Gary Gutting teaches philosophy at the University of Notre Dame and co-edits Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, an on-line book review journal. His most recent book is “What Philosophers Know: Case Studies in Recent Analytic Philosophy.” He published an article "On Dawkins’s Atheism: A Response" for the Opinionator column of the NY Times on August 11. Towards the end of the article he makes the following assertion regarding the status of materialism:
"At this point, the dispute between theists and atheists morphs into one of the most lively (and difficult) of current philosophical debates—that between those who think consciousness is somehow reducible to material brain-states and those who think it is not. This debate is far from settled and at least shows that materialism is not something atheists can simply assert as an established fact. It follows that they have no good basis for treating the existence of God as so improbable that it should be denied unless there is decisive proof for it. This in turn shows that atheists are at best entitled to be agnostics, seriously doubting but not denying the existence of God."
The fact is that we have excellent evidence that consciousness (thoughts, feelings, desires, etc.) exists only as a material product of a nervous system and brain: Consciousness manifests itself according to both absolute brain size (because brain resources are needed to produce consciousness) and brain size relative to body size (since brain resources are also devoted to supporting bodily functions). Therefore consciousness is a material phenomena. This method of reaching conclusions is called logical best fit on the overall weight of the available evidence. We don't have to be professional scientists or philosophers to adopt this method of applied logic, its freely available to everyone and in fact its commonly recognized as the best method. We can adopt this method and at the same time recognize that some phenomena may be too complex, indeterminate, or informationally hidden to fully understand scientifically. We don't have perfect methods for finding the ultimate truth, we cannot have perfect and complete knowledge, but we do have a reliable method versus non-reliable methods for justifying beliefs.
Furthermore, we cannot properly conclude that our present ignorance, or even the inevitability of our future ignorance, is evidence for "immaterial realities" in general or for any god in particular. Theists tend to favor appeals to ignorance as evidence for god, personal interpretations of personal experiences as evidence for god, argument by assertion of possibilities as evidence for god, what I call "the dog eats the homework" and other excuses for not having, or even needing, supporting empirical evidence, and the like. These are unreliable methods for justifying beliefs, and poor excuses for not relying on evidence, that rational people rightly reject in many other contexts as seriously flawed and should also reject here.
As far as doubting versus denying, we should hold our beliefs in proportion to the evidence. If little evidence is for, and much evidence is against, then denying is more appropriate than doubting. There is very little in the way of solid evidence favoring god, so given the ample evidence against, god denial is proportional to the evidence. Gary Gutting fails, completely, to put forward evidence for any gods in his article.
Furthermore, we don't need "decisive proof" to deny a far-fetched hypothesis. We have no decisive proof that the sun will "rise" tomorrow, yet we are justified in denying that tomorrow our sun will inexplicably disappear from the universe. Most, if not all, of our knowledge is contingent and probabilistic, its based on weight of the evidence. Outside of mathematics and pure logic we don't have "decisive proof", no one operates by such an impractical standard. