But then, for example, when a hungry cat pounces on a mouse and eats it, the probability that the cat wants to eat the mouse to stay alive is extremely high, if not close to 1. Of course, it is logically possible that the cat with its natural survival instinct actually wants to die and believes eating the mouse will kill it because the mouse is poisonous, and when it fails to die the cat keeps eating mice in the hopes that one will eventually finish it off. Nevertheless, given a powerful natural instinct for survival, and assuming that higher organisms are capable of psychological states with semantic content, the probability of the cat’s having the latter desire is next to nil. And if the cat has the former desire, then its beliefs about its immediate environment will need to be largely true in order to satisfy it. In other words, I suspect that the highly probable natural desire ascribed to the cat raises
   P/(R&NE) for the cat’s bekiefs significantly above Platinga’s fairly low (<.5) estimate.

   Best,

   Peter

9. 9 Peter Spotswood Dillard May 15th, 2008 at 6:00 pm

   PS:

   Oops! In my last sentence that should have been “P(R/N&E)” and “beliefs,” not “bekiefs.”. Sorry!

   Peter

10. 10 Cynthia R. Nielsen May 16th, 2008 at 8:13 am

    Apparently, Troy Nunley wrote his dissertation on this topic (under Dr. Jonathan Kvanvig). Nunley defends Plantinga’s argument against current attacks. The abstract can be found here:
    http://edt.missouri.edu/Winter2005/Dissertation/NunleyT-060605-D1612/short.pdf.
    The actual dissertation can be found here:
    http://edt.missouri.edu/Winter2005/Dissertation/NunleyT-060605-D1612/research.pdf.

11. 11 Peter Spotswood Dillard May 16th, 2008 at 10:45 am

    Cynthia has done us a great service by posting the link to Nunley’s dissertation. I skimmed over parts of it and found some interesting material that may facilitate further discussion and/or reflection.

    My suggestion was that it is highly probable for organisms with a natural instinct for survival to have normal desires connected with their instinct (e.g., “I don’t want to be eaten!”), but that it is not very probable for such organisms to have odd desires like the one Plantinga describes in his tiger/hominid case (viz., “I want to be eaten.”) I then argued that, given normal as opposed to odd desires, the organism will need to have largely true beliefs about its immediate environment, and hence that
    P(R/N&E) is fairly high (>.5).

    Consider the following objection to my proposal that Nunley develops on pp.128-137 of his dissertation. Returning to the tiger/hominid case, suppose the hominid has the normal desire not to be eaten. Following Plantinga, Nunley replies that the hominid might nevertheless have false beliefs which are compatible with his/her desire, yet which facilitate his/her survival. An example Plantinga gives is a belief involving a definite description that does not correctly apply to the menacing object in the hominid’s immediate vicinity: e.g., “The witch who just turned into that tiger over there is trying to eat me!” Why, Nunley and Plantinga ask, should we have any reason to expect natural selection of cognitive mechanisms generating true beliefs rather than false beliefs, when survival can be promoted just as well with normal desires combined with false beliefs including improper definite descriptions?

    One might grant the logical possibilty of false beliefs involving improper definite descriptions but argue that it is still much more probable for the subject to have less complicated true beliefs. I shall not pursue this option now because it requires a better understanding of how probabilities should be assigned in these and related cases. (See Nunley’s discussion of Alston’s objection for material that may be pertinent to this issue.)

    Instead, I wonder whether the evolutionary psychologist might insist that even in the case where the hominid believes that the witch who just turned into a tiger over there is trying to eat me, nevetheless there is a sense in which the hominid believes something true, and thus in which his/her cognitive mechanisms are functioning reliably.

    Here I am reminded of Keith Donnellan’s influential distinction between semantic reference and speaker’s reference. Donnellan gives the example of a person at a party who says that the man in the corner drinking champagne is tall, when in fact the man is drinking sparkling water instead of champagne (though he is in fact tall). Strictly speaking, the sentence used to ascribe a belief to the speaker is false because it contains an improper definite description. Yet clearly there is some sense in which the speaker says/believes something true about the man in the corner–namely, that he is tall. Donnellan takes this to be an instance of the distinction between the semantic reference of the definite description in the sentence the speaker utters and the speaker’s own reference.

