Fifth Column
Another interesting discussion here and later here. It starts from the idea that I contradict myself by “saying that disgust is worthless as a moral compass” and yet using the word “disgusting” to express strong disapprobation quite often and consistently. I argue that it’s not inconsistent because my claim is only that disgust is worthless as a guide to morals on its own, not that disgust itself is morally worthless. On the contrary – I think it’s often called for, and that’s why I resort to the word. (I had noticed that I use it fairly often, when I’m feeling particularly…outraged, vehement…disgusted.) Brandon doesn’t agree, so the discussion has continued. I think he’s underestimating the degree to which judgment and reasons influence both the triggering of disgust and the decisions and actions that flow from it; but if the discussion goes on maybe he’ll convince me otherwise.
And then there’s another discussion of Theo Hobson. It quotes from comments here – it’s fun when our comments are interesting enough to get quoted!
“”But atheism is perfectly compatible with agnosticism, may indeed be the same thing. I (still) don’t see why not being a theist necessarily proceeds from any beliefs about the cosmos. Not being a socialist or a Friedmanite doesn’t necessarily proceed from any beliefs about economics; and so on. Are you claiming that theist belief is so natural that its absence requires prior beliefs?” I would call it an epiphany were I that way inclined, but this is exactly the point – to a theist, theism is that natural that there is some horror that others cannot see their truth…Every time I see Grayling or Dawkins poke their heads above the parapets, I sit and hope that it is to people like Hobson that the papers turn to for a refutation.
And so often it is. Maybe there’s an atheist spy handing out assignments at Comment is Free. It seems oddly plausible, now that it’s been suggested…
But, besides Hobson, and possibly Rowan Williams, who would you turn to?
Some born-again-brain-dead christian, who wont say anything except “Jesus loves you”?
Some follower of the mad mullah of Mecca, who demands submission (twice)?
The is not a rational argument to be made for belief based on faith alone – not in today’s world.
The ghastly murderer and bigot Calvin got away with it over 300 years ago, but we’ve learnt a bit since then …..
Beliefs must be based on evidence, and preferably re-testable evidence.
(incidentally, this is why I think “Srting theory” is going to crash and burn, but I could be wrong – and the evidence will be in, at some point, and NOT based on faith.
Oops – that should have been STRING theory …
Funnily enough when I was reading that exchange between Chomsky and Foucault (that bizarrely made Chomsky sound quite reasonable in comparison) and Chomsky was talking about limitations on thought I immediately thought of String Theory – it might be we need the next evolutionary step before this particular problem gets sorted out.
“Beliefs must be based on evidence, and preferably re-testable evidence.”
Nonsense. And if it is not nonsense – what is the preferably experimentally testable evidence for the belief above?
All chains of belief and justification, hypothesis and evidence, end somewhere, you know.
Yes, at me, for I am the GREAT AXIOMISER, now serving at Axioms’R’Us.
Tired of your chains of reasoning just floating free? Longing for some foundational status? Just pop in and see us, and we can give you all the grounding you’ll ever need!
[Note, warranties previously offered by our sister-company Theocracy, Inc. should be referred to your local branch of HumanistEthicsMart. We are unable to honour these without stipulative restrictions that have been judged unfair business practices.]
Dave – will you be opening Foundational Schools ?
Ah Melijn, then you don’t think that the evidence produced by testable, observable reuslts, called “modern” science and technology are valid then?
Codswallop – and you know it, as you yourself said:
“All chains of belief and justification, hypothesis and evidence, end somewhere, you know.”
Yes, it is called experimental proof, by demonstration, as Johnson disproved Berkely, by kicking a stone.
The proof of the existence of the electron, and the periodic table of elements and electromagnetic theory are visible and manifest in the computers and telecomms systems that B&W writers/resders are using.
Stop bullshitting, please, or I will lose my temper.
Guys, this ain’t CiF fer chrissakes!
Of course I believe scientific results, confirmed by experimental evidence, are valid. My regarding of the proposition “Beliefs must be based on evidence” as wrong does not imply that I think no belief should be based on evidence. In fact, I think *some* beliefs cannot be based on evidence.
Though I would supplant the word “evidence” with “rational justification”. Take the following case:
A) I left a fish on the kitchen table
B) Coming back an hour later, the fish has disappeared, and fishbones are strewn all around. My cat is curling up in the corner, looking mighty pleased with himself.
C) I conclude that the cat ate the fish.
Now, C) is not justified *solely* by the physical evidence mentioned in B). Instead, the physical evidence is part of a reasoning somewhat like:
“The only reason I can think of for the observation of the disappearance of the fish, the presence of fish-bones, and the presence of my cat in the vicinity of where the fish used to be, is that the cat ate the fish.”
Abductive reasoning, and very fallible of course: there may be other, less likely explanations. But the point is that without this particular context, we really cannot begin to regard something as “evidence” in the first place. And this logical context is not itself confirmed by any external evidence.
