Knowledge, Belief, and Faith: Anthony Kenny
After some discussion in the Lounge, I've chosen the following article, just to see if chatting about it can bring forth something of value.
Knowledge, Belief, and Faith.
Kenny's Wittgenstein is a favourite of mine, but Thomism is quite foreign; so there may be interesting disquiet herein.
This is an invitation to read it with me.
Knowledge, Belief, and Faith.
Kenny's Wittgenstein is a favourite of mine, but Thomism is quite foreign; so there may be interesting disquiet herein.
This is an invitation to read it with me.
Comments (215)
I'd draw attention to what is for me a key aspect of the Theaetetus, found in the last few lines:
I read this as a modest rejection of the justified true belief definition of knowledge. Socrates is saying that it is the best we could do, and yet it is nought but flatus.
So Dawkins is our target. This is becoming a habit.
... so the conclusion is that God does not exist in every possible world...
But next is the first real disagreement I have with Kenny. Possible World semantics strikes me as a useful grammar; it irons out the wrinkles in what we mean when we talk of possibilities and necessities. I must say I do not follow his objection - "Kant was right to insist that whether there is something in reality answering to a concept of mine cannot itself be part of my concept" - I gather it's to do with differentiating the actual world amongst possible worlds, but I don't see it.
Kenny's response is to question the very notion that god might have a mind at all similar to our own: "It is not just that we do not, and cannot, know what goes in God’s mind; it is that we cannot really ascribe a mind to a God at all".
I think this an excellent point.
The distinction between purpose and design stands; a heart has a purpose but not a design, and hence there is no need for a designer.
Quoting Banno
But what then to make of this?
So - I take this to be an allusion to the 'second birth' that signifies the attainment of wisdom. This was, of course, later melded with the Biblical principle of 'born again', but it is an idea found in many cultures other than Christian; for example, Brahmin priests wear a sacred thread which indicates their status as 'twice born'. Here, Socrates is questioning what is taken for knowledge by the good, the great and the just. Again, Socrates is saying that true virtue resides in modesty, sobriety, humility, gentleness - which again was one of the reasons that the Greek-speaking Christian world considered Socrates 'Christian before Christ'. Not, obviously, because he conformed to Christian dogma - there wasn't any! - but because of his embodiment of such virtues, and his valuation of them as more important than knowledge.
//ps// Pierre Grimes//
Dawkins makes himself a target. After all, he’s the author of a best-selling book arguing that God is a delusion.
Thomas Nagel touches on a similar point in his review:
[quote=Thomas Nagel, 'The Fear of Religion', review of The God Delusion, New Republic, 23 Oct 2006] We can observe DNA and see how it works. But the problem that originally prompted the argument from design—the overwhelming improbability of such a thing coming into existence by chance, simply through the purposeless laws of physics— remains just as real for this case. Yet this time we cannot replace 'chance' with 'natural selection'. Dawkins recognizes the problem, but his response to it is pure hand-waving.
First, he says it only had to happen once. Next, he says that there are, at a conservative estimate, a billion billion planets in the universe with life-friendly physical and chemical environments like ours. So all we have to suppose is that the probability of something like DNA forming under such conditions, given the laws of physics, is not much less than one in a billion billion. And he points out, invoking the so-called anthropic principle, that even if it happened on only one planet, it is no accident that we are able to observe it, since the appearance of life is a condition of our existence.
Dawkins is not a chemist or a physicist. Neither am I, but general expositions of research on the origin of life indicate that no one has a theory that would support anything remotely near such a high probability as one in a billion billion. Naturally there is speculation about possible non-biological chemical precursors of DNA or RNA. But at this point the origin of life remains, in light of what is known about the huge size, the extreme specificity, and the exquisite functional precision of the genetic material, a mystery—an event that could not have occurred by chance and to which no significant probability can be assigned on the basis of what we know of the laws of physics and chemistry. Yet we know that it happened.
That is why the argument from design is still alive, and why scientists who find the conclusion of that argument unacceptable feel there must be a purely physical explanation of why the origin of life is not as physically improbable as it seems. Dawkins invokes the possibility that there are vastly many universes besides this one, thus giving chance many more opportunities to create life; but this is just a desperate device to avoid the demand for a real explanation.[/quote]
Personally, I feel that the the argument that ‘there might be many universes other than this one’ is ludicrously crass, coming from someone whose main argument is that ‘there is no evidence for a divine intelligence’. Natural theology will respond that the Universe itself is evidence, and I think that is certainly supported by the so-called ‘anthropic principle’. To try and rebut this observation with reference to ‘many possible “other” universes’, for which there can be no evidence even in principle, seems to me an exercise in bad faith.
And - question - when he mentions ‘Meletus’ indictment’, this is what resulted in his condemnation, was it not? My knowledge of the dialogues is very sketchy, but if this is what it was, then in some ways, this passage is like a preamble to the Apology.
The first of these is language. Since language is essentially a social phenomena, how could it be the result of a mutation present in an individual? I don't find this convincing; mutations after all spread into one's decedents, and hence there are communities with certain characteristics. But it is an interesting use of the private language argument.
The second is the origin of life. Yep, chemistry, not evolution. The third, the origin of the universe. Here I agree with you, , as does Kenny; if our question is "why is there a universe?" then "Because there is a multiverse" is as bad an answer as "god did it".
Yeah - that's right; these events took place the night before the trial. But I understand that the Apology was written before the Theaetetus.
Correct me if I'm mistaken.
Chomsky has some interesting things to say on that.
Quoting Banno
No, as I say, my knowledge is sketchy, but even if it was written later, it still serves as pre-amble.
At the top of p. 389 there's some curious stuff differentiating metaphysical necessity from epistemological necessity. There's a SEP article on the topic: Varieties of Modality:
We know that the world is suitable for human life. The Anthropic Principle, according to Kenny, moves from this to the metaphysical necessity that some world will be suitable for life. The anthropic principle is hence fallacious, or it is mere metaphysical speculation.
I'm going to go over that again, for my own satisfaction. The anthropic argument is posited as an answer to the question of why the world is so suitable for life. The argument is that there are innumerable ways in which the world might have been but we find ourselves as a matter of fact in a world that is suitable; and points out that we could not have found ourselves in any other sort of world, because any other sort of world would not have produced us... Because we are in a suitable world, it is not just possible but necessary that there must be such suitable worlds.
Put thus, the argument is not so convincing.
Well, only Wayfarer has had a go. Disappointing, but not surprising.
I feel unqualified. Though I wished the people who are also more knowledgeable about this would join in. It'd be a learning experience and fun to read.
But much of the article is straight forward. Take:
The conclusion Kenny is working towards is agnosticism. But with this piece, from the second page, he seems to be assuming the virtue of the middle path between credulity and scepticism - to be assuming agnosticism.
SO arguably the article is an exercise in question begging; he assumes his conclusion. But isn't it reasonable to seek this middle ground, rather than to believe without warrant?
Is that so?
I read the article and found nothing much there to disagree with, other than the way Kenny frames believing too much and believing too little. No one believes "too little" and lives to tell the tale. Skepticism rightly understood, just is agnosticism; it says regarding a question "I don't know for sure one way or the other".
I think too much is made of belief. Many things we take ourselves to know are not things we take ourselves merely to believe, but things we take ourselves to perceive. Of course the skeptical question 'But have I been in some way deceived about what I think I see, hear, and so on?' (by an evil demon, mad scientist, etc.) is always possible, but such questions are not, and cannot be, in my view, enlightening. This is because we know only things within the context of our perceptual experience and the conceptual judgements that are inherent in, and entailed by, that experience. Nothing can ever be known "outside" that context, so radically skeptical questions are merely intellectual indulgences; the engine is turning, but the transmission is disengaged.
Agnosticism is rightly adopted in situations where I cannot see what is happening. Religious faith is not, (or should not be) understood to be an example of believing some empirical proposition without sufficient empirical evidence; it is a choice (hopefully a choice!) to believe in "something" that transcends our realm of perceptual experience. The problems arise when definite attributes of that "something" are dogmatically professed.
So do you think faith a reasonable state of mind?
Yes, provided it doesn't mistake itself for knowledge.
Knowledge is justified, true and believed. This provides three dimensions on which Kenny can hang his definition.
Looking first at the dimension of belief, a theist believes, an atheist disbelieves and an agnostic does neither. On the dimension of truth, a proposition can be either true or false, with no middle ground.
Now if we add the dimension of justification or warrant, we find faith as unwarranted belief - whether true or false.
Firstly, I think this is wrongly framed. A theist believes, an atheist believes; they just believe different (contrary) things. An agnostic does not believe; therefore the agnostic is a skeptic.
