Alvin Plantinga’s Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism has attracted a great deal of serious critical discussion (e.g. Naturalism Defeated?) and has had a substantial impact on ‘popular’ appraisals of naturalism. (For example, William Lane Craig frequently uses it, and it also appears in the dismissal of naturalism in The Experience of God.) Many philosophers have pointed out various problems with the EAAN, and in my judgment the EAAN is not only flawed but fatally flawed. Nevertheless, it’s a really interesting argument and it could be worth exploring a bit. I’ll present the argument here and then we can get into it in comments if you’d like — though I won’t be offended if you’d rather spend your time doing other things!
The EAAN has gone through various iterations, but here’s the latest version, from Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism (2011). Intuitively, we regard our cognitive capacities — sense-perception, introspection, memory, reasoning — as reliable, where “reliable” means “capable of giving us true beliefs most of the time” (subject to the usual caveats). Call this claim R (for ‘reliable’). But how probable is R?
Suppose that one accepts evolution (E) but also affirms naturalism, defined here as the belief that there is no God or anything like God (N). What is the probability of R, given N & E? One might think it’s quite high. But Plantinga thinks that, however high the probability of R, nevertheless the probability of R given N&E is low or inscrutable. Why’s that?
Now, here’s the key move (and in my estimation, the fatal flaw): beliefs are invisible to selection. Why? Because selection only works on behavior. If an unreliable cognitive capacity is causally linked to adaptive behavior, then the unreliable capacity will be selected for (i.e. not selected against). Even a radically unreliable capacity — that one never or almost never yields true beliefs — can be selected for. Selection only “cares” about adaptive behaviors, not about true beliefs. (More precisely, we have no reason to believe that the semantic content is not epiphenomenal.)
So, Plantinga thinks, given N&E, the probability of R is very low. But, if the probability of R is low, given N&E, then that should ‘infect’ the likelihood of all of the beliefs produced by those capacities — including N&E themselves. So, given N&E, we should it think it extremely unlikely that N&E is true. And so the initial assumption of N&E defeats itself. (Here I’m being much too quick with the argument, but we can get into the details in the comments if you’d like.)
Anyway, it’s a really cool little argument, and it’s not immediately clear what’s wrong with it — and I thought it might be worth discussing, given how influential it is.
“Objects as they are” has no meaning, but “perception is direct” has a meaning? What’s the difference? How do you know perception is direct and what does it mean to say “perception is direct”? Direct in relation to something, right? And, in relation to the something, whatever it is that you have in mind, it would be wrong to say “perception is indirect”, right?
But different people perceive differently, so who is the one who perceives objects directly? The overwhelming majority or the statistical average joe? Or expert physicists? Neuroscientists? If so, why not academic philosophers specialized in epistemology?
After we have argued for the existence of an uncaused, necessary being as the source of existence, for me there are several good arguments and recognizable necessary assumptions and absolutes about the nature of the existence which comes from that being. For example, it is necessary to assume the logic led us to the conclusion of such a being valid. All arguments require the parameters of logical principles or else they cannot do anything. Using a word requires that word mean one thing and not another – principle of identity and non-contradiction. Etc.
Which makes logic a fundamental aspect of created, individuated existence. Are there other fundamental aspects of existence? 2+2=4 is a conceptual absolute. Mathematics appears to be fundamental aspect of existence. The argument from morality, which for me begins with recognizing that moral absolutes exist (it is wrong to torture children for fun), means that there are absolute oughts, which indicates that existence has a teleological component to existence – meaning, the universe, and we as rational agents, have a purpose.
So, these are fundamental characteristics that go beyond a mere necessary being. God is also the fundamental seat of logic, mathematics, and existential purpose (or “good”). Being the seat of existence itself, one could make further cases for practical versions of omnipotence and omniscience, but all of these “divine” qualities, when imagined from our perspective, are bound to be misapprehended as they relate to beinggod.
For example, though I think god is the source of free will, I don’t think what we consider to be free will is the same thing from the perspective of being god — I don’t know that there is even a “perspective”, as we consider the term, available to god. I think that “what god generates” or creates is more of an automatic function than anything else we could use to describe it – sort of like the automatic functions of our body.
But, that’s all derivative argument downriver from the more fundamental aspects of god arguments.
That pretty much sums it up, then. It doesn’t matter what the theist actually believes, or why, or how, you dismiss them all unseen and unheard. That’s called an a priori bias, dazz. Now, why should I discuss theism with you when you’ve admitted you’ve already dismissed it without even giving anything I might say a fair hearing?
