Last night I was talking with an old friend of mine, an atheist Jew, who is now in the best relationship of her life with a devout Roman Catholic. We talked about the fact that she was more surprised than he was about the fact that their connection transcends their difference in metaphysics. He sees himself as a devout Roman Catholic; she sees him as a good human being.
This conversation reminded me of an older thought that’s been swirling around in my head for a few weeks: the disunity of reason.
It is widely held by philosophers (that peculiar sub-species!) that reason is unified: that the ideally rational person is one for whom there are no fissures, breaks, ruptures, or discontinuities anywhere in the inferential relations between semantic contents that comprise his or her cognitive grasp of the world (including himself or herself as part of that world).
This is particularly true when it comes to the distinction between “theoretical reason” and “practical reason”. By “theoretical reason” I mean one’s ability to conceptualize the world-as-experienced as more-or-less systematic, and by “practical reason” I mean one’s ability to act in the world according to judgments that are justified by agent-relative and also agent-indifferent reasons (“prudence” and “morality”, respectively).
The whole philosophical tradition from Plato onward assumes that reason is unified, and especially, that theoretical and practical reason are unified — different exercises of the same basic faculty. Some philosophers think of them as closer together than others — for example, Aristotle distinguishes between episteme (knowledge of general principles in science, mathematics, and metaphysics) and phronesis (knowledge of particular situations in virtuous action). But even Aristotle does not doubt that episteme and phronesis are exercises of a single capacity, reason (nous).
However, as we learn more about how our cognitive system is actually structured, we should consider the possibility that reason is not unified at all. If Horst’s Cognitive Pluralism is right, then we should expect that our minds are more like patchworks of domain-specific modules that can reason quite well within those domains but not so well across them.
To Horst’s model I’d add the further conjecture: that we have pretty good reason to associate our capacity for “theoretical reason” (abstract thinking and long-term planning) with the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and also pretty good reason to associate our capacity for “practical reason” (self-control and virtuous conduct) with the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (and especially in its dense interconnections with the limbic system).
But if that conjecture is on the right track, then we would expect to find consistency between theoretical reason and practical reason only to the extent that there are reciprocal interconnections between these regions of prefrontal cortex. And of course there are reciprocal interconnections — but (and this is the important point!) to the extent that these regions are also functionally distinct, then to that same extent reason is disunified.
And as a consequence, metaphysics and ethics may have somewhat less to do with each other than previous philosophers have supposed.
I generally think that “transcendent states” are hokum.
I just not wired that way. Ive only hand one such experience that I recall and immediately after it happened was looking for natural explanations.
I would not say that the human innate knowledge of God is in any way tied to such experiences.
peace
OK, thanks.
Glenn and Flint,
As to the question of when I choose to believe in God.
I would say no one chooses to believe in God ever. We resist that conclusion with every fiber of our being.
Rather what happens with Christians is that God chooses us from the foundation of the world and chooses to call us and overcome our resistance at a particular time and place.
peace
PS happy Easter
Interesting. I was actually betting that walto’s hypothesis was correct. Now I’m curious what non-Calvinist fundamentalists would say.
Perhaps I should qualify a bit.
My “transcendent experience” was moving and important at the time and I am grateful that it happened.
I just don’t put a lot of stock in the evidentiary power of such experiences
peace
You don’t seem to understand the power of psychoanalysis. It’s very much a two-edged sword.
Proof that Jesus was raised from the dead. 🙂
Why would Horst’s model be right? And how do you determine if Horst’s model is right?
By the way, if Horst’s model is right, then wouldn’t it be so that a single model applies to everybody’s reason and thus all reason is actually unified by that model?
Do they?
We improve our descriptive and predictive models as our skills at observation and experiment develop.
By testing its predictive power against reality, I guess. If it gives good answers, work with it. If it doesn’t, discard it and look for a better one.
As Alan Fox said, by testing its predictive power and explanatory adequacy against experimental data and against rival hypotheses.
If Horst’s model of the mind is correct, then it would be the case that no one has a single mental model that encompasses all of experience.
Then no one has a single mental model? Not even Horst? His model must be amazing, both explaining all experience and not at the same time.
Erik,
It seems to me that you’re not distinguishing between the models that the mind uses to navigate the world and a scientific model of the mind.
If you think there needs to be a distinction, then you would use different words for those things. Like map and territory.
What is new in Horst’s model that other models don’t have but should have? Does his model say that human mins are not simply individual (which all theories account for), but different people are mentally not even the same species (because this is what I would take it to mean when you say reason is not unified)?
If Horst’s model merely says, as you say “our minds are more like patchworks of domain-specific modules that can reason quite well within those domains but not so well across them”, then evidently our minds in fact reason both within and across domains and are therefore unified, just like in every other theory of mind. Nothing new in Horst’s model.