But there are beliefs which in principle do not admit of any evidence, such as those concerning the relationship of us and the external world, and some such. Because we cannot even regard something as evidence without these beliefs. Samuel Johnson’s refutation of Berkeley’s idealism was droll – but it proved absolutely nothing concerning the external, independent reality of the stone he was kicking, as Berkeley could easily hold that the sensory impressions of the stone, painful as they may have been, were indicative of nothing more than themselves. If you regard Johnson’s kicking of the stone as “experimental proof”, I would suggest you evaluate your standards considering experimental proofs a little.
In other words, the proposition that “all beliefs must be backed up by evidence” leads inescapably to some kind of circularity.
Now, one could probably escape this by stating “all beliefs must be rationally justified” and hold that rational justification does not necessarily include any specific physical evidence. However, if your holding that “all beliefs must be backed up by evidence” is intended as some kind of argument against theism, it would fly out of the window there and then – as you would need to show theism cannot be rationally justified (which may or may not be possible, but is a whole different ballgame).
A very different question is that of faith. It seems to me that the common notion that “faith is belief without evidence” indulges in the same mistake as “atheism is religion without God” – it illegitimately incorporates a concept within its own frame of reference. I am now doubting as to where the notion really describes faith – as it is something quite else as the basic belief that there is an external world, or the metaphysical naturalist’s belief that God does not exist. I.e. it implies *trust* much more than belief in a proposition – and I think that as such faith and doubt may not be a zero-sum game. If I allow myself to fall backwards into someone’s waiting arms, I do not *know* that he/she will not step aside at the last moment, and I may not *believe* so in spite of evidence in the same way that I believe there is a real world outside of my head – but I may trust that she or he does, and it is the lack of justified belief which makes that trust possible. So I’m starting to think faith is in a way another category alltogether.
Erm …”Faith” is DEFINED as belief without evidence.
You haven’t caught some nasty disease from Tho Hobson, have you?
That may well be, and I am challenging the validity of the definition. Just as OB, for example, has challenged dictionary definitions of ‘atheism’. This is quite a valid exercise if a case can be made that the standard definition does not satisfactorily covers what it refers to. Hobson’s mistake was not so much in his usage of the word ‘atheism’ as in a failure to motivate it, relying instead on mere assertion.
G.Tingey,
the whole rationalist thing is built on a small set of beliefs that have to be taken on faith. Among them is induction (the belief that it is possible to reason from past events to future events), a faith in logic itself and that there is a reality ‘out there’ independent of our minds.
These are faith positions because you can’t prove or deduce them in anyway. A significantly smaller set of axioms that the ones needed to belief in a God, but axiomatic faiths none the less.
Well, I think ‘faith’ means both. I’ve muttered about that here at least once. Faith does (can) mean trust. It’s perfectly coherent and understandable to have faith in friends, in justice, in democracy, in education, etc. But when people are using it as a synonym for religion – well, they are pretty much doing just that. But then again they are also importing the overtones of the word – such as trust. That is one reason I hate the fashion for the substitution, and why I pretty much refuse to use it without distancing quotation marks: because I think it’s sly and illegitimate to call religious schools ‘faith’ schools: it gives them an air of virtue and goodness that they don’t automatically deserve.
“These are faith positions because you can’t prove or deduce them in anyway.”
But that doesn’t mean you have to believe them in a religious or ‘faith-based’ way – they can be working assumptions, instead. I think that is a more accurate description of the scientific stance.
BJN: Actually, I am uncomfortable with calling these ‘faith’, as much as it might help my argument. I agree, of course, that they are on G. Tingey’s definition – but there is a difference of accepting e.g. induction as a foundational assumption while aware that it *is* an assumption and faith as trust in God in an ‘I-you’ relationship. And logic would still be in a different category: we may conceive (barely) of a world where the laws of nature are so haphazard as to make induction impossible – but can we conceive of a world where (necessary, a priori) logical truths do not apply?
OB: I tend to agree for different reasons. Mostly, that religion does not always entail faith. There is the whole Catholic and Anglican faith-and-reason thing, but also I’m not sure whether we can speak of faith in the case of fundamentalist varieties of religion, which assert the literal truth of their scripture with blind certainty and unassailable conviction. I once perhaps rather unpleasantly accused a young earth Creationist of having a weak faith, as he apparently needed a world-view in literal accordance with the Bible, all the way down to men having one rib less (which he was surprised to hear was not the case!). If there is no room for doubt, there is no room for faith either.
OB,
they are very fundamental working assumptions. I’m not sure I believe in them they same way a Jihadi believes, but they’re at the centre of the whole Enlightenment thing and I do feel strongly about them. So do you by the way, otherwise you wouldn’t have started the gift to the world that is B&W :)
Merlijn (cool name by the way),
I can accept that nuance, the crucial bit being the awareness of the assumption, as opposed to religious faith thing. Probably what Ophelia meant.
