“The Advance of Knowledge Over Faith”

This post is inspired by a phrase appearing in the latest Discovery Institute essay, in which they worry about the direction being taken by the new “Cosmos” TV series.

Evolution News and Views

The DI quotes Cosmos producer, Seth MacFarlane, as promoting “…the advancement of knowledge over faith.”

This quote seems to come from an interview in Esquire Magazine.

Interview

There really isn’t much to the interview, but the phrase does kind of jump out and beg to be discussed.

357 thoughts on ““The Advance of Knowledge Over Faith”

  1. From the DI whine:

    During the first episode, Tyson devotes lengthy segments to promoting the old tale that religion is at war science, and strongly promotes the idea that religion opposes intellectual advancement.

    “Old tale” of religion being at war with science, then the bulk of the article is a bunch of nonsense about religious apologists actually being criticized, or some such thing, for injecting their apologetics in science or into science education.

    I do think that too much can be made of religion being at war against science, when a host of social forces were at work. But for the DI–whose agenda includes hijacking science for its own religious goals–to call the “war thesis” an “old tale” is at least close to the height of hypocrisy.

    Glen Davidson

  2. I don’t think that “science vs religion” is even a helpful descriptive framework, let alone a normative one. “Science vs. religion”, or the related “knowledge vs. faith,” is itself a bit of ideological mystification for the epistemological dimension of the culture wars, and we should not endorse it.

    Historically speaking, Luskin is perfectly right to point out that the Scientific Revolution leaned heavily on theistic assumptions. There are many outstanding treatments of this issue, though Theology and the Scientific Imagination is the only one I’m well-acquainted with.

    Bruno’s problem — much like that of Spinoza a generation (or so) later — was that he was a pantheist strongly influenced by the Renaissance revival of Epicureanism. The heart of the problem with pantheism is that it is inconsistent with authoritarian political theology (as Spinoza made abundantly clear) and is therefore extremely dangerous (which is precisely why Spinoza published Theological-Political Treatise anonymously — for that story, I recommend Nadler’s A Book Forged In Hell: Spinoza’s Scandalous Treatise and the Birth of the Secular Age).

    On Luskin’s major point, I think he is partly right and partly wrong. He is surely right that atheists tend to smuggle their naturalistic metaphysics in under the guise of ‘science,’ and he is right to complain that this is a dirty trick, because no metaphysics can be legitimized by science. But he is wrong to suggest that science and metaphysics are separable.

    (Some ID theorists — though not Luskin, at least not here — think that we can figure out the metaphysics first, and then look at the science. I think that it is serious error to think that we can settle the metaphysics in advance of conducting or reflecting upon successful empirical inquiry, but I’ve explained my views about that elsewhere in these discussions.)

    As I see it, the correct view — at least the beginning of the correct view — is that metaphysical speculation should be constrained by empirical inquiry, because that’s the only way that reality gets a vote in what we say about it. But there are cognitive and affective dimensions of metaphysical speculation that exceed what we can certify by experiment and discovery, and this speculation is a legitimate human need to make sense of the world — to render it all as comprehensible as possible, and to (insofar as this is possible) to comprehend its comprehensibility. So metaphysics should be informed by science but cannot be confined to it.

  3. I think this a good place to link to Sean Carroll’s article Physics and the immortality of the soul.

    It might seem as if Carroll is talking past those who believe in immaterial entities, but he isn’t, for the crucial point is that the soul must interact physically:

    The questions are these: what form does that spirit energy take, and how does it interact with our ordinary atoms? Not only is new physics required, but dramatically new physics. Within QFT, there can’t be a new collection of “spirit particles” and “spirit forces” that interact with our regular atoms, because we would have detected them in existing experiments.

    If you invoke magic, you are pleading a special case for the soul that raises the question “Why does God use physics?”. If some physical interactions could be magic, then why isn’t it all magic? Why did God bother with physics at all if he can manipulate the physical magically? And one still has the problem that that which interacts with the physical must have physical effects or it is simply unnecessary.

