Passing on Feser

I was intending to buy Ed Feser’s book as more background material for my half-baked next-project-but one: a handbook for secular conservatives.  Reading his exchanges with Heather, though, and the stuff he’s posted on his site, I think I’ll pass.  I’m getting the impression of a shallow and arrogant guy who has never reflected seriously on modes of thinking other than his own.

E.g. he justifies his “courtier’s reply” position (i.e. “come back and discuss this with me when you’ve read as many heavy-duty books on philosophy and theology as I’ve read”) by analogy to a physicist dealing with questions from a person ignorant of physics.  That misses a couple of key points.

First, professors of physics mostly do not trade in courtier’s replies.  They make a patient effort to put across some of the basics, which — even in the case of quantum mechanics — are not completely inaccessible to an intelligent layman. I’ve written a couple of pop-math books and I field emailed questions about them, often from argumentative readers, every day. I don’t do this by telling inquirers to go off and read Euler, Gauss, and Hilbert.  I try to set them straight, and am surprisingly often rewarded with “Oh, I see!”

Second, our inquiries of theologians and believers are not about the nature and workings of the supernatural, but about its existence

Why would a layman go and read a shelf of books about the natural sciences? Well, because he is surrounded by natural phenomena impinging on his senses. He sees glowing discs moving across the sky in a regular way; he sees fire leap up when a match is struck; he sees unsupported objects fall; he notices that some twins are identical and some not. What’s it all about? If he’s curious, he will invest some effort in exploration. He’s not in any doubt about the existence of the natural world. He wants to know how it works.

The objects of Mr. Feser’s studies are, by definition, not part of the natural world. It is possible to go through a long life without ever having any experience of God.  (Trust me on this.)  A fortiori for experience of the Afterlife …  We don’t seek to know how these things work, we seek to know why we should believe they exist; or, supposing they do exist, why, since they do not impinge upon us in any way we are aware of, why we should be bothered with them, and why people who do believe in them should monopolize our political faction. 

If Feser cannot reply to these simple fundamentals, as a physicist easily could (“You don’t think fire exists? Hold still while I stick this lighted match up your nose”), we are bound to suspect that either (a) he is a sensationally incompetent presenter of his subject, or (b) the subject is a bogus one. 

Feser’s answer is “Go read a shelf of books.”  But what would be our motivation for investing so much time reading about an object which shows no signs of existing?  Where are the glowing disks and identical twins to excite our curiosity?  If Feser can’t, in a few plain sentences, give us some good reason to think that God exists, why would we go delving into arguments about the Trinity and Hypostatic Union?  And if we invested all that time and effort, and still came away unconvinced of the existence of God, who would recompense us for our trouble?  Bertrand Russell read through all the Scholastics for his History of Western Philosophy, but came away as much an atheist as before.  How do I know I wouldn’t repeat that experience, without Russell’s hope of a bestselling book to follow?

If Feser can’t put across the fundamentals of his … discipline to a person as intelligent as Heather, I feel no motivation to read his book. Although, if he would just come up with that design plan for a dispositive efficacy-of-prayer experiment, I might change my mind.

This entry was posted in philosophy and tagged . Bookmark the permalink.

83 Responses to Passing on Feser

  1. Curmudgeon says:

    First of all, great site. As someone who is similarly situated, I believe conservatives, whatever that means these days, need to sit down and have this discussion.

    I have had the experience whereby a person of faith tried to give me empirical evidence of god’s existence. Their reply was simply “look at the human ear, how does something so beautiful come about without god?”

    At that point I decided to quit advocating my point because I realized that we would never reach common ground. Sadly, I fear this site’s discussion will suffer the same fate.

  2. Dan says:

    I can’t wait to read what he has to say about this one.

  3. Bradlaugh says:

    Well, then we shall fall to discussing things among ourselves, in which I anticipate lots of agreement!

    Seriously, though: I — and I assume my colleagues here — are vexed that the politics we adhere to are yoked in the general public mind with content-free “disciplines” like theology. If we can just loosen that yoke a little, our efforts will not have been in vain.

  4. Michael B says:

    An uncomprehending and self-congratulatory deflection. Heather Mac Donald has provided some notable bemusement, literally nothing more than that, in terms of the particular subject in question, one that she initiated. Can we next expect a deflection of anything she disagrees with on the mind/body set of problems with a sniff about how it’s so “last century” or “Medieval”? Then again, what am I saying? One cannot, empirically, touch and feel so much of what informs mind/body topoi, there’s all that messy – and incredibly demanding! – rationality that’s required. Better – and more satisfying – a dismissive harrumph! or two.

    Btw, controlled brushfires can serve a purpose, out-of-control brushfires might provide bemusement or they might have more damaging effects. To this point – and again, addressing the subject in question – Heather MacDonald has exampled some eye-rolling bemusement. Given the origins of Mac Donald’s offering, you’ve now added a tendentious mischaracterization to the bemusements on display here.

