Here's Bulverism. C. S. Lewis replies to Eller, Tarico, and Long, before any of them were born.
If Lewis is correct, spending three chapters on psychological explanation is a fundamental logical mistake. If you give the arguments against Christianity, and then someone comes back and says "But, if those arguments are good, how come I feel so sure that Jesus loves me? How come there are so many believers? They can't all be deluded, can they? Besides, aren't there a lot of smart people who believe?: then these sorts of psychological arguments are relevant. But to lead off with this stuff? Isn't that putting Descartes before Dehorse?
22 comments:
It doesn't seem like a logical mistake. If they could explain the genesis of said beliefs from within a completely naturalistic framework, that would damage theism. It's one part of a cumulative case, not a knock-down argument.
I could imagine someone asking why so many smart people believe in Christianity if it is false. Part of the answer, of course, will draw on psychological/sociological/anthropological facts. Seems like a no-brainer.
Their argument would be something like 'Here are the reasons to doubt the supernatural claims in the Bible. Here are the reasons not to buy their philosophical arguments about Gods. And finally, let's explain why so many people buy this superstitious nonsense in the first place.'
Seems like a perfectly reasonable strand in Christianity's noose.
BDK,
wouldn't your approach be analogous to believers explaining the genesis of atheism by references to, say, unbelievers' dysfunctional father relations or other psycho/socio/anthropo facts?
I find it principally problematic to put strands into the noose of christians/atheists instead of putting them into the noose of the belief systems.
As the AFR has shown us, if thoughts were supervenient on matter (e.g. brains), believers and atheists would be in the same boat - our beliefs would depend on "matter in motion", not truth.
Rasmus: I largely agree with your first two paragraphs. Christianity can be shown to be lacking more directly than by using these naturalistic accounts of the origins of belief in the myth.
However, let me clarify for the people here that fetishize Bayesian notions of evidence,
P(G | H) < P(G | ~H)
Where G='god exists' and H='we can explain naturalistically/psychologically how a belief in God arises.'
That was my point, and suggests the argument is not a logical mistake, but one of whether H can in fact be shown. Note the argument is not the same for the atheist, as it isn't the case that:
P(~G | H) < P(~G | ~H)
In fact, it's the opposite, it should be a greater than symbol in there most likely, or perhaps equality. (In this case, H stands for 'we can give a naturalistic explanation of the emergence of belief that there are no gods').
Note also you guys are partly to blame, given your propensity for ad populum arguments, and historical questions that you think support your view. When the Christian pulls an ad populum (as he often does) 'Why do so many people believe it?' or appeals to history ('How could this have become the largest movement in history if it weren't true?') the nonbeliever answers partly with fairly mundane and well-known sociological/historical/psychological factors. As they should!
They try to account for the geographical distribution of various mythologies. That seems fine to me. It's going to be part of the atheist's story about religion: an explanation of the distribution and abundance of different myth systems. Not the noose, but a thread in the argument.
I agree though that many atheists tend to overstate the strength of these types of arguments, and it has become something of a fad online now to talk of this ‘Outsider Test for Faith’ which has a confluence with this line of argument.
Bulverism is really a desease of the mind and it has reached epidemic proportions. I also fell more than once a victim to it.
BDK:"P(G | H) < P(G | ~H)
Where G='god exists' and H='we can explain naturalistically/psychologically how a belief in God arises.'
That was my point, and suggests the argument is not a logical mistake, but one of whether H can in fact be shown. Note the argument is not the same for the atheist, as it isn't the case that:
P(~G | H) < P(~G | ~H)"
If you put H='we can explain naturalistically/psychologically how a belief in atheism arises.' Then this equality should be true according to what you said before.
It is as Lewis said: "For Bulverism is a truly democratic game in the sense that all can play it all day long, and that it give no unfair advantage to the small and offensive minority who reason."
There is absolutly no apriori connection between a fact and a psychological explanation of how belief in this fact arises. This is just bayesian bulverism.
