Tom Gilson replies to Barbara Forrest on Naturalism

This is Tom Gilson's critique of a Barbara Forrest essay in defense of naturalism. I had linked to the essay and suggested that it was a huge exercise in begging the question.

Lydia McGrew on the Naturalistic induction

Lydia formulates the "naturalistic induction" as follows. 

Most problems which were unexplained by science in purely naturalistic terms have now been explained by science in purely naturalistic terms. So, by direct induction, any alleged evidence against naturalism has a scientific explanation in purely naturalistic terms.

Science has made and continues to make such great progress throughout history, gradually whittling away at the set of things that were previously not scientifically understood, that whatever it is that you are presently bringing forth as evidence against naturalism, I am sure that science will eventually get to that in time and explain it, as well, as entirely the product of natural causes.

 And then she argues that this induction is not going to work. And this refers to the Balfour quote she references.

Vallicella on the naturalist version of fides quaerens intellectum

Do naturalists use the principle of faith seeking understanding. In this old post, Bill Vallicella argues that they do, rebutting some objections that I have heard from time to time from naturalists.

Barbara Forrest on Naturalism

A redated post. 

Is it just me, or is this a paper a gigantic exercise in begging the question? She wants both methodological naturalism and an argument that science refutes religion. But if the methodology of science couldn't have supported religion, how could it undermine religion?

The Argument from Reason: Its Scope and Limits (One More Time)

Again, I go back to Lewis on this. Lewis accepted the AFR against naturalism, and then accepted Absolute Idealism, which was extremely popular in his time. Then he found fault with Idealism and became a theist, and then finally a Christian. His argument against naturalism was a step on the way to theism, eliminating one of the major options. But he didn't take step into theism until later.




I am primarily concerned with what I would call the "great divide" between world-views for whom the mental is a basic cause, and world-views in which the mental is not a basic cause. If the AFR shows problems for the latter type of position, then I think the epistemic likelihood of theism becomes enhanced, as do all other "mentalistic" options.



I understand "naturalism" to encompass those world-views that are, at bottom, anti-mentalistic.



So we can distinguish two propositions:



A) The basic causes of the universe are mental in nature. They are inheretly perspectival, having a subject. They are inherently normative. Something being good or bad, or thought good or bad, has something to do with what goes on. They are intentional. What something is about makes a basic difference as to what happens in the world. They are also purposive. Purposes in human thought and action are not "skyhooks" that have to be analyzed out in favor of cranes. They are ground-level reasons why things happen.



b) What is fundamentally real is not inherently perspectival, is not inherently intentional, is not inherently normative, and is not inherently purposive. The appearance that these mental realities are operative in our world is a byproduct of biological evolution, and at the end of the day the skyhooks have to be replaced by cranes.



I have never said that you get theism automatically if the AFR is an effective argument for preferring A to B. When people point out non-theistic alternatives that are compatible with A, as if that were an answer to me, I have to say, with C. S. Lewis, "How many times does a man have to say something before he is safe from the accusation of having said exactly the opposite?"

More depressing than you could have imagined: Feser's response to Rosenberg on Naturalism

In this piece by Ed Feser, he responds to a piece by Alex Rosenberg in which Rosenberg details some of the "depressing" nihilistic implications of naturalism, but claims that these must be accepted because the onward march of science shows that naturalism is true. Feser claim that these "depressing" conclusions on the basis of naturalism actually show the incoherence of naturalism.

Here are some of the great moments in the history of science.

1) Archimedes inferred from the principle of bouyancy that the King's crown wasn't solid gold.
2) Galileo calculates the orbits of the planets and shows that Copernicus was right, and the earth really does move.
3) Newton develops calculus and infers the three laws of motion.
4) Darwin infers natural selection as the explanation for different beak sizes in the finches on the Galapagos islands.
5) Einstein develops his Theory of Relativity, based on Maxwell's equations.

Yes, science marches on. But if there no propositional mental states that cause other propositional mental states, none of the above statements are literally true! If it is a consequence of naturalism, and I think it is, that none of these statements is literally true, then these events don't support the case for naturalism, they undercut it decisively.

Naturalism without causal closure?

The problem has to do with causal closure. Presumably, you have matter moving in the universe without purpose, producing stars, then planets, then water, then life, (one-celled biological systems), then fish, dinosaurs, amphibians, mammals, primates, and then people. Now people presumably act for reasons, and suppose that mental causation is causally basic. Talk about a person becoming persuaded that atheism is true because of evidence from evil is not macro-talk for a physical process which is blind at the basic level but has mental characteristics as system features.




The question is how did tihs happen? What changed the physical order to make it possible for reasons to become basic causes. If people are acting for reasons, then either you've got to reduce reasons out of the causal transaction, or you've got matter acting in ways it doesn't ordinarily act when it's in a brain as opposed to when it's in a rock. Emergence of other kinds is one thing, but emergent laws? I suppose you can say that it's just a brute fact that matter is going to behave differently once a brain of a certain complexity emerges. But isn't this whole thing more probable given theism than it is given ordinary naturalism.



But suppose our motto is "anything but God." Well, then meet C. S. Lewis. According to his autobiography Lewis accepted the overall contours of the argument from reason, but he didn't become a theist at that point. No, he became an absolute idealist. He found other reasons for rejecting idealism and for becoming a theist. So while his acceptance of the AFR certainly helped to move him in the direction of theism, there were alternatives to traditional theism available to him. So while the AFR helps to get rid of certain very popular positions contrary to traditional Abrahamic theism, it doesn't eliminate all of them, nor did it persaude even C. S. Lewis to do so.



To avoid a large explanatory problem, however, I think people who are naturalists are best advised to defend versions of naturalism that include the three doctrines of mechanism (nothing mental at the basic level), causal closure of the physical, and supervenience.

Naturalism and Physicalism: A Response to Teague Tubach

This is a claim frequently urged, but I have yet to see it properly defended.
Teague Tubach: Physicalism and naturalism are not the same thing. Vic's blog and several comments here are confused about this, it seems.

I guess I do agree that they are different, all right. But how are they interestingly different, Teague? In physicalism, the basic stratum is the physical, and something can't be physical unless it lacks intentionality, subjectivity, normativity, and purpose. Everything else is a system byproduct of physics, which has nothing in it containing those four characteristics.

Naturalists, I suppose, could refuse to call the basic level the physical if they wanted to. But where would that get us? At the end of the day, we have to either affirm or deny that the mental, as I have described it, is operating causally at the most basic level of analysis. There could be naturalisms, I suppose, that were distinct from physicalism, but they would have exactly the difficulty that I have been posing for physicalism.