And as Kenny points out religious statements are not propositions (or at least should not be taken to be propositions), but metaphors, more akin to poetry than to scientific theories or propositions (or any other empirical statement) so they do not need to be justified or warranted.
Recall the opening paragraphs of Russell's A Free Man's Worship:
I think that proclamation, especially the underlined passage, is what the anthropic cosmological principle challenges. It challenges the notion of the fortuitous origins of life, because it now seems the origin of life was in some sense simultaneous with origin of the Universe itself.
There's another point to be made, which is that the glum vision of a never ending cyclical creation and destruction is exactly the presumed background of the Indic religions. But their vision of salvation is set against it. The fact that all man's works and designs are brought undone in the fullness of time is the very reason to seek transcendence of them. Or, in the Christian context, ‘Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away’.
He sets up the following, after Dawkins and Aquinas
There is a god:
Knowledge
Conviction
Guess
Doubt
Guess
Conviction
Knowledge
There is not god.
...then rejects it as inadequate because it collapses the dimension of warrant:
It's the introduction of Warrant that is novel and interesting.
Nor does he gainsay his previously stated position, instead pointing to the further issue of multiple revelations. He thinks religious faith not unreasonable, but at least potentially a vice.
...Indic cosmology as equivalent to the multiple universes conjecture. Cute.
I've Confirmable and influential Metaphysics in mind - faith as a haunted-universe doctrine. Faith is neither falsifiable not verifiable, and yet taken as true.
So multiple universes and the anthropic principle become articles of faith...
Ultimately, theism is not a theory about some purported being that either exists or doesn't exist, and about which science might have something to say. It's a theory about the nature of reality itself, not about some purported super-engineer or director which might or might not exist. The fact that justification is cast in these pseudo-empirical terms is an indicator of a deep misconception about the nature of the question.
Terry Eagleton said it well in his 2006 review of The God Delusion - the review which actually got me interested in philosophy forums in the first place:
[quote=Terry Eagleton] Dawkins speaks scoffingly of a personal God, as though it were entirely obvious exactly what this might mean. He seems to imagine God, if not exactly with a white beard, then at least as some kind of chap, however supersized. He asks how this chap can speak to billions of people simultaneously, which is rather like wondering why, if Tony Blair is an octopus, he has only two arms. For Judeo-Christianity, God is not a person in the sense that Al Gore arguably is. Nor is he a principle, an entity, or ‘existent’: in one sense of that word it would be perfectly coherent for religious types to claim that God does not in fact exist. He is, rather, the condition of possibility of any entity whatsoever, including ourselves. He is the answer to why there is something rather than nothing. God and the universe do not add up to two, any more than my envy and my left foot constitute a pair of objects.[/quote]
[quote=Bill Vallicella] God cannot be just one more being among beings. The Source of being is not just another thing sourced. The ground of intelligibility is not just another intelligible item. The Thinker behind every thought is not just another thought. The locus and source of all value is not just another valuable thing. The One is not just another member of the Many. 1[/quote]
So - what are the implications of all this? The issue is, the question of the reality or non-reality of God can’t be settled by empirical methods, nor by armchair speculation. If a school-leaver were to say, instead of studying engineering or medicine, that s/he wished to ‘seek for the truth about God’, then what course of action would you recommend? Deep self-searching under the direction of a spiritual mentor would be the usual course; perhaps enrolment in a theology degree or even a monastic vocation. And I think, involved in that quest, is a willingness to deeply question what we normally take for granted, what we assume to be real.
That is why the course of contemplative religion wherein these answers are sought, requires a kind of mental transformation (known in traditional philosophy as ‘metanoia’). It is not concerned with what exists in the empirical sense and to misconstrue it as such is a sign of a confusion which is all-pervasive in contemporary culture. So to try and answer the question in the terms that Kenny proposes is basically to concede his point. It’s a radical question.
Hence the paradox. To even investigate the question, requires a certain open-mindedness to the possibility - a willingness to believe. (I think this is a topic dealt with by William James.) Whereas in secular culture, there is a will not to believe, not to even consider the quest worth embarking on. That is what ‘belief’ really comes down to: it’s not a matter of propositional knowledge, but a dispositional attitude.
Anyway enough for today, I feel we’re the only guys left in the bar.
Kenny criticises Dawkins for treating belief in god as "a scientific hypothesis like any other". He presents arguments from Newman, Wittgenstein and Plantinga. Newman, that there are propositions that can be rationally believed and yet are without warrant; Wittgenstein, that there are certainties not based on evidence; Plantinga, that a belief such as a religious belief is somehow central to one's mental structure - I gather this is like the belief that the bishop stays on the same coloured squares is part of what it means to believe one is playing chess.
I suspect Kenny is agreeing with you.
Right, for Kenny religious faith is not unreasonable; does it not follow that it is reasonable? If it is reasonable it must be warranted, but if it is belief without evidence then it cannot be warranted by evidence. So, it's warranted by "multiple revelations"? Or?
If religious faith is reasonable, then how can it be "potentially a vice" unless it is potentially unreasonable? A little observation serves to show us that religious faith is indeed potentially unreasonable; it is unreasonable when it turns into fundamentalism, that is when it takes itself to be knowledge.
...I think that is what is in contention.
Yep.
Logical possibility alone does not constitute sufficient reason to believe(does not warrant belief).
What are you suggesting is in contention? That for something to be reasonable it must be warranted?
If that is what you say is in contention, then I think the question would be: is a belief not warranted simply by virtue of being reasonable? Or conversely is a belief not reasonable, simply by virtue of being warranted? If this is right then the two terms are synonymous, and "if it is reasonable it is warranted' is a tautology.
It seems that it all depends on what we count as reasonable, and why. A belief is reasonable if we can give good reasons to believe it. We know what good reasons are when it comes to simple empirical claims, but what about other domains? Ethical and aesthetical contentions, for example? Can such kinds of belief or contention be reasonable in one social context and not in another?
Quoting Banno
This is what I have been saying; that religious belief is not propositional at all (at least not in the empirical sense). So, it's broader than it being not merely "a scientific hypothesis like any other", it is not any kind of empirical claim or conjecture.
So I think it should be "Newman, that there are propositions (although "propositions" would not be my preferred terminology) that can be rationally believed and yet are without (empirical or logical) warrant. And I think Wittgenstein's "certainties" (so-called hinge propositions) are of a different order than religious belief, so I don't see the relevance.
Being reasonable(coherent) means following the rules of correct inference. A belief system can be both perfectly reasonable(coherent) and false. Thus, being reasonable(coherency alone) does not guarantee truth. Given that all belief presupposes it's own truth somewhere along the line, and coherency alone(being reasonable) does not guarantee truth, it only follows that being reasonable(coherency alone) does not constitute sufficient/adequate reason for our assent/belief(warrant).
In terms of what it can compel people to do. There have been many evils committed in the name of religion. Just now I heard that in some English ethnic groups people are refusing COVID vaccination ‘because their pastor told them’. I think that is what Kenny has in mind.
Given the ending, I would say that that much is clear.
Yes a proposition's being coherent is not by itself reason for believing it; that much is obvious. So what are the criteria for believing anything that is not empirically verifiable?
[url=https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/does-reason-know-what-it-is-missing/]Does Reason Know what it is Missing?[/quote]
That's interesting. I read it more as a bad habit, an addiction. The first vice he speaks of is "the vice of credulity". I expect he means to use the term consistently.
To play my role as Dawkins apologist, which I'm not entirely sure why I do:
seems a tad dishonest. In that part of the book, Dawkins is answering the oft-repeated point that the greatest evil comes from atheism, the usual citations being Hitler and Stalin. Dawkins' point was that they weren't evil because they were atheist, but for reasons at best independent of and at worst parallel to religious belief. Which is a sound point. The reference to Hitler's possible Christian sympathies was merely one of several illustrations of why the religious idea of atheism begetting evil is phony. It was not meant as suggesting that Hitler was evil because of his secret Catholicism. Dawkins is imperfect, but he's better than his American Anglican detractors in that respect.
Again, there's a difference between creduiity or gullibility and warranted belief. Everyone has beliefs - even (or especially!) those who claim to have no beliefs, because, for them, non-belief becomes a normative guide, but non-belief turns out to have content of its own.
I’ve been reading along, but this quote caught my attention.
I would have thought that the political structure itself is the basis for judging the outcomes, and that there exists a broader relational structure (the marketplace of ideas), the awareness of which enables such an entity to ‘hold itself aloof’ - ie. remain variable at the level of value and potential.
