Given recent posts here at TSZ challenging the validity of presuppositions and self-evident truths I thought the following list might be worthy of debate.
Presuppositions of Science
1. The existence of a theory-independent, external world
2. The orderly nature of the external world
3. The knowability of the external world
4. The existence of truth
5. The laws of logic
6. The reliability of our cognitive and sensory faculties to serve as truth gatherers and as a source of justified true beliefs in our intellectual environment
7. The adequacy of language to describe the world
8. The existence of values used in science
9. The uniformity of nature and induction
10. The existence of numbers
When critics object to the Logos as a presupposition and offer instead 10 other presuppositions, Ockham’s Razor flies out the window.
Right I completely agree.
Truth is necessary for knowledge but science can’t get you to truth.
By the way how do you know stuff in your worldview?
Christian is not a race. 😉
ok, granted. Jews have historically been better treated under Islam than under Christianity. I’m sure we’ll have lots to talk about when we all meet in Muslim hell.
Do you even pay attention to what you write?
I have not been making claims I have been sharing my presuppositions and asking for yours.
You don’t justify presuppositions. Presuppositions are the basis from which you justify claims. Presuppositions are by definition arbitrary in that they are not arrived at by reason but are the basis by which you reason.
Christian presuppositions are unique in that they are also revealed truth
The Logos became flesh.
Revealed truth is also not arrived at by means of human reason but is revealed from God.
That does not in any way mean that revelation is illogical or unreasonable, on the contrary it is the very standard by which we know what reason and logic are.
peace
Not sure you know this but the Catholic Church does not speak for Christianity. In fact the Catholic church is the single biggest historic persecutor of Christians like me. My spiritual forefathers went to great lengths to say that they did not consider the Roman hierarchy to even be a true church.
Pointing out that the Catholic Church has often been on the wrong side of things and that scientists had conflicts with it is not in anyway disagreeing with my point here
peace
But KN, surely philosophers disagree on pretty much everything! Except skepticism. 🙂
fifth,
You’re deluding yourself if you think that you haven’t been trying to defend your presupposition throughout these threads.
If you hadn’t been trying to defend it, the discussion would have ended as soon as it started. You would have said “I assume the truth of Christianity for no reason, and that’s that,” and we would have responded “Then you’re as loony as a Scientologist who assumes the truth of the Xenu story for no reason”.
You were willing to give reasons, however. You were clearly trying to elevate your presupposition above the alternatives, including those of the Scientologist, by arguing that it is a necessary presupposition, without which knowledge is impossible.
You’ve failed so far, but you’re at least trying (intermittently), so I give you credit for that.
I still await your responses to this…
…and this:
here we go again
What counts as well supported in your worldview and on what basis did you establish that standard?
Is it actual knowelege or just something you treat as knowelege? How would you know the difference?
How do you know if something is true in your worldview? In other words
How do you know stuff in your worldview?
I’m not arguing anything.
I’m asking questions. questions you are apparently unwilling or unable to answer. I want to know what basis you have for questioning the beliefs of others concerning the truth of things.
peace
fifth,
For your convenience, here are the eight questions (with some added notes):
1. Where was the physical Jesus hanging out during all of the time from creation to his ‘birth’? [You’ve said that incarnation was prior to creation.]
2. Was the body living the entire time, or did God only animate it when he wanted to moon someone [Exodus 33] or otherwise muck around with his creation?
3. If looking at the face of God was fatal (Exodus 33:20), and God’s body was really Jesus’s body, then why didn’t the disciples all die from the sight of Jesus’s face? [You confirmed that you believe God’s butt was Jesus’s butt in that passage.]
4. If Jesus already had a body, why did the Holy Spirit bother to impregnate Mary?
5. How did the Holy Spirit — a spiritual being — impregnate Mary? You’ve told us that it is “logically impossible” for a spiritual being to interact with the physical.
6. If incarnation is required before physical interactions can take place, as you claim, then it must have been Jesus, not the Holy Spirit, who impregnated Mary. So Jesus impregnated Mary to produce Jesus the Fetus. Setting aside the incest, would you care to explain how that worked? [I am not saying that Jesus boinked Mary. I’m pointing out that by your logic, he must have somehow carried out the impregnation, since you claim that only an incarnated being could do that. How did it work?]
7. Did Jesus’s body — the one he used to moon Moses — somehow get shrunk and implanted into Mary? [Or did it poof out of existence the moment the Zygote Jesus was created in Mary’s womb? Or did both physical Jesuses coexist for a time?]
8. Why haven’t you asked these questions yourself? Why are you so gullible?
You recently sent money to someone who posted here at TSZ asking for money. Talk about gullible.
