It might not be the right thing to make a distinct thread, but here goes. I’ll try to keep this first one my longest contribution!
Naturalism isn’t exactly atheism, although the only interesting versions in the marketplace of ideas are the atheistic ones. To argue for theism is usually to argue against naturalism.
Here i’m arguing with Dougsmith that there is not a single, naturalistically-acceptable kind of knowledge - there’s not just the set of methods which are the best for gaining knowledge of the physical, chemical or biological properties of things.
To restrict knowing to scientifically tractable knowledge is to think about naturalism as an epistemology rather than a metaphysics - a theory of knowing rather than a theory of being.
(Flash-frozen FYI: Modern philosophers today happen to prefer ‘methodological’ ways of couching naturalism to the ‘metaphysical’ ways of couching it. Look up the shift in ‘what are we immediately aware of?’ that occurred around 1600. In this post I’m arguing against a common form of methodological naturalism: I’m claming it has to countenance more ways of knowing than merely the kind that are amenable to a naturalistic analysis. My claim is very modest, however, and many modern naturalists don’t mind there being methods of knowledge like moral reasoning and rational justification of beliefs in addition to a lot of biological and psychological processing that is very amenable to describing entirely by naturalistic processes. They don’t even mind some free-ish will independent of physical causation. They tinker with their metaphysics: they talk about non-natural properties emerging from natural ones, or non-natural properties supervening upon natural ones. Those aren’t addressed in this post.)
[Dougsmith:] Re. “gut feelings”, by saying that I or Dawkins has a gut feeling that our wives love us, I am not saying that we lack evidence. We have plenty of evidence for this, every day. Indeed, in this context the “gut feeling” is really produced by the combination of evidence we have before us, much as we have a “gut feeling” that Richard Nixon and George W. Bush are criminals. That’s not from lack of evidence!
Good. There seems a dilemma to claiming one has ‘evidence’ of spousal love. One move is to just deny that it’s really evidential, that instead it’s not strictly rational - it’s how your boat’s floating. Okay, screw that choice. Suppose I call the evidence that my spouse loves me evidence in a non-question-begging manner. I claim that is also trouble for only brain-chemically or otherwise naturally tractable methods. That is the second horn of a dilemma.
Grant that the evidence Mrs Smith loves Mr Smith is evidence in the sense that it really does contribute to the likelihood of something being so. (Versus being evidence that’s merely putatively evidence, or imaginarily, or deceptively, or sophistically so.) However, the nature of that evidence appears obvious to the average man to be nothing very similar to the way observational evidence is amassed in the natural sciences. (1 - dissimilar ways the knower relates to the object) One kind of difference is the typical ways one gains such knowledge. Evidence in the natural sciences can be *manipulated* by experimenting in a well-formulated way from the subjects under question. For instance, that ‘my cat likes cream’ can be manipulated out of him by placing a bowl of cream and a bowl of cat-chow side by side. For another example, that ‘this apparent monarch butterfly is a tasty fakir butterfly’ can be manipulated out of that butterfly by analyzing its bug-juice. This is very different from the typical way in which the love a spouse is known. (2 - dissimilar nature of the evidence) Another kind of difference is the nature of the evidence itself. The evidence can be, physically, anything at all; not so scientific evidence, such as the evidence that the platypus is a mammal or evidence that the planets don’t move by crystalline orbs. (3 - dissimilar ways the object relates to the knower.) A third kind of difference is that the evidence that Mrs Smith loves her spouse is typically transmitted or displayed because of the deliberative permission of the spouse - because of a personal agent - rather than by uncontroversially physical or biological evidence.
These three points explain more clearly the meaning of an obscure sentence I made mocking the weighing love-letters as a ‘method’ to measure spousal love.
I believe that this specific case about spousal love can be well-extended to all the methods employed by personal agents: having reasons for a belief vs being caused to believe; acting morally vs acting from desire, producing artefacts vs the productions of typical animals. The commonly-accepted methods of critical thinking are not much like merely mechanically causing beliefs (and scientific thinking isn’t identical to causing belief, either); the commonly accepted methods of moral reasoning, in any culture, are not much like talking about force or gaining status or ‘honour’ or fame; Commonly accepted methods of loving persons is just one angle of attack on the same weak-point in a monistic theory of knowledge - the theory that there is but one, single way to know or come to know.