Here, I completely agree. Such a belief is not something one can either adopt or reject voluntarily, at least not sincerely. Either way must be involuntary.
Bah! You wallow in it, revel in it, pride yourself on it, blather about it incessantly. If you had an iota of resistance, you’d suffer a severe identity crisis.
Is that what it seems like from inside the faith in your mind? That some imaginary pal has somehow fingered you, despite your best efforts, and has somehow overwhelmed your ability to think about it? And, like some POWs, you have learned to love your enemy to the point where he’s your best friend now? And we should envy you?
I can’t see any relevance in this response. Are you making the argument that imaginary constructs “really exist” in the imagination?
And, in the true spirit of Easter, here’s an interesting little Easter quiz:
https://twitter.com/StortSkeptic/status/713975777071595520/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
I had a perfect score!
Me Too!!!
Is there a prize?
I’m always shocked to see that atheists would think that thinking Christians would not know their Bible or that that this sort of stuff had been dealt with millennia ago .
They must think we are a bunch of idiots
It says a lot about the shallow straw-man version of Christianity these atheist folks have rejected
Peace
You can’t believe anything voluntarily. You either believe or you don’t there is no choice in the matter
Think about it. If I offered to give you a thousand dollars to believe in the Easter bunny could you do it?
Of course not the very idea is ridiculous.
On the other hand if I offered to give you a thousand dollars to not believe in your wife or the world outside your mind could you choose not believe theses things.
Of course not, Believing is not a voluntary action you either do or you don’t.
peace
Of course you don’t it’s called compartmentalization 😉
No, God has instead overwhelmed my ability to deny the obvious. He showed me the foolishness of my efforts to dethrone him and install myself in his place.
Atheism is hard work. You have to actively deny what you know to be the truth with every fiber of your being. Not just any truth but the most basic truth in the entire universe. The very truth that gives truth meaning.
To deny God is to deny Truth and Logic and Reason itself. Because after all that is what God is
I think that is why so many atheists come to places like this. Somehow it makes it easier to think that others are involved in the same cognitive struggle as you.
This struggle has even lead some folks to deny that reason itself is unitary.
That is skating pretty close to willful insanity IMO
peace
Yes, that’s it exactly. Since my lack of belief is as indelible and involuntary as your belief, there is a gulf of misunderstanding neither of us can cross. The difference, at least as I see it, is that my parents made no effort to get me to believe or disbelieve in anything religious. They provided me books when I was able to read, and expressed no religious preference. I was a teenager before I truly understand that anyone took that stuff seriously, and I’ve spent the rest of my life coming to understand that they didn’t choose to, and there’s nothing they can do about it.
There are no gods. So arguments along this line only advertise “I’m an idiot!” over and over. Not going to be very effective.
Hardly. You simply have no idea, and are making stuff up.
I know with every fiber of my being that EVERY ONE of the imaginary gods people have invented are fictional. YOU need to wake up.
I have no need to invent imaginary playmates to make my world meaningful. You need them to defend yourself against understanding the world around you, and that’s sad.
You never get around to saying WHICH of the imaginary gods you’re talking about. No two Christians believe in the same god.
Mostly, people come here to understand some aspects of science better. But there are the comic relief crowd of god-bothering victims of child abuse. I know we shouldn’t laugh, but you are so damn COMICAL.
Look, you have already admitted that reality is inaccessible to you, involuntarily. I am glad that you find amusement in the only delusions your parents left you. And I’m glad that you pass it along.
LoL. Yeah, nothing to do with their being banned at UD.
Do you need truth and logic and reason to make your world meaningful?
Because that is what God is?
I have repeatedly said that God is truth. Is it your position that truth is imaginary?
That would be true except you know that God exists. It’s not a question of belief it’s a question of what you do with that knowledge
peace
I choose to believe you are wrong .
Seems like a strange design choice, why create a creature you have to overwhelm?
Been an atheist fifth?
Good example, you have the belief that you understand atheists, is God forcing / overwhelming you to believe that? If so ,do you see the implications of such a belief?
It’s not about what God has to do it’s about what he can do. God can do anything
There are no atheists really only people who think they are atheists and Ive thought that I was an atheist from time to time.
I never said that I can understand atheists. However God understands atheists and he can reveal stuff to us if he chooses to.
Do you equate revelation with force somehow? Is that why you resist it so. Is that where the bitterness and venom comes from?
Quote:
Wisdom cries aloud in the street, in the markets she raises her voice; at the head of the noisy streets she cries out; at the entrance of the city gates she speaks: “How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple? How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge?
(Pro 1:20-22)
end quote:
I don’t equate revelation with force. I think truth is a good thing and I’m grateful when it comes to me.