It is in this ‘marketplace of ideas’ that we develop a self-awareness of local affect (valence and arousal) in relation to ideological structures, and the influence this has on our constructs of belief, knowledge and reasoning, both as a political structure and as a human being.
Quoting Janus
Ok. Do you agree that a belief system's being reasonable requires only coherence and plausible premisses?
Indeed, and all statements thereof are meaningful to the creature making them, and presuppose truth, insincerely made ones notwithstanding.
Quoting creativesoul
Quoting Janus
Ok, then surely you'll take the next step, and realize that the following is not true.
Quoting Janus
If not, perhaps you could offer a counterexample or tell us what would make a belief warranted. And remember I have already specified that I am not talking about empirically observable facts or truisms.
So we are dealing with the kinds of beliefs or contentions that might be found in philosophy, metaphysics, phenomenology, ethics, aesthetics etc., that may be purported to be warranted.
So, I am asking: if you think there any warranted beliefs in those above-mentioned domains, what would it be that warrants them? Something other than plausibility?
Sure. My point was just that when he says "vice", I don't think he means doing great evil to others, rather he means being systematically mistaken.
--------------------------------------------------------------
I find this problematic too:
That is true about the tumor, but it's based on the acceptance of the authority of scientific experts. The analogy for God's existence might be, for instance, a cosmologist consensus that the universe was created purposefully.
No such consensus exists, nor any such evidence. It is precisely this point that, for the scientifically-minded, makes belief in God unjustified. Pointing to a justified belief by way of claiming that an unjustified one is in fact justified seems pretty poor to me. I get that he's saying that belief in God *may* be reasonable, not *is* reasonable, but the criteria give a much stricter statement: belief in God is not yet justified. This allows for the possibility of future justification, while observing the fact that no such justification exists or ever has existed, therefore no belief in God to date is justified.
One could argue that a cosmologist consensus is not analogous; on divine matters, it is clerical consensus one seeks since they are the experts on God. But then the basis of the authority of oncologists is not transferred. One cannot equate faith and evidence: it is precisely the necessity of faith -- belief without and despite evidence -- that makes that belief unjustified.
This reliance on "can be" in place of "is" is a cop out imo. Yes, oncologists "can" tell me my tumor is benign, but if that isn't what they're actually telling me, to believe it would be unjustified.
More than just logical possibility alone.
Is scientific belief when it promotes itself to the status of scientism subject to the same criticism?
Here is our earlier exchange:
Quoting creativesoul
So, you asked me if I agreed that being reasonable 'requires only coherence and plausible premises".
I said that seems uncontroversial. Then you claimed that being reasonable does not equate to being warranted. So I asked what else would be required, and then you didn't tell me exactly what more is required, but instead replied that more than logical possibility alone is needed. So, you don't consider " plausible premises" to be already more than mere logical possibility?
Quoting Pantagruel
I can't see why not. I think the same principle applies to all ideologies. The ideas that can come to constitute ideologies are reasonable enough when they are understood by the person holding to, or entertaining, them to be fallible and mostly based on faith, but when they are taken to be certain knowledge then we have fundamentalism, fanaticism or dogmatism, none of which are reasonable.
"I don't know" seems to me the only possible intelligent response if asked whether God exists and I see no point in debating God's existence any further. I have no quarrel with those who believe or those who disbelieve until they insist on telling me so and, worse yet, insist on telling me why the believe or disbelieve. Similarly, I have no quarrel with those who claim to know whether God exists until they insist on telling me so and insist on telling me why or how they so know.
That said, I think it's possible for particular views of God to be less reasonable than others. Perhaps this is more an issue of religious belief than an issue of belief in God. For example, belief in God as envisioned by organized religions of which I'm aware are, I think, clearly less reasonable than the so-called "God of the philosophers" if only because belief in the former entails acceptance of a variety contentions which go beyond the question of existence and relate to the characteristics, conduct, intentions and desires, writings, rules, laws, and words of God, and the rituals and ceremonies, and even language, which must be employed in worshipping God and are required as expressions of belief.
Naturalism excludes God as a matter of principle. The mistake is to then believe that science has disproved the substance of such a belief, when in practice it has simply excluded it.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
You know that when Lemaître initially published his 'Hypothesis of the Primeval Atom', it was widely resisted for a long time because it seemed to suggest a creation from nothing. In fact...
[quote=Wikipedia]...by 1951, Pope Pius XII declared that Lemaître's theory provided a scientific validation for Catholicism. However, Lemaître resented the Pope's proclamation, stating that the theory was neutral and there was neither a connection nor a contradiction between his religion and his theory. Lemaître and Daniel O'Connell, the Pope's scientific advisor, persuaded the Pope not to mention Creationism publicly, and to stop making proclamations about cosmology. Lemaître was a devout Catholic, but opposed mixing science with religion, although he held that the two fields were not in conflict. [/quote]
I think Lemaître's view that there is 'neither a connection nor a contradiction' is instructive.
Quoting Possibility
Fair enough, but in the context, the writer is discussing Habermas' late-in-life re-evaluation of the role of religion in the public square. What he's saying is that Habermas recognises 'something missing' from secular rationalism and liberalism. That 'something missing' can't be defined in secular terms - otherwise it woudn't be missing!
-------
From p395 in Kenny's text.
@Janus would agree that 'It is a particular difficulty for the rationality of faith that there are so many alleged revelations that conflict with each other. ' This is especially so in Christian culture, with its insistence that Christianity is the one true religion. Indic cultures seem naturally more pluralistic in their outlook.
John Hick, a philosopher of religion and committed pluralist, has this to say about the supposedly irreconcilable differences between religions:
Who or what is God?
Perhaps. You've made me regret writing "plausible premisses"...
:wink:
If it is the case that in order for some statement or other to be true, certain other things must have happened and/or be happening, and we know that they have not, or that they are not, then there is no warrant to believe the statement under consideration despite it's being logically possible.
But we were considering what makes beliefs reasonable, and whether all reasonable beliefs are warranted, not what makes statements true.
I would agree with that in cases where contrary or contradictory propositional claims are being made by different faiths. If religious stories are taken to be allegories that profess metaphorical truths then I think the difficulty disappears. That's why I often say that I think religion and theology are closer to poetry than they are to science.
Irrespective of the rest of the article, his objection parsed in that piece follows from the explicit Kantian methodology, wherein anything in reality is for us only phenomena, but conceptions arise spontaneously from the understanding, which has nothing to do with phenomena. Things in reality relate to my conceptions, in accordance with Kantian methodology, which could be said to be the same as answering to my conception, but such things are not contained in, nor part of, them, but nonetheless possibly presupposed by them.
It is good you don’t see some differentiating among worlds; no such implication is carried by that objection.
————-
As regards the article itself......it begins with “Is belief in God reasonable?”.....which of course it must be, for the question must have been thought, which makes explicit there were reasons for thinking it. Kenny didn’t ask whether belief in God was rational, or sustainable, or logical. Even a reason that doesn’t make sense, is refutable, or self-contradictory, is still a reason.
Dialectically familiar your analytical predispositions already, I will still offer that if one wishes to remain with Kant....which could be presumed as a chronological backdrop, insofar as A820/B848 is a section in CPR with the almost the same name as this thread, and covers the same general notions....one will find that belief is nothing but a judgement with subjective sufficiency but no objective sufficiency, which easily translates to....when I arrive at reasons to believe in God, then immediately the criteria for subjective sufficiency is met, hence my judgement for believing is reasonable.
So....what’s all the hoopla about anyway?
That’s arguable - perhaps not in terms of secular rationalism, at least. I’d agree that religion has a role to play in challenging the ignorance, isolation and exclusion of affect (particularly in terms of ethics) from rationalist or logical reasoning, but so does art (in terms of aesthetics) and quantum physics (in terms of consciousness). What I think is missing is a dimensional aspect to secular rationalism that’s inclusive of qualitative potential.
Warrant involves truth. Being reasonable involves only coherency.
The most common usage of 'reasonable' is equivalent to 'rational'. You cannot claim a belief is reasonable if it is held for entirely self-serving reasons, for example. We have a word for that: 'rationalization', and rationalizations are not generally thought of as being reasonable, but rather delusional or, in extremis, vicious.
All beliefs, that are not simple empirical observations or tautologies, are possibly refutable. A self-contradictory belief cannot be considered reasonable by any standard. You seems to be conflating 'having reasons' with 'reasonable'.
Common usage. I keep forgetting what constitutes philosophy these days.
You are correct in that regard, yes.