Here i’m arguing with Dougsmith that there is not a single, naturalistically-acceptable kind of knowledge - there’s not just the set of methods which are the best for gaining knowledge of the physical, chemical or biological properties of things.
I’m not sure if this really makes a difference to your argument or not, but it needs saying. There is only one kind of knowledge. What I was arguing for were different ways of achieving knowledge (I’ll spare us all a lengthy digression on epistemology and just say that there are different ways to be justified or in the right causal relationships to gain knowledge).
The most exemplary ways to achieve knowledge are those enshrined in the natural sciences. Basically they involve a suite of techniques designed to eliminate bias, to isolate relevant variables, to clarify the question being asked, to assure oneself of statistical relevance, et cetera. All non-scientific ways of knowing are, a fortiori, less good than those in the natural sciences. However they are also more rough-and-ready, quicker to deploy, and due to our lengthy evolutionary history, often right.
A slight quibble:
inthegobi - 01 January 2008 04:43 PM
… many modern naturalists ... don’t even mind some free-ish will independent of physical causation. They tinker with their metaphysics: they talk about non-natural properties emerging from natural ones, or non-natural properties supervening upon natural ones. ...)
I don’t know of anyone using “supervenience” talk to get round causal theories of the will and action. I have heard some people use “emergentist” talk in a generally obscurantist way to basically take it to mean whatever they want. But nothing anti-causal follows from a responsible use of terms like “supervenience” and “emergence”. That is, people do talk about certain odd sorts of causation that basically make no physical difference (E.g., I can cause my son to be a prince by marrying a queen), but this doesn’t allow for libertarian free will and so is quite responsible talk.
I honestly don’t follow the rest of your discussion about the epistemology of love. Really, the whole thing seems quite obvious to me, and totally on all fours with similar questions like whether the mailman has been by this afternoon. Yes, there are letters in my box that weren’t there yesterday. Good evidence pro-mailman, although clearly not irrefutable. But then no empirical evidence is ever irrefutable anyway.
Here i’m arguing with Dougsmith that there is not a single, naturalistically-acceptable kind of knowledge - there’s not just the set of methods which are the best for gaining knowledge of the physical, chemical or biological properties of things.
I’m not sure if this really makes a difference to your argument or not, but it needs saying. There is only one kind of knowledge. What I was arguing for were different ways of achieving knowledge (I’ll spare us all a lengthy digression on epistemology and just say that there are different ways to be justified or in the right causal relationships to gain knowledge).
Yeah, we either disagree deeply or are tangled in some words.
I think we have little choice but to accept epistemic pluralism: we can at best develop specific methods to match the object of our interest. Here’s a less controversial example of what I mean: I don’t ask if ‘space’ is euclidean or not, because ‘space’ is not unitary across different disciplines. Instead I ask ‘what kind of space do you want? Do you want machine ‘space’ or the space between bodies?’ The first kind of space is Euclidan, the second is some other geometry. I am even a little nervous about ‘scientific method’, because there are methods essential to one discipline that are baffling to others (Field studies are not essential to chemical knowledge like they are for animal ethology.) When I allow that there’s something well called ‘the’ scientific method, I’m lying just a tiny bit to you guys here, because I find the ‘the’ controversial, but I don’t mind gesturing without having a deep definition of what unites the natural sciences that’s not question-begging.
So, my very philosophy of what makes a science a science is modest enough to have a kind of pluralism even within the natural sciences - it is not so very controversial in itself. But it primes me to accept that there might be an analogical relation among the natural and non-natural ‘sciences’. And it allows for a larger role for the independent observation of a wider variety of objects. That isn’t popular, and it sins against Bas van Fraasen’s theory of observation, which is ‘hip’ now.
Sure, knowledge is one; but we cannot have its real, actual unity, only a set of knowledges which are united analogically, not univocally (neither are the various knowledges so called just by the mere name.)
Yes, I know, another bare position; i’m just trying to clarify the position, so it makes more sense than - to be honest - you think it deserves. It’s fair to lean hard on it, but I need time to repair the damage to its status.
The most exemplary ways to achieve knowledge are those enshrined in the natural sciences.
