Does "atheist" content on YouTube have any shortcomings, and if so could philsci experts help?
Dear Philsci Experts,
Not sure if you guys are all "experts" on philsci, but I hope that there are lots of deeply knowledgeable people regarding philsci on this forum.
At the end of this article (https://join.substack.com/p/questions-for-matt-dillahunty), ten bullet-points are given, each bullet-point representing a possible point that a philosopher might raise in contrast to the brand of philosophy that YouTube "atheists" (e.g., Dillahunty) put forward to the public.
Some of these bullet-points relate to philsci.
If you watch for a couple minutes from here (https://youtu.be/CEDBnplh09o?t=74), then you'll see an example of Dillahunty talking about stuff that seems to relate to philsci.
Also, you can watch for a couple minutes from here to see Dillahunty talk about testability and falsifiability: https://youtu.be/Iu3N9Q2B3Uk?t=1946.
Watching the videos above, does Dillahunty's brand of philsci (if indeed it's a brand of philsci) make good sense, or does it have any errors? If so, what are the errors?
And are those bullet-points (the ones that relates to philsci) all solid points to make? I realize that in order to know if those bullet-points contrast with anything that Dillahunty has ever said, one needs to be familiar with Dillahunty's commentary on science.
Please be as thorough as you can, if you can be.
Thanks so much for your help; I hugely appreciate it!
Sincerely,
Need Logic Help
Not sure if you guys are all "experts" on philsci, but I hope that there are lots of deeply knowledgeable people regarding philsci on this forum.
At the end of this article (https://join.substack.com/p/questions-for-matt-dillahunty), ten bullet-points are given, each bullet-point representing a possible point that a philosopher might raise in contrast to the brand of philosophy that YouTube "atheists" (e.g., Dillahunty) put forward to the public.
Some of these bullet-points relate to philsci.
If you watch for a couple minutes from here (https://youtu.be/CEDBnplh09o?t=74), then you'll see an example of Dillahunty talking about stuff that seems to relate to philsci.
Also, you can watch for a couple minutes from here to see Dillahunty talk about testability and falsifiability: https://youtu.be/Iu3N9Q2B3Uk?t=1946.
Watching the videos above, does Dillahunty's brand of philsci (if indeed it's a brand of philsci) make good sense, or does it have any errors? If so, what are the errors?
And are those bullet-points (the ones that relates to philsci) all solid points to make? I realize that in order to know if those bullet-points contrast with anything that Dillahunty has ever said, one needs to be familiar with Dillahunty's commentary on science.
Please be as thorough as you can, if you can be.
Thanks so much for your help; I hugely appreciate it!
Sincerely,
Need Logic Help
Comments (56)
My understanding of DIllahunty is that he was a Southern Baptist who became an atheist after exposing himself to the arguments of skeptics and secular humanists, ostensibly in an attempt to improve his own arguments in defence of Christianity. He wanted to be a preacher.
He would be the first to tell you he is not a scientist or philosopher so he would likely ask you to go elsewhere for knowledge on these subjects. His primary work consists of examining the reasons people offer for believing in God and deconstructing these based on critical thinking and basic skepticism. A commonly cited text book is A Concise Introduction to Logic by Hurley and Watson.
Most of his work is debating literalist fundamentalists so not a lot of substantive philosophy taking place. He has cited Susan Haack as an influence on this thinking about science. He does not accept that science is in the business of making truth proclamations.
No doubt many would disparage his position based on the fact that Dillahunty is essentially a physicalist with all the potential baggage and limitations this approach may have.
Thanks for getting back to me! I appreciate the fantastic response!
I know that Dillahunty is not an academic or anything, but I'm curious about whether he pushes bad philosophy ever, and if so if it's irresponsible for him to do so.