    I suggest you demand a certain superficial and gratuitous politeness here. Absent that the whispers will be amplified, it will only be a matter of time.

  5. Ergo Ratio says:

    I always pose the following question to anyone making supernatural claims:

    Suppose I concede the possibility that a single god could exist that so perfectly created the universe that it left no evidence of its own involvement whatsoever. Please explain the connection between that god and Yahweh, between belief in that god and any moral mandate.

    I’ve yet to receive an answer that is not either a bare assertion or a subject change (to distract you until the bare assertion can be made again).

  6. steve burton says:

    This is a deeply disappointing post from JD.

    I am a great admirer of his – most of the time. Like him, I am very much a “secular conservative” – i.e., one who believes that the fundamental tenets of conservatism require no religious underpinning.

    And, like him, I think that current evolutionary theory is both (a) true, and (b) absolutely fatal to current liberalism.

    But I am also a trained philosopher. And, speaking as a trained philosopher, Heather MacDonald’s forays into theology can only be described as sophomoric, and Ed Feser’s replies as astonishing in their restraint. Had I been called upon to comment on them, I would have written far more harshly than he did.

    JD: you have often expressed your inaptitude for/impatience with/incuriosity about philosophy. Which is fine. Philosophy is not for everybody.

    So why are you even talking about this?

  7. A-Bax says:

    Bradlaugh makes a good point: We are definitely not 1) trying to convince the religious right to cease being religious (which is near-impossible, and is a colossal waste of time in a margin-of-return sense.)

    We might be 2) trying to convince the religious right to ease up a bit on all the god-talk when they’re engaged in politics (where we are natural allies of them). Their motives remain their own, and they don’t have to change anything in their hearts, but just ease up on the God-talk, and the implicit litmus-tests, please.

    Failing that (and it may fail, as some of the comments both on this site and those linked to by Bradlaugh’s Brushfires post), at the very least we can 3) perhaps give the general public a sense that religiosity is not necessary for conservatism.

    For if the general public believes that, then the game is lost. Point, set, match. Over. (And if it were true, the game SHOULD be lost. Thankfully it isn’t true.)

    So, frustrating as it may be to battle the uber-religious that may be trolling this site, itching for a fight, we should bear in mind that other eyes may be watching. So it’s worth the effort.

  8. Walter Olson says:

    Mr. Feser evidently wants people to visit his website, so I did, and was quite struck by some of the propositions advanced by his commenters. Such as:

    That someone like Heather Mac Donald (I don’t really know her writing well, so I’m going on what I’ve seen lately) gets to be called a conservative, for the precise reasons you mention, makes not much sense. What’s she for conserving?

    Or again:

    The life of Mother Theresa, to use just one glaring example, is incomprehensible if the Christian gospel is not true. …she existed, and she did what she did, and I think there is an explanation: The Christian gospel is true. This argument does not get me a passing grade in Logic 214. But it is compelling to a person of, shall we say literary sensitivity.

    Not the sort of stuff I run across in my usual rounds of blog reading, that’s for sure.

  9. steve burton says:

    Wha-huh? We’re supposed to find these comments shocking?

    I live for the day when my average blog-commenter achieves such levels of intelligence & literacy.

    But, be that as it may, are we now supposed to judge the arguments of philosophers by the comments left on their blogs?

  10. Gotchaye says:

    I hadn’t realized that he’d delivered another response. I just read it, and it’s exactly the same kind of thing.

    Feser’s refusing to understand that there’s a middle ground between completely explaining an idea and not talking about it at all. His latest response on his website is his longest yet, and, like the others, it says nothing more than “there are good arguments for my position elsewhere”. Bradlaugh’s completely right that every other complicated discipline still admits to some degree of summarization; a respectable physics professor can at least explain the odd claims of quantum mechanics and outline the evidence for them to an intelligent layman (even one who comes to the table with an active misunderstanding of the field).

    But let’s grant that Feser’s right. Suppose that arguments for the existence of God absolutely require hundreds of pages in order to be minimally understandable. It seems to me that, even without knowing what these arguments are, they can be called into question for being too complicated. It’s the same as with portions of Hegel or Levinas – the probability that a chain of reasoning is true decreases as the probability that some segment of the argument is misunderstood increases. If your idea is so ‘irreducibly complex’ that one would have to evaluate hundreds of pages of text as a whole in order to evaluate the idea, it’s hard to ever say that the idea is a good one with any degree of confidence. There may be something to ‘Totality and Infinity’, but I’m convinced that most everyone who reads and interprets it is essentially just reading their own prejudices into the text.

  11. Bradlaugh says:

    I’m slipping into the frame of mind of Orwell, who said somewhere that he thought philosophy should be forbidden by law.