Yes, no need to tell the analyst how to analyze, tho’ thanks for the reminder - it’s getting further in the past, and I find myself slowing the car when I pass a little environmental lab near my house! I do miss the lab, especially the mild manual labor - I did not think of how little exercise i’d get switching to humanities, nor how little daily collegiality there is. (We’re all in our offices or the library, not talking to anyone over the chromatograph, or arguing over the peaks on a trace.)
However I might well disagree that instead the ways unique to persons are metaphysically and epistemically primary. Still, natural-science methods would still remain. It’s curious that the naturalist cannot stomach independent non-natural methods even as a non-naturalist or supernaturalist can easily accomodate natrual science knowledge. Just on dialectical grounds, I’d find that alone a good reason to adopt non-naturalism over naturalism - all other things considered! But I’m just sticking a marker in the page so to speak.
ON emegentism: Sure, you’ll not make me sad to kick emergentism as we pass by it. But I wish I had a better handle on even a general notion of it.
I honestly don’t follow the rest of your discussion about the epistemology of love.
Yes, well, I stand by it. I’ve shown as well as I can that even tho’ a belief that mrs X loves her spouse is a belief just like any belief, it is derived from very different methods, tho still like enough to natural-science methods to be called ‘knowledge’. If it helps, call the two rather different kinds ‘not identical, nor merely equivocal uses of ‘knowledge’, but analogs of some unitary thing called Knowledge which we humans can’t have (maybe a god has it, maybe it’s real abstracta, but whatever it is, we don’t have it and can’t have it). The analogy concept is also traditional, although it’s *not* early modern.
Kirk
Btw: I need to emphasize that my take on knowledge isn’t just a theist’s dodge. I got it from Henry Kyburg, *Science and Reason*, and so far as I know he uses it for no putative non-natural field. I just like it’s epistemic modesty - it’s got a lot of conventionalism while still giving me levels of acceptance, has a nice, roomy definition of ‘judgment’ that I happen to be happy with, and grounds it all in a probability apparatus tied to real frequencies. Best of all, it integrates observation and measurement and even error analysis. It’s delicious.
I also want to flag that I’m no Behe advocate - someone brought up the spectre that I might me smuggling in his ID theory. I’ll just say anything good in his book was said elsewhere better, and my comments about minds and God being ‘simple’ should be a sign that I am doubtful that complexity in anyone’s mouth is making much sense these days. You might say I allow for more than one kind of epistemically good knowledge, but I dont’ think each branch of knowledge has much ‘reach’ before its conclusions beconme too difficult to prove. So no one branch of knowledge can easily overtake and trump the others. That’s my deep, underlying reason to doubt that neuroscience will ever solve or conceive properly certain problems.
As a scientist without a strong background in philosophy, I think this “epistemic pluralism” sounds like a way to sneak in special, privileged modes of knowing for each area of knowledge. So scientists can study the natural worls, but psychic methods are required for psychic phenomena since by theri nature they are not amenable to study by the scientific method. Of course, I’m exaggerating to make a point, but I think it’s not far down the slippery slope you’re pointing us towards. It’s a well-worn defense for why certain kinds of knowledge are not verifiable by scientific method.
Now, I’m enough touched by post-modernism to believe that the scientific approach is embedded in a specific cultural and historical context, so it has its biases and blind spots. But I think the evidence of history, as I keep suggesting, supports the contention that what is required is a refinement of the approach and participation by culturally and ideologically diverse people to smooth out such biases, rather than making certain “magisteria” of knowledge outside the purview of natural science.
As a scientist without a strong background in philosophy, I think this “epistemic pluralism” sounds like a way to sneak in special, privileged modes of knowing for each area of knowledge. So scientists can study the natural worls, but psychic methods are required for psychic phenomena since by theri nature they are not amenable to study by the scientific method. Of course, I’m exaggerating to make a point, but I think it’s not far down the slippery slope you’re pointing us towards. It’s a well-worn defense for why certain kinds of knowledge are not verifiable by scientific method.