Quoting Janus
How can a belief contradict itself? It isn’t the belief that is self-contradictory, it is the reasons for it, that are, because they conflict with each other or with some established condition, usually knowledge. The belief is still reasonable, if only to its holder whose reasons don’t conflict, just under illogical or irrational conditions from the point of view of someone who doesn’t because his reasons do conflict with the holders’.
Quoting Janus
It’s good it only seems that way.
The contempt of certain philosophers' for the "common" or "ordinary" is their most revealing conceit, and likely the reason why they fail so consistently to grapple with and solve actual problems, preferring to create problems which they think important precisely because they admit of no solution.
Has any philosophy ever solved any problems? Far as I think about it, philosophy tries to explain something, and leaves it up to others to determine whether that explanation solves anything for them.
I solve my problems; philosophy just sets a proper stage for looking at them.
Not at all. All belief presupposes truth.
I'm pointing out the difference between being reasonable and being warranted. The former is satisfied by coherency alone. The latter also considers correspondence to known fact. It is when we consider that that coherency is found lacking for warrant. An argument can be both coherent and contradictory to known fact(current knowledge base). Thus, coherency alone does not warrant belief.
Agree.
JTB talks in terms of being justified, not warranted.
Indeed. It's takes a plurality thereof.
I think that the point of the paper was that Dawkins' ad hoc had the same justificatory ground(or lack thereof) as many of the religious arguments he was aiming at. None were warranted. All were based upon logical possibility alone(all were/are rightfully called "reasonable").
Yes but not all warranted, or if you prefer justified (which in my view means the same) beliefs are true. The fact that beliefs presuppose truth (are considered truth-apt) is not relevant here.
Quoting creativesoul
I don't agree that the criterion for a belief being considered reasonable (or warranted) is coherency alone. It doesn't even really make sense to speak about incoherent beliefs; how would it be possible to believe something incoherent, that is something we couldn't make sense of? If you mean coherent with our overall body of accepted knowledge, then I would say that still wouldn't render a belief reasonable.
That there are believed to be granite outcrops on a particular planet would be coherent with our overall body of scientific knowledge, but believing that would not be reasonable or warranted in the absence of evidence. Anyway I have already stipulated that I am not dealing with such examples of empirical
or scientific assertions or beliefs, since this thread is about the reasonableness of religious belief, which I don't think falls into that category.
Quoting creativesoul
I don't see any meaningful difference between these two terms. If you do perhaps you could explain.
I was thinking of a set of beliefs, for example a worldview or religion, some of which are contradictory.
Quoting Mww
The appearance may well be the reality in this case. If you genuinely think all beliefs that are held for any reasons whatsoever are reasonable I don't know what else to to say.
All warranted belief are belief. All belief presupposes truth. Ergo...
All warranted, unwarranted, justified, unjustified, all well grounded, all purely imaginary, all true, all false...
ALL belief presupposes truth.
You are yet to explain what you think the difference between warranted belief and reasonable belief is.
Perhaps an example of a belief that you think is reasonable, and yet is not warranted, would help.
True enough I suppose, but nonetheless irrelevant to the subject at issue.
Be well.
This needs attention. It's got something wrong that's rather important...
"Truth-apt" is the name for things capable of being true.
Some thoughts, some belief, some statements, some positive assertions, some negative assertions, some accounts of what happened and/or is happening are capable of being true. Some thoughts, some belief, some statements, some positive assertions, some negative assertions, some accounts of the way things are; the case at hand, or reality are capable of being true. Some thoughts, some belief, some statements, some positive assertions, some negative assertions, some accounts of the world and/or ourselves are capable of being true.
Some. Not all.
All presuppose truth, somewhere along the line.
A false statement cannot be true. It can be believed. When one believes a falsehood, they do not know it's false. To quite the contrary, they believe it is true. Thus, when one sincerely says "I believe 'X', where X is a statement about the world and/or ourselves, they believe that the statement is true. We cannot knowingly believe a falsehood. As soon as one realizes that something they once believed is false, they can no longer believe otherwise because they know better. False statements, when sincerely spoken still presuppose truth.
False statements are not capable of being true.
All belief and statements thereof presuppose truth. Not all are capable of being true.
Being truth-apt has nothing to do with the presupposition of truth within belief and/or our statements.
I would say that a belief's being truth apt (It's being capable of being eithrt true (or false)) is central to beliefs presupposing truth. Of course no one believes something that they do not believe is true but that fact is trivially due to the meanings of the terms. You cannot believe something you think is not true to be true; because that would be a contradiction in terms.
And again this has nothing to do with the reasonableness or warrantedness of beliefs or the question as to why you don't think reasonableness entails warrantedness. It's your reasons for that I asked you to explain.
That is not right. It is empiricism which is at play here, not naturalism. What I said was theory- independent.
Quoting Wayfarer
But then again the Bible says nothing of atoms while it does offer a creation myth for the world. The presence of a scientific explanation without God for atoms is neutral, and the Pope's attempt to own it for the church was political. Knowledge of how the universe was created is different, since that does overlap with religious terrain. If the universe was created teleologically, then one might expect some evidence of that and, if evidence were found, there might would be a scientific basis for creation. Since creation myths are all about the divine impacting the physical, the lack of any evidence whatsoever makes belief in creation unjustified... for now.
The answer is in the negation of what you said: there is no belief whatsoever to be held, if there are no reasons whatsoever on which it is constructed, no reasons one thinks as belonging to or describing its object. All that on which reason can direct itself, is reasonable. All reducible to....the only belief unreasonable, is that belief the object of which reason cannot direct itself, which is, of course, to the one thinking, simply empty. Building up on that final reduction, what we......er, commonly....ordinarily.....consider an unreasonable belief, is actually merely an irrational one.
Yeah, well....tell an ordinary somebody something is unreasonable they might argue back. Tell an ordinary somebody something is irrational...they just look at you funny.
(Sigh)
Some philosophers concerned themselves with problems actually encountered in living and provided reasonable solutions to them, I think.
Quoting Mww
Well, I agree it can--to the extent it fosters the application of critical and creative intelligence to problems which actually arise.
Absolutely; no quibble there. Ehhhh.....maybe one. Perhaps these problems and their solutions are the concern of psychologists.
Such theories are based on the mere fact they it is not impossible that they be true, and then on a whole series of circumstantial "evidence' and "expert opinion" cobbled together to make the official story look unlikely. I don't think any of that counts as reasonable or, which is the same thing in my book, rational. A belief concerning empirical matters is reasonable if there are good empirical reasons to hold it.
A religious belief may be reasonable if there are good practical or personal reasons to hold it. The reasonableness in these latter kinds of cases of belief is not inter-subjectively determinable, though, because no empirical evidence that would convince any unbiased observer can be presented to support them. So we would generally tend to judge the reasonableness of the latter kinds of personal beliefs by looking at whether the person holding them seems to be a generally reasonable (rational or balanced) person.
I really don't mind if you disagree, it just means we employ different definitions, so I'll leave it there (even though I think my definition is more in accordance with common usage which seems to be the only possible criterion for correctness of terms).
Your common usage definition is fine.
Quoting Wayfarer
While I agree that dogmatism and fundamentalism are wrongheaded, even off-putting to me personally. Both in believers and non-believers alike. It does seem like some warrant can be had for faith. Most people here do not have a high view of the classical proofs for God. My idea being is because they're called exactly that, proofs. But I'm quite sure that while they are contentious and far from proof, they can be plausible and elicit faith.
Talking about theism as poetry and allegory also seems wrong to me. Poetry without a doubt is a beautiful way to portray reality, but in the end it is nothing more than sugarcoating reality with romanticism. I feel like you take away the entire idea of theism by admitting that it has no grasp on reality in the end. How can one not posit justification about such ponderings of reality? Would you not want your view of reality to be grounded instead of it being a dreamy haze?
I agree with most of the sentiments about God here, especially yours, Wayfarer. But the way you guys speak about it gives me the impression of downplaying.
I suppose I agree with the gist of it. But I find it much more attractive to follow where you believe the path leads while knowing and understanding your shortcomings. Your credulity and scepticism. Instead of throwing your hands in the air and saying, I don't know, in order to be completely out of the danger zone and taking the diplomatic route. I believe it's more meaningful and human to accept the risk that comes with faith. If you understand me.
Lets say for example that there is a guy named John who is swayed by one of aquinas' arguments. He knows that they aren't proof in any respect but acknowledges the problem it highlights and believes the premises to be plausible. But accepts the conclusion of God by taking a leap of faith. Because, after all, they aren't proofs. They are not giving you certainty. I wouldn't call John and his belief unreasonable if he understands and has reasoned about his leap here. I would find it beautiful.
