If Darwinism fails then supernatural causes are back on the table and should be included in science.
I do not think there can be a science of the supernatural.
I do not think that if Darwinism fails that supernatural causes will become acceptable.
If the hope of ID is that supernatural causes will be allowed back into science if they can only just get rid of Darwinism, ID is doomed.
The tools and methods of ID cannot differentiate a supernatural cause from a natural cause anyways.
Thoughts?
I don’t think agreement is the primary goal in discussions like these understanding is. We don’t have to agree to learn from one another.
I would like to explore how you justify knowledge sometime.
Let’s put a pin in that for later
Agreed.
Coherence tested by active inquiry, based in science for its domains, philosophy otherwise. In either case, the processes of inquiry and coherence evaluation must be open to review and input from all qualified participants and must follow the Merton norms. “Qualified” means according to norms of existing experts.
I rely on the consensus of experts in the domain. If the domain does not follow the standards, there is no expertise and no knowledge (or at least, no knowledge claims that interest me). If there is no consensus of experts, then I try to understand the major positions and arguments their proponents make.
But don’t ask for specifics beyond that: they evolve as I learn epistemology. Also, don’t ask for justification for that position beyond pragmatic success, ie so far, it succeeds in meeting the goals of the domain.
And that’s that for that. For now.
ETA: Maybe to answer a question that occurs to some: can religion be a source of knowledge?
I think religion can be (not need be) a source of many things essential to being human: meaning, hope, optimism, motivation, solace, social engagement with a community, contentment with life. and others.
But not knowledge: knowledge requires the inter-subjective involvement and fair consideration of the input of neutral participants, including atheists and practitioners of other religions. That precludes knowledge claims based solely on religious doctrine.
wait a minute I said we should put a pin in that for later. 😉
Of course you know domains don’t have goals people do.
Also
I just will point out that pragmatic success is not and can not be justification and leave it at that. 😉
peace
Seriously,
It is interesting to me that a discussion about the irreducibility of persons to physics becomes a critique of my epistemology. That sort of thing happens again and again here.
It is indeed a testament to the primacy of that question. I do wish folks would think about it more so that once they have thought about it deeply they could move on.
peace
I agree with that — except that you need a semi-colon or something before the last two words.
Repetition ad nauseum (about “revelation” for example) does not aid understanding.
I would say no, religion can’t be a source of knowledge.
That is because the only valid source for knowledge is revelation.
There is no such thing as a neutral participant everyone has a perspective. It’s part of what it means to be a person
Atheists and and practitioners of other religions are not neutral. By definition they are antipathetic to the claims of Christianity.
peace
I agree ad nauseum is a step too far, but God can certainly use anything he chooses to facilitate understanding. Repetition certainly was helpful when I was learning my times tables
If you don’t want to hear me speak of revelation don’t constantly bring it up.
peace
Yes, I understand that to be your position and I cannot think of any way to question its internal consistency.
On neutral: Better would have been for me to say those who do not accept the religion making the claims.
On success/pragmatism. That is a second order justification for following the process. Knowledge claims come from the process. I don’t see how someone can justify some other standard without relying on a religious authority, which I exclude.
Of course, I understand that you do not.
That is sort of the point.
Your personal choice to exclude God from the beginning has left you in quite a pickle.
Once you understand and internalize that there is little need to dwell on it. I’d rather talk about kirk
peace
What do you think Godel would say about that?
peace
Haha–you really don’t understand why that is?!?
That’s a nice (and well put) theory of justification, I think. Just need to add truth to get knowledge and you’re all set.
You’re not “pointing it out”: you’re denying something. And you’re wrong. Pragmatism (aka success) certainly IS something that functions as a crucial part of justification.
Everytime FMM gets in a corner he pulls the “revelation card” but he somehow can’t understand why every issue he wants to discuss ends up being about his epistemology. Similarly, he has complained that when he wants to talk about science people here end up getting into religion with him. Obviously, that’s a simple function of him trotting out endless Bible quotations when he’s in those same corners. This isn’t really mysterious, Fifth.
Also, it’s “nauseam,” Neil.
LOL, so little self awareness.
That happens because you’re a one trick pony. (And a failed one at that). Your arrogance and lame triumphalism only exacerbates the problem. It’s not those other folks (professional philosophers, FFS) who need think about this stuff more.
Hint (cuz you prolly need it): if it’s not those other folks, it’s you.
This happens to you in multiple interchanges with many different interlocutors. It’s time to come to terms with the fact that the problem is yours, not the rest of the world’s
Hahaha. You need to have revelations like mine to understand Kirk, but don’t talk about THAT–talk about Kirk!
Yes,
The only reason I can possibly see to continue to talk about the necessity of revelation is if you can somehow demonstrate that knowledge is possible with out it. If you can do that I’m certainly all ears.
If not then I’d rather talk about something else
peace
A crucial part of justification is not the same thing as justification. Plantinga conclusively demonstrated why success by it’s self can’t be justification for knowledge.