The slope might have some unsavory characters who stay longer than you’d like, but the unsavory theories are the ones to slide downhill and off the epistemic cliff. INdependence doesn’t mean a ‘mutliple truths’ theory. For example, Behe wants an earth that’s much younger than geochemstry says it is. Suppose he just adds it to his theoretical corpus and says to hell with Brennan the geochemist. That will affect his observations in geochemistry - it will perforce make them very unreliable. And that is how Brennan the geochemist can refute Behe-dating - on a very measurable matter, expert judgment matters. That’s how this phil of sci of mine works; it grants a corpus of ‘practical certainties’ and shunts all the theories to a separate meta-language. The tricky choice is to make your meta-corpus of theory not degrade your accepted observations overmuch. I’ll accept any ‘fact’ in neuroscience, and make myself move in line with it; I’m just very picky about what those facts *entail* or make probable. Too picky for you or Doug, maybe. But my theory of science isn’t a slippery slope, just not worried about bad theories slipping by forever.
There is only one kind of knowledge. What I was arguing for were different ways of achieving knowledge (I’ll spare us all a lengthy digression on epistemology and just say that there are different ways to be justified or in the right causal relationships to gain knowledge).
I think I’m with inthegobi here in reacting to this statement. Specifically, I have trouble with the claim that “There is only one kind of knowledge.”
In fact, I think that it has been generally accepted that there are at least two kinds of knowledge: knowing how and knowing that. For example, I know how to ride a bike, whereas I know that “Detroit is North of Cleveland.”
When dougsmith says “There is only one kind of knowledge,” I suspect that what he has in mind is this equation: knowledge = justified, true, belief. But, to my mind, that equation simply adverts to knowledge-that. I suppose that there are “different ways of achieving” that sort of knowledge, e.g. testimony, perception, memory, etc., but that still neglects know-how. And, I personally think that the most beneficial results of science are those results that contribute to our know-how.
Perhaps this distinction--insofar as it constitutes a “pluralism"--may also function as a response to mckenzievmd, who says:
mckenzievmd - 01 January 2008 08:09 PM
As a scientist without a strong background in philosophy, I think this “epistemic pluralism” sounds like a way to sneak in special, privileged modes of knowing for each area of knowledge. So scientists can study the natural worls, but psychic methods are required for psychic phenomena since by theri nature they are not amenable to study by the scientific method. Of course, I’m exaggerating to make a point, but I think it’s not far down the slippery slope you’re pointing us towards. It’s a well-worn defense for why certain kinds of knowledge are not verifiable by scientific method.
You can test my claim that I know how to ride a bike, whereas you cannot test my claim to know how to communicate with god (that’s supposed to be a private sort of know-how--which accounts for its meaninglessness). Of course other supernatural claims of know-how, like telekenisis, astrology, or power of prayer can, ostensibly, be tested; but, so far as I know, such tests have always failed to demonstrate genuine know-how.
You can test my claim that I know how to ride a bike, whereas you cannot test my claim to know how to communicate with god (that’s supposed to be a private sort of know-how--which accounts for its meaninglessness). Of course other supernatural claims of know-how, like telekenisis, astrology, or power of prayer can, ostensibly, be tested; but, so far as I know, such tests have always failed to demonstrate genuine know-how.
Of course I agree. But what I thought Kirk was trying to create space for was the idea that real knowledge can be acquired by methods that do not require naturalistic assumptions, and he might even call some of these methods scientific. (see
there might be an analogical relation among the natural and non-natural ‘sciences’...It’s curious that the naturalist cannot stomach independent non-natural methods even as a non-naturalist or supernaturalist can easily accomodate natural science knowledge.
) I have a hard time seeing how such a claim is any different from the kind of “private knowledge” you mention which, I also agree, is meaningless.
As for what you, Kirk, are trying to make space for, I can’t say I understand from your response exactly what it is. If you’re saying that you stick strictly to facts about the natural world as science provides them, but you don’t extrapolate from the accumulation of these facts to the idea that the method underlying them is ultimately going to replace other non-naturalistic methods, well fair enough, but as I said eslsewhere I think this is just placing more significance on the gaps in scientific knowledge than I feel is warranted, and neither of us will live to see the definitive answer as to whether or not those gaps can be closed without supernatural explanations or non-naturalistic approaches to knowledge. I stick to agnosticism because of this very uncertainty, but in the meantime I take the provisional stance that non-naturalistic explanations are not necessary.
