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[Reru]

I'm working on a paper regarding naturalism. I want to dealt more on the weaknesses and the strengths that this philosophy has offered. Could you give any possible related topics, books or journals that i could look into and philosophers or authors who were against this thought?

[Prismatic]

There is a book by Alvin Plantinga called Warrant and Proper Function in which he gives an argument against naturalism using evolution. Plantinga claims that the argument is irrefutable, that it constitutes an undefeatable defeater for naturalism, showing that it is self-referentially incoherent. In 2002 a collection of papers discussing the argument appeared in a book called Naturalism Defeated?.

Plantinga's argument is that evolution is not likely to have brought about the development of an intelligence that is cognitively reliable so that a belief in naturalism and evolution fails to provide any reason why our thoughts and knowledge are credible since that could serve no evolutionary purpose. This argument is framed in terms of conditioned probabilities, asserting that the probability that our cognitive faculties are reliable (R) given naturalism (N) and evolution (E), p(R|N&E), must be very low. Naturally Plantinga believes that the probability p(R|T) that our cognitive faculties are reliable give Christian Theism (T) is very high.

Plantinga is a professor of philosophy at Notre Dame and a stout defender of the credibility of Christianity. He has then an initial prejudice against naturalism.

[Misty]

More recent book by Plantinga 2011 'Where The Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism

[Prismatic]

I should have mentioned it even though I haven't read it. Have you? Does it add anything new to Plantinga's argument? He is generally a good writer, but I think his argument here is all wrong.

Plantinga is arguing against naturalism, the notion that the natural world is all there is, while what science actually practices is methodological naturalism the notion that the only things open to scientific investigation are natural processes in the natural world. There is a gigantic difference but even if Plantinga could show that naturalism is mistaken, that would not invalidate methodological naturalism as correct for science.

[Grendel]

As Platinga credits himself, the original argument is Darwin's not his. He's just developed what was a brief insight by Darwin into a legthy discourse. Personally I prefer Darwin's original argument to Platinga's.

Science is based on several cardinal assumptions, among these are the universe exists, it is understandable and we are capable of understanding the universe. Darwin points out there is no evolutionary reason why we would have evolved an accurate picture or understanding of the universe, if an innacurate one gave us a better chance of survival we would have evolved an inaccurate one. So therethis cast dount on if outr understanding is accurate.

This seems a pretty sober and realistic piece of scepticism.

Platinga has run with it and is disproving naturalism and evolution using pure logic and reason. Nothing can be proven using logic or reason alone, somewhere that has to be testable impirical evidence. So that's why I prefer the Darwin version, he makes no claims it disproves anything, he just enters a viable doubt into the equation (against his own theory) like a good sceptic.

In fact personally I think Darwin himself has made the only decent criticism of his own theory since its publication. The fact that the only non-moronic criticism of evolution ever made by the religious is Platinga's and he based it on a 150 year old idea by Darwin himself and the religiouses only resort to criticise Darwin was to go to Darwin himself says volumes about Darwin.

[Prismatic]

As Platinga credits himself, the original argument is Darwin's not his. He's just developed what was a brief insight by Darwin into a legthy discourse. Personally I prefer Darwin's original argument to Platinga's.

Darwin showed his true scientific cast of mind in raising this and other objections to his own theory. He is always a pleasure to read—so calm, objective, and well-reasoned. One of my prized possessions is a copy of the sixth edition of Origin of the Species. If you are ever in Pasadena, the Huntington Library has a long shelf of all the editions of the book from the first to the most recent—it's about twenty-five feet long!

My feeling about Plantinga's giving credit to Darwin for the idea is that he mainly hoped to add lustre to his argument. Plantinga's argument is that the probability that our cognitive faculties are reliable is small given naturalism and evolution. I find several problems with his argument:

1. Science does not rely on naturalism, but instead practices methodological naturalism. There is no scientific claim that there exists nothing beyond the natural world, just an observation that we have no hard evidence of anything.

2. No precise meaning can be assigned to the notion the probability of our cognitive faculties being reliable. We know many instances of people with unreliable cognitive faculties and in general we all have faculties that are less than 100% reliable. What probability can you assign to the entire species when there is such great variation?

3. High reliability in cognitive faculties might be confined to a small percentage of the species in every generation and yet that could be enough to do science correctly and arrive at sound results. Many results in science are due to the brilliance of a single individual. As long as the achievement is cultivated and preserved from generation to generation, that is enough.