Not really. I don’t dismiss any theist a priori. It’s just that none I’ve ever heard has been able to move on from long debunked arguments like the Kalam and the ontological argument, or the argument from morality. You are of course no exception, and even if you keep taunting logic as if it was on your side, you’ve shown to be embarrassingly incapable of connecting the logical dots in the moral argument in the past.
You think you have arguments and reasonable “proofs” for a first cause and all that, but no, not really. And that’s just the first step in the process.
What do you mean when you say ‘reasoned discourse”, exactly? What does “reason” mean to you?
And that’s of course a postulate, right? You can’t talk for five minutes without begging the question… but of course you’re totally reasonable and your logic is devastating. LMFAO
dazz said:
Then said:
Well, surely you don’t know all theisms, so you’re contradicting yourself. You have either dismissed them all, which certainly means that you’ve dismissed at least some of them on an a priori basis, or you have not “dismissed them all”, which means your first statement was false.
You can’t have it both ways.
OK let’s see.
I’d quibble that word meanings follow the principle of identity and non-contradiction. From much evidence here, say, I’d suggest that’s demonstrably wrong.
Well I could quibble over mathematics being fundamental. It seems a very useful modelling tool invented by people.
Of course I entirely reject the idea that there are absolute “oughts”. I think this has been beaten to death on many previous occasions so we should agree to disagree on that.
Human civilization predates the development of mathematics so I don’t see you can claim it as fundamental to existence.
I’m seeing this as your creation (in the sense of invention) rather than the creator’s.
We seem to have skipped on a bit. How did the creator of the universe suddenly gain the attribute of imbuing people with “free will” (I’m wary of this term. Seems to mean whatever anyone wants it to mean)
But this is pure conjecture. (Not that I object to you coming up with it, I’m the first to insist on untrammeled free thought for everyone.)
I’m not finding myself persuaded.
dazz said:
The absoluteness of certain fundamental aspects of logic, math and morality are recognizable, so the fact that they are asbolute aspects of our existence is not a postulate, but rather recognizable and knowable as such. Rather, one infers that because those aspects of our existence are necessary or absolute that they are therefore commodities of the ground of existence, which the first argument got us to – a necessary being as the ground of existence, which we refer to as god.
Alan Fox said:
So?
dazz said;
No, I never said I have any “proofs”. I think that they are all pretty good arguments, and better when taken together, but they certainly don’t prove the existence of god, even logically.
Not sure what you mean by that. Is it “so, tough, find your own explanation for the meaning of life and everything”. In which case, indeed, that is what I shall endeavour to do. 🙂
You keep making the same basic mistake over and over again. Even if you consider those things “absolute”, you have no reason to claim they need something outside themselves to ground them. Actually, if they did, they wouldn’t be absolute at all. All you can do is to beg the question and invent a “grounding” problem that you just push one step further. If absolutes need grounding, what’s god’s grounding? (Special pleading in 3…2…1…)
What it means is, what difference does it make if you are personally persuaded by any of the additional arguments towards other attributes of god or not? You asked for how one would go about it and I gave you my response. Whether or not you are personally persuaded by such arguments is irrelevant.
Others might use other means of adding to the “characteristics” or attributes of god, such as divine revelation. I’d argue that even “divine revelation” must be arbited by logic extended from self-evident and necessary truths, or else you’re treading in some pretty dangerous territory.
“On the same grounds”, tentatively, I dismiss them all because they all use the same stupid fallacious arguments to “prove” there’s a “first cause” but none believe in the same thing. Yes, this is a generalization, and you certainly fit the bill… to the letter. When you find a single exception to the rule I’ll listen
I think it’s reasonable to infer that existential absolutes, self-evident truths and necessary truths are what they are due to them being fundamental commodities of whatever is generating existence. I think that if they weren’t, they would be variant like other commodities.
Perhaps. Though my finding your particular arguments (which have not caught my attention before) persuasive might have had quite an impact on my own philosophy.
Oh no doubt of that. We have a bunch of ’em. I’m not persuaded by scientology either. Nor Mormonism. I may yet be seduced by the lure of Quakerism
In what way dangerous?
I’m not trying to “prove” anything to you, Dazz. I believe in god because I choose to, not because any argument or evidence convinces me. However, I do recognize that there are some good arguments for the existence of god and some even find them compelling – but those arguments generally only lead to general, classical theism.
Much more specialized arguments are required for specific religious or denominational claims about god but I don’t know any of those very well, nor am I particularly interested in them.