    The evolutionary psychologist might ask Nunley and Plantinga: in the witch case, why should we ascribe beliefs to the hominid on the basis of semantic reference as opposed to the speaker’s (the behaver’s) reference? After all, there is a perfectly good sense in which the hominid in this case believes something true and crucial to his/her survival–namely, that something over there that can eat him is after him. Perhaps all Plantinga’s argument shows is that P(R/N&E&Sem) is fairly low, where Sem=having beliefs the contents of which are specified in accordance with semantic reference. It does not show that P(R/N&E&Sp) is fairly low, where Sp=having beliefs the contents of which are specified in accordance with speaker’s/behaver’s reference.

    If Plantinga and Nunley complain that this still leaves open the probability of surviving with a number of false beliefs (such as that witches routinely turn into tigers), it might be replied that it is no part of any sensible reliabilism–theistic, naturalistic and evolutionary, or otherwise–that survival requires cognitive mechanisms which generate beliefs ALL or even MOST of which are true. Even theists must acknowledge that the cognitive mechanisms with which God endowed us have led many people to have egregiously false beliefs, such as that there is no God, that we are nothing but material beings, that acquiring wealth is the supreme good, etc. I think the evolutionary psychologist would argue only for reliable cognitive mechanisms about basic facts connected with Churchland’s four Fs, not about farflung theoretical or religious beliefs. The truth is that our cognitive mechanisms are not very reliable when it comes to the hard stuff. Just ask any philosopher how many other philosophers she thinks have got it right!

    I encourage others to consult Nunley’s work with regard to these issues. The sections are helpful in directing the reader various lines of objection and reply. Thanks again, Cynthia, for the reference!

    Best,

    Peter

12. 12 Cynthia R. Nielsen May 16th, 2008 at 11:29 am

    Thanks, Peter, for posting this summary! I think that Plantinga would readily acknowledge that both Christians and non-Christians also have a number of false beliefs, but there is no reason to think, given the truth of Christianity, that the error or mis-function lies with the cognitive capacities etc. endowed by God, but rather have to do with both sin, ignorance, miscalculations on the part of humans, and perhaps also involve trying to over-step our finitude.

    See Plantinga’s discussion of error , false beliefs, and sin in his Warranted Christian Belief. You might find particularly relevant his section on the Aquinas/Calvin model and the “sensus divinitatis”.

    Best wishes,
    Cynthia

13. 13 Peter Spotswood Dillard May 16th, 2008 at 3:14 pm

    Hi Cynthia,

    As a Christian, I wholeheartedly agree that any errors we make are not because God endowed us with inherently flawed cognitive capacities but because we misuse them.

    Best to you,

    Peter

14. 14 Cynthia R. Nielsen May 16th, 2008 at 3:40 pm

    Hi Peter,

    I thought so!

    Best wishes as well, and thanks for participating in this conversation.

    Cynthia

15. 15 Matthew S May 17th, 2008 at 10:22 pm

    Cynthia,

    ¶0
    I hope I can be forgiven for answering your questions a little obliquely. And the length of my post. Most of this post is supposed to be a partial response to your third question: “what difference does it make whether some belief is true or not so long as it promotes survival?” In ¶¶2-8, I’m suggesting something similar to Peter’s suggestion that the truth of beliefs and survival concerns are not independent of each other, but I’m trying to say that it is survival concerns that give meaning to truth itself (rather than the other way around). In ¶9, I believe I’m restating (with some correction) my earlier question: “doesn’t showing that belief in N&E is self-defeating require showing that believing it somehow leads to extinction?” In ¶¶5-9, I have in mind a foundationalistic system in which naturalism is taken as basic (so trying to answer your second question). In ¶¶10-12, I’m trying to address your first question but I’m basically lost on the way that Plantinga’s argument would operate here.

    “Keep in mind that Plantinga is not claiming to show the falshood of belief in N&E but only the irrationality of such a belief.”

    ¶1
    By “irrational” I take it that he wishes to demonstrate that it violates a certain logic that it needs to embrace. That is, it seems he is attempting to show that we would be unjustified in believing N&E because it is irrational.

    ¶2
    Here’s another way of framing my objection way up above. The naturalist with some leisure time could ask himself questions like, “what is going on when I think of something as true?” and “what is going on when I think about probabilities?” The answers must include the fact that these thoughts are really activities of the brain, which has evolved for the purpose of aiding in the continuation of the species.

