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ciphergothI've read all four of the recent books by the "four horsemen", and for the most part none have made me feel "yes, this is the book I want to press into the hands of believers". I would like there to be at least one book that I might be able to recommend, and having heard good things about this 1974 book, I ordered it from Amazon on a whim.
It certainly comes a *lot* closer than any of those four. It has a very dry style; there are no witty personal stories, few anecdotes, and only a smattering of historical background. But all four of the horsemen books seem somewhat scattershot in their approach, except perhaps Dennett, whose book seems like not so much an attack on religion as a hastily-repurposed discussion of religion originally intended for an atheist audience. This book is much more bulldozer than scattershot, and methodically dismantles the "sophisticated" defences of religion I actually hear from believers.
Its bulldozer-like nature may be seen in its chapter structure; first, clarify what atheism is and establish that the burden of proof lies with the theist; then tear down obfuscation as a means to confound rational discussion of the issue; demolish the idea that faith and revelation can supplement reason as guides to the truth (discussing and destroying a variety of attempts to defend the idea of faith). Only then are the traditional arguments for the existence of God, such as the cosmological argument, painstakingly taken apart; and only after that are the negative moral consequences of religion discussed.
There are a few problems. Smith is (or at least was) an Objectivist, and this leads to some sad errors; his defence of the idea of moral facts in Chapter 11 Section 2, for example, is just embarrassing. And it seems a shame to discuss the argument from design without even mentioning evolution; I can see that as a philosopher you want to show that the argument is *inherently* flawed, and of course it is, but it's evolution that robs it of its emotional impact. I still find myself thinking that I may have to write my ultimate book on the subject, but I have quite a few other books I'd have to read first to know if there was a gap in the market, and I can't afford quite that many whims :-)
No argument, no matter how good, can turn the head of someone who is prepared to say in terms that they intend to cling to an idea no matter how much they have to embrace irrationality in order to do so, as many sophisticated believers openly say. But still, when I read the four horsemen books, I felt I knew how believers were going to evade the conclusions they were pushing for, and I would love to know how a serious, philosophically knowledgable believer would go about avoiding the conclusions of this book.
Update: as usual, anonymous comments should be signed to be unscreened.
It certainly comes a *lot* closer than any of those four. It has a very dry style; there are no witty personal stories, few anecdotes, and only a smattering of historical background. But all four of the horsemen books seem somewhat scattershot in their approach, except perhaps Dennett, whose book seems like not so much an attack on religion as a hastily-repurposed discussion of religion originally intended for an atheist audience. This book is much more bulldozer than scattershot, and methodically dismantles the "sophisticated" defences of religion I actually hear from believers.
Its bulldozer-like nature may be seen in its chapter structure; first, clarify what atheism is and establish that the burden of proof lies with the theist; then tear down obfuscation as a means to confound rational discussion of the issue; demolish the idea that faith and revelation can supplement reason as guides to the truth (discussing and destroying a variety of attempts to defend the idea of faith). Only then are the traditional arguments for the existence of God, such as the cosmological argument, painstakingly taken apart; and only after that are the negative moral consequences of religion discussed.
There are a few problems. Smith is (or at least was) an Objectivist, and this leads to some sad errors; his defence of the idea of moral facts in Chapter 11 Section 2, for example, is just embarrassing. And it seems a shame to discuss the argument from design without even mentioning evolution; I can see that as a philosopher you want to show that the argument is *inherently* flawed, and of course it is, but it's evolution that robs it of its emotional impact. I still find myself thinking that I may have to write my ultimate book on the subject, but I have quite a few other books I'd have to read first to know if there was a gap in the market, and I can't afford quite that many whims :-)
No argument, no matter how good, can turn the head of someone who is prepared to say in terms that they intend to cling to an idea no matter how much they have to embrace irrationality in order to do so, as many sophisticated believers openly say. But still, when I read the four horsemen books, I felt I knew how believers were going to evade the conclusions they were pushing for, and I would love to know how a serious, philosophically knowledgable believer would go about avoiding the conclusions of this book.
Update: as usual, anonymous comments should be signed to be unscreened.
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no subject
Date: 2009-01-06 03:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-06 07:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-06 11:17 pm (UTC)I think of an axiom as something like the principle of induction, that you can't begin to prove without circular reasoning, but you absolutely cannot do without if you are to think at all. Another example is the belief that thinking gets you closer to the truth or to more appropriate behaviour. Any attempt to defend that is based on thinking, and so assumes what it's trying to prove. I thought you were advancing C S Lewis's argument that these things follow from the existence of an orderly God and so you can reduce your set of axioms to one.