1) there is no temporal distinction from the perspective of a timeless God
2) John 1:4
3)Philippians 2:6-7
4) The Holy Spirit did not impregnate Mary, Mary a virgin conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit
5) The Holy Spirit did not impregnate Mary, Mary a virgin conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit
6) The Father sent the Son by the power of the Spirit. God is a Trinity
7) How did the body of Jesus walk on water get through locked doors and instantly appear before Paul on the Damascus road and stand before John on an island in the middle of an ocean? It was a miracle ,duh
8) Mostly because they are the sort of silly juvenile questions an early teenage apostate would ask and I’m not that simple minded
peace
Since fifth is understandably reluctant to place his answers next to my questions, where their (in)adequacy as answers can be examined, I’ll do it for him.
Q1. Where was the physical Jesus hanging out during all of the time from creation to his ‘birth’? [You’ve said that incarnation was prior to creation.]
A1. there is no temporal distinction from the perspective of a timeless God
keiths:
Jesus entered into time, so he was no longer timeless. Remember, that’s precisely the reason you gave for why the Incarnation was necessary before creation could happen! Try again to answer the question.
Q2. Was the body living the entire time, or did God only animate it when he wanted to moon someone [Exodus 33] or otherwise muck around with his creation?
A2. John 1:4:
keiths:
That doesn’t answer the question. Try again.
Q3. If looking at the face of God was fatal (Exodus 33:20), and God’s body was really Jesus’s body, then why didn’t the disciples all die from the sight of Jesus’s face? [You confirmed that you believe God’s butt was Jesus’s butt in that passage.]
A3. Philippians 2:6-7:
keiths:
That doesn’t answer the question. If Moses couldn’t see Jesus’s face without dying, why could the disciples?
Q4. If Jesus already had a body, why did the Holy Spirit bother to impregnate Mary?
A4. The Holy Spirit did not impregnate Mary, Mary a virgin conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit
keiths:
We’ve been through this already:
The Holy Spirit made Mary pregnant, according to the Bible. It impregnated her.
Try again to answer the question.
Q5. How did the Holy Spirit — a spiritual being — impregnate Mary? You’ve told us that it is “logically impossible” for a spiritual being to interact with the physical.
A5. The Holy Spirit did not impregnate Mary, Mary a virgin conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit
keiths:
See above, and try again to answer the question.
Q6. If incarnation is required before physical interactions can take place, as you claim, then it must have been Jesus, not the Holy Spirit, who impregnated Mary. So Jesus impregnated Mary to produce Jesus the Fetus. Setting aside the incest, would you care to explain how that worked? [I am not saying that Jesus boinked Mary. I’m pointing out that by your logic, he must have somehow carried out the impregnation, since you claim that only an incarnated being could do that. How did it work?]
A6. The Father sent the Son by the power of the Spirit. God is a Trinity
keiths:
That doesn’t answer the question. How did Jesus impregnate Mary with himself as the zygote?
Q7. Did Jesus’s body — the one he used to moon Moses — somehow get shrunk and implanted into Mary? [Or did it poof out of existence the moment the Zygote Jesus was created in Mary’s womb? Or did both physical Jesuses coexist for a time?]
A7. How did the body of Jesus walk on water get through locked doors and instantly appear before Paul on the Damascus road and stand before John on an island in the middle of an ocean? It was a miracle ,duh
keiths:
I asked what happened, not how it happened or whether it was a miracle. Try again.
Q8. Why haven’t you asked these questions yourself? Why are you so gullible?
A8. Mostly because they are the sort of silly juvenile questions an early teenage apostate would ask and I’m not that simple minded
keiths:
These “silly juvenile questions” appear to have you completely flummoxed. Would you like to try again?
An appeal to the Christians reading this thread: Can any of you do a better job of defending the faith than fifth? If so, please join the discussion. Or if you know of a competent apologist, please ask him or her to join in.
Rope, Gate or Animal?
Do you not find these endless circumnavigations of the mulberry tiresome? Or is it a “pleasure-is-in-the-journey” situation for you?
I understand you to be saying that better wording would not treat “science” as an agent but would be very clear that it is individual human beings who do science, in this case individual scientists use and modify language.
This raises an interesting question about sociological explanations. Namely, is it permissible to use emergent causes at the level of whole societies to explain the behavior of individual people living in those societies?
For example, if I say “the consumerism of 21st century capitalism causes people to lead empty lives devoted to materialism”* is that treating consumerism as an agent in the same sense as “science” is treated in my post? Are such explanations acceptable in sociology and history?
Well, the Solaris reference was meant as humour (NB “u”). Obscure, I admit, but I was hoping the “if science-fiction counts as evidence” bit would help make the intent clear.
————————
*I mean this reference to consumerism solely as an example, not a statement of my personal belief.