But I'm a noob. So I fully accept that this probably is a clouded view of the way it works.
[quote=Ed Feser]Think...of the double standard that many contemporary academic philosophers apply to arguments for God’s existence. Any other idea in philosophy, no matter how insane – for example, that the material world is an illusion, that consciousness does not really exist, that infanticide and euthanasia are defensible, that the distinction between the sexes is a mere social construct, that it might be morally wrong to have children, and so on and on – is treated as “worthy of discussion,” something we must at least hear out with respect even if we suspect we will not be convinced. But if a philosopher gives an argument for God’s existence, then in at least many academic circles, every eyebrow is immediately raised, every eye rolls, and it’s smirks all around – as if such a philosopher had just passed gas, or proposed wearing a tinfoil hat to protect against mindreading.[/quote]
Quoting DoppyTheElv
:ok: 'In the beginner's mind, there are many possibilities. In the expert's mind, there are few' ~ Shunryu Suzuki, in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind.
I agree they can be seen as plausible. It all depends on your foundational presuppositions. That's why I say that for religious beliefs to be considered reasonable they must be considered both coherent and plausible. How do we measure plausibility, though, outside the empirical context? I don't think we can.
On the other hand, that religious beliefs can seem plausible to people we know to be intelligent and reasonable speaks to their reasonableness and allows for the judgement that people are warranted in holding such reasonable religious beliefs. It is kind of an opposite, positive ad hominem.
Quoting DoppyTheElv
For me this is a very superficial view of poetry. I think the best poetry has nothing at all to do with "sugarcoating" and of all human endeavours has the greatest "grasp on reality".
Any and all belief that is based upon logical possibility alone.
I've explained.
You haven't explained, and this still doesn't. Are you saying that belief that is based on logical possibility alone is reasonable but not warranted or what? I still don't understand why you would say that a belief could be reasonable, yet not warranted. As to beliefs based on mere logical possibility; that alone is not a reason to believe anything, so as far as I can see such beliefs are not reasonable nor, which in my view is the same thing, warranted. Regarding that see my response to @Mww above.
In any case, religious beliefs, the subject of this thread, are not based on logical possibility alone, so again you are not dealing with the subject at issue, it seems to me.
:brow:
How many different ways does it need to be explained to you?
Machine make mistakes. People don't like Trump. Some of those Trump haters have had it out for Trump since before he was elected, and they worked in the election counting votes or loading machines that count votes. Those people would have done whatever it takes to get him out of office. Some people are dishonest enough to try to steal an election. Some of those people did make such an attempt. I mean, Trump was clearly winning by a mile all night long while we were all watching. Then - while we were all sleeping - suddenly there were all these hundreds of thousands of votes all being reported at the same time, early in the wee hours of the morning, after everyone else had gone to bed...
All for Biden.
Clearly something was fishy in those voting counts.
Much of that rhetoric about the election being stolen from Trump is logically possible(if all sorts of other things were different). It is all based upon, reasoned from, and further reinforced certain strongly held belief about Trump and the United States government. That belief system is held by tens of millions of people. If one believes such things(as above), then it's also quite reasonable to strongly believe that something needs to be done about it by someone.
Stop the steal.
That's reasonable, but not warranted based upon what can be known.
Quoting Janus
Sure they are.
No, all I've been trying to do is find out exactly what it is you want to say; to find out just what you think the difference between being reasonable and being warranted is. As I've explained I think one entails the other, but you apparently don't, even though you don't seem to be able to explain why you don't.
Restored original post (thanks to creativesoul):
You've just said that that Trump's claims that the election was stolen is reasonable but not warranted, because it is not based on logical possibility alone.
Then you say religious belief is based on logical possibility alone; which I think is an absurd claim. Religious belief is based on personal religious experience, scriptures, historical documents (in some cases at least),millennia of history and practice. It is based on a lot of other beliefs just as Trump's claim the election was stolen is.
The difference is that the claim that the election was stolen is an empirical claim which requires empirical evidence, whereas religious belief is not an empirical claim, and there can be no evidence for it.
It follows that Trump's claim, in the apparent lack of any evidence, is neither reasonable nor warranted, whereas religious belief may be reasonable and warranted (for those who believe) just because it is not an empirical claim, there can be no evidence and the plausibility of the belief thus cannot be measured.
No, I did not.
I've given several arguments throughout our exchange here. You've neglected them all. I've answered all sorts of things raised by you, only to then have you claim that those things were irrelevant.
I'm beginning to believe that you are not arguing in good faith.
Be well.
When frustrated, go back to the article and try again. There's still plenty of exegesis and critique to be done.
Good idea.
Cats only meow at humans; not at other cats. They reserve that part of their language for inter-species communication.
Quoting Janus
As a matter of exegesis, Kenny is not saying faith is not unreasonable; he is saying that faith and reason are incommensurate. See p.394, and the conclusion:
"...in the absence of adequate evidence".
Indeed faith is to be maintained despite, and even in the face of, any evidence.
Further, quite specifically, Kenny points out that
Faith has nothing to do with reason, but everything to do with commitment.
Moving beyond exegesis, faith places the faithful beyond reasonable discourse. They are to believe regardless of the evidence, and follow their religious officials.
Fundamental to the Abrahamic religions is the myth of the binding of Isaac. That story extolls blind obedience to authority. This evil is the cornerstone of religion.
Don't know why you bothered to start this thread, you've clearly got no real interest in the subject matter.
This agrees with what I said; yet...
I think for a lot of people, the matter has been resolved, God declared dead, the whole thing left behind. It’s a sealed box, and best left closed.
I’ve never felt that way. I remember the famous Time magazine cover story, Is God Dead?, published when I was 12. I read it, but I thought the notion that God could actually die was plainly ironic or hyperbolic. Not that I had any particular notion of what ‘God’ was, other than that He is. I’ve often felt that religion gets it wrong, but there’s something that it gets wrong, it isn’t simply mistaken in the first place. But I also understand that many people, maybe most people, don’t feel that way about it, and I don’t expect to be able to say anything to change that.
It is a (mis)interpretation of the binding of Isaac as ‘obedience to authority’ that I think you may be referring to here in describing the ‘evil’ of religion.
I’ve found that accepting the testimony of a text (sacred or otherwise) is quite different from accepting the testimony of a religious community’s interpretation of that text. Belief regardless of evidence (faith) is not the same as blind obedience to authority, but this false equivalence is a common error in Abrahamic religions - and I think that there is as much in their text aimed at highlighting the distinction as there is interpreted to support an equivalence.
In my view, this ‘evil’ is more the cornerstone of institutionalised religion.
Faith is acceptance of an authority - a text or community. Faith is irrevocable; merit comes from belief despite the evidence.
Faith runs counter to the intellectual attitude that simply admits that one does not know.
I would add a third condition; that faith does not condone, let alone encourage, an action that is repugnant - such as sacrificing one's son.
The conclusion, that faith is not a virtue, seems unavoidable.
Then address this:
How is this not unquestioning obedience to authority?
Gen 22:12
Testimony is not the same as authority - this is a misunderstanding of faith, albeit a common one. And merit comes from action despite the evidence.
Quoting Banno
He’s referring to a tradition, which in itself is not authoritative. It is the enforcing of authority, not faith - in tradition, text or community - that is the error of institutionalised religion. Accepting the interpretation of a sacred text is inseparable from the authority of the religious officials who interpret it, but this has nothing to do with faith.
Faith is defined as ‘trust or confidence in something or someone’. It’s not something you can enforce on or demand from others. This is evident in the story of Abraham, who was touted for his unfailing trust and confidence, that was subtly different from blind obedience. ‘Fear of God’ is mistaken here for obedience to authority, but any illusion of ‘authority’ is given freely by Abraham, not demanded or taken by force. Abraham’s understanding of what God appeared to be asking of him notwithstanding, his trust or confidence in God (and more importantly in the promise made to him of countless descendants) showed in his reply to Isaac’s question about the offering: “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering” - that the sacrifice would not be his only son. An earlier account of Abraham questioning God’s plan to destroy Sodom demonstrates that God was not an ‘unquestionable authority’. But there’s a distinction to be made between questioning someone and doubting them - especially if it protects your own interests.
There is no condoning or encouraging an action here - there is, however, trust that there is more to the prescribed action than it appears.
Faith does not replace knowledge - it enables action despite the uncertainty that comes from a lack of sufficient evidence to support a prediction. When someone emigrates to a new country, for instance, they’re acting more on faith than on knowledge.
As if there is no acceptable enforcement of authority?
Why isn't that shifting the topic? No, he's referring to faith. He doesn't mention tradition.