4. Evolution is full of examples of organs developed for one purpose and then adapted for another so the acquisition of a brain that enhanced survival among primitive people might well furnish the platform for intellectual development not directly or immediately related to survival. Even in the animal kingdom there are behaviors whose relation to survival of the species are hard to understand.

[Mpitluk]

Great post Prismatic. I debate with a theologian friend of mind and he always busts out how Pantinga "shows" that committing to naturalism and evolution is logically incoherent. You've discursively laid out some of my intuitions, most notably, "what the hell to do you mean by the probability of our cognitive faculties being reliable?" The conversation invariably ends with "I just have no idea what you're talking about." Actually, that's usually how our talks end

I didn't want your post to go unappreciated, though I'm sure you don't need the recognition.

[Belinda]

I'm working on a paper regarding naturalism. I want to dealt more on the weaknesses and the strengths that this philosophy has offered. Could you give any possible related topics, books or journals that i could look into and philosophers or authors who were against this thought?

First and foremost, Spinoza, who has a watertight grand theory based upon naturalism,(if it is 'based' upon anything) a grand theory the end product of which is the soundest ethic that can be thought, human freedom.

[Prismatic]

Great post Prismatic. I debate with a theologian friend of mind and he always busts out how Pantinga "shows" that committing to naturalism and evolution is logically incoherent. You've discursively laid out some of my intuitions, most notably, "what the hell to do you mean by the probability of our cognitive faculties being reliable?" The conversation invariably ends with "I just have no idea what you're talking about." Actually, that's usually how our talks end

I didn't want your post to go unappreciated, though I'm sure you don't need the recognition.

Thanks for the appreciation. One rarely knows here if posts are well-received and your kind words are appreciated.

[Steve3007]

Prismatic: I read most of your posts and they are conspicuously sane, well reasoned and based on knowledge! Keep it up! This forum really needs all the sanity and clear thinking it can get!

I agree that it is often difficult to know if one's posts have been well received or even understood. For example your comments on the "indeterminacy" topic about Von Neumann and the non-commutativity of operators representing quantum mechanical quantities were great, but not specifically replied to, so probably difficult to see if they were taken on board.

[Prismatic]

Prismatic: I read most of your posts and they are conspicuously sane, well reasoned and based on knowledge! Keep it up! This forum really needs all the sanity and clear thinking it can get!

I agree that it is often difficult to know if one's posts have been well received or even understood. For example your comments on the "indeterminacy" topic about Von Neumann and the non-commutativity of operators representing quantum mechanical quantities were great, but not specifically replied to, so probably difficult to see if they were taken on board.

I enjoy your posts as well, but I am puzzled by the "half-man, half-biscuit" thing. Is it a Monty Python reference or something?

[Grendel]

They're a classic scouse band.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ao19eROwu_c

[Prismatic]

They're a classic scouse band. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ao19eROwu_c

In other words a group that makes the kind of noise the younger generation confuses with music. Thanks for the clarification. I have a first cousin once removed who became well known for that kind of thing. She was a rather ordinary child and I don't know what happened—drugs I think.

[Grendel]

Drugs do help but you have to be careful, if you go to far with them you become a jazz musician.

As Tony Wilson said "Jazz is the last refuge of the untalented. Jazz musicians enjoy themselves more than anyone listening to them does. It's what you do when you can't get a gig, one step down from Celebrity Squares"

[Steve3007]

Prismatic:

The "Half Man Half Biscuit" thing is probably a bit silly and trivial. It's the name of a band, formed in the 1980s in Merseyside, England. They sing bizzare songs about the minutiae of life with occasional (in my opinion) flashes of brilliant pithiliy expressed wisdom (they would hate that description).

I guess I couldn't bring myself to cite one of the standard "Dead White Men" as an inspiration! But if I did, and it had to be somebody with a significant global public presence and a degree of seriousness who had directly inspired me (and I wasn't forced to pick someone who actually has "philosopher" stamped in their passport), I'd probably pick Richard Feynman or Carl Sagan. Sagan because of "Cosmos" (I still have my battered copy of the book) and Feynman because of his attitude to enquisitivness and the bongos.

Grendel:

Great HMHB YouTube clip of the Trumpton Riots. I remember watching that very episode of Whistle Test when I was a teenager.