    ¶3
    Now, this does not mean that a true proposition is identical with a proposition that aids in the continuation of the species. It only means that the notion of truth has its reality in this evolutionary function. What I consider “true” depends on which norms I apply (scientific evidence, faith in authority, coherence and consistency, etc). Thus, a proposition such as “Caesar crossed the Rubicon,” may be said to be true or false depending on these norms, but the range of possible norms only arrives through an evolutionary process. Even if believing that Caesar crossed the Rubicon does not aid in my survival, believing certain people about the events of the past does. If you ask what secures the norm of believing these people, you find a more basic norm, and you can keep doing this until you get to the most basic norms. The fact that those basic norms are inseparable from survivability tells us not that they have nothing to do with the truth but that truth itself has always fundamentally had something to do with survival. (Likewise, if you look closely at a red ball & discover that its color is a consequence of the interaction of light with the matter of the ball, you do not conclude that the ball isn’t really red.)

    ¶4
    Truth itself is not more basic than naturalism. This is so because
    (1) what I mean by truth is not distinguishable from what truth is. I cannot think “truth” prior to the thought of truth, and
    (2) in a naturalistic ontology, thoughts are not basic at all. Thoughts emerge out of the dynamics of nature.

    If naturalism is taken as foundational

    ¶5
    Naturalism stands in the background of every proposition, and I can also make propositions about naturalism. The proposition “naturalism is true” is akin to the proposition “if P, then P is true.” “Naturalism is true,” is a practical proposition necessary to give coherence to the naturalistic position. Its probability is not calculated. It is assigned.

    ¶6
    Saying “Naturalism is true,” is analogous to what a Christian does when he says, “God is good.” A Christian cannot judge God’s goodness, since God has priority over any conceivable normative principle of goodness. But it is nevertheless proper to say that “God is good,” because this is necessary to give coherence to a Christian metaphysics. Treating the proposition that “God is good,” like the proposition that “honesty is good” (ie, as two members of the same class), is what makes the argument from evil seem to disprove the existence of God. Likewise, for the naturalist, it is not possible to “test” naturalism, but this hardly means that the entire naturalistic system is irrational. It is only irrational if we let the Christian define rationality as a kind of supernatural quality rather than something which only comes into being after millions of years of evolution.

    ¶7
    Less basic propositions only have meaning to the extent that they refer back to the naturalistic ontology. This is the reason that a naturalist can say with such disdain that some proposition (say, that God exists) “isn’t even false.”

    ¶8
    The relationship between naturalism and truth is, as I said above, that truth (inseparable from the thought “truth”) emerges out of evolutionary processes, which themselves follow the rule: “don’t kill me off before I reproduce.” Now, saying that naturalism is true may be incoherent if believing in naturalism interrupts the relationship between naturalism & truth, by preventing the truth from emerging out of natural processes. (Likewise, Christianity would be incoherent if proclaiming the goodness of God prevented the possibility of created goodness.) But Plantinga has plainly not shown this. What he has shown, it seems to me, is the fact that N&E is not self-evident.

    ¶9
    I’m not sure what could show that such an interruption takes place. I suppose that if my believing in naturalism inevitably led to my walking in front of a bus, that would be a case in which the normative truth principles subverted their purpose. The truth principles would, so to speak, follow the letter of the law (the internal logic of naturalism) but break the spirit (the promotion of species survival). Whether the same would hold if my believing naturalism were simply counter-productive to survival I do not know.

    If naturalism is taken as part of a larger coherent set of beliefs
    ¶10
    If the naturalist is not content simply to proclaim naturalism as true and leave it at that, he may want to appeal to something else. He will not be able to demonstrate with scientific experiments the truth of naturalism, but he may be able to take the relationship between naturalism and truth as a guide. In the same way that Christians point to saints as a cloud of witnesses for Christianity, the naturalist could point to the scientific developments as witnesses for the correctness of naturalism. Arguments that follow the form, “You shall know it by its fruits,” tend to be more difficult to systematize than other types of arguments, but no one in reality operates without them &, for this reason, they ought not be called irrational (by virtue of their appeal to “fruits.” They can be called irrational for other reasons).

    ¶11
    If an individual needs to arbitrate between being a Christian and being a naturalist, I don’t believe he will be able to do so purely on the grounds of internal logical consistency (so long as we admit certain propositions as axiomatic in each system). He ultimately has to appeal to whether he can accept the consequences of these systems.