But if you're deriving it from evidence, you don't need to take it on a priori, you can reason your way there and discuss whether the evidence supports it and such. Is there a third possibility I'm missing?
(BTW I haven't forgotten you're away, no pressure!)
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Date: 2009-01-08 03:05 pm (UTC)As for the issues about axioms and experience, you're not by chance making a Kantian argument that philosophy cannot have axioms, are you? If so, we may have been at cross-purposes and I may have to go away and re-read the Critique of Pure Reason, in which case you may be waiting some time for your answer ;-) If not, I don't think I can add anything to
On the issues that aren't directly about axioms, and skipping back several comments:
The mental gymnastics I had to do to keep ignoring my perception of the divine were driving me insane.
Now that's something that I think we could usefully discuss - though I think the phrase "account for" would be fairer than "ignore". We know that not all sensation is externally generated - if we hear a ringing sound, is a bell ringing, or do I have tinitus?
No, I really do mean "ignore". I'm aware that there are alternative explanations for what I experience, but that awareness isn't enough to keep me functional. The darn things keep demanding a response.
I don't think of myself as an expert in epistemology, and I'm happy to be shot down on this one if I learn from the experience. Any pointers you can give would be gratefully received, especially if they don't involve spending any money...
Tricky. My supervisor was Renford Bambrough, whose books are now quite difficult to get hold of, and IIRC the only one I own doesn't address this issue. He was one of those supervisors who largely recommend reading they disagree with and leave you to try and figure out the "right" position for yourself, so there isn't any other obvious reading that immediately comes to mind. Without necessarily agreeing with them, he did think quite highly of Elizabeth Anscombe, G.E.Smith and of course Wittgenstein (his specialist subject), so looking for some of their books on Google Books might be an option, but I don't recall enough detail to direct you to something immediately relevant to this conversation.
I should have stuck with "prosaic"
I'm not sure that would have helped. My attitude to God is quite similar to Granny Weatherwax's - "it would be like believing in the postman" - except I don't quite hold with her further thoughts on not giving them ideas above their station.
If I say "better not spill this tea, it'll stain the carpet", practically everyone will feel they understand what I mean, and be able to follow and verify my chain of reasoning trivially.
Well, yes, but that apparent understanding can often disguises serious disconnects that the participants either are not aware of, or do not find necessary to resolve for the purposes of the conversation. If you want to talk about metaphysical questions like whether or not God exists, or even whether the tea exists (on which I suspect we also would not entirely agree), that approach doesn't work.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-08 03:24 pm (UTC)No, I really do mean "ignore". I'm aware that there are alternative explanations for what I experience, but that awareness isn't enough to keep me functional. The darn things keep demanding a response.
So you basically said "this is driving me so crazy that I'd rather start believe it even if it isn't so than deny it and be driven crazy by it?"
that apparent understanding can often disguises serious disconnects that the participants either are not aware of, or do not find necessary to resolve for the purposes of the conversation
Sure, that's fine; the participants don't need to resolve those things in order to reason about whether the tea will stain the carpet, and that's why it's where I think we should start. Someone who replies to "pass the spoon, will you?" with "there is no spoon" isn't a deep philosopher, just a pain!
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Date: 2009-01-08 04:40 pm (UTC)Probably - a lot of definitions of "basic beliefs" do refer to them as axioms of a philosophical belief system - but I hesitate to be more definite about it than that because Plantinga is such an obscurantist that it can be difficult to tell what he's on about. His attempt to rescue the ontological proof (so-called) by restating it in terms of probability theory is a classic case in point. I certainly wouldn't want you to assume that his epistemology is the same as mine.
So you basically said "this is driving me so crazy that I'd rather start believe it even if it isn't so than deny it and be driven crazy by it?"
No. I believe, and if I understood Renford Bambrough correctly he believed, that if we are unable to deny a belief and still function in the world, then we know that belief to be true as well as it is possible to know anything to be true (because all other beliefs are ultimately derived from beliefs that we know to be true on that basis). So what I said to myself would have been more along the lines of "Denying this is driving me so crazy that I am justified in treating it as something I know to be true."
Sure, that's fine; the participants don't need to resolve those things in order to reason about whether the tea will stain the carpet, and that's why it's where I think we should start.
I can't quite imagine how that would work, but I'm willing to try, provided we agree not to let it end in mutual recriminations when we inevitably discover that we never meant the same thing by "tea", "carpet" and "stain" in the first place (or, even more likely, by "will").