Do you understand the implications of equating truth with force for some reason?
peace
What does that even mean? Wrong about what?
Am I wrong that 2 + 2 = 4?
Am I wrong that truth exists?
Am I wrong that you know truth exists?
Am I wrong that God is truth?
Am I wrong that you can’t force yourself to believe something?
You need to be specific as to what you are claiming to deny.
Totally agree with this. I think it’s important, but it’s a point missed by a lot of philosophers.
Well, IMHO, limiting myself to that particular list, you’re wrong that God is truth–unless you are redefining “God” to mean truth, and, if so many people now apparently disagreeing with you will agree with you that God exists and many fewer will find the claim controversial.
But I take it you don’t mean that God is truth and nothing more. You make God lots of other stuff too. (Or, alternatively, you pump lots of stuff into “truth” that is not what the term means to most people.). I’m guessing that most atheists believe that some sentences are true, that some acts are good, and that some people are wise. It’s your claim that such atheists are contradicting themselves because God is just truth, goodness and wisdom is where the trouble starts. That’s not what they mean by “God.”
Of course, we’ve been through this several times before.
This seems analogous to the idea that because psychological states can be disrupted (drugs, concussion, whatever) consciousness is not a unified ‘thing’. But just like the unity of consciousness is a transcendental condition of our experience, isn’t reason also such a transcendental? I mean, I don’t see why it really follows from the fact that our brains are constructed in/with distinct domains that reason isn’t unified – and (this just occurred to me) doesn’t the phenomenology of reason as unified tell against your thesis?
Yep, and we’ll keep on going through it, over and over and over, and with each iteration more tiresome than the last. Exactly what we always find with presuppositional apologetics.
I believe that
Reification, anyone?
It only works if you capitalize.
God is Justice.
God is Time.
God is Schadenfreude.
God is Evil.
God is Rhythm.
God is Spiciness!
The ideas in the OP seem to mix massive modularity from evolutionary psychology with pluralism in philosophy of science, but I find the claimed link to be in need of more explanation and justification. I also have some concerns with you the speculations in the last two paragraphs which I detail in the next post.
I’m basing my understanding of Cognitive Pluralism on Horst’s 2014 summary which you can find at academia.edu (pdf). This paper is mainly about pluralism of representation, models, and theories in science and metaphysics, but he does briefly mention the point I understand you to be making:
“The Cognitive Pluralist might further be inclined to view this feature of scientific disunity as a special case of a broader phenomenon that is indicative of human cognitive architecture. Mind and brain display a certain amount of division of labor into special-purpose, task-optimized systems, even at the hardware level of the brain. Special-purpose mechanisms that are species-typical and have characteristic neural localizations are often referred to as “modules” (Fodor 1983). Domain-specific reasoning, while probably not accomplished by a partitioning of brain hardware, seems to be an analogous phenomenon involving learned models rather than hard- wired modules” (p 214-15)
What is missing from this is a claim that the domain specific modules map to the various sciences. It seems doubtful that evolution gave us a chemistry module, a biology module, a psychology module, or a neuroscience module. Instead, we seem to have a folk-psychology module in the form of the intentional stance and a resulting bias to attributing agency to apparently purposeful action.
So I take your thesis to be mainly based not so much on Cognitive Pluralism but rather on the claims of mass modularity in the brain made by evolutionary psychology. I believe that there is no consensus on the number of such modules and the consequent extent of their specialization, but I think most agree with Kahneman that there are at least two, his System 1 and System 2. But these two are associated with subconsious, fast, automatic choice (1) versus conscious, slow, analytical, reasoned choice (2), rather than with practical reason versus theoretical reason. So I am not sure if your separation of these latter two has a basis in psychological modularity.
Here I think are are too quick to adopt a reductionist approach (!): that is, you are reducing what you see as psychological modules to brain interconnections. Such a reduction requires more work. In particular, I think we have to start with a clear view of the psychology and then, only if psychology supports an independence of modules, examine mechanisms for neural implementation of the modules and their independence via combined psychology/neuroscience experimentation, eg fMRI while subjects are doing psychological tasks.
I don’t know of any psychology work on the separation of practical versus theoretical reason. But even the nature of the psychological priority of System 1 over 2 is not clear*. For example, there is social psychology work on how much we can learn to control the module(s) which make quick, immediate, subconscious decisions. Lacking the psychological support for a clear separation of modules, I don’t think we should speculate about neural mechanisms.
(FWIW, Mele got a Templeton grant to explore the philosophical implications of this science.)
——————————
* However, some of this work is under suspicion these days, eg see here.
A human created without the undesirable tendencies seems more efficient than overwhelming the undesirable tendencies post production.
