>>>So, what do we do? On this issue, I am still very new. But I’m here now, among the elements, nature, and Aristotle.<<<
This is an excerpt from Kenneth Williford edited anthology: "Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion: A Philosophical Appraisal":
"It all turns on what one would think to be fairly straightforward matters: one has no good reason to believe in explanatorily gratuitous entities—tails that wag no dogs, so to speak; and, given competing explanatory strategies, ontologically conservative ones, especially if they have been successful in multiple prima facia disparate domains, are, ceteris paribus, preferable to those that require the introduction of categorically new entities (thus, e.g., naturalistic explanations of mystical and religious experiences drawn from Neuroscience, Psychology, and the Social Sciences, are preferable to supernatural explanations of them; cf. Fales 2010). In other words, parsimony, consilience, and observational continuity carry a lot of epistemic weight—more weight than the theist has yet been able to move. This is certainly in the spirit of Philo and would justify a motivated skepticism towards religious claims that cannot be extended to the “unobservables” sometimes postulated in the sciences. One should compare what is, in effect, Fales’ take on the demarcation problem with Glymour’s. Is there a debate to be had between them? In one sense, Fales does not see a demarcation problem: natural theology and arguments from religious experience can be treated with precisely the same epistemic tools with which we treat any common sense or scientific hypotheses; and when so weighed, they are found quite wanting. Religious hypotheses, then, are not categorically different from commonsense or scientific hypotheses; rather, they are just hypotheses about the world that have not fared very well epistemically speaking." (pg. 11-12)
I think the text outline here points to one way to resolve some methodological issues in the debates between Atheists and Theists. As the excerpt points out, there are a lot of debates and discussions about Science vs. Religion. The author highlights that many of these debates are misguided; we should not be asking whether science conflicts with religion, but rather which theory of the world can explain the data we see. In asking this question, we can treat religious hypotheses the same way as we do other metaphysical or commonsense hypotheses. We can weigh them using the theoretical virtues we generally think are truth-conducive.
This gives us a method (much like Oppy's) to resolve our disagreement. Theists have their theory of the world, and so do Atheists. To see which theory is better, we can weigh them up using respective theoretical virtues and see which theory can account for the data as a whole. Of course, not surprisingly, Atheists think that religious hypotheses of the world cannot bear the epistemic weight that scientific and other naturalistic hypotheses can.
Take as much time as you need! Just doing my part to generate more dialouge on your very interesting series. It's been a pleasure walking through your journey with regard to your MA thesis.
There is never the absence of a philosophical system, because these are all systems of thought. Think of a philosophical system like a structure of atoms which hold together by various forces. But the atoms are concepts and the forces which link them are logical connections.
Which means each system can be compared. In some of them, the concepts themselves are confused, or the logical connections are unstable or even contradictory. In this way we can compare the merits of our logical structures the same way we compare different physical buildings and their architecture, or closer to philosophy, scientific theories and their explanatory merits.
Oh! I see what you are saying. There are many systems, and we talk at cross purposes unless we share the same system. I never fully appreciated how this affects you, how it must feel to be an actual scientist doing philosophy. We are blessed that you have elected to pursue this adventure.
I feel like I'm the luckiest person on the face of the earth. My heart is in the 13th century, but my brain is in the 20th century. Therefore, I assent to the truths of Scholastic philosophy easily and without hesitation because it was part of my formative training through college. Yet I studied 20th century philosophy in graduate school and it's the only way I know how to talk about anything including science.
I feel lucky because I am of the modern intellectual milieux and speak its language, yet I hear modern philosophy as forming a perfectly resonant circuit with scholastic philosophy. I think someone would have to know them both pretty well to acknowledge they are resonant, but many have.
You have such a way of putting things into perspective, Jeff. I aspire to catch up to your ease in having feet in both worlds. Maybe I'm on a trajectory and once I get my head around Scholasticism, I can then venture into modern philosophy to see what derailed. Thank you for giving me something to emulate.