    Just explain some fundamentals to us. How hard can it be?

    “Mr. Astronomer, does the Earth go round the Sun, or vice versa?”

    “Earth round Sun.”

    “How d’you know?”

    “Stellar parallax, same way you know your car’s moving past the trees, not the trees past your car.”

    “Oh, I see. Hey, thanks! Er, Mr. Theologian, how many Gods are there?”

    “Just the one, laddie.”

    “How d’you know?”

    “Why, it says it right here in this Bronze Age text!”

  12. ossicle says:

    Michael B.,

    You are an unbearable twat. I can’t imagine you’re able to walk three feet without a stray cat gashing streaks in your flaccid calves.

    Steve Burton,

    You’re pathetic, trying to drum up traffic for your site here. Your arguments from authority are exactly the sort of thing by which Feser makes himself so meaningless as a thinker and a person. Why not eat three pounds of dried fruit and spend a week on the commode? Possibly a coronary will cure what ails you.

    -Oss

    -O

  13. A-Bax says:

    @ Steve Burton: Heather may or may not be trying to engage Freser in a theological debate. My sense is not, but I don’t speak for Heather.

    One point she is trying to get across though, is that the content of belief for many believers – even of a religion that admits of abstruse theology, like Catholicism – is no more sophisticated than the content of belief in the tribal religions of yore. That was her point about the saint-pills “magical amulet” riff.

    That theologians and those who take theology seriously scoff at such forms of belief is to the detriment to their professed religion, whether they like this or not, whether they admit this or not.

    The reason is that basically, the average believers’ religiosity is not equivalent to what the theologians hope it would be. Hume, (our Hume) can speak to the evo. pscyh stuff on this fairly well. The complex constructions that theologians have in mind are, unfortunately for the promulgators, not what believers have in mind when they believe. What they have in mind, for the most part, are spirits, demons, angels, witches, talismans, sacred objects, and precise rituals of all kinds.

    Even those who can recite the beatitudes, and explain the theological difference between trans-substantiation and con-substantiation “believe” as a New Guinea Highlander “believes” (for the most part, when they are not actively thinking about the theology, they regress to the kinds of supernatural belief-modes we’re all wired with.)

    Heather is reacting to Freser’s scoffing at her claim that religion is unscientific, and is asking for the science. As is Bradlaugh. They haven’t received and answer.

    The theology they’ll leave to those who take it seriously, as they don’t.

  14. Caledonian says:

    A deeper problem is that, to modern scientific thinking, the very concept of ‘supernatural’ is incoherent.

    When a scientist sees something that his current understanding of nature does not encompass, he verifies that it’s not simple error – and if not, he tries to extend his understanding to include the new phenomenon.

    ‘Nature’ refers to the things that exist. There are no grounds for excluding an existing thing from nature just because we were previously unfamiliar with it. If ‘gods’ are supernatural things, then it follows that they do not exist. If gods exist, it follows that they are natural.

    Once we’ve accepted that gods have to be natural, even if they’re not compatible with our understanding of nature, we begin to apply the same standards to claims about their existence that we apply to any other natural phenomenon… and we quickly note that there doesn’t seem to be any evidence for them.

    Occam’s Razor takes care of the rest.

  15. Edward Feser says:

    Well. I used to expect better of you than this, Mr. D., but unfortunately the crude scientism into which you’ve been descending for several years now seems entirely to have eaten away at your critical faculties. For one thing, you are apparently incapable of seeing that I did more in my most recent rejoinder to MacDonald than simply offer a “courtier’s reply.” I also pointed out that her entire position rests on the undefended and question-begging assumption that empirical science is the only rational form of inquiry that there is (and thus assumes, without proving, that metaphysics or philosophy doesn’t count). Perhaps the reason you failed to see this is that you have, in your own reply, simply begged the question in exactly the same way.

    Now, perhaps the assumption in question could be defended in a non-circular way. Not likely, though, given that (as I also pointed out in my reply to MacDonald) it is a philosophical or metaphysical assumption rather than an empirical one. As always (and as E.A. Burtt pointed out in his classic book The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Physical Science), the man who claims to scorn metaphysics turns out to be nothing less than a metaphysician himself, but a very poor one because of his lack of self-awareness.

    And on the subject of courtier’s replies, I think you will find if you think about it for a moment that you have issued a great many of them over the past several years, at The Corner and elsewhere, to people critical of your recent interest in evolutionary psychology and the like. “Look, learn the science first, folks, and then get back to me” and all that. And you are perfectly correct to do so: It would be silly to expect you to answer every uninformed critic with a crash course every time you write on the subject, especially when you can refer them to other writings in which you have already dealt with the criticisms at length. Would-be critics of scientific theories are rightly expected to know what they are talking about before they make a comment, and no scientist is under any obligation to offer them remedial instruction on _the very basics of the discipline_ by email or blog post. Is it too much to ask that a philosopher or theologian be shown the same courtesy?

