Balfour’s presentation in Foundations of Belief faced a well-known critic, G.E. Moore. Moore wrote;
For it to be true that beliefs were evolved, then the belief that they were so must have been evolved. And this, according to Mr.Balfour, is a reason why we must doubt its truth. That is to say, the fact of (naturalistic) evolution is a reason for doubting the fact of evolution. It is inconsistent to believe in the fact of evolution, if at the same time we believe in the fact of evolution. The inconsistency, we may in fact reply, is all the other way. It is, in fact, contradictory to believe that the validity of a belief depends on any way on the manner in which it was acquired.
Students of the Lewis-Anscombe exchange will notice a predecessor to Anscombe’s criticism of Lewis here. In fact, noticing this put my dissertation advisor, on to seeing the similarity between Balfour’s argument and Lewis’s. But is it inconsistent or contradictory to argue say that the validity of a belief depends on the manner in which it was acquired? This what we seem to object to when we make charges of genetic fallacy or ad hominem circumstantial. But let us take ad hominem circumstantial. Here you simply find a motive in someone psyche that might motivate someone to believe something whether or not it is true or false, and conclude from that that the person’s belief lacks validity. Or in case of the genetic fallacy, the belief may have originated in a non-rational way in someone’s mind. That wouldn’t mean that the belief couldn’t have been tested further down the road in a way that would render it rational.
3 comments:
" That is to say, the fact of (naturalistic) evolution is a reason for doubting the fact of evolution"
Right, our faculties for reason allow us to doubt everything we (collectively) assert, including the nature of our reasoning faculties themselves. Just what one would expect on evolved reasoning faculties.
"It is inconsistent to believe in the fact of evolution, if at the same time we believe in the fact of evolution. "
After application of our reasoning faculties that include a great deal of doubt we conclude that those reasoning faculties are evolved. Pretty simple, what part of this doesn't Moore get?
Is Moore somehow convincing to somebody? The "argument" is childishly simplistic and totally ignores how science progresses and how scientific facts are established and how scientific theories become accepted.
We use our evolved reasoning to evaluate the evidence of our reasoning faculties.
Such research is performed by thousands of people over many decades for over a hundred years.
A very great deal of doubt is considered.
In general most researchers conclude that our reasoning faculties are evolved.
Yet, somehow all this is boiled down to a simplistic attempt to show some sort of contradiction? Who is actually convinced by such childish arguments?
Oh, wait, it was actually Balfour attempting to concoct this contradiction out of thin air, not Moore.
Victor, you wrote:
"G.E. Moore. Moore wrote;For it to be true that beliefs were evolved, then the belief that they were so must have been evolved."
Ok, that may well be the case, but what I did not realize is that the critical attribution was in the next sentence. Moore was just re-stating Balfour.
From Wiki:
Lewis never claimed that he invented the argument from reason; in fact, he refers to it as a "venerable philosophical chestnut."[16] Early versions of the argument occur in the works of Arthur Balfour (see, e.g., The Foundations of Belief, 1879, chap. 13)
Ok, so Balfour published his "argument" in 1879. Darwin had published just 20 years prior in 1859. Research in evolutionary science had only just begun in that era. It is no surprise such an inane argument was asserted at that time.
Moore apparently argued against Balfour on philosophical grounds a few decades later, still very early in the history of evolutionary science.
"But is it inconsistent or contradictory to argue say that the validity of a belief depends on the manner in which it was acquired?"
The truth of a belief does not logically depend on the manner in which the belief was acquired.
If a person is in fact 11 years old, and I roll a pair of dice as my preferred method of determining the age of that person and the dice come up 11 so I believe the person is 11 years old is the fact of the age of the person negated because I used a rather silly method to come to that conclusion?
Well, no, I believe the age of the 11 year old is 11 and that is true. The truth of the age of the person is not altered by the fact that I used an unreliable method to determine the age of the person.
But the fact remains that my method is poor in general. I can show that if I try that method again and again, I will be wrong most of the time.
In science we gauge the likelihood that our belief is reasonable by analysis of the reliability of the data and analysis of that data applied again and again and again over a wide variety of circumstances and subjected to extensive critical review.
The scientific process is not reducible to a simplistic inane paragraph written by Balfour, Lewis, or anybody else.
The so-called "argument" from reason is just a simplistic, one dimensional, attempt at a gotchya quip.
The "argument" from reason is at the level of those who call the use of index fossils circular reasoning, because they use the rocks to determine the age of the fossils and they use the fossils to determine the age of the rocks, dontchyaknow.
Victor,
The more I read your sources the more I realize you are somewhat fixated on obsolete sources, largely dating back to the 19th century.
Now, not everything from the 19th century is wrong, but likely to have been updated, explained in much greater detail, or long since refuted.
Haldane seems to have been a somewhat confused sort, one time arguing for atheism, then arguing for immaterialism. Well, his arguments for an immaterial mind turn out to be junk.
Wiki:
"In Miracles, Lewis himself quotes J. B. S. Haldane, who appeals to a similar line of reasoning in his 1927 book, Possible Worlds: "If my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain, I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true ... and hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms."[19]"
Here is one attempt to update Haldane's argument.
https://www.newdualism.org/papers/K.Popper/TSAIB/21._Refutation_of_Materialism.html
It does a fair job of showing how Haldane is easily refuted. The claim to update Haldane to a sound version fizzles and is never presented in clear form.
"If my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain, I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true"
That is just a non-sequitur. Makes no sense. As the above paper points out, computers provide an obvious counter example.
Simply writing a true sentence with pen and paper shows how mere atoms can be used to represent a true statement.
More generally, logic is a description of how the material world progresses. Atoms progress in the material world. The fundamental truth of the cosmos is the actual state of affairs of the progressions of material.
True progressions of material represent true progressions of other material. Of course motions of atoms can correlate to other motions of atoms.
What exactly is supposed to be the problem with true motions of atoms representing truth?
Like every so-called "argument" from reason Haldane is immediately specious.
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