The piece cited in my post draws an analogy to biology. If there was a biology show "Biology Explorations with Matt Dillahunty!" and then he never brought on biologists to check whether the stuff that he was putting out there was solid, then you might consider that sketchy. For some reason, I guess, philosophy isn't considered the same as biology, since Dillahunty has no problem talking about philosophy without having any philosophers check whether his philosophy commentaries are solid. I wonder what the difference between biology and philosophy are. Or maybe the piece isn't even correct; maybe it would be perfectly OK to have a biology show for the public that didn't ever bring biologists on to "vet" things. But if that wouldn't be OK for biology, then why is it OK for philosophy?
I guess I should've been more clear in my post. Because there are two questions. First is whether the bullet points that are related to philsci are good points (and what you guys make of those points). Second is whether those points undermine any of the philsci-related stuff that Dillahunty talks about (this requires you to know what Dillahunty says about philsci). So there are two separate questions here. Not sure if my post was sufficiently clear about that.
I also linked to two videos. And I get that citing videos is brutal because they take a while to watch. But I wonder if just dipping into those videos you guys would find that those videos are solid, or whether there's any bad philosophy ("bad philsci") being pushed in those videos.
When you mention the "commonly cited" textbook, is that something that Dillahunty cites? Or is it just commonly cited in general by...by whom? Thanks!
Cool.
The issue is you can find philosophers to support whatever belief you have. Whose assessment of Dillahunty would be useful? He does liaise with academics and sometimes interviews them.
Dillahunty presents basic forms of fallibilism and skepticism which does not seem irresponsible unless you have already decided that God exists and empiricism is not a sound epistemological approach. There are many who would argue this.
There seems to be a potential major error here. If not, I apologize. But why assume that the options are (1) "Dillahunty is solid in the stuff that he says about phil and philsci and logic and epistemology" or (2) "God is true and empiricism is not a sound epistemological approach"?
I'm skeptical about both (1) and (2). My third option would be: (3) "the religious people are way off-base and Dillahunty also commits major errors when he wades into the pools of phil and philsci and logic and epistemology".
Ethics is another area Dillahunty talks about, and on that topic he cites Sam Harris, who is arguably one of the most pilloried pop-philosophers in the entire world, as you can find out by searching his name on philosophy-forums.
You raise a good point: "Whose assessment of Dillahunty would be useful?"
The first step would be to have some critical academics vet the stuff, whoever they are.
Another key point is that we all have some sense of which academics in a given field (a) publish peer-reviewed articles and (b) are highly regarded by their peers and (c) are having an influence in their field by being cited a lot by their peers. True, there's no objective way to know whose assessment is useful, but we all have a sense for who the first-rate scholars in a field are. The fact that they're first-rate doesn't make them correct, but it makes it interesting to see what they have to say about the philosophy that you're putting out to the world.
I'm not making a logical argument, I am simply making the observation that physicalism is contested in philosophical circles and by some on this site. There are people who would dub his ideas as irresponsible or inadequate because they ignore alternative traditions and 'evidence' and centuries of Western idealist traditions.
Thanks. I'm just pushing this idea as a potential fact: "the religious people are way off-base and Dillahunty also commits major errors when he wades into the pools of phil and philsci and logic and epistemology".
I just want to make that clear, since it's a false choice to say that either Matt is solid or his religious interlocutors are solid; they could both be wrong about various things in philosophy.
D may be crusty but never makes claims about truth and seems open to hearing where he might be wrong, so go to it.
Seems to me he never really goes beyond undergraduate levels of logic and epistemology, so I doubt there is anything especially 'wrong' with his substantive material. But it is likely to be seen as limited from a bigger picture academic perspective - theoretical physics, for one
The best way to view D (I think) is as a polemicist who uses critical thinking techniques to debunk supernatural belief systems. Perhaps best seen as a first step towards learning more and not an end in itself.
If there are no major errors in his substantive material, then that's fantastic. That's what's at issue here: Is his substantive material solid or not?
If it's solid, then that's a really good thing. The bad thing would be if there were bad philosophy being spread (and being spread with a polemical confidence, too, which would just add insult to injury, since he would not only be spreading bad philosophy but also doing so in an extremely obnoxious way).