    “A shallow and arrogant guy who has never reflected seriously on modes of thinking other than his own.” Jeez! Look in the mirror, my friend!

  16. Michael B says:

    Btw, you’re exampling the fact that you’re not “passing on Feser,” you’re passing on – you’re conveniently eliding – the problems Mac Donald believes herself to be receptive to. To be receptive to something one first needs to evidence a basic comprehension and Mac Donald has evidenced no such quality. Invoking Orwell does not hide that fact.

  17. Caledonian says:

    “I also pointed out that her entire position rests on the undefended and question-begging assumption that empirical science is the only rational form of inquiry that there is (and thus assumes, without proving, that metaphysics or philosophy doesn’t count).”

    No, that point follows directly from an examination of ‘rational’ and ‘inquiry’.

    Why don’t you explain the standards that determine what counts? Why don’t you demonstrate that metaphysics and philosophy do indeed count?

  18. Bradlaugh says:

    Well, while not a courtier’s reply, that is at any rate a courteous reply — probably a bit more so than I deserved. Let’s take our exchange of “shallow and arrogant” as a wash and start over, if you don’t mind. For penance, I’ll buy your book.

    And yes, I do find myself getting more and more empirical. In large part, though, this is because the work going on in the human sciences offers much more interesting prospects than anything in metaphysics or philosophy. Problems in those latter disciplines can sometimes be resolved by empirical methods or by math, as Kant’s notions of space and time were confounded by the non-Euclidean geometries. I don’t know any examples of the solution arrow going the other way.

    So:  do metaphysics and philosophy count? I’m not entirely ignorant of them. I have, as it happens, read Burtt’s book. (Did you know it was a great favorite of Aldous Huxley’s? One of the characters in Point Counter Point is reading it.) They seem more and more ethereal by contrast with what’s coming out of the genetics and neuroscience labs, though. “Scientistic”? Yeah, I’ll own that insult.

  19. Tulse says:

    Edward Feser :
    her entire position rests on the undefended and question-begging assumption that empirical science is the only rational form of inquiry that there is (and thus assumes, without proving, that metaphysics or philosophy doesn’t count).

    As soon as religion makes truth claims about the natural world (e.g., “miracles occur”), it is susceptible to empirical test. Metaphysics alone can at best get you a Deist god, but it sure as heck can’t get you resurrections and loaves and fishes (much less any sort of moral framework).

  20. Blackacre says:

    Mr. Feser fails to address the more interesting aspect of Mr. Derbyshire’s critique- the disingenuous analogy between physicist and theologian.

    Surely, a discipline that does not deal in the empirical, a discipline that cannot verify any claim through observation, cannot be as respected as one that can. Certainly, a discipline that cannot contribute to the continued medical and technological betterment of mankind cannot insist upon equal respect.

    A skilled research pathologist is capable of contributing concretely to this world. A theologian, no matter how well-read, now matter how logically sound, can never hope to contribute more than a Star Wars expert.

  21. steve burton says:

    “…the average believers’ religiosity is not equivalent to what the theologians hope it would be.”

    Well, I dunno. It’s my impression that the theologians are pretty tolerant of the average believer’s religiosity. It’s the professional atheists who just can’t stand it.

  22. Roger Hallman says:

    Mr. Derbyshire,
    Your postings have been the primary reasons that I’ve visited The Corner for the past year or so. I’m happy to read your blogging, more regularly, in this venue because now I no longer have to look at Kathy Lopez’s vapid dribble.

  23. Grant Canyon says:

    “A theologian, no matter how well-read, now matter how logically sound, can never hope to contribute more than a Star Wars expert.”

    Exactly. This sentence should be on t-shirts and coffee mugs.

  24. Is This Your Homework, Larry? says:

    “A skilled research pathologist is capable of contributing concretely to this world. A theologian, no matter how well-read, now matter how logically sound, can never hope to contribute more than a Star Wars expert.”

    Fascinating. I wonder what, pray tell, we do with those poor schizophrenic folks who are/were both scientists AND metaphysicians? Pavel Florensky, Stanley Jaki, Michael Polanyi, John Polkinghorne, Teilhard De Chardin, Luke Voino-Yasenetsky, etc.

  25. Bradlaugh says:

    I can be a PROFESSIONAL atheist? Someone will pay me for this? Wow! Who do I call?

  26. halifax says:

    I’m neither a theologian nor an orthodox adherent to Christianity. Nonetheless, the skepticism on display here is notably limited in its application. It certainly doesn’t apply to what should certainly be only referred to on this blog as SCIENCE. (There should be a link to the old Thomas Dolby song, so that we can all shout it aloud together.)