I also understand that most of us believe one way or another due to emotional reasons rather than logical or evidential reasons, or else there wouldn’t be so much personal attack levied by both sides against the other.
You are perfectly free to be an atheist if you choose, but your anti-theistic bias is evident.
No, absolutes are invariant because they are absolutes: invariant by definition. Your inference is of course begging the question again, but even if those absolutes were fundamental commodities of that “creator”, that would mean that the creator needs them, not that they need the creator. So you can’t use those absolutes to prove the existence of anything that needs them. We’ve already been through this:
We have this mathematical formula for a sphere. Do we need something to be perfectly spherical to hold the standard in place? No, we don’t. The formula, the standard, rules spheres. If a being in spherical in nature, that being NEEDS the standard and not the other way around.
I’ll spare you your next step because we all know what’s coming: Last time you fell back to pontificating (postulating) that god doesn’t only need absolutes to be part of it’s nature, but also the only possible source of those absolutes is god’s nature, namely, that you can’t have absolutes without god.
But that’s exactly what you where trying to prove. If you can only solve it by turning your conclusion into a premise, your entire argument goes down the drain.
Oh boy, not again
Alan Fox said:
Supposed divine revelation detached from reason pretty much allows one to do anything, even that which contradicts self-evident or necessary truths. This is IMO the source of a lot of atheistic revulsion to what is contained in a lot of scripture, where it appears that divine revelation (god saying, “do this”) is contradicting obvious moral truths. Or, god “commanding” jihadists to kill innocent people in horrific ways.
Divine command theory is very problematic.
“specialized arguments”? You surely mean ad-hoc crap
Dazz said:
Well, defining them didn’t make them absolute in our existence; we find them to be absolute. One can wonder, why are these things absolute, and other things not? My inference is that they are absolute because they reflect the characteristics of that which is generating existence. Again, I think that’s a reasonable inference.
No, I don’t postulate that the creator “needs them”, but rather that the creator “is” them – they are fundamental aspects of god. The whole “Necessary Being” argument is made from the need for a “special case” solution to the causation problem that doesn’t lead to infinite regress or a thing causing itself t exist. IOW, we must postulate an uncaused cause to rationally explain causation, or a necessary being as the ground of causation. In that same sense we require grounding for the absolute qualities of existence. It’s reasonable and efficient to infer they come from that same necessary being.
I’m not trying to prove anything, Dazz. Please try to understand that.
Well there’s a lot of philosophy and apologetics written to make those arguments, but as I said, I’m not familiar with it or interested.
William J. Murray,
The least you can do, BTW, is to be consistent across the board in your argumentation. Let’s see how omnipotence sits with the Kalam:
The Kalam affirms that actual infinities are impossible, hence, a finite causation regress must lead to a beginning of the universe. All versions of the Kalam fail to prove actual infinities are impossible, but let’s assume for argument sake, that they are indeed impossible.
What does that mean for god’s omnipotence? It means that his creative power must be limited: how many things can this “omnipotent” being actualize? Just like in the Kalam, the impossibility of actual infinities means that the number of creation events must come to an end at some point, hence it’s a “limited” omnipotence which sounds to me like a complete oxymoron.
You are never trying to prove anything when your arguments are proven to not work, but then you write articles on why it’s unreasonable being an atheist and you use the same exact arguments to make your case. Arguments that are intended to “prove” god… and fail:
and that’s where it fails, that’s where your logic becomes circular and you concede defeat without even realizing it.
dazz,
This is where some familiarity with with actual position of whom you are having a discussion with might prove helpful. I don’t claim that god is “omnipotent”. I think there are entire kinds of things god cannot do, such as manifest a logical contradiction such as a 4-sided triangle or making a wrong thing to do right.
“Perception is direct” is just the idea that the brain does not first build images in the brain, then perceive those images. And it denies “sense-datum” theories of perception. It doesn’t say the other things that you are questioning.
I think of arguing in terms of making a rational case for or against a thing, not terms of the argument “proving’ anything. For example, my arguments against atheism don’t prove atheism wrong, nor do they prove atheism cannot be held rationally; it makes a particular case. I can think of at least one way for atheism to be a rationally held belief (actually, for the same reason I know my own theism to be a rationally held belief), but that reasoning stems from an entirely different premise than any atheist I’ve run across will claim or admit to.
I know that. That’s not my contention. My point is that all those purported attributes of god (omnipotence, omniscience) get weaker and weaker as more arguments are put forth. But most apologists treat their arguments in isolation to conceal the glaring issues.