I don't like him as a person, but that has nothing to do with whether he's right or wrong about philosophy. He can be very obnoxious (just watch literally any of his YT videos and you'll see exactly what I mean; he hangs up on people and stuff), but that has zero to do with whether he's spreading bad philosophy or not.
Obnoxious people can be correct. And polite/nice/personable people can be wrong. So these are different questions.
If you or someone you have in mind cannot muster an argument based on their own position and learning, that's airtight enough for you/them but perhaps not for someone more sincere.
I'm just interested in the questions that I asked in the post about whether there's any bad philosophy being spread.
I think Matt is annoying. Some of the other "atheist" hosts are super-nice, actually. But all of this is extremely irrelevant, and I probably shouldn't have even answered the question because it's a distraction from the purpose of this thread.
So I'll just stay away from random gossip/distractions and stick to the topic from now on.
And just to be clear, a lot of the hosts are really nice, and they might well be spreading errors as well, so it's not all about Matt and it's not all about the one host who happens to be impolite.
I just want to clarify a couple points, since there seems to be some extreme confusion here.
First, I'm a nonbeliever. I don't accept any supernatural claims, and I don't believe in God, and I'm not religious, and I don't accept any religious claims.
Second, I'm suspicious that "atheist" content has philosophical errors in it, but you're right that I have no idea if there are errors.
Third, I started this thread in order to find out if there are errors, so the very purpose of this thread is to find out (from knowledgeable people) if there are any errors. It's an investigation.
Fourth, I need to stick to the topic of this thread: whether there is or isn't any bad philosophy being spread. I can't be distracted by irrelevant stuff like what I personally believe about religion (irrelevant) or whether I think Matt is rude (irrelevant). This is a philosophy-forum.
As I've already said, it could be considered 'bad' by those who thinks physicalism is wrong and limited. Most of the usual critiques made against atheism apply to D, except that his form of atheism is agnostic atheism which is not making any positive claims. There are many competent philosophers who would argue that atheism is bad philosophy period....
As you probably know, anything any atheist or believer says is able to be critiqued from some perspective or another. Whether one agrees often depends on one's bias rather than the merit of the argument. That much we can see from how people argue on this site.
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Dillahunty.
Thanks for responding. I want to clarify something absolutely crucial.
I would imagine:
--nonbelief (in supernatural/religious claims) is not remotely controversial among leading scholars of epistemology
--serious scholars will not challenge "atheist" commentators on the issue of whether nonbelief is rational
--nonbelief is fully rational based on the most rigorous thinking in epistemology
--"atheist" commentators probably make all sorts of philosophical mistakes, despite being correct in their conclusion that nonbelief is rational
By the way, I sincerely apologize for allowing myself to get knocked off course. I shouldn't have mentioned anything irrelevant to the issues raised in my post.
I came to this forum to stay on-topic about philosophy. It's my fault, though, for letting myself get distracted. I will try to be much more disciplined about the specific issues at hand.
You talk about errors and mistakes and their propagation. Please explain what you mean.
I don't know what you mean by "philosophical mistakes". There are such things as errors in logic, and there are such things as fallacies. Philosophy, as a discipline, is not error-prone. Some things can be proven false, but very, very few. This is so mainly because philosophy deals almost exclusively with topics that can't be decided aye or nay for sure.
So what do you mean by "philosophical mistakes"? If you could please explain that.
Thanks for replying!
1: I apologize for any vagueness. It's annoying to simply ask philsci (and other) experts to weigh in on this material, since it takes hours to try to watch all of these videos. It would be great if (e.g.) Dillahunty (or other hosts) simply had a book/paper that could be sent to experts to review, but instead the content is spread across all of these lengthy videos, so it's a lot of work to find out what their views on philsci (or other topics) even are.
2: I did link to various things in my post, though, so those could be commented on. There are "ten bullet-points" and also two YouTube-videos. I would be curious to know what people think about those things.
3: Falsifiability is a big one. Dillahunty talks in the two videos that I linked about how science uses falsifiability, but one of the "ten bullet-points" that I linked to mentions that falsifiability is not actually relevant to philsci. And that's an interesting idea, since laypeople would imagine that falsifiability is crucial to science, so if it isn't then experts (on philsci) might clarify why it's not crucial and why science is able to function without it.