    One could make up countless metaphysical entities that do away with physics, but it really is playing tennis without a net. The notion of a soul belongs to a more ignorant age, discredited essentialism that simply isn’t needed to describe how things work.

    As Carroll says in his debate with Craig, our metaphysics must follow our physics. Otherwise, it is apparent to me that any ad hoc speculation is as good as any other. Souls are precisely as likely as the intangible appendages of the noodly one.

  4. I would never watch a show like this as its boring and the host I am suspicious of his merit to talk about anything.
    Yet i love and love this open admission of motives of the show,.
    To persuade Christiandom that Christianity is opposed to science and the past advancement of science.
    What more could a creationist or any conservative desire to be able to accuse that in the establishment that makes tv shows, but does no science, there is a driving agenda and worldview about religion and science.
    Rebuttal we cry. fair and square to defend and hit back with accusations.
    Is the show about science or about attacking modern christianity and its impact upon society? something more important that looking at lights in the sky!

    its more evidence that there IS SEEN a great revolution and dangerous assault upon origin conclusions by modern creationism.
    this show proves, as this forums existence does, that they are very threatened by modern ID and YEC.
    Its on their mind and in their boardmeetings.
    I say creationis groups like AIG, ICR< DI etc should get equal time on TV to make our case.
    The ham debate was great but now try for a bigger audience.
    i think these Cosmos folks are stupid. don't be so obvious. DUH.

  5. Robert Byers:
    I would never watch a show like this as its boring and the host I am suspicious of his merit to talk about anything.

    Neil deGrasse Tyson is an American astrophysicist. He is currently the Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium at the Rose Center for Earth and Space and a research associate in the department of astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History.

    Robert Byers thinks polar bears were scared white.

  6. This is a theme that runs deep at TSZ and PT; that something or another is not needed to describe how things work.

    Yet, its never been a question of need, but of desire. Is the notion of immaterial yet real entities a concept desirable in understanding biology? Science is coming around to this notion over the loud objections and galactic egos of certain perceptual luddites (no names, no names).

    Second, if science is about figuring out how things work, ie an argument from utility, it cannot be knowledge vs. faith, since science has just limited the role of knowledge to that which informs us of what works.

    But even if we concede that its about what works, then religion can still punch way above its supposed flyweight knowledge class since there’s much about religion that works and works well.

    Religion doesnt make ipads. It makes babies. It doesnt make rockets, it glues communities. It doesnt make medicines. It creates hope for penniless billionares and parentless prodigies .

    If one is to choose a course of action to sustain humanity, religion seems the more productive option.

    Cosmos is apparently content with sowing its epistemic seeds on such sandy soil.

    davehooke: One could make up countless metaphysical entities that do away with physics, but it really is playing tennis without a net. The notion of a soul belongs to a more ignorant age, discredited essentialism that simply isn’t needed to describe how things work.

  7. Steve:
    This is a theme that runs deep at TSZ and PT; that something or another is not needed to describe how things work.

    Yet, its never been a question of need, but of desire.Is the notion of immaterial yet real entities a concept desirable in understanding biology?

    The argument that the notion of immaterial yet real entities is a concept desirable in understanding biology is…?

    Second, if science is about figuring out how things work, ie an argument from utility, it cannot be knowledge vs. faith, since science has just limited the role of knowledge to that which informs us of what works.

    That which informs of how things work, not “what works”. Your “i.e” is a non-sequitur.

    Religion doesnt make ipads.It makes babies.It doesnt make rockets, it glues communities.It doesnt make medicines.It creates hope for penniless billionares and parentless prodigies .

    I managed to make a baby without religion. I might have said “Oh God!” at one point, but that utterance isn’t necessary to the process.

    Religious faith is not necessary for investigations into how things are.

    If one is to choose a course of action to sustain humanity, religion seems the more productive option.

    “Seems” is not an argument. Many Scandinavian communities, my community in London, and many others are happily sustained without religion. This is off-topic though, since we are not concerned here with “what works” for humans but rather how things actually are objectively.