>>>So, what do we do? On this issue, I am still very new. But I’m here now, among the elements, nature, and Aristotle.<<<
This is an excerpt from Kenneth Williford edited anthology: "Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion: A Philosophical Appraisal":
"It all turns on what one would think to be fairly straightforward matters: one has no good reason to believe in explanatorily gratuitous entities—tails that wag no dogs, so to speak; and, given competing explanatory strategies, ontologically conservative ones, especially if they have been successful in multiple prima facia disparate domains, are, ceteris paribus, preferable to those that require the introduction of categorically new entities (thus, e.g., naturalistic explanations of mystical and religious experiences drawn from Neuroscience, Psychology, and the Social Sciences, are preferable to supernatural explanations of them; cf. Fales 2010). In other words, parsimony, consilience, and observational continuity carry a lot of epistemic weight—more weight than the theist has yet been able to move. This is certainly in the spirit of Philo and would justify a motivated skepticism towards religious claims that cannot be extended to the “unobservables” sometimes postulated in the sciences. One should compare what is, in effect, Fales’ take on the demarcation problem with Glymour’s. Is there a debate to be had between them? In one sense, Fales does not see a demarcation problem: natural theology and arguments from religious experience can be treated with precisely the same epistemic tools with which we treat any common sense or scientific hypotheses; and when so weighed, they are found quite wanting. Religious hypotheses, then, are not categorically different from commonsense or scientific hypotheses; rather, they are just hypotheses about the world that have not fared very well epistemically speaking." (pg. 11-12)
I think the text outline here points to one way to resolve some methodological issues in the debates between Atheists and Theists. As the excerpt points out, there are a lot of debates and discussions about Science vs. Religion. The author highlights that many of these debates are misguided; we should not be asking whether science conflicts with religion, but rather which theory of the world can explain the data we see. In asking this question, we can treat religious hypotheses the same way as we do other metaphysical or commonsense hypotheses. We can weigh them using the theoretical virtues we generally think are truth-conducive.
This gives us a method (much like Oppy's) to resolve our disagreement. Theists have their theory of the world, and so do Atheists. To see which theory is better, we can weigh them up using respective theoretical virtues and see which theory can account for the data as a whole. Of course, not surprisingly, Atheists think that religious hypotheses of the world cannot bear the epistemic weight that scientific and other naturalistic hypotheses can.
Do you mind if I answer this in another post? I am sympathetic to Hume's concern, but I wouldn't leave it there.
Take as much time as you need! Just doing my part to generate more dialouge on your very interesting series. It's been a pleasure walking through your journey with regard to your MA thesis.
Here's The Truth, do with it what you will: https://kaiserbasileus.substack.com/p/metaphysics-in-a-nutshell
Will you be publishing your thesis? I would love to read it!
Hopefully in some form or other. Thank you!
There is never the absence of a philosophical system, because these are all systems of thought. Think of a philosophical system like a structure of atoms which hold together by various forces. But the atoms are concepts and the forces which link them are logical connections.
Which means each system can be compared. In some of them, the concepts themselves are confused, or the logical connections are unstable or even contradictory. In this way we can compare the merits of our logical structures the same way we compare different physical buildings and their architecture, or closer to philosophy, scientific theories and their explanatory merits.
Oh! I see what you are saying. There are many systems, and we talk at cross purposes unless we share the same system. I never fully appreciated how this affects you, how it must feel to be an actual scientist doing philosophy. We are blessed that you have elected to pursue this adventure.
I feel like I'm the luckiest person on the face of the earth. My heart is in the 13th century, but my brain is in the 20th century. Therefore, I assent to the truths of Scholastic philosophy easily and without hesitation because it was part of my formative training through college. Yet I studied 20th century philosophy in graduate school and it's the only way I know how to talk about anything including science.
I feel lucky because I am of the modern intellectual milieux and speak its language, yet I hear modern philosophy as forming a perfectly resonant circuit with scholastic philosophy. I think someone would have to know them both pretty well to acknowledge they are resonant, but many have.
You have such a way of putting things into perspective, Jeff. I aspire to catch up to your ease in having feet in both worlds. Maybe I'm on a trajectory and once I get my head around Scholasticism, I can then venture into modern philosophy to see what derailed. Thank you for giving me something to emulate.