You can test my claim that I know how to ride a bike, whereas you cannot test my claim to know how to communicate with god (that’s supposed to be a private sort of know-how--which accounts for its meaninglessness). Of course other supernatural claims of know-how, like telekenisis, astrology, or power of prayer can, ostensibly, be tested; but, so far as I know, such tests have always failed to demonstrate genuine know-how.
Of course I agree. But what I thought Kirk was trying to create space for was the idea that real knowledge can be acquired by methods that do not require naturalistic assumptions, and he might even call some of these methods scientific.
Yes; knowing-that and know-how isn’t the division, although it’s interesting in itself.
There is a principled difference between moral judgment and ESP ‘judgment’. We reliably judge acts and implusles to be moral or not on a daily basis, every adult one of us; not so ESP. Astrology is only reliably judged at one end (the positions of the stars and planets), not the other (the connections between them and our affairs);further, astrology pretends a quasi-mechanical or physical essence that most non-naturalists ancient and modern wouldn’t accept.
[Kirk:] there might be an analogical relation among the natural and non-natural ‘sciences’...It’s curious that the naturalist cannot stomach independent non-natural methods even as a non-naturalist or supernaturalist can easily accomodate natural science knowledge.
[Brennan:] I have a hard time seeing how such a claim is any different from the kind of “private knowledge” you mention which, I also agree, is meaningless.
‘Personal’ or person-like or essentially tied to a personal agent’ is not the same as ‘private.’ We’re doing uncontroversially person-like activities by debating and justifying, but it’s not just privately in each of our heads; we’re trying to spread certain ideas around to all of us here, no?
As for what you, Kirk, are trying to make space for, I can’t say I understand from your response exactly what it is.
By analogy, I can have a good argument that a certain planet is ripe for life without having a good idea what that life will look like.
I think this is just placing more significance on the gaps in scientific knowledge than I feel is warranted, and neither of us will live to see the definitive answer as to whether or not those gaps can be closed without supernatural explanations or non-naturalistic approaches to knowledge. I stick to agnosticism because of this very uncertainty, but in the meantime I take the provisional stance that non-naturalistic explanations are not necessary.
If you think of a conceptual gap like a physical gap, then it’s only so-wide a gap, and so-many brain-modules might well ‘bridge’ that ‘gap’. But conceptual gaps are not like physical gaps (’gap’ is a jokey term - it’s not meant to be taken seriously. The more precise term is category error. If a category division can be shown to obtain, then that ‘gap’ effectively is ‘infinitely’ wide - if you insist on the physical metaphor. The Is-ought ‘gap’ for instance was proved in several forms, including Hume, who’s no friend of non-naturalism. So ‘closing gaps’ is a much more controversial prospect that is popularly imagined.
Just as some here can’t understand even beginning with non-natural categories, I cannot understand the breezy confidence that conceptual gaps are being ‘closed’ even as we speak.
A little surprising to say, but there is no such thing as ‘the scientist’; there’s the chemist, the biologist, etc; within biology there’s the biochemist, and the ethologist, and the evolutionary biologist. It’s a fact that Behe has *some* biological chops, but bio-design and biochemistry needn’t assume evolution is true to be a worthy field. That’s evidence to me that knowledge isn’t quite unified, or a Behe just would be impossible.) So I could well have pretty batty theories of biology since I’m not an expert in biology. But a ‘mind-science’ is not uncontroversially biology; it sure looks to the non-naturalist like brain science plus mind ‘science’. But a brain and a mind is at least as big a category error as a biochemist thinking he can tell the geochemists and the radio-dating technicians what’s what.
Personal’ or person-like or essentially tied to a personal agent’ is not the same as ‘private.’ We’re doing uncontroversially person-like activities by debating and justifying, but it’s not just privately in each of our heads; we’re trying to spread certain ideas around to all of us here, no?
The issue here, though, is whether the evidence is accessible to all those participating in the discussion. One of the advantages to naturalistic scientific evidence is that it is, generally, demonstrable to everyone (granted in practice it is hard to repeat the demonstrations of relativity on the sidewalk for the curious passerby). Non-naturalistic evidence, such as personal revelation or moral intuition, is often private in the sense that it can be communicated but not demonstrated to others, which I think makes it suspect as evidence.