  8. Steve: Religion doesnt make ipads. It makes babies. It doesnt make rockets, it glues communities. It doesnt make medicines. It creates hope for penniless billionares and parentless prodigies .

    *This* is an argument from utility.

    I like my utility with a side of veracity.

  9. davehooke:

    It might seem as if Carroll is talking past those who believe in immaterial entities, but he isn’t, for the crucial point is that the soul must interact physically:

    The immaterial soul is in even worse shape than the God of the Gaps.

  10. At least you are implying an admission of religion’s utility,

    Its a start anyway, Richard.

    Veracity? Religion is no utilitarian pushover. Why, look at the number of schools, hospitals, orphanages, charities built by religious organizations.

    No contest.

    Richardthughes: *This* is an argument from utility.

    I like my utility with a side of veracity.

  11. davehooke,

    that you managed to make a baby says nothing of how many other yous managed the same feat in comparison to how many thems managed the feat and how many times. I think you’ll find the big R has you severely outgunned.

    oh, and thank you for pointing out the distinction between how things work in comparison to what works. At least the word ‘work’ survived that round of etymological mutations.

    Nevertheless, your contention that science as an argument from utility and thus superior to the big R still fails. The byproducts of science produce nice gadgets and remedies that ease the pain of survival, but only to an extent.

  12. Steve:
    davehooke,

    that you managed to make a baby says nothing of how many other yous managed the same feat in comparison to how many thems managed the feat and how many times.I think you’ll find the big R has you severely outgunned.

    The number of non-religious creatures that have made babies is much greater than the number of theists who have managed the feat.

    You have a strange idea of how babies are made. Please tell us more about how you think religion makes babies.

    oh, and thank you for pointing out the distinction between how things work in comparison to what works.At least the word ‘work’ survived that round of etymological mutations.

    Look up “equivocation”.

    Nevertheless, your contention that science as an argument from utility and thus superior to the big R still fails.

    This is not my contention. Look up “non-sequitur”.

  13. Steve:
    llanitedave:
    Religion doesn’t make babies, biology does.

    Is that like people don’t kill, guns do?

    No. It’s like religion doesn’t make sandwiches, people do.

  14. (Some ID theorists — though not Luskin, at least not here — think that we can figure out the metaphysics first, and then look at the science. I think that it is serious error to think that we can settle the metaphysics in advance of conducting or reflecting upon successful empirical inquiry, but I’ve explained my views about that elsewhere in these discussions.)

    Talk about sneaking your metaphysics in! You say it is a “serious error” to “figure out the metaphysics first” – but then, that’s exactly what you do when say that the metaphysics shouldn’t precede empirical inquiry, which you later correlate with “reality”:

    As I see it, the correct view — at least the beginning of the correct view — is that metaphysical speculation should be constrained by empirical inquiry, because that’s the only way that reality gets a vote in what we say about it. But there are cognitive and affective dimensions of metaphysical speculation that exceed what we can certify by experiment and discovery, and this speculation is a legitimate human need to make sense of the world — to render it all as comprehensible as possible, and to (insofar as this is possible) to comprehend its comprehensibility. So metaphysics should be informed by science but cannot be confined to it.

    Science doesn’t inform metaphysics; science is a branch of metaphysics. Gathering observational or experiential facts doesn’t create models that attempt to describe or explain those facts. Such models depend upon one’s metaphysics for organization and interpretation.

    The real problem with anti-theists is that they don’t consider their metaphysics to be metaphysics at all. They consider them to be reality, and they express themselves and teach in that manner – as if their interpretive arrangement of observational/experiential facts is without ideological bias whatsoever.

  15. IMO, both scientism and mainstream religion attempt to control the individual by asserting a conceptual framework of reality upon them, asserting it as “fact” and “reality”.

  16. Richardthughes: *This* is an argument from utility.
    I like my utility with a side of veracity.

    I tend to be utilitarian. I don’t think utility makes right in the moral sense.

