Plantinga's is an argument that is designed to be consistent with externalism. I have thought of it as the argument from the reliabillity of our rational faculties, though I think he ends up appealing to mental causation. However, I think there are some aspects of science that seem to require internalist accounts of knowledge. Sure, there's other knowledge, but for science to work a scientist has to be able to present his or her experimentaal process so that someone else can follow the same process and check to see if the result is the same. There are some kinds of knowledge where wee can say "It doesn't matter about the process so long as it's a reliable one." But if we are relying on that kind of knowledge in order for science to be possible, it won't work.
4 comments:
Victor,
"Plantinga's is an argument that is designed to be consistent with externalism."
Superficially only. Plantinga manifestly put no significant effort into learning about biological evolution, or maybe he was incapable of learning the basics, or maybe he just dishonestly ignored what he learned, dunno, I can't read his mind.
" I have thought of it as the argument from the reliabillity of our rational faculties,"
Our rational faculties cover a range of degrees of reliability that correlates to the importance of those faculties to reproduction, with survival being the primary requirement for reproduction. All this is just what one would expect on naturalism.
"though I think he ends up appealing to mental causation."
His primary appeal in EAAN is to the notion that there need be no connection between beliefs and truth. He has the rather silly idea that somehow living things can go bumbling about with all kinds of false beliefs about the immediate environment and do just as well in natural selection as animals that have true beliefs about the immediate environment.
I nearly fell out of my chair laughing at the stupidity of EAAN the first time I read it.
We have a lot of very highly accurate beliefs about the shape of material objects in our vicinity, objects that are or are not members of our own species, what is and is not food, if it is or is not cold or wet, how to hunt, gather, mate, and live in our environment.
We believe such true things, and our beliefs are highly convergent on truth on such matters because there is a strong selection pressure for us to believe true thoughts on those subjects.
On the other hand, it doesn't much matter what we think makes the stars shine, or what makes the wind blow, or how far away the moon is, or why the planets move as they do. There is little or no selection pressure for such beliefs, so as one would expect, different people believe all kinds of different falsehoods.
Plantinga's EAAN is preposterous. The range and sorts of true beliefs and false beliefs people do in fact have is just what one would expect on naturalism.
Victor,
Here is Plantinga in his own words.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=cs6zFymVKJM
He asserts that it doesn't matter if beliefs are true or false, only that they are adaptive.
Plantinga fails to grasp the starkly obvious, that true beliefs about one's environment are intrinsically highly adaptive, and false beliefs about one's environment are highly maladaptive.
If you believe a poisonous snake is a cuddly pet, what do you suppose is going to happen to you? In the harsh natural environment there are very few ways to get things right and a myriad ways to get things wrong, and wrong is likely going to kill you.
Somehow, Plantinga misses that glaringly obvious point.
Then he pulls the ratio 50/50 out of, apparently, a bodily orifice.
It gets worse.
Plantinga then goes on to claim the probability that our cognitive faculties are accurate is low. Really? For an animal living in the natural environment it is pretty much no problem to have cognitive faculties that lead to all kinds of false perceptions of our environment?
Plantinga has clearly never attempted to survive in the wild on his own, or considered with any depth what is required to do so.
"We all assume our cognitive faculties are reliable"
Yet another stunningly absurd claim by Plantinga.
The EAAN remains one of the most stunningly inane arguments against naturalism on offer.
@Stardusty:
Plantinga fails to grasp the starkly obvious, that true beliefs about one's environment are intrinsically highly adaptive, and false beliefs about one's environment are highly maladaptive.
No, he doesn't. You are just begging the question against Plantinga. The content of our beliefs has no causal powers (if epiphenomenalism is true). And materialism leads to epiphenomenalism. It's irrelevant what we believe, because beliefs don't cause behaviors (beliefs may accompany behaviors but not cause them).
If you believe a poisonous snake is a cuddly pet, what do you suppose is going to happen to you.
It depends. You may believe that it's a cuddly pet but that your daughter will get angry if you touch it. Or God. Or an evil demon. Or that touching a cuddly pet will make you bald. And then you would avoid touching it. The belief could be false but adaptive.
The EAAN remains one of the most stunningly inane arguments against naturalism on offer.
Nope. The EAAN is a very powerful argument against the conjunction of naturalism + evolution. Your 5-year-old level objections are which is truly inane.
Along with your general existence.
@Stardusty:
We have a lot of very highly accurate beliefs about the shape of material objects in our vicinity, objects that are or are not members of our own species, what is and is not food, if it is or is not cold or wet, how to hunt, gather, mate, and live in our environment.
Perceptions are not beliefs. A perception of water may be accompanied by a belief that 'water is the work of the gods'. The sensual perception can't be false. The belief that accompanies it, can. About food, yes. About what is healthy food, not. Because the concept 'healthy' implies scientific knowledge. And scientific knowledge implies beliefs. Which can be right or wrong. And if naturalism is true (which is not), then trusting our beliefs becomes a very complicated task. Natural Selection can't 'see' our beliefs, and therefore NS can't make us discern which ones are wrong or which ones are right. Natural Selection can't 'select' what doesn't fall under its purview. The key word being 'belief'.
I nearly fell out of my chair laughing at the stupidity of EAAN the first time I read it.
But you are a profoundly stupid and intellectually challenged individual. You prove that you don't have a clue about what Plantinga is getting at.
Not a surprise, though.
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