Quoting Possibility
"God said 'fear', but meant 'trust'"...?
Not convincing.
Yes, he does:
Quoting Banno
He’s referring to an interpretation of faith within a particular religious tradition.
Quoting Banno
From a child’s perspective, it’s fear, awe or reverence. From the parent’s perspective, it’s trust. I’m not assuming the text as written is the word of God.
In order to know the odds that some particular event is going to happen one must know each and every actual outcome and all the individual particular influencing factors regarding each. The actual information is not within our grasp; those actual numbers are completely unknown. That said, we could probably be close though, in our predictions, regardless of our lack of omniscience... depending upon whether we're predicting the likelihood of past, current or future events, and perhaps most importantly... also depending upon the particular details of the prediction itself.
So, when we take the total number of planets that either currently are, or have ever once been capable of sustaining life as we know it, and we divide it by the total number of planets in the universe, we will soon arrive at some mind boggling, seemingly damning numbers.
If we then think about those numbers as if they somehow provide adequate reason to believe it near impossible that we should even be here, we've altogether forgotten that...
The odds are one hundred percent that we are, and Hume's guillotine has perhaps never been more appropriate.
To be clear...
Are you suggesting that there ought be no rules governing human behaviour? That there ought be no such thing as an enforceable clearly written code of acceptable/unacceptable behaviour?
:worry:
And yet from right at the beginning of Kenny's article in the abstract:
"but mere belief in God may be reasonable even if false."
What is belief in God if not religious faith? So, either Kenny is contradicting himself or you are misinterpreting him.
As you'll see I've argued all along if you care to read what I've been saying, faith only becomes unreasonable when it takes itself to be (inter-subjectively corroborable) knowledge. One could equally say that disbelief in God may be reasonable even if false. The point is that we do not, and cannot, know which out of belief and disbelief is false. Your personal preference in the matter is merely that: personal preference and nothing more.
Quoting Banno
This is not at all right in my view. Belief in the existence of God cannot be subjected to the (inter-subjective) tribunal of assessment of evidence as empirical claims are. As Kenny says the strictly correct view is agnosticism; but I take this to be qualified by "in the inter-subjective context". In the subjective context, one must make one's own mind up as to what one counts as evidence. I think it is arguable that most people who believe in God think they have good evidence for their belief. (Note again I am not saying they can have good inter-subjectively testable evidence for belief, or disbelief, in God).
The caveat is that one should never expect one's own criteria as to what constitutes evidence for oneself to be binding upon anyone else. (Note, to anticipate a possible misunderstanding this does not apply to the empirical or logical domains, just because they are inter-subjective domains). And this just is because the rational perspective is forced to recognize the absence of inter-subjectively corroborable evidence when it comes to religious belief.
The same principles apply to ethical and aesthetical statements or intuitions as well.
I'm never going to live that down am I? Look, he was very drunk at the time and the guy can throw fucking thunderbolts!. Have you ever been hit by a thunderbolt? It fucking hurts!
Well... that's what the article is about. "mere belief in God may be reasonable even if false" Why mere? Because he is distinguishing belief from faith.
Look at the whole of the sentence your quote is from:
You should see some of the people mum sold me out to.
No, of course not. I’m saying that any rules governing human behaviour must be based on a sound relational structure, not the words themselves or any particular or traditional interpretation of those words. I’m saying that a “clearly written code of acceptable/unacceptable behaviour” operates as such only with the trust and confidence (faith) of a community that lives by them, not just the authority of those who interpret or enforce them - and for any ‘authority’ to enforce blind obedience without opportunity to understand, question or challenge interpretation is unacceptable, in my book.
If so, then Protestantism, Sunnism, and many other religions, are no longer theisms.
Redefining theism like so, doesn't really do much here (except rhetorically perhaps).
Not sure you can speak on other people's behalf so cavalierly.
By odd verbiage, Eagleton abstracts away semblance of common religions, and takes off into the clouds.
I suppose that may be fine in lofty theology, and your faith perhaps.
(I might take it one step further, and say that Eagleton conjures up strawmen to replace Dawkins by misrepresenting what he's on about; don't know that much about Dawkins, though he seems to care less about, say, panpsychism and Spinozism than common religions.)
"Ultimately [...]" and Eagleton doesn't represent typical faiths of people on the ground.
Not sure what Anthony Kenny would have to say; maybe this is an indication (emphasis mine):
Quoting Knowledge, Belief, and Faith* by Anthony Kenny, 385-386
"Acting" isn't really in atemporal's vocabulary.
We'd be talking strangely inert and lifeless, more like abstract objects.
Faith is unshakable belief in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. The saying goes "walk by faith not by sight". The key point above is the last statement. One with faith has already made up their own mind that nothing will change what they already believe, and they've done so - many times - quite deliberately, consciously, and knowingly. To do so in Christianity is held up as one of the most admirable qualities, if not perhaps the most admirable that a believer can have.
Clearly, he is showing tradition insufficient.
Anyway, if faith in a creed is taken to be anything more than a personal commitment (binding only on oneself), then it becomes unreasonable, as I've already said several times: it incorrectly takes itself to be knowledge and becomes fundamentalism.
Quoting creativesoul
The problem is that you are ignoring the fact that there can be no evidence to the contrary. To say there could be would be to commit a category error.
There can be no evidence to the contrary for any Christian beliefs?
Are you saying that?
Belief in revelation is evidently unreasonable either way. Put differently, personal revelations are unreliable.
• Did Jesus Really Visit the Americas? (Carlos René Romero; Jul 2008)
• Argument from inconsistent revelations (Religions Wiki)
• Argument from inconsistent revelations (Wikipedia)
...and true Scotsmen.
How do you know they are unreliable? Unreliable as to what? You realize that purported revelations can be taken literally or allegorically, and that vast numbers of intelligent Christians do the latter?
I suspect you are trying to bring this back to the empirical. Any empirical claims made by religions are subject to falsification obviously, just like other empirical claims. But such claims are not central to religious faith, unless it has become fundamentalism.
Otherwise it reduces to mere silence...
How do you know that a faith taken to be binding only upon oneself will necessarily "make a difference, somewhere, to what one does or to how one claims things are."?
Perhaps religious faith should reduce to mere silence. But in relation to what cannot be said, where philosophy cannot tread, there is still poetry. What is wrong with seeing religious faith as consisting in being inspired by a species of poetry?
Agreed - your point being...?
Again, I think this is a misunderstanding of faith as interpreted within certain (most) Christian traditions. The idea that faith is an unshakeable authority, that it is upheld in spite of evidence to the contrary, is a distortion that has emerged since the Enlightenment, as a self-preservation strategy. It reifies authority in the text and in its traditional and/or community interpretation. Prior to this, religious institutions were not above destroying evidence, testimony or traditions to the contrary - their authority upheld as ‘unquestionable’ in most social structures affording them license to do so. That they needed to resort to such actions is evidence in itself that the authority of faith is far from ‘unshakeable’.
As to the bible reference: your interpretation of this is again based on a tradition that has distorted ‘faith’ as an authority rather than a confidence. In context:
6 Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. 7 For we live by faith, not by sight. 8 We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.
‘Sight’ (eidos) refers specifically to outward appearance, not knowledge or understanding (these are different Greek words). There is nothing here to indicate that anyone has ‘made up their mind’ - only that their mind or spirit (no distinction made) is more trustworthy than their body.
Faith is not unshakeable, not irrevocable and not authoritative. It’s only portrayed as such within most Christian traditions, institutions and officials desperate to hold onto their authority.
A true Scotsman will simply say "That's not essential to being Scots!".
See the problem?
Quoting Janus
Ah. So it's a beetle in a box - no not even that, since we can at least talk about our respective beetles.
What does 'evidence' consist of, in this context? You see, typically, we will start with the presumption that the sacred texts of the religious traditions convey no truth, that they're mythological, and then demand that any truth-claims based on them must be proven. By what standard? Scientific, double-blind experiments? What precisely is it that is being 'accepted on authority'? And what could constitute ‘evidence' in the presumption that none of what the faithful consider the testimony of their tradition is valueless in the first place?
Quoting Possibility
That's not quite true. What this refers to is 'fideism', which is 'the doctrine that knowledge depends on faith'. There are strong fideistic tendencies in Christianity but it was especially accentuated by Luther and Calvin, and the doctrine of 'salvation by faith alone'. If you look at it from an outside perspective, the non-believer is being told that they MUST believe, on pain of eternal damnation. So it's hardly surprising that very large numbers of people have declined. That's why Dawkin's atheism is sometimes described as 'Protestant'.
https://www.bytrentsacred.co.uk/index.php/dawkins-protestant-atheism/the-virus-of-faith-historicism-1
Quoting PossibilityHere's the argument in the article, in less than twenty words: add warrant to belief and knowledge; faith is belief that is neither warranted nor known. No reference to tradition.