    Utility tells you how to kill people efficiently and how to feed them and cure their ailments. Utility is neither moral nor immoral. It is simply what works and what doesn’t work. Utility cannot conflict with morality.

    Utility only conflicts with faith in cases where faith decrees stuff that isn’t so, and where knowing what is so is important to maintaining life and health.

  17. William J. Murray
    The real problem with anti-theists is that they don’t consider their metaphysics to be metaphysics at all.They consider them to be reality, and they express themselves and teach in that manner – as if their interpretive arrangement of observational/experiential facts is without ideological bias whatsoever.

    If only science had a way of distinguishing different interpretive arrangements of facts. Let’s all put our metaphysical thinking caps on and see if we can come up with something.

  18. If only science had a way of distinguishing different interpretive arrangements of facts. Let’s all put our metaphysical thinking caps on and see if we can come up with something.

    Science is a method of collecting facts, not a means of interpreting them.

  19. The regular ID commenters at TSZ are a scientifically illiterate solipsist, a barely coherent bigot, and another scientific illiterate with a poor grasp of English. These are objective facts, not insults. It is to be hoped that that situation will improve.

  20. William J. Murray: Talk about sneaking your metaphysics in! You say it is a “serious error” to “figure out the metaphysics first” – but then, that’s exactly what you do when say that the metaphysics shouldn’t precede empirical inquiry, which you later correlate with “reality”:

    Here’s how I see it: neither logic alone nor empirical inquiry alone can resolve the dispute between rival metaphysical systems.

    We cannot resolve the dispute between rival systems based on a priori considerations, for the following reasons. All a priori reasoning is constrained by logic, i.e. by relations of compatibility and incompatibility between assertions. But there are multiple consistent logics. This is a fact that has been known since about 1924 or so, when C. I. Lewis published A Survey of Symbolic Logics.

    In fact, we’ve known since 1781 (when Kant published the first edition of the Critique of Pure Reason) that logic alone just cannot tell us which metaphysics is correct. There, Kant shows in painstaking detail that both naturalism and theism are fully consistent, and that reason alone cannot tell us which one is correct.

    The reason why science alone offers reality to get a vote in what we say about it is because, so far as anyone has shown, there are only two kinds of constraints on our discourse: logical constraints and empirical constraints. But logical constraints are nothing other than relations of compatibility and incompatibility between assertions, and that is simply too loose to resolve any debates between rival metaphysical systems. For any discourse can be made consistent with itself if enough intellectual labor goes into constructing it! A priori reasoning all by itself cannot tell us the difference between fact and fiction — to figure that out, we need to look at the world, and that means consulting experience — including the systematic, careful extension of empirical inquiry that is science.

    Science doesn’t inform metaphysics; science is a branch of metaphysics. Gathering observational or experiential facts doesn’t create models that attempt to describe or explain those facts. Such models depend upon one’s metaphysics for organization and interpretation.

    If “science is a branch of metaphysics,” then there’s no distinction between sitting in one’s office and just thinking really hard about things and going into the lab and performing tests to see if one’s speculations are confirmed by how things actually behave.

    It is true, of course, that we do bring our categories and principles with us to the table (or lab) in doing science. But the very point of science is to bring those categories and principles into confrontation with empirical reality, and we revise our categories as a result of doing science. It’s not all done from the armchair!

    I think it’s a serious error to conflate the theory/observation distinction (within science) with the metaphysics/science distinction, which is pretty much what happens when one assimilate metaphysics as such with theorizing as such. Although the underdetermination of theory by evidence is a real and fascinating problem, nothing is solved by treating it as the same as the problem of underdetermination of metaphysical speculation by scientific theory. For one thing, scientific theories are piece-meal — they are models of specific and limited domains of observable phenomena. By contrast, metaphysical speculations are universal — they are ‘global,’ rather than ‘local’.

    The real problem with anti-theists is that they don’t consider their metaphysics to be metaphysics at all. They consider them to be reality, and they express themselves and teach in that manner – as if their interpretive arrangement of observational/experiential facts is without ideological bias whatsoever.