BDK: Let me remind you what my complaint was. I never said that this kind of explanation couldn't play a role in the discussion. In fact I mentioned exactly the same contexts that you did, the "how could so many people believe it," or "how could so many smart people believe it," arguments which these sorts of considerations rebut. What I objected to was, as I put it, "leading off with this stuff." In The Christian Delusion Loftus puts three chapters talking about human intellectual frailty and bias in the beginning of the book. The next chapter is Loftus' most recent defense of the Outsider Test for Faith, and presumably these chapters are supposed to be tablesetting for the OTF. In other words, it's not used as a defeater defeater for rejecting Christianity, it is used as an argument for rejecting Christianity. That is why I argue that doing it this way puts the cart before the horse, and your criticism actually proves my point.
I think Bulverism is just a special case of psychologism.
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From the essay:"Everything I know is an inference from sensation (except the present moment)."
This cannot be true. Sensation gives us only particular truths. But we know universal truths (principle of contradiction, arithmetic truths and others). Therefore there must be another source of knowledge, other than sensation.
Victor: I think we largely agree. These arguments are but one strand in the case against theism. To call them a 'logical' mistake is what I was picking against. I don't think it shows a defective logic, just a strange sense of the best arguments out there. So in that sense, there isn't really a fact of the matter here, just a sense of taste and emphasis.
Blaise: it isn't the same for the atheist. To see this you have to think about the conditioning event of naturalistic explanation (the H in my conditionals). Explaining theistic beliefs in a naturalistic framework hurts theism, but explaining atheistic beliefs within a naturalistic framework should be no surprise at all (or at worst irrelevant so we'd have equality of conditionals).
I think it is a logical mistake to start explaining how people could get false religious beliefs before producing the arguments that show those religious beliefs are false. The use of those arguments is fine in some contexts, but those contexts were not delineated in The Christian Delusion. That is what I am objecting to.
You could accuse me of pedantry here, because there are arguments against Christianity of a normal sort that occur later. But Bulverism does so much harm to philosophical debate that I thought I should blow the whistle and mark off a 15-yard penalty.
BDK,
You write:
P(G|H) < P(G|~H)
Where G='god exists' and H='we can explain naturalistically/psychologically how a belief in God arises.'
To be honest, I do not find the literature purporting to explain how belief in God arises very compelling even on its own terms. But waiving that, I'm not sure why you think this inequality holds. It is equivalent to
P(H|G) < P(~H|G)
But I don't see any particular reason to think that's true either. Perhaps you have something in mind for H that is more specific than what you've given here.
Tim both of those inequalities seem reasonable if H is the claim that there exists a true account of a God belief's origins that is completely naturalistic.
Like giving an account of belief in alien abduction without any reference to real aliens or abduction (all this gets at belief fixation mechanisms which you might disagree with me about perhaps).
Yes, Victor I get it. I just chalk it up to Loftus being too in love with his outsider test, so it received too much attention. I don't agree that one has to show it is unlikely first, because I do think the above conditionals hold and as you Bayesians like to point out, that's evidence right :)
But I certainly understand the concern that we need to be cautious that they don't just end up taking a huge ad hominem dump in the book. I haven't read it, so wouldn't know.
I think I find it more compelling than both of you, just as I would find a non-alien based account of alien abduction myths pretty interesting, if not conclusive.
Thanks BDK, I think I get your point.
Would a theistic explanation of the genesis of atheism similarly add a strand to the noose of atheism?
"Explaining theistic beliefs in a naturalistic framework hurts theism, but explaining atheistic beliefs within a naturalistic framework should be no surprise at all"
I dont see why then an explanation of atheistic belief in a theistic framework shouldnt hurt atheism. But doesnt matter.
A belief is always a psychological phenomenon, i.e. a natural phenomenon. There is always a psychological explanation (i.e. naturalistic explanation) for a belief. Whether it is true or false doesnt matter for descriptive psychology.
So at best these equalities are irrelevant, because there is always a psychological explanation for a psychological phenomenon. Even a true belief in God can be explained naturalistically (excepting appartitions and inspiration).
It seems to me that you mean by "naturalistic" something other than a explanation of a belief in naturalistic terms (in this case psychological terms). I suspect you somehow bring in the contents of the belief into the game.