Note the problem with the impossibility of actual infinities is not a logical issue. There’s absolutely no logical contradiction (and of course no mathematical impossibility) in the actuality of infinities, but since the premise is needed for the Kalam, the same premises should be carried to the rest of the argumentation, including omnipotence debates. There’s no being reasonable if one picks and chooses premises at will, while disposing others depending on the argument, when all the arguments are about the same being.
The impossibility of actual infinities also nullifies the concept of a Maximally Great Being in the ontological argument. Why is that ignored? You have fallacious arguments with postulates that are incompatible. And again, that’s just to prove or support the idea that there’s some sort of creator, a deist god at best.
How is arguing that absolutes support god’s existence if one must first accept god is those absolutes, a reasonable argument?
but that reasoning stems from an entirely different premise than any atheist I’ve run across will claim or admit to
So you have this novel premise to support your beliefs that you wouldn’t share, yet you keep using ancient arguments? Are you some sort of gnostic that won’t share the “knowledge” while spreading arguments you yourself find weaker? Are you trying to keep heavens all for yourself or do you care to share that premise?
That’s just your own presupposition. Some people seem to be obsessed over logic.
No. It’s just a pragmatic invention. But it is sufficiently simple, that it is frequently re-invented.
I see mathematics as 100% human invention.
I’ll agree that there’s a teleological aspect. As I see it, that is just a consequence of homeostasis at work, as seen from the inside.
That’s an example of man creating god. And, of course, it’s a “god of the gaps”. You invent a god to fill in what you see as gaps.
This seems to equivocate on different meanings of “absolute”.
To me, atheism is just a tribe that doesn’t include mung and Gregory and phoodoo, et al.
I keep wondering if that’s a joke or not.
I’m sure it works both ways. Tribalism seems to be the one great constant in human behavior.
Most definitions of omnipotence include the proviso” logically possible”, which would include the triangle. The second brings up an interesting point, can something be moral for God and immoral for man?
Dazz said:
You don’t “first” accept that god “is” those absolutes. You find the absolutes, then based on the nature of those absolutes infer that their best, most efficient explanation is that they are generated by the source of existence, which we are referring to as “god”. It might be clearer if, because your anti-theist bias, we referred instead to the acausal origin of existence as X. If the caused existence we experience has certain absolute characteristics, it would be reasonable to infer that those absolutes are reflective of commodities of the X which caused them.
I’ve shared that premise before here. The premise is that I do not hold beliefs under the pretense that they refer to anything true or factual, but rather because they seem to provide practical benefit for me in my life and how I want to live it. Under that premise, any belief is rationally justifiable as long s it at least seems to provide practical benefit.
Tribalism seems an attribute that grows out of social behaviour that is not exclusive to people. Wild chimps live in social groups that could be described as tribal.
I think that presumes a concept of god that I don’t adhere to. Asking if some act of god is “moral” is like asking if wetness is water. It’s sort of a categorically improper non-sequitur.
Not exactly my point, let’s take your self evident truth, torturing babies for fun is immoral. Is it self evidently true that it is immoral not to prevent/ stop that action?
Not surprising that we share behaviors.
What humans have uniquely is language and verbal culture. We have Shibboleths.
Yes, if you either discount early hominins or include them under the sapiens umbrella. But recent work shows deep roots to language development.
Speak for yourself! 🙂
Why do you pretend I haven’t already addressed that? That god is those absolutes is a premise you were forced to add when I pointed out that it wasn’t sufficient to just attribute those absolutes to god’s nature, because god’s existence was still insufficient to justify that those absolutes need god and not god the absolutes. So yes, you need to first identify your conclusion (god) with your premise (absolutes) making the argument circular.
And no, even if one accepts that existence exhibits some absolute characteristics, that doesn’t support the existence of a creator that is necessary for those absolutes to exist. In fact you are again assuming such creator and it’s absoluteness. There is no such “X which caused them” if your argument fails, because that’s what the argument is supposed to conclude, and it fails because you keep putting the cart before the horse all the time: you can’t use your conclusion in your premises, or in your defense of your premises.
And how about this? If one was to accept this, how come a (purportedly) finite, material universe is not reflective of a finite material cause, but a “supernatural”, infinite, immaterial one? Because if the impossibility of actual infinities is a self evident, absolute truth, then it should be reflective of god’s finitude too
Dazz said:
I never claimed god was infinite, supernatural, or immaterial, or that those commodities were aspects of any god I believe in. They are not. That’s another case of you arguing with the template in your mind.