    Metaphysics is, if it is anything at all, a description of what is (and isn’t) real. And if metaphysics is the same thing as ideology, that is pretty much admitting that metaphysics is a fool’s errand.

  21. For any discourse can be made consistent with itself if enough intellectual labor goes into constructing it!

    Damn. That’s the nicest little essay I’ve seen in weeks. Many of us have taken a shot at those ideas, but you’ve nailed it in a few paragraphs.

  22. petrushka,

    Thank you! It’s a fully collaborative enterprise — I was able to summarize what I’ve been thinking about because of the conversations I’ve been a part of here at TSZ and observing the conversations you and others have had with WJM and Blas.

  23. The reason why science alone offers reality to get a vote in what we say about it is because, so far as anyone has shown, there are only two kinds of constraints on our discourse: logical constraints and empirical constraints.

    No, there are also psychological constraints and imaginative constraints; we can only consider that which we are psychologically willing and imaginatively able to consider.

    A priori reasoning all by itself cannot tell us the difference between fact and fiction — to figure that out, we need to look at the world, and that means consulting experience — including the systematic, careful extension of empirical inquiry that is science.

    Except when your a priori reasoning is that empiricism should be used to adjust your views, apparently.

    But the very point of science is to bring those categories and principles into confrontation with empirical reality,

    You are once again conflating a particular kind of experience with “reality” – once again revealing your a priori metaphysical bias. You cannot look at the world, KN. You can only look at your experience. Your experience doesn’t tell you what the world is, and it certainly doesn’t tell you what reality is.

    Metaphysics is, if it is anything at all, a description of what is (and isn’t) real.

    If you mean it’s how particular individuals conceptualize reality, I agree. You have conceptualized reality in a way where “reality” is described only by that which agrees with a certain kind of experience (and, I would suppose, you also mean empirical experience that can be repeatedly verified by others, which is a particular kind of empiricism I call consensual empiricism).

    And so you simply assume your particular kind of metaphysics (what you believe reality to be and how it is experienced) is the answer for arbiting between metaphysics and reality – how convenient. Your a priori metaphysic is the arbiter you advance as that which should judge the value of metaphysics.

    As I said, the problem is when people confuse their metaphysics for reality – as you have done in several posts now.

    What is “reality”, KN? That which can be described through empirical investigations and consensually verified?

  24. davehooke: Incorrect. A theory is a means of interpreting facts.

    No. A theory is an interpretation of facts, not a means of interpreting facts.

  25. The problem with a lot of people is that they think they know what reality is, and wish to coerce others into their view. A little more humility about one’s views of what “reality” is would probably be appropriate.

  26. William J. Murray: The problem with a lot of people is that they think they know what reality is, and wish to coerce others into their view. A little more humility about one’s views of what “reality” is would probably be appropriate.

    Does that mean that you are abandoning your theism 😉

  27. William J. Murray,

    There is no barrier or obstacle between experience and reality. What we experience, if our basic conceptual and perceptual capacities are functioning properly, is what is real as accessible from the human perspective on reality. I don’t experience my sensations — it is through sensations that I experience real things. But in order to know that what I am experiencing is real, I have to be in the game of giving and asking for reasons — and that includes being held accountable for my observations, making corrections to my observations when given sufficient reason for doing so, and so on.

    (There are particular cases where one’s attention is directed at the sensations — a process I call “attentional re-focusing” — but that’s not the cognitive role of sensations first and foremost.)

    What is “reality”, KN? That which can be described through empirical investigations and consensually verified?

    I don’t think there’s anything besides the unfolding process of ‘triangulation’ between a plurality of subjects and the objects of their shared epistemic inquiry for distinguishing between reality and fantasy. Solipsistic experience can’t do that, and neither can a priori reasoning unaided by empirical inquiry.

    In short, my view is that of Peirce (himself neither an atheist nor a ‘materialist’, by the way), who wrote in “The Fixation of Belief” (1877):

    To satisfy our doubts, therefore, it is necessary that a method should be found by which our beliefs may be determined by nothing human, but by some external permanency — by something upon which our thinking has no effect. Some mystics imagine that they have such a method in a private inspiration from on high. But that is only a form of the method of tenacity, in which the conception of truth as something public is not yet developed. Our external permanency would not be external, in our sense, if it was restricted in its influence to one individual. It must be something which affects, or might affect, every man. And, though these affections are necessarily as various as are individual conditions, yet the method must be such that the ultimate conclusion of every man shall be the same. Such is the method of science. Its fundamental hypothesis, restated in more familiar language, is this: There are Real things, whose characters are entirely independent of our opinions about them; those Reals affect our senses according to regular laws, and, though our sensations are as different as are our relations to the objects, yet, by taking advantage of the laws of perception, we can ascertain by reasoning how things really and truly are; and any man, if he have sufficient experience and he reason enough about it, will be led to the one True conclusion.

    If one does not think that there are real things, with properties that do not depend on what we believe about them, and that we can come to know what they are, such that our beliefs about them are subject to correction and improvement, then one doesn’t think that science is possible.

    If that’s right, then notice what WJM has claimed that all we know is our own experience, and that our experience tells us nothing about reality (“You cannot look at the world, KN. You can only look at your experience. Your experience doesn’t tell you what the world is, and it certainly doesn’t tell you what reality is.”) On a Peircean philosophy of science, WJM has basically claimed that science is impossible.

  28. William J. Murray: The problem with a lot of people is that they think they know what reality is, and wish to coerce others into their view. A little more humility about one’s views of what “reality” is would probably be appropriate.

    I do think that the coercion is problematic, of course. But the right approach is to have a fallibilistic attitude towards one’s hard-won metaphysical convictions, not to cease having metaphysical convictions in the first place. Fallibilism is not skepticism!

  29. Neil Rickert: Does that mean that you are abandoning your theism

    He can’t know anything but he’ll tell you what you’re doing wrong. Bless.

  30. There is no barrier or obstacle between experience and reality.

    I guess that depend on how one metaphysically defines “reality”, and what they metaphysically consider their experience to be, and to be of.

    it is through sensations that I experience real things.

    No matter how many times you reiterate this, it doesn’t make it true, nor does it transform your metaphysical assumption into reality.

    …then one doesn’t think that science is possible.

    That depends on what one thinks “science” is. I suggest that the conditionals expressed prior to this conclusion once again sneak metaphysical assumptions in as definitions which assume the conclusion.

    I consider science the acquisition of experiential observations that lend themselves to characterizations, as models, of behavior of phenomena within that experience. That phenomena may or may not be exterior in part or whole to the experiencer. Whether or not such patterns are consensually applicable or consensually demonstrable, and whether or not such models and patterns or how one characterizes them has anything to do with “reality” is largely irrelevant as far as the science goes. That’s a matter of personal metaphysics.

    If one does not think that there are real things, with properties that do not depend on what we believe about them, and that we can come to know what they are, such that our beliefs about them are subject to correction and improvement,

    Oh, it may not be an either / or scenario. It may not be a “real world” out there as many imagine it, and “our beliefs” may not be what many think they are. There are more things, Horatio. Which is why I said that debate is also constrained by psychology and imagination.

  31. But the right approach is to have a fallibilistic attitude towards one’s hard-won metaphysical convictions, not to cease having metaphysical convictions in the first place. Fallibilism is not skepticism!

    You are perhaps mistaking your preferred approach for “the” “right” approach. Right for whom? For what purpose?

    The problem is that if one has a metaphysical conviction, they cannot help but act as if it is true. That’s what “conviction” would mean. This is why I don’t make claims about “what reality is”, but rather focus on what occurs in my actual experience, and only make claims about my actual experience.

  32. William J. Murray: This is why I don’t make claims about “what reality is”, but rather focus on what occurs in my actual experience, and only make claims about my actual experience.

    In that case, your claims are merely autobiographical — that’s no reason for anyone else to take them seriously. And if you’re not interested in being taken seriously, then why are you involved in any of these discussions?