Logic happens in our heads, just like mathematics, why does it have to correlate with what goes on ‘out there’? Also is not using logic to prove the universality of logic one of those circular arguments you don’t like?
BTW I’m not a professional philosopher, just a lowly computer geek who finds this stuff both interesting and profoundly important.
Hmmm… I’d say both the locality of mathematics and logic, or its universality, are outside of our (scientific) purview. I think using logic to prove the *validity* of logic would be circular. I’m not sure whether the same goes for proving whether logic is ‘in our heads’ or ‘out in the world’ (though I think it might). Bottom line being that the validity of logical thought is perhaps the most basic of ‘beliefs’ we have, and the difficulty of conceiving of a world where logic is invalid makes it difficult to even consider it a belief.
“I can accept that nuance, the crucial bit being the awareness of the assumption, as opposed to religious faith thing. Probably what Ophelia meant.”
Definitely. I think Merlijn and I cross-posted there.
I’m not a professional (or amateur) philospher either, you know! (You probably do know – it’s certainly obvious enough.) Just a generalized geek who finds this stuff interesting and important.
For the record: I’m (obviously) not a philosopher either, but a linguist postgrad and also a ‘generalized geek’ who happens to like philosophy.
Merlijn,
the last sentence in your post sums up my feelings on logic pretty succinctly.
OB,
surely having help write WTM counts as professional philosophising? Assuming you made money from it of course (well you should have earned a dollar or two from me at the very least).
BJN,
I didn’t help write WTM! I co-wrote it. Slightly different thing. (I have a dreary suspicion that a lot of people assume I did merely help, but that’s not the case.) But I realize you meant co-wrote, of course.
Depends on how one defines. I tend to think a professional philosopher is anyone with a PhD in philosophy. You know – anyone who is actually qualified.
OB,
sorry to offend. I often use ‘help’ for participation in collective efforts, I would have described JS as ‘helping’ write WTM as well.
You didn’t offend! Sorry to give impression that you offended. :- ) That’s why I said I realized what you meant.
JS was no help at all. More of a hindrance really.
snicker
Still, for the dignity of the outfit, I should add that you have a point. After all the book is shelved in philosophy. And if there had been any doubt, Simon Blackburn surely dispelled it by saying in his review that WTM is real philosophy. Well I mean to say – if it’s good enough for the Cambridge Prof, holder of Wittgenstein’s chair (and with a better sense of humour), who am I to dissent? No one, that’s who. So I won’t. (But in reality of course I would never actually identify myself that way. I’d be more likely to declare myself a four-star general. Less likely to be unmasked.)
OB, how about a Pro-Am philosopher? Anyway Hume never held an academic philosophical post did he? So you’re not in bad company.
“I argue that it’s not inconsistent because my claim is only that disgust is worthless as a guide to morals on its own, not that disgust itself is morally worthless.”
Disguest is very frequently cited as a moral basis for disapproval of homosexuality, which seems a farily obvious example to me of how it can contradict rational thought. Besides, how can you be sure that your gut reactions weren’t simply culturally engrained? I think there is a good basis for supposing morality to have innate foundations but that is far from being the same thing as providing a compass for all occasions.
Yes, I thought of using the homosexuality example, then decided to use racial intermarriage instead. But just so. I’m failing to persuade though. Brandon’s cited Rosa Parks as an example of a feeling of anger or disgust as a good source for moral action. I’ve replied that on the contrary that’s another example of what I’m saying, because Rose Parks had reasons for being angry or disgusted. If it were a matter just of anger or disgust on its own, the white people who wanted her to go to the back could cite disgust just as well as she could. But I’m expecting Brandon to be unconvinced. I’m not sure why, because I’m not sure I follow his argument; but that’s what I’m expecting.
BJN: “OB, how about a Pro-Am philosopher? Anyway Hume never held an academic philosophical post did he? So you’re not in bad company.”
Add to that Peirce, Whitehead, Saul Kripke – neither of which had PhD’s in philosophy. Not bad company, indeed ;-)
Wull and there’s Socrates and Rousseau and Plato and Will Rogers and Aristotle and Jesus and Khalil Gibran and Mary Baker Eddy and that guy on the bus that time and Mozart and Darwin. So ha! I’m like totally overqualified.
And besides, professional philosophers should be distrusted, since they have a pecuniary interest in ensuring that philosophical questions are never satisfactorily resolved — it would put them out of a job…
Professional historians, of course, now we’re different… ;-))
“These are faith positions because you can’t prove or deduce them in anyway.”
BUT
You can disprove it, by demonstration and evidence, and the only way out of that for the believers (apart from jihad, of course) is to indulge in lots of hand-waving
and talkingveryfastandhopingno-onenotices the g a p s ….