Though I am not as familiar with the term or background of “category error” as you, I don’t think it is thew same as what I mean by “gap.” All I’m referring to is the absence of a naturalistic explanation, which then begs for a non-naturalistic explanation. The “mind” as far as a naturalist is concerned, is likely nothing but a convenient metaphor or descriptor for the functions of the brain. We don’t understand the details of how the experiences and properties we use this label for are generated by the physical substrate, so there is a gap in our naturalistic explanation which the non-naturalist can say suggests, implies, or even argues for the necessity of a non-physical dimension to the mind. I suspect, though of course I can’t be certain, that scientific study will someday close this gap by demonstrating how the one is merely an expression of the other’s activity. I don’t think this belief is “breezy,” but reasonable given the evidence of history.
As for saying there’s no such thing as a “scientist” only specialists in sub-domains of science, that is technically correct I suppose but I don’t think the label is meaningless. It is a convenience for referring to someone who either practices a discipline conventionally considered to be science or who holds to an outlook or epistemelogical methodology that can be labelled scientific. Behe may very well be a scientists despite holding unscientific ideas about evolution. You clearly are (or were) a scientist in that you practiced a scientific discipline and share much of the methods of science in your style of inquiry. A unity of all knowledge in the sciences is hardly required for the word scientists to have meaning. I know you philosophers like precise definitions, so we may end up having to hash out precisely what I think the term means, but I’m not convinced this would be that useful.
[ Edited: 02 January 2008 09:38 AM by mckenzievmd ]
In fact, I think that it has been generally accepted that there are at least two kinds of knowledge: knowing how and knowing that. For example, I know how to ride a bike, whereas I know that “Detroit is North of Cleveland.”
When dougsmith says “There is only one kind of knowledge,” I suspect that what he has in mind is this equation: knowledge = justified, true, belief. But, to my mind, that equation simply adverts to knowledge-that. I suppose that there are “different ways of achieving” that sort of knowledge, e.g. testimony, perception, memory, etc., but that still neglects know-how. And, I personally think that the most beneficial results of science are those results that contribute to our know-how.
Touché, PM. Good point, you are certainly right. But I’m not sure that Kirk was discussing “knowing how”; my understanding is that he was discussing different sorts of justified true belief.
So, my very philosophy of what makes a science a science is modest enough to have a kind of pluralism even within the natural sciences - it is not so very controversial in itself. But it primes me to accept that there might be an analogical relation among the natural and non-natural ‘sciences’. And it allows for a larger role for the independent observation of a wider variety of objects. That isn’t popular, and it sins against Bas van Fraasen’s theory of observation, which is ‘hip’ now.
Let me put it this way: I will certainly give you pluralism in the sciences in the sense that different subject matters require different methods for isolating variables, removing investigator bias, etc. But I will not give you pluralism in the sciences as a back-door to smuggle in “non-natural sciences”, whatever those are.
And by the way, what precisely are these “non-natural sciences” that you keep bringing up? Let’s have some examples!
By not allowing the back-door smuggle, I am emphatically agreeing with Brennen. It’s a hoary old technique among the obscurantist spiritualists to claim “multiple ways of knowing”; the scientist knows about the world through normal experimental methods, the fakir knows about the spiritual world through clairvoyant insight. Yep. Uh-huh. Another word for “clairvoyant insight” is (excuse the blunt descriptor) just sitting in a chair and making shit up. Harry Frankfurt dealt with this sort of technique quite well in his book on Bullshit.
So, assuming you’re not talking about clairvoyant insight, what precisely are you talking about?
Re. van Fraassen, IIRC he believes that we can only observe things big enough to see with the naked eye. That is simply indefensible. I’m assuming that’s not the part of his theory of observation that is now “hip”. (He was one of my teachers, BTW. It’s been awhile). I should also add that I disagree with this whole science-is-a-special-language approach, which again, IIRC, van Fraassen went in for at least at times.
inthegobi - 01 January 2008 07:54 PM
It’s curious that the naturalist cannot stomach independent non-natural methods even as a non-naturalist or supernaturalist can easily accomodate natrual science knowledge. Just on dialectical grounds, I’d find that alone a good reason to adopt non-naturalism over naturalism - all other things considered!