    The naive materialism in evidence at the site reminds one of the following positivist conundrum. The only meaningful statements that can be made are either tautologous or empirically provable. Unfortunately, this particular proposition is neither tautologous nor empirically provable.

    This particular problem doesn’t even begin to address what ‘empirical’ actually means. As so many have pointed out, even Popper’s minimal falsifiability standard does not describe how science has historically worked. (Lakatos once notoriously said that the history of science should actually be written not according to how things developed but with how they should have developed.) In fact, according to my empirical observations, the sun does indeed appear to rise and set every day ( and, of course, we still speak of these situations in this way). I certainly cannot ‘observe’ the workings of sub-atomic particles, in any case.

    Galileo, speaking in the voice of Simplicius in one of his dialogues, says that it is precisely the Aristotelian method that relies upon ‘experiment’ while the new science depends upon mathematical conjecture and the reduction of any observation to number.

    Does science produce things, like nuclear weapons, automobiles, high rise buildings, etc (this is not meant to be pejorative)? Yes, but the Egyptians built the pyramids, medieval Europeans built Mont St. Michel and Chartres, etc. Most people have not historically been particularly unhappy with the state of their technology, so the current satisfaction with what ‘science’ produces is not particularly exceptional anyway.

    I’m happy that some of those with a scientistic bent are supportive of limited nomocratic government, but I would be just as happy with a bunch white-lightening-drinking hillbillies supporting the same (and I would likely enjoy their choice of entertainment a bit more).

  27. TrueNorth says:

    My son recently graduated with a philosophy degree – currently unemployed – and he didn’t disagree with my characterization that as human knowledge progresses about any given subject, it has tended to go from a theological phase, through a philosophical phase and finally, as the principles are really understood, a scientific phase (at which point the theology and philosophy become irrelevant).

    Philosophers are very smart people no doubt (I believe it was Derb who pointed out in a Corner post that they have the highest IQs of any segment of the humanities, right up there with physicists and mathematicians). However, it seems to me that the whole subject area is largely a waste of time, except as a mental exercise which may be useful for training the mind, but never yielding much that is of any practical use as an end product. Mr. Feser, alas, is asking us to take the end product seriously.

    Interestingly, philosophy is known as the queen of the humanities in the same way that mathematics is known as the queen of the sciences. Practitioners of each subject tend to consider themselves at the apex of their respective domains. I think the prime difference between the two is just this fact: the products of philosophy almost never yield unexpected applications or any utility at all, whereas those of mathematics, no matter how arcane, abstract and abstruse they may seem at first, almost invariably end up having a practical application down the road.

    Which brings me to this question for Derb: I read and enjoyed both “Prime Obsession” and “Unknown Quantity”. Your format of alternating the mathematics with a biographical/historical chapter makes for very pleasant reading. You mentioned that you are thinking of writing a book for secular conservatives. Are any more mathematics books planned? Also, do you have any recommended pop-math books by other authors that I should request from Santa Claus (Him I believe in…)

  28. Michael B says:

    Selectively redacted insults now.

    But more to the issue at hand, the basic question does not concern a vaguely conceived “religion,” it concerns the intellectual viability of a theism; and it concerns, for example, the viability of a materialist metaphysic. I.e. looking at the philosophical problems from both directions, not selectively.

    If you’re going to invoke “religion” in the nebulous manner in which it’s been invoked here, then you likewise need to invoke “secularism” in a manner that includes cults of personality and other phenomena that evidenced itself within secular ideologies prominent during the 20th century. One cannot, if the intention is a serious dialectic and inquiry in general, require a demanding and empirical and real-world proof on one side, while considering only idealized conceptions on the other side of the debate.

    Of course one can, if the interest is rhetorical and political, rather than more rigorously demanding, but that’s reflective of a qualitatively different agenda, an agenda that concerns itself with power and force, not rational and empirical inquiry in any rigorous sense.

    Real-world, empirical and rational inquiries vs. contrasting real-world, empirical and rational inquiries; not rigorous demands of one side vs. being content with idealized conceptions of one’s own position.

  29. A-Bax says:

    Caldonian’s 1st post:

    Bull’s-eye. Nice work! You nailed it. For the religiously minded, however, it is embarrassingly the reverse. As our naturalistic understanding of the world increases, the need for supernatural explanations recedes.

    Isn’t it interesting that the committed empiricist is comfortable saying “I don’t know” to ultimate questions, but the committed theist claims to *know* that *God* is somehow responsible, when they cannot explain what they refer to by “God”, and must use a very different sense of “know” than is commonly understood? And yet they accuse us of arrogance…

    Steve Burton: “It’s my impression that the theologians are pretty tolerant of the average believer’s religiosity”.