    ¶12
    But at this level of discussion (which necessarily requires two non-integrated perspectives — in this case, naturalism and Christianity), I’m not sure at all what to do with Plantinga’s argument. My problem is that I can’t tell what terms are common to both naturalism and Christianity. “Truth” in Christianity refers to something different from “truth” in naturalism, so how does one identify a defeater? Is a defeater only that which both systems would call a defeater? My instinct is that, here, a defeater is less of a rule than a feeling of being scandalized.

    Regards,
    Matthew

16. 16 Cynthia R. Nielsen May 18th, 2008 at 1:00 pm

    Hi Matt,

    I would suggest that you check out the section of Nunley’s dissertation entitled, “Presumptions with Respect to the Nature of Truth.” In that section Nunley rebuts arguments against the idea that Plantinga is operating with assumptions about truth that the naturalist would reject. Rather, for Plantinga’s argument to work, all he has to assume about true beliefs is that they as respresentational states, correctly depict the world. As Nunley states, this involves no more controversial an assumption than what most naturalists would accept with the T-schema as a criteria for truth—the belief that snow is white is true is a true belief if and only if snow is white.

    I get the feeling, however, that your main objection to and concern with Plantinga’s argument is that you think that it is not possible for a Christian to argue with a naturalist or that it is futile or wrong-headed to do so because the paradigms and ultimate starting points are incommensurable and thus terms like “truth” etc. become equivocal. I can understand those concerns, but clearly they are not shared by Plantinga, as he would allow for the idea of some common ground (as would Thomists, Scotists, and many others in the Western Christian tradition) between competing “metanarratives.” I share some of your concerns, but more and more I lean toward the traditional Catholic approach as presented in Denys Turner’s arguments in Faith, Reason and the Existence of God. Though I don’t agree with Turner’s take on Scotus, I do find his critique of Milbank’s strategy of “outnarration” and his reading of Thomas’ five ways to be compelling (if you are interested in one example, see this post: http://percaritatem.com/2008/01/27/turner-on-the-platonicaristotelian-principle-operative-in-milbanks-reading-of-st-thomas/). Also, I have transcribed a lecture (“Faith, Reason, and the Eucharist,” by Turner that deals with the issue of rational (not rational-istic) proofs in Thomas Aquinas and Thomas’ understanding of reason and common ground: http://percaritatem.com/2007/11/01/part-i-denys-turner-faith-reason-and-the-eucharist/ –this was the lecture that definitely pushed me from the out-narration position toward the more traditional Catholic view.

    Best wishes,
    Cynthia

17. 17 Matthew S May 18th, 2008 at 8:17 pm

    Thank you, Cynthia. I read the § from the Dr Nunley’s dissertation & it definitely addresses some of the concerns I have. I’ll need to look at it again, though.

    I appreciate your raising the question of whether I think that ultimate starting points are incommensurable, etc. I’ve never really articulated my position on this & there’s a danger that it might be a point where I’m inconsistent. I’ll look into it.

    Thanks,
    Matthew

18. 18 Cynthia R. Nielsen May 18th, 2008 at 9:35 pm

    Hi Matt,

    I appreciate your perspective and certainly do not think that the objections that you raised are not important. As I said, I share similar concerns and more or less held a similar position for some time (that I outlined as possibly being your position). At this time, I am leaning more and more toward what I referred to as the position outlined by Turner, but I still think that questions that Milbank and company raise (as well as the Reformed tradition) are important and need to be taken seriously. As far as being inconsistent–join the crowd–aren’t we all: ). I’m sure that if you read posts from me a year ago, you might wonder if the same person who is writing now was writing then.

    Best wishes,
    Cynthia

19. 19 Apolonio May 19th, 2008 at 5:53 pm

    Cynthia,

    You might want to check out James Beilby’s book Naturalism Defeated? It has many responses from many philosophers and Plantinga responds to them.

    My main problem with the argument is that although P (R/N&E) is low, it does not necessarily defeat R. Suppose you have X amount of possible worlds. Given N&E, R is low. In W1, it may be that R is false. In W2, it may be that R is false. But it may be that in W321, R is reliable. It doesn’t mean that R is low given N&E. It just means that there is a world where R may still be true. Or suppose that S’s cognitive faculties are unreliable. But module C produced virtuously R. S can still hold S because of module C.