... and the believer in Bigfoot can accomodate bears and gorillas, but the believer in bears and gorillas need not accomodate Bigfoot. I think these are pretty thin dialectical grounds ...
inthegobi - 01 January 2008 07:54 PM
I also want to flag that I’m no Behe advocate - someone brought up the spectre that I might me smuggling in his ID theory. I’ll just say anything good in his book was said elsewhere better, and my comments about minds and God being ‘simple’ should be a sign that I am doubtful that complexity in anyone’s mouth is making much sense these days.
Er, but it deserves saying that the problem with Behe is not his philosophy, it’s his constant errors in propounding evolutionary theory, all done in a very tendentious manner. His testimony was effectively demolished in the Dover case. E.g.: HERE. Insofar as he is discussing evolutionary theory and ID, he is simply a pseudoscientist.
In fact, I think that it has been generally accepted that there are at least two kinds of knowledge: knowing how and knowing that. For example, I know how to ride a bike, whereas I know that “Detroit is North of Cleveland.”
When dougsmith says “There is only one kind of knowledge,” I suspect that what he has in mind is this equation: knowledge = justified, true, belief. But, to my mind, that equation simply adverts to knowledge-that. I suppose that there are “different ways of achieving” that sort of knowledge, e.g. testimony, perception, memory, etc., but that still neglects know-how. And, I personally think that the most beneficial results of science are those results that contribute to our know-how.
Touché, PM. Good point, you are certainly right. But I’m not sure that Kirk was discussing “knowing how”; my understanding is that he was discussing different sorts of justified true belief.
Yes, yes, I agree; I was just being my usual nit-picky self. And, Kirk seems to have confirmed your reading of his point, for he says:
inthegobi - 02 January 2008 07:22 AM
Yes; knowing-that and know-how isn’t the division, although it’s interesting in itself.
So that leaves us with the question: what, exactly, is the “division” of knowing that Kirk is trying to get at? And I can’t say that I’ve fathomed that point yet either. Perhaps the following line is a clue?
inthegobi - 02 January 2008 07:22 AM
By analogy, I can have a good argument that a certain planet is ripe for life without having a good idea what that life will look like.
But I can’t imagine why analogical reasoning is somehow non-naturalistic reasoning; there are no super-natural agencies involved in that relation. Plus, I think that generalization, rather than analogy, is the sort of reasoning which suggests that there is life on other planets. Of course science utilizes many forms of reasoning: the big three, I think, are abduction (not alien abduction), induction, and deduction, but there may be others as well.
inthegobi - 02 January 2008 07:22 AM
‘gap’ is a jokey term - it’s not meant to be taken seriously. The more precise term is category error.
I don’t think this is right. The category mistake thing was first utilized by Ryle (I think) in order to dissolve, rather than solve, a philosophical problem by showing that the problem itself rests upon a confused set of assumptions. For example, Ryle’s point in The Concept of Mind was to show that the “mind” is not properly to be thought of as a place, something to be contrasted with a different place—viz. inside the mind versus outside the mind, in the external world. For that reason I agree with Brennen that it is wrong to equate a category error complaint with a gap complaint. And, I don’t think that the “gap” point is “jokey” at all; I think it is meant to be taken seriously. The point is that there is a gap in our knowledge. The question is: how do we fill that gap? We can appeal to god. But then the inquiry is over. The question is—supposedly—answered. The problem here is that this is a stopper; it hampers our continued investigation into the natural workings of things; for that reason, it is very serious.
There is a thread of anti-naturalism running around in philosophy nowadays. But, I think that the term “anti-naturalism” or “non-naturalism” here is a misnomer, because in most cases the view is not one that adverts to supernaturalism. Rather the view, as I understand it, is simply critical of a sort of rampant reductionism, which takes it that everything can be reduced to physics.