My reason for highlighting this:
I take the OP as implying these presuppositions are important to understand the limits or capabilities of science per se. I think that implication is wrong when the presupposition is really a general condition of human existence.
For example, the adequacy of language is a presupposition of politics, baseball, and religion (among almost all other human activities). Putting it in a list devoted to science ignores that important fact and can so be misleading.
fifthmonarchyman,
And how convenient for you that your presuppositions exactly match your religious beliefs, thereby protecting them from criticism or the need for support.
This has been pointed out to you often enough in this thread that the only reasonable explanation for your behavior is either profound delusion or gross intellectual dishonesty. Start behaving like a decent human being and simply admit that you hold your beliefs by faith in the absence of evidence and are unable to support them.
FMM:
Do you agree with your spiritual forefathers’ assessment?
“The gurney is the reward.”
I don’t think Popular Science publishes essays in that vein any more.
It’s actually started me longing for a nice bullet in the brain….
Huh?
Better IMHO to read the whole thread and provide a more detailed reply to its arguments, and not leap at the chance to make a quick, drive-by comment.
Deflationism about truth is compatible with doing science, hence there is no need to presuppose a particular concept of truth, or even any concept of truth, for
sciencefor people to do science.If I take the intentional stance towards animals, I think I can reasonably say animals have beliefs. Further, I can claim the beliefs are real by invoking real patterns, maybe even Kukla’s coping version of recognizing them since that coping behavior is detectable for animals.
I can understand that one could say that human language makes it possible to talk about a new type of belief, and even that one should hence have a bifurcated explanation of belief, so to speak.
Gven that, I think the word “belief” can be applied to animals.
“Old age ain’t no place for sissies.”
– Bette Davis
Thanks.
FWIW, I don’t think the fact that Jones who is a deflationist or has never given any theory of truth a thought for one second (or even the fact that EVERY scientist is a deflationist or has never given any theory of truth a thought for one second) entails that the claim that science requires a concept of truth is false.
Whether they know it or not, scientists USE the notion of correspondence; their PRACTICE requires it. As I’ve mentioned, there can’t be probabilistic claims (X has a 40% probability of being true) without the notion of “being true” involved. But nobody has to know or even think about that kind of stuff to do science. Science isn’t the philosophy of science.
I think that’s all in Peirce: KN would probably know.
Elizabeth,
I can’t find the post that I want to respond to (Mods, take note, the link to individual comments on the dashboard don’t even always go to the right page, never mind the right post), but I don’t think trying to define good or bad predictions in terms of “fit” provides an escape for the need for truth. Fit is a measure of correspondence with something.
You’ve said (something like) “Yes, I think there must be reality, to do science but not necessarily truth.” I think what’s going on there is that you’re saying that we might not ever reach precise truths when we do science, that every statement we make will always be something of an approximation.
I don’t dispute that. What I’m saying is that science requires the CONCEPT of truth, not that it’s findings are true.
If you mean the links on the home page, yes, we’re aware of the problem but not how to fix it. The page number shown in the URL seems to lag behind by 1 when there are several pages of comments. If you increase the page number in the URL by 1, it should take you to the linked comment. (Far from ideal, I know).
Kantian Naturalist,
I’m not sure where we disagree. My point is that the scientific method is a very different, and more successful, approach to modeling reality than is the revelation and authoritarianism that is the core of religious beliefs. Based on what you wrote, it seems that science progressed to the extent that scientists could extricate themselves from religious control.
It seems to me, contra fifthmonarchyman’s claim, that it was the Enlightenment, not Christianity, that allowed science to flourish. As Laplace so beautifully, if apocryphally, put it “Je n’avais pas besoin de cette hypothèse-là.”
I will look if you cannot remember, but did you reply to his note about semantic truth versus truth as epistemic ideal?
In any event, can’t one argue that most scientists believe with (say) 99% degree of belief (assuming one is a Bayesian) in SR means that there is 99% probability that E=mc^2. Who needs the “is true”?
I’m not quite sure what you mean by that.
In practice, scientists define their own correspondences. Then they work with those correspondences defined by science. They don’t depend on wishy-washy ideas of correspondence that come from the general cuture.
I think I gave the two word reply: “Not sure.”
I don’t think so. First of all, I am not an “internal realist”: even Putnam isn’t any more! Secondly, I don’t think “there is 99% probability that______” makes any sense without a concept of truth (100% probability).
As indicated, I don’t think they need to themselves have ANY idea of truth to do science, whether wishy-washy or not. But I presume they are trying to get at SOMETHING and act as if whatever the notion of correspondence they work with helps them do that. To the extent they’re RIGHT, their conclusions are TRUE.
Jovian.