    Now, Plantinga believes, as Nunely said, that N&E defeating R is not so obvious (I’m taking Nunely’s word for this). If that is so, that it is not obvious to S that N&E defeats R even though it is low, then S is still rational for believing R. If we should believe what seems to us, then S should continue believing R and it is epistemically appropriate for him to do so. Suppose that S, given 10 instances, believes that crows are black (H). It may be that H/E is high, but it does not mean that H is true or that E defeats ~H. It may be that for T, 30 instances would make him believe H. I don’t see T being irrational for not holding H given E10. It’s rational for S, yes. But not irrational for T. T may even say that H/E10 may be high. But if it is not obvious or seems to her that H given E10, then I don’t see why he has to believe H. (I got this example from Gideon Rosen) This argument works for the internalist though. If you’re externalist, you may not be persuaded. But the jury is still out on externalism/internalism.

    Finally, it could simply be that there is a non-propositional evidence for R. So although N&E makes R low, N&E plus non-propositional e can make it high enough.

20. 20 Cynthia R. Nielsen May 20th, 2008 at 7:43 am

    Apolonio,

    Good point about the internalist/externalist distinction. What would be an example of non-propositional evidence in this case–i.e., non-propositional evidence that would be acceptable for a materialist/naturalist?

    I do have the book you mentioned (Naturalism Defeated? ed. by Beilby), but haven’t read all of it.

    Thanks for your comment,
    Cynthia

21. 21 Apolonio May 20th, 2008 at 2:11 pm

    Cynthia,

    As I think of it now, it seems to me that Plantinga’s argument against naturalism would be a good argument against naturalistic externalism and even an argument for naturalistic internalism.

    As for the non-propositional evidence, I think a Reidian response would be good. R is just another example of a properly basic belief. So a person can have so many evidences against R, but the basicality of R is so strong that it just defeats all the other evidences. For example, a husband just knows when his wife is angry. A person can make up arguments against this, but he just knows. Same with R.

22. 22 Cynthia R. Nielsen May 20th, 2008 at 5:00 pm

    Apolonio,

    The non-propositional example is clear, but would you unpack your first sentence–”As I think of it now, it seems to me that Plantinga’s argument against naturalism would be a good argument against naturalistic externalism and even an argument for naturalistic internalism. ”

    Also, regarding your previous comment, do you think that in thisworld, the argument holds (given that most scientists are really concerned with this world and could really care less about possible worlds as do some philosophers)?

    I don’t follow what you mean by “But module C produced virtuously R. S can still hold S because of module C.”

    Thanks,
    Cynthia

23. 23 Apolonio May 21st, 2008 at 12:09 pm

    Cynthia,

    I was thinking along the lines of the new demon argument against externalism. It seems that one can take Plantinga’s argument as a form of the new demon argument.

    As for the “module C produced virtuously R,” what I meant was that suppose it is true that R/N&E is low. This would mean that our cognitive faculties are generally reliable. But there could be one faculty (module C) that produced belief in R in a virtuous way, that is, it came about from a truth-conducive way. So although R/N&E is low, because belief in R came about from a reliable faculty, R is still justified and N&E does not defeat it.

    Finally, with regards to possible worlds, I do think the argument holds. Again, Plantinga’s claim is that R/N&E being low defeats R. But it may be that we hit the jackpot, that our actual world is one of those improbable worlds where our cognitive faculties are actually reliable. Take this example…the probability of Sally getting a baby is one in a million. Suppose that we see Sally holding a baby. One cay say, “Well, it’s probably not hers.” But when we look at the baby, it just seems that the baby is hers. The baby looks just like her. Again, the probability is low, but it seems that one can still say that the baby is hers.

    In Christ,
    Apolonio

24. 24 Peter Spotswood Dillard May 23rd, 2008 at 8:51 am

    I. To Apolonio

    I wonder whether Plantinga’s argument is best interpreted as a version of the new demon argument against externalism.

    As I understand it, the basic idea of the new demon argument is that even in certain situations where a subject’s beliefs about the external world are false–e.g., the subject is being deceived by an evil demon or is trapped in the Matrix and has beliefs about objects that don’t really exist–nonetheless the subject’s beliefs are still justified. For example, if it seems to her that she is holding a piece of paper in her hand, then she is justified in believing this even though her belief is false, and hence not an instance of knowledge.