No, I don't see your purported problem.
If some Christians say that a particular belief, for example that the world was created around six thousand years ago, is central to the their faith, and some Christians say it is not central to their faith, then it follows that it is not central to the Christian faith, simply because some identify themselves as Christians and yet do not hold to it. I think it is actually the case that the majority of Christians don't believe the world was literally created around six thousand years ago.
So, it really has nothing to do with Scotsmen, True or otherwise.
Quoting Banno
I don't know how "finding" got in there; it should have been 'faith'. In any case I have no idea what you are trying to say here.
Though I would say that one's personal Christian faith should make a difference, for the better, (if one does more than pay lip service to it) to one's behavior, since, whatever else we might take that faith to be, it is, according to the scriptures, a religion of love.
Well, apparently, nothing... that's the issue.
No, that's your issue. That's what you believe.
Nuh. Quoting Janus
If the point is moot, why the argument?
What?
As in, would you mind going back and setting out what you are saying, 'cause you lost me.
Edit: Do you agree that in the article, Kenny is setting faith out as unwarranted belief?
SO to you, aslo: Quoting Banno
It's a shame you apparently are unable to argue for your position!
Quoting Banno
The point is not moot. I have said that we cannot know that religious faith must make a difference to behavior, but I have allowed that it should, and that the difference, if it is to be in accordance with scripture, should be a positive one (otherwise it would not be in accordance with scripture). What is the actual problem or inconsistency you think you see in that?
A useless post. Read the quote. Quoting Janus
You do this often. Simply make a pronouncement, and imagine that you are under no obligation to argue for its verity. I think there is a valid distinction between subjective and inter-subjective; between what I am entitled to be personally convinced by and what I am entitled to expect others to be convinced by. If you think that distinction is "wrong-headed" then you should be able to explain why you think that.
With Christianity it is different: one is a Christian merely on account of professing it. To say that is not the case would actually be to commit the True Scotsman fallacy, ironically.
SO go back to the article, and let's see if we can locate the point of difference - because this is getting nowhere.
p.395.
Do you agree that in the article, Kenny is setting faith out as unwarranted belief?
Kenny seems to contradict himself, as I already said. In any case, even if I granted that he does seem to set faith out as unwarranted belief, that doesn't mean we are obliged to agree with him. That is precisely what I have been arguing for, the grounds for disagreeing with the idea that faith is irrational and unwarranted tout court.
Of course it is trivially true that from the point of view of inter-subjective warrant, religious faith is irrational and unwarranted, because only empirical and logical judgements can be inter-subjectively tested and evaluated. To expect the situation to be the same with personal faith would be to commit a category error, as I have been arguing.
The question I raised is, what would be the warrant for religious belief? What makes it different from belief in Russell's orbiting teapot, or the flying spaghetti monster, or fairies at the bottom of the garden, or all the other atheist tropes that are trotted out in this context. What is at stake?
There's a curious, unstated asymettry in all of these discussions. From the atheist viewpoint, all that is at stake a belief, and one that is in all likelihood false, so that in the event of that argument being correct, all your opponent has lost is a belief. But to the believer, what is at stake is the fate of their immortal soul. It's much more than simply a verbal argument or rhetorical joust, from their perspective. It's a matter of life and death - or even more grave than that.
The kind of exasperrated presumption that is typical of Dawkins conveys to me that he really has no comprehension of the stakes at all. It's all simply foolishness. Now, my own religiosity, such as it is, is a pretty hybrid model. But I still retain a core of faith - something which I learned from reading Dawkins, which had the exact opposite effect on me to what he intended.
Well, that's a bucket with no contents. You are "pouring from the empty into the void". Try engaging with what I have said and providing actual arguments against it, instead of issuing empty assertions.
:grin:
Ah - but if the theist is correct, then it is about the immortal soul of the atheist as much as the theist...
So for me Kenny is saying there is no warrant, and you want he and I to set out what that warrant would be...?
Can you answer your own question for me? If you think there is some sort of warrant, that is...
I take it you think Kenny is setting faith out as unwarranted belief?
It's 'cause I get bored with pointing out the the same problems. "intersubjective" presumes the primacy of the subject. That's a basic error, as shown by Wittgenstein's treatment of rules. I'm not going to discuss stuff with you if the only ontology you can accept is your own; I'd rather find common ground.
I'd love someone to count ad homs here - who would be winning, you or I??
Quoting Banno
Quoting Banno
Quoting Banno
Quoting Banno
Quoting Banno
Quoting Banno
Here's a fairer statement, which still requires explanation:
Quoting Banno
Inter-subjective presumes the primacy, not of the subject, but of inter-subjective inquiry and discourse. Of course it is not in question that all discourses are constrained by the nature of the subjects (or objects, if you prefer) of those discourses. How do you think your ontology is different than mine? Tell me that and I'll tell you if you're correct.
Faith frequently does mean unwarranted belief. We all have those.
I quoted a passage by Josiah Royce recently, from here. The key paragraph, and one that addresses this point, is:
That last sentence describes almost everyone, so, reason dictates I should probably leave it at that.
I would agree that faith frequently (perhaps always?) does entail empirically unwarranted belief. But isn't that to be expected in the context of religious faith? I've been trying to argue that there can also be, in the case of non-empirical beliefs, in the domains of ethics, aesthetics and religion, personal warrants that motivate one's own belief but should not be taken to be warrants that others ought to be convinced by.
I think this would simply be to acknowledge that faith consists in personal conviction, and that in the absence of inter-subjectively evaluable evidence, one is free to believe what seems most reasonable, with the assessment of the intellectual honesty of what is taken on faith being ultimately left to oneself as it must be in that personal domain.
Perhaps not...
Quoting Wayfarer
My reply is simply that Kenny describes faith in terms of lack or warrant; for the religious belief despite lack of warrant is to be considered a virtue. Further, I agree with that description. Asking what such warrant would look like is tangential to the discussion.
I suspect we do not disagree here.
Sure. A tenet of Protestant Christianity is that there is no intermediary between you and God. You are your own priest.
Quoting Janus
I think the point you're making would be readily accepted by some Christians and rejected as blasphemy by others.
We might proceed by following Davidson in supposing that metaphor has no literal meaning, but has a point or a purpose... a use.
One use might be to ensure uncritical obedience.
Another, more generous use we might see in 's comment; the betterment of the individual.
A better rendering might be: Faith frequently does mean unwarranted certainty.
Tosh. It’s fundamental. You can’t even talk about a warrant without considering what it is for.
This is a spitball thrown at the Grand Canyon. Can we not have philosophy of religion where the participants know something about religion?
Quoting Banno
Yes.
There's a Buddhist text in which the goal of the Buddhist path is said to be a 'foothold in the deathless'. It says that 'Those who have not known, seen, penetrated, realized, or attained it by means of discernment would have to take it on conviction...' i.e. 'accept it on faith', but those who really have seen, penetrated, realised, etc, know for themselves.
I think a parallel verse in Christianity would be the parable of 'seeing through a glass darkly'.
So it's not as if faith has no warrant. It has no, shall we say, worldly rationale (although that is obviously torpedoed by the disgustingly materialistic behaviour of many American evangelicals). But the sincere believer is, as it were, playing a long game.
I suspect the problem is philosophy of religion where the participants don't know much about philosophy.
Ok, I’m with you now.
This is a combination of bad philosophy and poor understanding of religion:
Do we even need to explore what that statement is supposed to mean?
That's not what I said. Faith is unshakable conviction that some claim or another(many usually) is true. True believers have it. All of them. That goes for fundamentalist(literalists) and others alike.
Authority does play a role in this, for unshakable trust in the truthfulness of God's Word is taught to be aspired towards, honored, exalted, and revered... in spite of any and all 'worldly' claims to the contrary.
That dissolves the earlier notion of intersubjective/subjective...
All religious belief is adopted. Edited to add:Well, strictly speaking that is clearly not true. I mean, someone somewhere had to come up with it first. But, aside from that, the point stands. Even moreso, the first beliefs served to fill in the gaps in the people's knowledge base about the way things are, were, and/or will be.
So, after knowledge to the contrary was acquired concerning those beliefs, to maintain the previous religious explanations for what's happened, was happening at the time, or will happen later(than that time) was a matter of(was to demonstrate one's own) faith.
The parting of the Red Sea...
The second coming of Christ...
Jonah and the whale...