Or maybe everyone is an atheist and some people think they are theists from time to time. Lack of belief seems more like a default position,all you have to do is nothing and there is the added benefit of not having tell other people they don’t know what they are.
Then it would be helpful to put God’s revelations in quotes
See, I don’t know if that is fifth or divine revelation. I suspect it is fifth because I would guess God knows I am neither bitter or venomous. Yes, I do equate the word overwhelm with force.
Good objections!
I don’t deny the unity of consciousness — “the transcendental unity of apperception,” as Kant called it — but it seems quite different from the unity of reason. The unity of consciousness (and of self-consciousness) means that I don’t experience my own experiences as totally separate from one another. (That might not be the right way of putting it.) It’s a transcendental condition of any possible experience that I can attach the “I think” to it.
The unity of reason is a different issue, because it is not about consciousness but about content. Here I think that phenomenology is not going to help us much, because in general I do not regard phenomenology as a reliable guide to ontology — including the ontology of content. There is no “appearance/reality” distinction for consciousness — which is precisely what impresses Descartes in the cogito argument — but there is (arguably) one for content, including inferentially articulated content.
That said, I agree with BruceS’s objections above: my conflation of massive modularity, personal-level distinctions between theoretical and practical reason, and neuroanatomy is much too hasty! In fact it is borderline phrenology, and I appreciate BruceS’s restraint in not pointing that out.
But such are the perils of philosophy: we construct positions and arguments that seem plausible in light of the phenomena, subject them to the merciless criticism of our peers, and see what (if anything) survives.
A friend of mine, who mostly does philosophy of cognitive science from a roughly Spinozistic perspective, offered this alternative to my suggestion:
I don’t think that’s so. There’s a great amount of involuntary nature to belief, but why would anyone try to believe something if voluntary effects couldn’t shift the relatively involuntary somewhat? More importantly, what people do to avoid questions that are unwelcome seems more likely to effectively change what one believes and what one does not.
As an adult, yes it’s ridiculous. For a kid, the matter is not so clear.
If one offers a host of social rewards and punishments to push people to believe a religion, it may very well work. I wouldn’t call that voluntary, to be sure, but I also wouldn’t agree that no voluntary actions are involved, as one might wish to believe and to take in information in favor of that religion, and to avoid whatever smacks of doubt. Even there, though, I suspect that many coerced to accept, say, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, whatever, probably never truly believed, while their children were acculturated to do so. Others, however, did believe, due to involuntary pressures, yet, in many cases, also by using conscious choices to encourage belief.
It is in the starkest cases. So what?
If I gave 200 theist young adults each a thousand dollars each day to find and explain reasons not to believe in God, I do think that after a few years there would be statistically more atheists among those 200 than among a similar control group given no incentive to consider these matters. One may dispute how voluntary the resulting belief itself is, of course, but my point is not so much that belief is voluntary, but that voluntary actions can be used to shift one’s perspectives, and not infrequently are so used. You seem not to concede that, at least not in what you’ve written here. But that voluntary choice itself can work at the margins of belief I also don’t really doubt, either, it’s just that one can hardly overcome solid belief or disbelief just by wishing to do so.
Glen Davidson
Ahh, that’s the god I believe in!
I agree with you with respect to the example you have given, but it seems to me to actually support the view that beliefs are not voluntary. That is certainly consistent with the view that we are rather conditioned to believe this or that or trained to do so. And I don’t think one can voluntarily cast off the effects of such conditioning/training–though, again, one may, perhaps be de-conditioned or re-trained.
I understand that I’m probably preaching to the choir here, because you have said yourself in the same post that:
Those remarks seem absolutely right to me, and I find it interesting that when I have pushed them myself over the last 20 or so years, several philosophers have pushed back. I’m not sure if they were free-willers or not though…..
This is skating pretty close to violating The Rules:
I don’t understand what you mean by this. It seems uncontroversial to agree that it is possible to make statements that are “in accordance with fact or reality” (the definition of “true”) to some level of accuracy. Those statements are truths, and exist in written and oral form. I don’t know what “Truth exists” as a statement refers to, though.
True statements exist in the sense that reliable and useful statements exist.
TRUTH is a reification.
That’s my impression as well. I’m just wondering if fifthmonarchyman has a meaning other than the obvious fallacy.
Let him consult his Big Book of Greg Bahnsen then he’ll get back to you.
Reminds me of a previous exchange with StephenB at UD* who claimed “Error exists”. A quick site search finds he’s been banging on about it for years. Following one of the early links, I find this thread has some interesting comments.
ETA UD not UB 🙂
Maybe “TRUTH” hides in same place that “cold” does…
Perhaps home schooling textbooks skip the chapter on abstract nouns.