A idea might cause you to be highly successful and at the same time utterly and completely false
peace
😉
peace
It’s not me who is triumphant here It’s God and the proper response to God’s graciousness is humility not arrogance. There but for the Grace of God go I and all that.
I don’t know what you mean by being in a corner. It’s not like revelation is a get out of jail free card.
It’s simply the way we know things. If it comes to a question of my knowledge rather than opinion then we will always be talking about revelation.
On the other hand we can talk about whether or not you or I I think we could tell the difference between K1 and K2 all day with out revelation ever coming up.
peace
Can we agree that physics is incomplete?
If so, how can one assert that a complete physics will not explain a given phenomenon?
I’m not sure why one has anything to do with the other.
I quote Scripture for the same reason you might quote Quine or Nitsche except that those folks are not the objective authority on science that God is.
peace
Again inexplicable is not remotely the same thing as irreducible. Do you understand the difference between these two terms?
peace
Yes, you are right. My spell checker doesn’t like either spelling. I guess I need a Latin spell checker.
Neil Rickert,
Walto’s balmy!
Alan Fox,
And you know my kids will always be clothed and fed
‘Cause Papa’s gonna be bringing home the gingerbread
And they’ll be pretty smart because they’ll be well-read
And by “read” I mean “read” and the other kind of “red”
It’s a homophone!
DNA_Jock,
😉
I mostly agree.
I think there’s certainly an important kind of knowledge for which the JTB model is more or less right. I was talking about Plato with a friend of mine a few months ago and he suggested that what we get from Meno and related dialogues is better translated and understood as “articulated understanding”: a genuine understanding of a situation together with the ability to articulate that understanding in such a way that someone else who didn’t understand before can come to an understanding.
In other words, teaching. The highest form of knowledge (Plato would seem to say) is that which comes when you’re able to teach someone else what you understand.
I think there’s a really important insight here. I think most of us have had the experience of only coming to really understand something in the process of figuring out how to teach it, and to teach it more successfully than we had in the past.
Nevertheless it would be a mistake to conflate all knowledge with the high-bar kind of knowledge exemplified by successful teaching. For one thing, it needs to be supplemented with a distinction between knowing-how and knowing-that, where the former — knowing-how kind of knowledge — is pretty evidently widespread amongst animals. By this I don’t mean ‘instinct’ but rather specific skills that young animals only acquire as a result of seeing those skills performed by an adult and then mastering those skills through play. (This is how social carnivores learn to stalk and kill.)
Still, when it comes to the kind of knowledge that mostly perplexes epistemologists, we do need some account of justification, or what it is to articulate an insight, and I like BruceS’s way of putting it above. And we do need some account of truth as well, as Walto correctly points out. My current view is that we can make good sense out of the correspondence theory of truth (veritas est adaequatio intellectus et rei, as they used to say) just in case we can understand how assertions play a role within cognitive maps.
Close, but still confused. Yes, something can be highly justified and false. The question was whether pragmatic success is key constituent of justification–not of truth.
I am genuinely intrigued by the concept of spelling. Probably because I always thought it was so arbitrary. I was a very poor speller even in grammar school. I just can’t get my head around “correct” spelling. Why is one spelling correct and another incorrect? Who says? What gives you the right to say I spelled it wrong??
Acceptable spellings change over time and different countries have different ideas as to what is an acceptable spelling.
To me a spelling is correct if my intended audience understands what I intended to say. The same goes for pronunciation.
I think all of this has something to tells us about epistemology.
I’m not sure what exactly but something
peace
Consensus.
Consensus sucks.
At one time and place the consensus was that people with black skin were inferior.
It should be our aim in life to prove consensus wrong anytime we can
peace
fifthmonarchyman,
Not among black people.
You can do that with spelling if you want. Problem is you lose the power to communicate.
I understand that.
But when someone tells you that you have misspelled a word they certainly know what you intended to say. So you are communicating
peace
and the spelling consensus is not shared among those who spell a word differently.
peace
And when they don’t?
The serious point is rules should follow usage, no matter what old farts and pedants want. Communication evolves. It’s still helpful to use a word as it is generally understood.
Then they don’t tell you that you misspelled a word
You can’t have usage with out rules.
And once you have usage additional rules are superfluous and arbitrary.
peace
If somebody spells “it’s” wrong, it’s probably a typo. If somebody spells “nauseam” wrong, they may just not know the correct spelling. Kapishee?
I agree, There is a huge difference between generally understood and generally spelled.
Peace
The point is whether the rules grow from usage or whether someone thinks of them. Grammar rules are ad hoc. You didn’t learn your native language by learning rules.
not exactly. I don’t know what “correct” means in the context of spelling.
peace
There’s no “correct”. It’s consensus.
🙁
{sniff}
One more thing to learn, I guess.
I agree, but you could not learn your native language if there wern’t preexisting rules
peace
It’s still consensus.
Walto thinks there is a “correct”.
peace
fifthmonarchyman,
Walto might speak for himself, perhaps.