  33. Kantian Naturalist: In that case, your claims are merely autobiographical — that’s no reason for anyone else to take them seriously.And if you’re not interested in being taken seriously, then why are you involved in any of these discussions?

    Quite. The blanket contention that all conceptions of reality are illusory is self-defeating. To say that something is illusory is to admit that there is reality. A case then has to be made that any specific (apparent) knowledge is illusory. One could take the option of denying that there is any reality, but that is solipsism.

  34. In that case, your claims are merely autobiographical — that’s no reason for anyone else to take them seriously. And if you’re not interested in being taken seriously, then why are you involved in any of these discussions?

    Again, this is what I mean when I say that one’s metaphysical considerations are also constrained by psychology and imagination. Note how you organize everything I say into an either/or categorization system (classic consensual empiricism and logic). Just because I don’t make claims about what reality is doesn’t mean that what works for me in my experience will only work for me.

    Also note your self-serving use of the phrase “there’s no reason” … that would depend on the motivations of those that I’m interacting with. Perhaps if their motivations were constrained to establishing consensual empirical models, they would have “no reason” to be interested. But not everyone has such limited, ideological motivations.

    Indeed, you are apparently so constrained by psychology and imagination that “being taken seriously” = “offering classical consensual empiricist models” = the only reason to debate.

    I don’t deny that there is a reality; I don’t claim that what I experience is “illusionary”. I’d have to know what reality is in order to make a claim like that. I’m not a solipsist, davehooke. I don’t think everything is taking place in my mind.

    Since I don’t have a conviction about what reality is, I don’t mistake my metaphysics for reality. Looks like when it comes to claims about reality, I’m the only skeptic in The Skeptical Zone. The rest of you – apparently – think you know what reality is and how best to interpret it.

  35. William J. Murray: I don’t deny that there is a reality; I don’t claim that what I experience is “illusionary”. I’d have to know what reality is in order to make a claim like that. I’m not a solipsist, davehooke. I don’t think everything is taking place in my mind.

    If you don’t know what reality is, then how can you admit there is a reality?

  36. davehooke: No. It’s like religion doesn’t make sandwiches, people do.

    Of course there’s always thoseSouthern Baptist picnics, where the chicken is religiously slathered in hickory smoke sauce.

  37. If you don’t know what reality is, then how can you admit there is a reality?

    If reality = “what exists”, I know something exists, even if “what exists” is only what I refer to as my here and now experience.

  38. petrushka: Damn. That’s the nicest little essay I’ve seen in weeks. Many of us have taken a shot at those ideas, but you’ve nailed it in a few paragraphs.

    Quite true. Kantian Naturalist and his posts are a big part of the reason I have this site bookmarked. I don’t always agree, but even when I don’t I’m not really sure.

  39. It has been said before, but the S of TSZ does not refer to radical skepticism.

    Whether or not the skepticism offered by the allegory of the cave can appropriately be described as “radical” depends largely on how convicted one is of their particular concept of reality.

  40. William J. Murray: If reality = “what exists”, I know something exists, even if “what exists” is only what I refer to as my here and now experience.

    Is there a world external to your experience?

    If yes, then why do you deny we can have knowledge of it?
    If no, then that’s solipsism.
    If you don’t know, then that too is solipsism. How can you critique anything in the external world, including science, science on TV, and other people?

  41. William J. Murray: Whether or notthe skepticism offered by the allegory of the cave can appropriately be described as “radical” depends largely on how convicted one is of their particular concept of reality.

    The allegory of the cave doesn’t offer skepticism at all. It is a political argument that Plato should be king because he knows the ultimate reality.

  42. The Allegory works just as well for those of us who think that ordinary, common-sense “intuitions” are almost always unreliable and that awareness of the Forms is just a metaphor for an appreciation of controlled, quantifiable manipulation of entangled variables.

  43. KN, I appreciate the value of an interpretation that is imaginatively inspired by a text, but let’s be clear that there is no way that is what Plato could have meant.

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