Anything that is logically proven, can be show to be false if:
1. One or more of the assumptions are found to be wrong;
2. One or more of the logical steps are found to be wrong.
I shan't go into details of how one can make logical errors, this little post is too small for that. But if someone bases his logic on an assumption (called premise) in his thinking, and the logic is flawless, then the conclusion will be wrong.
Now take the case of the atheist versus the believer. The atheist's assumption is that the gospels are not factual, they are make-belief, they are not inspired by god. The believer's assumption, on the other hand, is that the Gospels are true in every word, and God inspired them via the life of Jesus.
Right away you have a contention that makes one's entire argument stand or fail. The atheist may make a beatuful logical deducing, but his assumption is false according to the Christian believer, so the atheist's conclusion is wrong. And similarly the other way.
I also don't know what you mean by this word, you keep using this abbreviation as if it were a c.h.w.
I just mean philosophy of science.
Read any critique about atheism and you will see what I mean. Things being rational or not are not always the main game.
Does any serious/leading scholar of epistemology challenge the notion that nonbelief (in supernatural/religious claims) is rational? I would love to read their argument, if so. I don't imagine that that's controversial.
The word "atheism" is extremely loaded, so I avoid it. I only care about whether nonbelief is rational. "Atheism" is a nightmare of a term, since it might imply an assertion about God not existing or some such thing. I try to avoid that term at all costs, to avoid massive confusions.
You did speak a million words without answering my question. I can't answer YOUR question before you tell me the answer to my question.
Your question (for clarification, please correct me if I am wrong): "What philosophical errors does Dullahunty make?"
My question (has to be answered before I can answer yours): "How would you describe what a philosophical error is?"
Please don't mince words, and keep focussed on the question I asked of you. If you can't answer it, please note that I can't help you then.
By "error", I don't mean anything technical. I simply mean: "Not knowing what you're talking about."
Suppose someone says that science relies on falsifiability in order to operate and in order to make progress, and then a philsci expert says: "Actually, falsifiability has not been relevant in our field (philsci) for decades." That would be an error, since the person is saying something that scholars would consider incorrect and that scholars would say (in this case) represents old thinking that went out of date decades ago.
So it's really just: "Things that leading/prominent/serious scholars in the field would consider misinformed or uninformed or incorrect."
I thought that your question was if there were philosophical errors in the Dullahunty's videos.
So what IS your question?
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This is easy to answer: Yes. The pope.
Try to give me a chance to fix typos, too, before you respond.
This was a wonderful answer. Thank you very much, I really appreciate it.
In this case, I have to admit that I am too small to answer your original question in a definitive way. Sorry. Your question is too big for me.
I think we may be stuck, I am not addressing rationality. The word 'rational' is as loaded as atheism. Be careful not to worship it. Remember many philosophers argue that theism is rational too. Rational is not a synonym for true. Sound logic doesn't make something true either.
I think we're talking past each other here. I'm trying to be serious.
I want to know if philsci-experts would say that anything in what I linked in my post is misinformed, or uninformed, or incorrect. It's called "bad philosophy". There's a subreddit dedicated to talking about how "bad philosophy" is promulgated: https://www.reddit.com/r/badphilosophy/.
It could be logical errors, or any kind of error you can imagine. I want an assessment from serious people of what they think about stuff.
The pope is not a serious scholar of epistemology, and I don't have time to waste on silly jokes, so I can only respond to serious philosophy-related stuff. I won't respond to silly stuff. It's a funny joke, and I don't mind humor, but I want to keep this thread on topic. I do appreciate the humor, though, so I'm not trying to be rude. :)
I don't care about "philosophers".
I've never once in this thread asked about "philosophers".
For example, this person (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Lane_Craig) is presumably a "philosopher", but I have zero interest in his take because he's not a leading/serious scholar that publishes well-regarded peer-reviewed papers or influential peer-reviewed papers.