I’m not pretending you haven’t addressed it. You’ve addressed it several times. Unfortunately, you’ve been wrong every time you’ve addressed it.
Newton said:
No.
Proof by assertion? You have been totally incapable of countering my arguments. Now you simply claim victory. More pathetic stuff from you, as usual.
When you say that the caused things that exhibit absolute characteristic must reflect the commodities of the cause, even if true, doesn’t demonstrate that the cause IS those absolutes or that those absolutes depend on that cause to exist. You fail time and again, helplessly trying to patch your question begging BS arguments.
So “absolutes” can begin to exist, or cease existing, or both? You’re the one who identifies god with absolutes, so….
Yes. I tried to point this out in my long post here — not that it seems to have done any good.
petrushka,
There’s a fair bit of truth to that here, but generally I find myself in a tribe of one.
Despite what some on the ‘net would have us believe, there is nothing that unites atheists. We all simply lack belief in a god or gods — beyond that we’re as disparate as any other random slice of humanity.
Dazz said:
I’m not claiming victory, I’m just pointing out that you’re wrong about this particular point. I’m not assuming X (whatever acausally generated existence) has attributes which will account for those particular absolutes we find in our existence; I find those absolutes and infer from them that the best, most efficient explanation for their existence is that they are qualities of X or are qualities necessarily made absolute by the (presumed) fact of X generating existence.
Look at it this way; let’s say were arguing about evolution and you argue that since we find certain properties common to all modern organisms, it is reasonable to infer from that that there was a LUCA that contained in it those properties which it passed down to all of its descendents. It’s certainly more efficient and reasonable to say that those properties all came from a common origin than to claim that they all came into being separately from different origins. They might have done so, but it’s rather inefficient to claim it.
Here we have several absolutes about our existence – causality, self-evident moral truths, aspects of math, logic, and even geometry. Instead of offering multiple X’s to account for them, I infer from several different arguments that they all have a common origin.
I could certainly be wrong, but I think its a rational position to hold.
Perception is a behavior. It is something we do.
We perceive in dreams. Somehow the perception happens.
This is one of those areas where philosophy might provide some critical feedback to neuroscience, but science is now the lead dog.
You haven’t demonstrated that.
Math, logic and even morals are man made, and you keep ignoring the fact that absolutes, if they exist, can’t have an origin at all, by definition. For example, if you think the law of identity is an absolute truth, then it doesn’t matter if there’s nothing they can apply to, they must still be valid, in principle: a rock is a rock even if there’s no rock in existence. What you call inference is some blatant question begging: you beg the question for an origin, and you beg the question for a common origin that you call “god” and you identify with those absolutes. There’s nothing reasonable in your “inference” whatsoever
petrushka,
I don’t think we perceive in dreams, actually.
I think of perceiving as a normative concept. It has success-conditions. One can succeed in perceiving, or perceive correctly, or one can fail to perceive, or perceive incorrectly. In discursive beings such as ourselves, the normative constraints are more complicated than they are in other animals.
But dreams don’t have success conditions. The dream-imagery isn’t anything that one can get into a better position from which to view it, or ask another person if one is perceiving it correctly. It’s an activity of sensory consciousness, yes, of course. But the idea that all activity of sensory consciousness thereby counts as perceiving is precisely the idea that I mean to reject.
Likewise, hallucinations don’t have success conditions. There’s no way to perceive a hallucination correctly or incorrectly. One simply has the hallucination (as one has the dream).
Erik would probably want to say that the normativity of perception is due entirely to the intellect. As Descartes says, “the senses do not judge”. And that is, in some sense, correct (or: acceptable by my lights). I say that because judging takes place within the space of reasons, which is a distinct kind of normativity. But does not mean that there is no normativity to animal perceptual responsiveness to and practical engagement with the affordances in its environment.
I used to think that there were two different kinds of normativity: discursive normativity and habitual normativity. But I am now persuaded by reading Rouse that this is incorrect. Instead, he thinks that there are two dimensions of normativity: the perceptuo-practical dimension that non-discursive animals have alone, and the socio-linguistic dimension that discursive animals have as well and which transforms the perceptuo-practical (though Rouse and I might disagree as to how thoroughly it is transformed). Where he and I still disagree is that he thinks only the latter counts as intentionality, whereas I think the former does as well — at least in some cases (at least the great apes, and probably most mammals and some birds). And Rouse doesn’t worry about the neuroscientific side of the story, whereas I do.