I too am critical of such rampant reductionism, but I am not therefore a non-naturalist. I simply think that biology, specifically evolutionary biology, presents us with an autonomous set of natural relations. That is the sort of pluralism that I see in naturalism, specifically pragmatic naturalism. Thus there is a naturalism for living things and a naturalism for inanimate stuff; a naturalism of Darwin and a naturalism of Newton and Einstein. Of course there are definitely some ties between these two sorts of naturalism, but they are, for now at least, most profitably viewed as autonomous realms of nature (rather than reducible realms). I think that the evolution of life shows that there is more than just a causal-mechanical, deterministic relation in nature. But, I hasten to emphasize, this sort of thinking in no way traffics in the idea of “non-natural sciences”. Even social sciences are pursued naturalistically. In fact, “non-natural science” seems to be an oxymoron.
Of course science utilizes many forms of reasoning: the big three, I think, are abduction (not alien abduction), induction, and deduction, but there may be others as well.
Quite so. Science, and indeed daily life, uses deduction, induction and abduction regularly. Abduction of course is “inference to the best explanation”; we hear noises in the walls and infer that there are mice in the house. There’s nothing odd or specifically scientific about it; or rather, science is of a part with the rest of our lives. There is nothing particularly special about it, except the care with which it is done.
Pragmatic Naturalist - 02 January 2008 08:26 PM
There is a thread of anti-naturalism running around in philosophy nowadays. But, I think that the term “anti-naturalism” or “non-naturalism” here is a misnomer, because in most cases the view is not one that adverts to supernaturalism. Rather the view, as I understand it, is simply critical of a sort of rampant reductionism, which takes it that everything can be reduced to physics.
I too am critical of such rampant reductionism, but I am not therefore a non-naturalist. I simply think that biology, specifically evolutionary biology, presents us with an autonomous set of natural relations. That is the sort of pluralism that I see in naturalism, specifically pragmatic naturalism. Thus there is a naturalism for living things and a naturalism for inanimate stuff; a naturalism of Darwin and a naturalism of Newton and Einstein. Of course there are definitely some ties between these two sorts of naturalism, but they are, for now at least, most profitably viewed as autonomous realms of nature (rather than reducible realms). I think that the evolution of life shows that there is more than just a causal-mechanical, deterministic relation in nature. But, I hasten to emphasize, this sort of thinking in no way traffics in the idea of “non-natural sciences”. Even social sciences are pursued naturalistically. In fact, “non-natural science” seems to be an oxymoron.
Yes, I think so. Re. reductionism, there are two sorts, that IIRC Dennett calls “greedy” and (something like) “charitable” reduction. Greedy reduction is basically saying that there’s nothing to all this other talk; the only meaningful talk is in terms of physics. Really, greedy reductionism is a sort of caricature; nobody I know believes it.
The charitable sort leaves us with the assertion that the non-physical sciences’ claims basically are true because of physical processes. But they can be understood on their own terms: there are real patterns at higher levels. Here we can think of John Conway’s famous Game of Life, with a few very simple rules that if iterated over large spaces and times produce wild and wonderful patterns. These are patterns that can be discussed and understood on their own—one doesn’t need to devolve to the lowest rung in the game to understand them, and it’s quite simpler as a result simply to dispense with that low-level talk for most of what people are interested in.
E.g., IIRC Dennett gives the example of how we can predict where two large bodies will be in a week by hearing them say “I’ll meet you at the corner of Hollywood and Vine at 3:40 on May 20th”. Now, doing the physics there would give you some headache indeed! But the point is that you don’t need to. 99% of the job is done simply by understanding the words.
But all this is true without any disagreement from the basic point that this all eventually reduces to physics. That is a metaphysical point. The prior point about calculation is a point of epistemology. To do epistemology we don’t need always to traffic in reductions.
I would certainly join the chorus of agreement about excessive reductionism. It is, charitably, an expression of the overly optimstic enthusiasm generated by the success of reductionism as a methodology, and the incredible growth in scientific knowledge in the last couple of centuries. Still, I think Dennett’s point is as insightful as it is clever. There are many phenomena that are more effectively understood in holistic ways, even if they reduce metaphysically to physical laws. As a clinician, I can do a lot of harm with too narrow a focus if it leads me to overlook aspects of the whole, interactions, emergent properties and so on. And we’ve already talked about such things as the self and the mind as useful fictions that are convenient and effective ways of looking at complex systems less reductionistically. Still, as PN says this doesn’t require we take such things seriously as real non-naturalistic phenomena.