    You’ve probably noticed that the Pope and the Dalai Lama each issue formal interpretations of the religions they lead in order to correct “misconceptions”. And on a smaller scale, you’re average Sunday podium-thumper will routinely attempt clarify fine points of the faith….I wonder what that’s all about?

  30. Bradlaugh says:

    halifax:  “The naive materialism in evidence at the site …” Yeah, to apply strict evidentiary, empirical standards to knowledge is “naive.” Believing in miraculous impregnations, raisings of the dead, drivings out of evil demons, and invisible sky spirits listening to our mumbled requests, is sophisticated. Right, right.

    TrueNorth:  I hope you don’t work for that Toronto imaging firm I have a beef with. Whatever, I put philosophy, along with most sports, in the category of things that, while they don’t get my juices flowing personally, are worth some grudging respect. A lot of it is just hot air, of course, but I’ve listened to some of the Teaching Company philosophy courses, and of course read bits and pieces of philosophy through life in an unsystematic way, and I’ll give philosophers some respect. There were some philosophers at that Tucson conference I blogged about, and they had interesting things to say. (I was surprised to learn that there is now a discipline called EXPERIMENTAL Philosophy.) All in all though, if you want to gain real shiny new understandings, scientific method is the way to go. Theology is just tribal chanting. And no, I don’t currently have a math book in the pipeline. My publisher quit on me — quit producing new books, I mean. They only do reprints now. If you know any science publishers in need of an author, I’m available. Pop-math books? David Wells’ “Curious and Interesting …” books are evergreen, anything by Keith Devlin is good, Yandell’s “The Honors Class,” … but I am a bit out of touch.

    Michael B:  It’s a blog, for crying out loud. You can look at something you posted and think “Hm, I was a bit over the line there,” and try to make amends. That’s supposed to be part of the charm of blogging. Sorry if it escapes you. The rest of your post, I didn’t understand. What does a personality cult have to do with science? They’re both not religions? So is a rutabaga not a religion.

  31. Edward Feser says:

    Mr. D., you are a gentleman and a scholar, and now I feel like a putz for having been as testy with you as I was. Threatening to buy my book was particularly diabolical — how can I possibly stay mad now? (Next Heather MacDonald will threaten to give copies out as Christmas gifts, and I’ll lose this fight altogether…)

    Anyway, as retaliation I am now going to do something I’ve been meaning to do for years, and order up a copy of Seeing Calvin Coolidge in a Dream. (Two can play this game!)

    Anyway, your mathematics background should, it seems to me, soften you up at least a little bit for metaphysics as a non-empirical but entirely rational form of inquiry. (For what it’s worth, it was Frege and Russell, of all people, who de-converted me from materialism years ago and thus set me on the path away from the atheism of my younger days — Frege because of his Platonism, Russell because of his insight that physics gives us knowledge only of the structure of matter, rather than of its intrinsic nature. Though I realize that that’s all from the philosophical, rather than mathematical, side of their work.)

    As you’ll see, questions about the nature of the scientific enterprise — for which I have as much respect as you do — are central to my book, as are the intellectual currents that led to the transition from medieval to modern science (which is, of course, Burtt’s subject). My contention is that all of this has to be set out clearly before the classical theistic arguments can properly be understood at all — otherwise the unwary reader will read into them all sorts of assumptions (about the nature of causation, about the role experience plays in knowledge, about what it is to be a “material” or “natural” object or process in the first place, and so forth) that are precisely what the arguments are intended to challenge.

    Hence my repeated insistence that it just isn’t fruitful to get into the question of proving God’s existence at all without getting into it in detail and at length — and my reluctance to do so in ephemeral blog posts and the like, especially when I’ve just published a book which already does the job. Foreplay is everything, and it’s got to be done right.

    And with that jarring metaphor, which I think I already regret, perhaps I’d better shut up…

  32. Bradlaugh says:

    Roger Hallman:  I am pleased and flattered by your post. Thank you! However, I won’t hear a word against Kathy Lopez. She’s cut me an incredible amount of slack, and does more work in one day than I manage in a month. If every editor was K-Lo, my life would be a lot easier.

  33. David Tye says:

    True North,

    Philosophy as classically conceived has largely disappeared from our universities, which is why I gave up on university philosophy and got a scientific education instead, which our universities are indeed good at. What this means is that our universities have given up on knowledge as an end in itself, and instead have accepted the vulgar opinion that knowledge is only true if it is “practical”, i.e. a means to an end beyond itself.

    Philosophy was once seen to be the summit of education precisely because it was useless and impractical; the final end, the end for which all other ends are means, must appear useless and impractical. Scientists until recently held this conviction and considered scientific research to be valuable in and of itself, regardless of whether it issued in results of any practical utility. It was only in places like the Soviet Union that science was forced to submit to the demands of usefulness.