Job - now there's a story about faith!
I don't know why you think that. Faith is frequently shaken, lost, regained, etc. It can be strong or weak. So?
Quoting creativesoul
Eh, for the majority of religious people in human history, faith wasn't much of an issue. You believed Zeus lives on a mountain because that's what the wise people said.
You're putting a microscope on a quirky aspect of Christianity.
Think about that.
Yea. It's fascinating.
I'm not saying that all religious belief is held with unshakable conviction. Indeed, one point of the paper is to draw and maintain a distinction between faith and religious belief. How else to do that if not putting a microscope upon faith?
It presupposes the existence of Zeus. It shows the role of authority throughout history as it pertains to religious belief. It shows that religious belief is not in it's own category. It shows that most - near all - religious belief is learned and it leads us to...
...consider the source.
There are a number of fantastic scholars of religion to rely on. Save the dubious speculation.
Quoting creativesoul
I don't know what you're trying to say.
You think that this somehow contradicts what counts as faith? What's lost, shaken, or regained?
When it is lost or shaken, is it unshakable?
No.
If one has unshakable conviction, then they have faith. If they do not, they do not have faith.
Hence... as a matter of the highest merit, one will refuse all evidence to the contrary, as a means to show and/or demonstrate their faith.
Well, yes. You might learn something.
Oh good. What does it mean?
Religious belief is no different to any other about what's happened, is happening, and/or will happen.
Like the wise men?
This is an example of an embryonic religion. It's similar in many ways to early Christianity. What role is faith playing here?
"For years, believers of QAnon have been waiting for "The Storm," a day of reckoning foretold by Q during which these elites would be exposed, rounded up and possibly even executed. It seemed "The Storm" was always just around the corner.
Lily's father frantically called her days before the inauguration, imploring her to come home for her safety, she said. Her parents were so sure Q's predictions were going to come true.
But then Biden became president and nothing happened.
Lily hoped that her family would finally return to her after Biden's inauguration.
Her parents have reasoned away why Q's predictions didn't come true. "They blame themselves for not understanding what Q meant," she said. "For not being smart enough to be able to know what really is going to happen."
Now Lily, like others who have lost loved ones to QAnon, is left wondering how to move forward."
https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/12/tech/qanon-followers-family-lost-loved-ones/index.html
If you don't know it's false, it could be entirely reasonable. Depends.
They're scholars.
Let's just say that I'm uniquely qualified to assess faith. I've seen it up close and personal. I've lived in it's immediate presence. I've watched it used as a means to condone completely unacceptable things like the behaviour/treatment of others. I've watched it used as a means to condemn helpful, well-intended, inclusive, respectful, but different people and world-views. Indeed, to this day, faith rears it's ugly head in many a conversation I have with certain family members, to their own detriment because having it has caused them to be far more confused, and angry at all the wrong people and things than need be.
See the word "know" in "If you don't know it's false"?
Where'd it come from?
But, hey, seems you understood what was said. Well done.
Use them then. By all means...
Quote these scholars on faith in the sense we're discussing here. The term is also used as a synonym to a belief system(denominations). That sense isn't under examination. I do think that Janus has been equivocating the senses though. No fault, just pointing out a potential point of confusion, and/or miscommunication.
Yes. Exactly!
Quoting Possibility
Kenny sets out faith in terms of adherence to "acceptance of the testimony of a sacred text or of a religious community" - top p.394.
I would drive the nail deeper and suggest that no sooner are religious notions articulated than they become false. This also follows from such talk being understood as metaphor.
Why is their faith so strong?
This is a good question.
Quoting frank
That's the role faith plays. The reasoning away...
Quoting frank
That's a psychological question. I would say that there's much more to learn by seeking to answer how it became so unshakable.
Q is providing them with revelations about secret truths. Q promises that a great day of reckoning will come soon and a great evil will be dealt with.
This is Christianity before Jesus died. Jesus was supposed to bring about this great reckoning, just as Trump was supposed to "save the children"
After Jesus died, his followers could have walked away, but instead they just fell deeper into it. It had become part of their identities. They couldn't let go of their hope and face a grey world of despair. They were locked in.
QAnon is going through this now. They're trying to transform. If they don't get a 'Paul' the phenomenon will fade out.
This is sort of beyond regular psychology because this same scenario predates Christianity. It's been happening for millennia. Scholars say it's a unique aspect of Indo-European cultures.
Those who believe they've been persecuted, perhaps, will believe that there will come a day of reckoning, when the persecution stops?
In today's modern age, the persecuted may take the 'form' of poor people(Americans) who know that something is inherently deeply wrong with the government in that it's supposed to be making decisions based upon their best interest, but it's clearly not been successful in doing so. Combine that with a deep-seated warranted belief that politicians(most anyway) are dishonest about what's actually motivating their own decision making(public policy), and you have fertile soil to sew the seeds...
Trump was/is looked at as a savior... because of those poor people's faith.
Pharisees. So if you understand QAnon, you understand one of the major facets of the Christian diamond, and a recurring motif in human life. The universal calibrates your vision. It helps you see patterns.
"Belief systems" seems a better description than "the universal"... "Helps" is far too neutral or positive.
I give you the whole enchilada and you're playing with a pinto bean.
I'm sure you understand that religion is real people, real wounds, and real cultures on vast timescales. You know this isn't the domain of analytical philosophy (deny it if you want, but I know you do.)
‘False’ seems to advocate a dismissal of the entire testimony. I just read an article on the 150th anniversary of Darwin’s ‘Descent of Man’ that addresses the imperialistic assumptions and misunderstanding of gender in what is otherwise an important work, and the difficulties in recent moves to ‘erase’ the authority of racist ideas from history. Recognising Darwin as ‘a man of his time’ allows the falseness in his testimony surrounding and interpreting his research to at least be understood without throwing out the proverbial baby.
I think it’s not just a matter of understanding these religious notions as metaphor, but also understanding their articulation as personal testimony (rather than authority), filled with the ignorance and falsehoods of the knowledge/experience that articulated them.
——————
I guess the issue I was having with the discussion - and the reason I commented - is the denigration of faith in general for the ignorance that unwarranted assertions and claims of authority or knowledge have contributed to, under the guise of religious ‘faith’.
Faith is not a virtue in itself, but by the same token is also not a vice when acted upon as a reasonable prediction in the absence of sufficient evidence. It is, however, a vice when it attempts to conceal a lack of warrant. I think it is this lack of warrant that is difficult for the faithful to acknowledge, because it opens the door to the possibility of doubt - falsely portrayed as the enemy of faith. But if there was no doubt, then we wouldn’t need faith to guide our actions, would we? We would just know.
I think faith is useful ONLY in the absence of sufficient evidence, and only for guiding our own thoughts, words and actions - not those of others. Faith (accompanied by doubt) is supposed to help us to interact with the world - to increase awareness, connection and collaboration with what we don’t yet understand - not to construct walls and swords against understanding.
When confidence is wielded as imposed authority over the words, thoughts or actions of others, then it’s an expression of the doubt and lack of warrant that naturally accompanies faith - in acts of ignorance, isolation and exclusion. When we read this authority into sacred texts and then attempt to bind others to it, we are no longer expressing our faith, but our doubts in denial, projected outward.
I don't believe in domains. Not too sure I'm rightly called an analytic philosopher either, so...
The pinto bean is the focus. Specifically, faith as distinct from mere or reasonable religious belief. I agree that faith may be a relatively new aspect within Christianity, and be inapplicable to other religious belief systems, but that's not the topic.
I'm not attributing Christian faith to any other religions, however, there are certainly similarities in different belief systems, such as QAnon and many Trump supporters(not all). The kind of faith being discussed is not limited to just Christianity.
...a self-imposed future inability[hide](given a sufficient timeframe of practicing this sort of faith)[/hide] to admit that one's own belief(s) are, or could be, mistaken. A consciously chosen refusal to believe or even consider anything to the contrary - a leap into faith - [hide]when deliberately practiced as those I've known have been practicing for as long as I've known them,[/hide] actually creates an insurmountable 'self'-imposed[hide](scarequotes intentional given that such beliefs are adopted, in very large part at least)[/hide] impediment to even being able to believe otherwise[hide](including situations when we know the belief is false on it's face)[/hide]. Such people will not even acknowledge that it's possible for such deeply held, unshakable beliefs to exist and be operative elements of their own self-governance[hide](however limited these abilities may be regarding the individual)[/hide].
One with faith in God will not waver. One with faith that they've attained access to God's word will not be swayed. One who knows(or comes to know) that they've long since placed faith in the truthful testimony of others may be swayed a bit more.