1. If
naturalism is a rational position, then science is a legitimate way of knowing
the world, if not the only legitimate way of knowing the world.
2. If
science is a legitimate way of knowing the world, then some people infer their
beliefs from other beliefs. This is essential to the scientific method.
3. If
some people infer beliefs from other beliefs, then some things in reality act
for reasons.
4. But
if naturalism is true, nothing in reality acts for reasons. Everything acts due
to non-rational causes.
5. Therefore,
if naturalism is true, science is not a legitimate way of knowing the world.
6. Therefore,
if naturalism is true, naturalism is not a rational position.
7. If
a thesis can be a rational position only if the position is false, then that thesis
if not a rational position.
8. Therefore,
naturalism is not a rational position.
9 comments:
I'm not sure what you mean by "legitimate way". I'm also unsure of "acts for reasons". Can you describe them so they are used in the same way throughout the proof?
At the risk of asking a dumb question, why think (4) is true? It seems to either beg the question or at the very least take for granted something a naturalist would likely deny.
Equivocation
beliefs
reasons
causes
" If some people infer beliefs from other beliefs, then some things in reality act for reasons."
The reasons for their reasons are the causes of their reasons.
"But if naturalism is true, nothing in reality acts for reasons. Everything acts due to non-rational causes."
The causes are the reasons for the reasons. Or the causes of the reasons are natural causes.
This post is just equivocation.
Here is nice clear syllogism for you:
1.If naturalism is true then our perceived reasons are reduceable to natural causes.
2.Our perceived reasons are reduceable to natural causes.
3.Therefore naturalism is true.
4 is of course where the heavy lifting is going to have to come in. Here's a good source for it, from someone other than me.
https://www.academia.edu/91219001/The_Argument_from_Reason_and_Mental_Causal_Drainage
Stardusty: You just affirmed the consequent.
Victor,
That was the point.
Anybody can make up "arguments" filled with fallacies such as equivocation and all the rest.
There is no "argument" against naturalism based on reason, evolution, ID, or irreducible complexity that rises above sophistry.
But I can look at the structure of your argument and show that it affirms the consequent. You just throw fallacy charges out there without showing why it commits that fallacy. I wrote a whole published paper in a philosophy journal oncd analyzing arguments to see under what circumstances begging the queestion is a fallacy. I got a dissertation on this argument past a highly skeptical committee to get a docotral degree. If the whole thing were that stupid, they would never have passed me (though they disagreed on lots of stuff).
Victor,
No, actually a lot of PhDs are wrong about lots of stuff.
I have shown again and again how the so-called argument from reason is just so much sophistry, only to have you come back to claim I have not done so.
But, I see you have a couple new posts I have not yet looked at...
" But if naturalism is true, nothing in reality acts for reasons. Everything acts due to non-rational causes."
Equivocation.
Causes are the reasons, alternatively, reasons are composed of causes.
What we call reasons are the aggregate of natural causes.
There is no argument from reason that rises above simplistic sophistry.
You cannot philosophize your way to understanding how you think, it can't be done because you do not have the introspective capacity to analyze the mechanisms of your own brain, none of us do.
Learning how the brain works can only be accomplished by scientific research.
You cannot just think about how the brain works and figure it out from introspection and logic.
"But if naturalism is true, nothing in reality acts for reasons. Everything acts due to non-rational causes."
If naturalism is true then what we call human reasons are the aggregate of non-rational causes.
The rest of your argument falls apart once your error of equivocation is corrected.
If you put this sort of thing into a PhD dissertation I would fail you at your defense. My advise to you would be to go do some research into naturalism, reductionism, neuroscience, and the limits of introspection in the field of cognitive research. Throw out your nonsense that you submitted and come back in a couple years with a dissertation that rises above simplistic sophistry.
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