I don't take religious apologists seriously. I'm asking about serious philsci-experts, serious logicians, etc.
This was not a silly joke. If you can't consider the pope to be serious, then you are not serious. He is one of the most serious experts in epistemology. If you deny that, then it is you who can be found as "not knowing what he is talking about".
Plus, I simply answered your question. "Can you name one... etc" and that's precisely what I did.
Then you dissed my answer and got angry at me.
WTF? This is a philosophy forum.
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I never once in this thread mentioned apologists.
If you cherry pick who you will accept as authoritative you are committing bad philosophy.
I apologize. I wasn't angry, and I put a happy-face emoji in order to try to indicate my emotions; I apologize if it came across as angry nonetheless. I wasn't angry. :)
To give an example of the kind of world that I'm interested in, this is the type/kind/sort of expert who is the type of person whose opinion I would be interested in:
https://philosophy.wisc.edu/staff/bengson-john/
[b]Professor Bengson’s research interests span practical and theoretical philosophy. He has written on a variety of topics, including intuition, perceptual experience, understanding, know-how, skill, intelligence and intelligent action, moral knowledge, constitution and constitutive explanation, and philosophical progress.
He is is co-editor of Knowing How: Essays on Knowledge, Mind, and Action (OUP, 2011/2014) and is currently completing three co-authored books, one on methodology (Philosophical Methodology: From Data to Theory, exp. fall 2020) and two in metaethics (The Moral Universe exp. 2022; Grasping Morality, exp. 2022).
Recent journal articles include “Trusting Moral Intuitions” (Noûs, 2020), “Method in the Service of Progress” (Analytic Philosophy, 2018), “The Unity of Understanding” (in Making Sense of the World, OUP, 2017), and “Practical Perception and Intelligent Action” (Philosophical Issues, 2016).[/b]
"Philosopher" is way too broad. That's why I've always specified that I'm talking about serious/leading/influential philosophers in particular fields of philosophy.
People who publish peer-reviewed papers. People whose papers get cited. People who are well-regarded in their field.
Here's an example of the type of world that I'm interested in:
https://philpapers.org/rec/BENTIG
Intuition is sometimes derided as an abstruse or esoteric phenomenon akin to crystal-ball gazing. Such derision appears to be fuelled primarily by the suggestion, evidently endorsed by traditional rationalists such as Plato and Descartes, that intuition is a kind of direct, immediate apprehension akin to perception. This paper suggests that although the perceptual analogy has often been dismissed as encouraging a theoretically useless metaphor, a quasi-perceptualist view of intuition may enable rationalists to begin to meet the challenge of supplying a theoretically satisfying treatment of their favoured epistemic source. It is argued, first, that intuitions and perceptual experiences are at a certain level of abstraction the same type of mental state, presentations, which are distinct from beliefs, hunches, inclinations, attractions, and seemings. The notion of a presentation is given a positive explication, which identifies its characteristic features, accounts for several of its substantive psychological roles, and systematically locates it in a threefold division among types of contentful states. Subsequently, it is argued that presentations, intuitive no less than sensory, are by their nature poised to play a distinctive epistemic role. Specifically, in the case of intuition, we encounter an intellectual state that is so structured as to provide justification without requiring justification in turn—something which may, thus, be thought of as ‘given’
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I ain't no people such as that.
You have found your way to this website here, where, to my knowledge, nobody is such that you describe. There may be some, but they haven't revealed their involvement.
So I must apologize for my snide remarks. As far as I am concerned, we are not qualified to the degree of expectations you had for us.
Not your fault, I don't blame you. You simply went by the name of the website, and that is fine, it could be misleading. But the simple fact is, that we can't help you. Sorry.
"Philosopher" is ridiculously broad. William Lane Craig is a philosopher. But he's not a leading/serious/influential scholar in epistemology.
I would imagine that there are 1000s of religious apologists who would count as "philosophers", including Craig and 1000s of others.
If I ask about what "philosophers" think, then it's going to include a truckload of opinions that are totally worthless to me: people who have contributed nothing to any field, people who are religious apologists, and so on.