    The tyranny of the “useful” has killed philosophy, art and music in our country, and it will eventually kill science as well, for true science values knowledge for its own sake, not for any practical applications.

  34. Bradlaugh says:

    Ed:  Tell ya what. You send me an email at the e-address scrawled on my home page, giving me your mailing address. I’ll return with mine. Then I’ll send your book to you (or have Amazon send it), you sign it, return it to me, and meanwhile I’ll do the same with my book for you. Author-signed books are worth more on resale y’know …

  35. halifax says:

    There is nothing in my post which suggests that I believe in ‘miraculous impregnations, raisings of the dead, drivings out of evil demons, or invisible sky spirits listening to our mumbled requests’. Rejecting naive materialism doesn’t entail embracing naive religious superstition, or do you think that these are the only two options on offer? Further, merely claiming that you ‘apply strict evidentiary, empirical standards to knowledge’ tells me very little, especially when the epistemological presuppositions of your scientific claims are tenuous at best. Continuing to shout ‘SCIENCE’ as loud as you can is not an argument (just like sticking a lighted match in someone’s nose doesn’t prove anything about fire, though it is reminiscent of Dr. Johnson’s sophomoric ‘refutation’ of idealism).

  36. Edward Feser says:

    That is a fine idea, John. I’ve just emailed you…

  37. Robert Gressis says:

    I wonder if Bradlaugh can provide a justification for believing in the wrongness of wanton murder. Not a list of the wrong-making features of murder (that it generally causes pain to the victim and his family, that it violates the victim’s rights, etc.), but why those features count as wrong-making in the first place.

  38. Bradlaugh says:

    Robert:  Of course I can’t. What of it? Human nature is so constructed that very, very few of us are inclined to commit murder. In an orderly society, those who do are severely punished by the authorities; and the foreknowledge of this undoubtedly deters many of that very few, making murder an extremely rare occurrence.

    In what respect is this view of the matter defective? In what respect is your view superior?

  39. Panopaea says:

    >“A skilled research pathologist is capable of contributing concretely to this world. A theologian, no matter how well-read, no matter how logically sound, can never hope to contribute more than a Star Wars expert.”

    Except that for individuals regenerated by the Word and the Spirit who then need to come into contact with sound biblical doctrine for the process of conversion the theologian who knows his subject is indeed much more valuable than a Stars Wars expert.

    Doctrine effects internal states. It’s also the armor of God used in spiritual warfare, the three-front war with the flesh, the world, and the Devil. All very concrete matters indeed.

  40. Roger Hallman says:

    @Bradlaugh
    We shall have to agree to disagree about Miss Lopez as an editor. Actually, I’m afraid I’m not too familiar with her beyond what I’ve read on The Corner. I would imagine that her duties extend well beyond the occasional blogging that I find distasteful. But that’s a matter for another time.

    Anyways, I’m an undergrad math student with a copy of Unknown Quantity. I don’t suppose that it’d be possible to make an arrangement to get my copy autographed, would it?

  41. Snippet says:

    >> Mr. Derbyshire,
    Your postings have been the primary reasons that I’ve visited The Corner for the past year or so. I’m happy to read your blogging, more regularly, in this venue because now I no longer have to look at Kathy Lopez’s vapid dribble.

    Roger,

    This was eerie. I could have written that post word-for-word.

    I understand Ms. Lopez is sincerely respected by JD, but, frankly, I find her as unreadable as JD is readable.

    JD could right about making, oh, say, a tree house or something, and make it fascinating. No idea how he does it (maybe the English education?).

  42. Robert Gressis says:

    Thanks for your response, Bradlaugh. I asked because it seems to me that many theists are in the same boat with regard to their theism. When it comes to questions already assuming theism, they can make reasonably intelligent remarks, but when it comes to justifying theism itself they’re at a loss. Professional philosophers, however–and I know you look askance at that field–have not only done lots of work proving (and disproving) the existence of God, but have also done lots of work trying to argue for the objectivity of morality, and if they’re Kantians (for example) they claim that what makes an action right is that its maxim passes the Categorical Imperative procedure, and that subjecting maxims to the Categorical Imperative procedure is a rational commitment of reason. Now, many (most) philosophers are unimpressed by this answer, but most similarly don’t think it’s irrational, because they recognize that all positions have their difficulties, some perhaps more than others, or perhaps all with about the same.

    So, long story short, I asked the question because I wondered whether you held moral objectivity in the same regard as you hold theism?

  43. Michael B says:

    Bradlaugh,

    “Secularism,” Lenin to Gorbachev, 100 million to 150 million dead / 70 yrs.

    “Religion,” the Spanish Inquisition, 5,000 to 10,000 killed / 300 yrs.

    Those are two, historical, real-world examples being compared. Demonstrable and comparable on empirical grounds.