If you mean by a naturalistic explanation that the contents of a belief in the supernatural are not referring to supernatural things or events, then you are clearly begging the question. To show this you have first to disprove theism.
Blais and Rasmus both mentioned that giving a true explanation of atheistic beliefs within a theistic framework should hurt the naturalist. I agree!
The asymmetry is that everyone believes that some naturalistic explanations work (e.g., for milk digestion), so the theist has a tougher road with such an argument.
Blaise said:
"Even a true belief in God can be explained naturalistically"
But not necessarily a justified true belief. I think that's the key here and I should have focused on that more.
This would get down interesting roads about content fixation, but I really need to stop reading blogs for a while :)
BDK:"But not necessarily a justified true belief. I think that's the key here and I should have focused on that more."
Even a justified true belief is a psychological phenomenon. Every psychological phenomenon can be explained psychologically. Descriptive psychology has nothing to do with truth. It describes the contents of the mind, not the referrents of the belief.
By the attributes "justified" and "true" you are trying to bring in the contents of the belief.
If you think that a naturalistic explanation of a belief in the supernatural implies that this belief must be either unjustified or false, then what you mean by "naturalistic explanation" cannot merely be a description of the contents of the mind. Then you are bringing in the referrents of the belief. This means that by giving a "naturalistic explanation" in your sense of this expressions, means either disprove the belief or show the invalidity of the arguments for that belief.
It seems to me that this begs the question. In any case we can be sure that there is no such strong explanation.
"but I really need to stop reading blogs for a while :)"
Me too :)
I didn't beg any questions, I said *if* there is a naturalistic explanation of the beliefs, that hurts theism. I never tried to justify the antecedent.
thanks again, BDK.
BDK said: "The asymmetry is that everyone believes that some naturalistic explanations work (e.g., for milk digestion), so the theist has a tougher road with such an argument."
I may be getting this wrong; are you making an "ad populum" argument? It sounds a little like the atheist version of "most people on Earth are believers".
Rasmus: Do you think digestion is a natural process? Do you think there is good evidence for that?
My point is there are natural explanations for some things. That isn't what is debated. What is debated is whether some things also have a supernatural explanation.
BDK,
I have a feeling that you may be a little equivocal on what you mean by the "natural" in the process of digestion.
As a theist may have have no problems with the existence of purely natural (understood as non-mental) explanations, I don't see why that should somehow hurt the case for existence of mixed (mental and non-mental) explanations.
Victor Reppert said..."In other words, it's not used as a defeater defeater for rejecting Christianity, it is used as an argument for rejecting Christianity. That is why I argue that doing it this way puts the cart before the horse, and your criticism actually proves my point."
Victor i even see the police often put the cart before the horse as you put it,plenty of times.When first weeding out the suspects, sometimes they do first look at who might even have motives to commit a crime.From that point on they will work at building on the cumulative case as Blue Devil has explained.
Its not meant as the knock down argument.But its lot like a lawyer puts forward scenario to help argue a case in court.
The police sometimes put the cart so far before the horse .That sometime they will even first bring in a specialist Criminal profiler,so as to try and help understand a criminal's behavior for clues to their psychology to aid in capturing them .
Rasmus: The theist doesn't need to be convinced that the natural is needed to explain some things, so the two explanations are asymmetric (two explanations meaning 1) explain theistic belief in a naturalistic framework versus 2) explain atheistic belief in a theistic framework). The groundwork in the two cases, is different, as the theist has no problems, in principle, with naturalistic explanations (replace 'theistic belief' with 'digestion').
Prhaps someone else can do a better job explaining what I'm trying to say.
What I take to be Bulverism is an attack on warrant/justification. A particular believer holds some belief B, but you can show the best explanation for them believing B is bad epistemic method (e.g., they believe it because of parental/cultural influence, psychological dysfunction). That means you don't need to take them seriously, even if they happen to be right.
It seems the best explanation for the differing patterns of belief across the world just is all this socio-cultural stuff. Putative explanations from the religions in question seem to be high-handed and ad hoc. If so, that's a strike against religion.
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