I'm talking about a specific subset of philosophers.
I apologize for the confusion. I want opinions from serious people.
Do you know people on this website who might be really expert on philsci (or logic, ethics, epistemology) who might be able to help me out with this thread?
Do trained expert philosophers (or people who know the views of trained expert philosophers) hang out on this website?
Have you tried reaching Professor Bengson? He may be able to help you.
I'm in the process of trying to reach various experts, but I wonder if there's at least one person on this website who might fit the bill.
They don't have to be a leading scholar themselves, but they need to know what the opinions of leading scholars are.
We don't know anything about each other, as any information is forbidden to mention that may lead to revealing the personal identity of users on the site. Nobody knows anyone else's email, either.
So I would be lying if I said there are / there are no such people on the site. All I can say with certainty is that I don't know, and nobody else knows either, other than about their own selves, which they are forbidden to reveal (according to site rules).
To be fair, some of this stuff might be well within the reach of a university-student who knows philsci.
If falsifiability really went out of relevance decades ago in philsci, then you don't need to be plugged-in to the cutting-edge philsci-research to be able to talk about that error.
Yes, you're right. Why don't you write to a university and ask them for help. There may be some available, but be aware that you may need to pay some honorarium for the work performed.
Thanks. Would I better off to try /r/askphilosophy? There seem to be some fairly expert people on there.
There is no harm in trying. You tried here, you may try there. Who knows?
Thanks. Just a final clarification: Would you guess that most people on this forum happen to have a degree in philosophy? Not that that matters in itself, but it may correlate with knowing a lot.
I would not guess either way.
In any case, no the bullet points are not serious. The first one, for instance, is ridiculous. Maybe just try working through them and thinking about them for a bit. Does it make sense for a scientific theory to be both predictive and untestable? Can you have a theory that's both unfalsifiable and scientific? That sort of thing.
Are you familiar with the philsci literature on these issues? I agree that it sounds weird. I would've thought otherwise. But I'm not a philsci scholar, so my intuitions aren't worth anything. Certainly not unless I at the very least know what the literature in that field has to say about that field.
Your intuitions can be worth as much as Socrates' or Aristotle's, as long as you can defend them. It is not the support of the establishment anymore that decides what is correct and what is not -- that is so Autodafe. These days the victory goes to that who can defeat the other's opinion and defend his own. If you wish to develop your support via reading expert's statements, that will take much longer, and you still need to exercise your own better judgment to decide between two experts' opposing opinions which is the right one, if either.
My point is simply that I'm not going to express a view on philsci stuff (e.g., whether it's weird that science doesn't depend on falsifiability or whatever), until I know what scholars are putting forward on the topic.
Actually, this applies to free will. Compatibilism sounds like a weird thing to me; if libertarian free will is out the window, then why use the term "free will" to refer to some non-libertarian conception? Seems weird. But I'm not going to run my mouth on that till I've seen the compatibilist literature and until I at least know what they're arguing; they may have great points.
Before I give up on this particular forum and try /r/askphilosophy, can you suggest the best user on this forum for philsci issues, just in case I find some good help on here? I would hugely appreciate it, and I apologize for bringing up stuff that's so particular to philsci and that requires some expertise in that domain.
However, you may not like to use me as I am a theist, not an atheist (though I am a theist for philosophical reasons and couldn't care less about religions or supporting religious dogmas). That said, I think most debates between theists and atheists on the internet are terrible as they're almost invariably conducted by people who don't really know their stuff (but are alarmingly confident).
I should also point out that William Lane Craig is a highly respected philosopher. He has published extensively in most of the best journals. He's well known (outside of religious philosophy he's well known as a defender of the A-theory of time - that's where I first encountered his work). And he edits collections for Oxford University press, is on editorial boards and so on. He's the real deal and those - such as Dawkins (who said in his book that he asked a philosopher colleague if he'd ever heard of him...and the colleague said 'no'....which is laughably implausible as he's very well known indeed) - who say otherwise really don't know what they're talking about.