    Too, while those Leninist/Stalinist and Maoist regimes killed people en masse, the Spanish Inquisition tried and killed individuals only.

    It’s a comparison only, I don’t imagine they’re exact parallels (e.g., mechanization played a bit part), but it’s a real-world, historical comparision nonetheless – not a comparison of an idealized version of “secularism” vs. a real-world version of “religion” or vice versa.

  44. Roger Hallman says:

    @Snippet
    Good morning and a happy Friday Snippet,
    Miss Lopez may well be a good editor, but I do not care for her blogging. Lately, particularly since we’ve had Sarah Palin forced upon us, I find “K-Lo'” to read like a 13 year-old girl’s myspace page. At any rate, I don’t intend to bag on her any more. I was merely expressing my pleasure at finding the Derb writing here with some frequency, and she was more of an afterthought than anything else.

  45. Dave M says:

    Roger Hallman: I am pleased and flattered by your post. Thank you! However, I won’t hear a word against Kathy Lopez. She’s cut me an incredible amount of slack, and does more work in one day than I manage in a month. If every editor was K-Lo, my life would be a lot easier.

    I’m going to have to add my +1 to the chorus of somewhat disapproval of K-Lo. Whilst I generally don’t hold much cop for Andrew Sullivan, his recent jibe of “theoconservatism” I do find accurate when applied to K-Lo. The recent visit of the Roman Catholic Pontiff to the US for example was a particular K-lo inspired theocratic nadir in the annals of NRO.

    Michael B, as per Lenin and Stalin (and as Bradlaugh would no doubt add, Mao) and their victims – the counterpoint to your argument from a slightly more libertarian perspective is that collectivist regimes such as they were merely aping religion – the State was their Yahweh and the Communist Party was their Church (or perhaps the converse is true: religion merely apes collectivism). Marx, Yahweh, what’s the difference, really?

  46. Grant Canyon says:

    “Except that for individuals regenerated by the Word and the Spirit who then need to come into contact with sound biblical doctrine for the process of conversion the theologian who knows his subject is indeed much more valuable than a Stars Wars expert.”

    But, you see, Padawan learners need the aid of Jedi Masters in order to demonstrate their connection with, and exercise of, the power of The Force. This eventually leads them to joining the Jedi Order. As such, you see, the Star Wars expert is much more valuable than the theologian.

  47. Snippet says:

    The whole argument regarding the carnage caused by atheistic regimes is interesting and meaningful up to a point, but it does nothing to prove that God exists.

    First of all, we have with commuism a movement that burst on the scene at a time when the technology made it possible for a large group of people in thrall to a bad idea to cause a lot more damage than the Christians, Moslems, Mongols, Persians, etc…. were able to cause before they cooled off or were defeated.

    There is at this time a highly motivated group of religious people trying to get their hands on some nukes. I forget which religion it was. Quakers? Jainists? I forget.

    Anyway, EVEN IF religion has a carnage-reducing affect, that does not prove the existence of God. Religion has psychological and sociological repercussions, of course, and it is certainly possible that one of those effects it to limit violence. Possible, but far certain.

    In fact, religion may have evolved in part precisely as a means of reducing violence – at least intra-group – among humans, threby increasing their capacity to co-exist among large groups of strangers, and pool – rather than cancel-out – their resources.

    I really am enjoying a site where Bradlaugh posts regularly. I enjoy the other contributers as well.

    All typos in this post added by malicious agency after submittal.

  48. Ken Silber says:

    If Ed’s book actually proves the existence of God, or John reads it as such, this is going to be a pretty short-lived blog, no?

  49. Kim du Toit says:

    “However, it seems to me that the whole subject area [of philosophy] is largely a waste of time, except as a mental exercise which may be useful for training the mind, but never yielding much that is of any practical use as an end product.”

    Well, yes… if one believes that activity without a “practical” end use is a waste of time. That is the rationale for people who would prefer to fly from Paris to Budapest rather than drive, on the basis that it’s the destination which is important, rather than the journey.

    Education of the mind is NOT about its value in the market, or about any kind of “utility” to its owner in the practical sense. That is left to what we would call the “trades” — where training rather than education is required.

    It’s a common misconception in today’s world, where universities have basically become job training centers rather than educational institutions.

  50. Caledonian says:

    Philosophy was once seen to be the summit of education precisely because it was useless and impractical;

    And the Greeks lost everything because they believed the greatest accomplishment was to be useless and pursue useless things.

    When the utility of those ‘useless’ things was finally put into practice, the world was forever changed. But only by the people who didn’t believe it was shameful to know how to do things and to do them, only by the people who didn’t see craft as lowly and debased.

    The ethos of the ancient Greeks was self-defeating and self-destructive. The elimination of that ethos from our educational system is as yet incomplete, but it will be a beautiful day indeed when the last shreds of it are annihilated.

Comments are closed.