    The problem with using the new demon argument to interpret Plantinga’s argument, it seems to me, is that doing so threatens to prove too much. I take it that Plantinga doesn’t have any problem per se with the idea that knowledge consists in true beliefs which are justified because they are produced by reliable capacities, provided that the capacities in question aren’t the result of evolution but are instilled in us by God. Yet the new demon argument holds that even if someone were being deceived by an evil demon so that none of her beliefs were products of a reliable capacity, evolutionary or theistic, she would still be justified in holding those beliefs. In short, the conclusion of the new demon argument appears to be that epistemic justification is wholly internal, not external. In particular, then, according to the new demon argument epistemic justification does not consist in having beliefs produced by a reliable capacity, even one instilled in us by God. (Perhaps those better versed in Plantinga’s views can help here.)

    II. In General

    The more I think about it, the more it seems to me that there is a more fundamental problem with Plantinga’s argument. The problem is related to Apolonio’s concern that Plantinga has not really given a defeater for R/N&E.

    Merely logical possibilities incompatible with a knowledge claim K do not defeat K. For example, instead of having dark hair I might have been blond. (There’s a possible world in which I’m blond.)It’s also logically possible for me to be blond but to believe falsely that I have dark hair. (There are possible worlds in which my belief that I have dark hair is false.) However, none of this is any reason to doubt right now that I have dark hair. Thus merely logical possibilities do not provide a defeater to my knowledge claim that I have dark hair, or even lessen its probability.

    Similarly, the evolutionary epistemologist maintains that many of our beliefs selected for survival are in fact true, so that the natural capacities producing these beliefs are largely reliable. The mere logical possibility (there being possible worlds in which it is the case) that beliefs selected for survival are false by itself is no reason to doubt that beliefs actually selected for survival are false, and hence not instances of genuine knowledge. It only shows that there is no logical connection between being selected for survival and being true, which is a fairly trivial point. Consequently, Plantinga’s descriptions of myriad possible worlds in which survival value and truth come apart don’t provide a defeater for R/N&E, or even lessen its probability.

    What would a real defeater look like? In the case of my hair, it might be my having some actual reason to think I no longer have dark hair (e.g., somebody I trust standing by my bed when I wake up in the morning and exclaiming, before I open my eyes and look in the mirror, “What did little Susie do to your hair with the peroxide?!”) Or in the case of R/N&E, a real defeater might be a reason to suspect that our real-world capacities selected for survival value have, when operating under optimal conditions, yielded false beliefs 50% of the time or more. But the mere possibility/conceivability of situations in which beliefs selected for survival are false is not a real reason for doubt.

    Soli Deo Gloria,

    Peter

25. 25 Troy Nunley Jun 30th, 2008 at 2:14 pm

    Hello all. Thanks for posting a fantastic discussion. I’d like to participate in depth, but I have to move my family out of state to a seminary that recently hired me on. Things are busy. I’d like to post a few things for the record.
    One, I hope the dissertation is helpful, but it’s not nearly as polished as I’d like (and its three years old, making it due for an update!) but I intend to condense it, spiff it up, update its contents and arrange it’s contents for easier access. My plan is to post that update on the web as help for anyone researching the topic…It’ll be easier that thumbing through that hefty 350 pp dissertation!
    Two, that reminds me…I recently discovered that I was not the first person to his dissertation on the EAAN. Omar Mirza apparently did his in 2003 and I heard that he has a defense of the EAAN coming out in Phil Studies! The dissertation itself is not online though.
    Three, Cynthia mentioned that Plantinga (acc. to me) holds that it is not obvious that E&N constitute a defeater for R. It’s true. His view is that defeat happens only relative to a set of background beliefs, etc. and only when the agent becomes apprised of the defeat relation that holds between such. He spells this out in the unpublished “Naturalism Defeated” which is available online. The upshot is that at best the EAAN only shows that naturalism is an irrational belief for persons aware of the EAAN (or else aware of something similar to it, I suppose). Plantinga is typically cautious enought to note this point, of course.

    I’d better’d get back to work! I hope to hop into this discussion soon.
    Blessings,
    Troy

26. 26 Cynthia R. Nielsen Jun 30th, 2008 at 6:01 pm

    Hi Troy,

    Thanks for posting a comment. Perhaps when you have settled in to your new home and have some time, you could do a guest post on your recent studies on this topic?

    If you are interested, please email me: crn@pobox.com.

    Best wishes,
    Cynthia

1. 1 arbitrarymarks.com » Blog Archive » Plantinga on naturalism Pingback on Jul 30th, 2008 at 10:36 am

Leave a Reply