I’m not sure what you mean by “the home page.” I went to the dashboard to look for a comment of Elizabeth’s. Once there, I clicked on “approved comments.” Then I used the search function and found the comment I was looking for. I clicked on the “view post” link and was sent to the top of some page. That page did not have the post in question on it. So I went back to two “older comments” pages before giving up.
If you could send me enough info to find that comment (the permalink or search details), I’ll try and locate it.
I think that takes you to the last page of comments for the thread.
Once you have found the comment from that search, instead of clicking “View Post”, click on the date at the first line “Submitted on date-stuff”. That’s a direct link to the appropriate comment page, except that it is sometimes off by one in the “comment-page-n” part of the link. So increment the “n” and try again.
The enlightenment was a movement within countries that were influenced by Christianity. It was a direct result of the tendencies inherent in Christianity.
That is the whole point of the book I linked too
peace
Well it would require some unpacking, The short story goes like this
While I believe there are many many Christians that are also Catholics there are nine distinguishing marks that characterize a true christian church. I feel that the Roman Magistrate like most hierarchies does not posses all the marks so it is ether a baldly flawed or fatally flawed attempt at a Christian church.
peace
I’d agree it does not make sense if I have no way of justifying my degree of belief. I’m not clear that requires truth Perhaps your concern may come down to the role of truth in philosophy of language?
Before detailing what I mean by that, I’d just like to make sure that we are not talking past each other.
I’m not arguing that any particular philosophical approach to truth is correct.
All I am trying to say is that there are viable approaches which eliminate the concept without precluding science. Hence the concept of truth cannot be a presupposition for science.
Now I suppose one could argue that any scientific activity needs language, and language needs meaning, and the philosophy of language says that “meaning” is to be explained as “understanding truth conditions”. Is that what you mean by semantic truth? And then you’d need a theory of reference to go with that which is where I see you bringing in correspondence.
I’d have to possible responses to such a claim:
1. There are philosophies of language that don’t start with meaning as truth conditions and theories of reference, like inferentialism of some sort. Again, as long as they are viable, their existence makes my point about presuppositions.
2. But if that failed to dislodge “truth”, I’d fall back on my complaint about Mung’s 7. Namely that if presupposition of truth is needed for language to work, then that is a presupposition of human existence, not something that it is useful to single out as applying to science in particular.
fifthmonarchyman,
Historically accurate.
Unsupported.
No, The problem is not in my answers to your questions but in your understanding of them. This is because you are unable to understand the things of God.
quote:
The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
(1Co 2:14)
end quote:
Will do. Thanks.
I’m curious. Did you happen to stumble upon a correct Christian church by being born to parents who belonged to one? If so, what luck!
I’m not sure what that means. What is it to “preclude science”? As I indicated, I don’t deny that one can conduct scientific experiments without any concept of truth at all. When I say that science requires a concept of truth, I guess that would have to be called a meta-scientific claim. It’s my view that science is a truth seeking enterprise–whether or not any scientist realizes it or ever has. I don’t expect scientists to have to suss out a theory of truth–that’s not their job. As I’ve said before, I consider their job to be much more important than that.
fifth,
You clearly don’t understand them either, or you would be able to answer my questions instead of dodging them.
For example, if you “understood the things of God”, you would be able to say “The reason Jesus needed to discard his old body and grow a new one inside of Mary was that ________”, and fill in the blank.
Hence my call for a competent apologist to join the discussion.
I don’t take the (Davidsonian) position that understanding words is a function of knowing the truth conditions of sentences that contain them. I do think that meaning requires reference, though. That is, languages are essentially intentional.
I’ll partly agree with fifth on this one.
It’s just a fact that science mainly (but not exclusively) developed in a particular culture. And Christianity was a significant part of that culture.
Yes, you are right about the enlightenment. But the enlightenment developed in a particular culture where Christianity was dominant.
I won’t credit Christianity with science. But I also cannot completely discredit it. There’s a whole complex mess of intertwining causes, and we will probably never disentangle that.
Christians who credit Christianity for science do tend to overstate that claim. But it would be a mistake to completely dismiss it.
fifthmonarchyman,
I find it fascinating that the techniques to make cult members impervious to questioning their beliefs were around thousands of years ago and actively used by the authors of the bible.
You’re basically jumping into a hole and pulling it in after yourself.
Bruce:
Zachriel:
He’s also the Angel of Memory. People tend to forget that.
Neil Rickert,
I’ll grant that the Enlightenment was a response to the tyrannical theocratic power structures that preceded it. Nothing like a really bad example of how to treat free thinkers to encourage better approaches.
I do, however, see nothing in Christian beliefs that actively encourage science. If those beliefs did, we’d see similar results in other Christian societies. It seems to me that the Greek and Roman cultures had much greater impact.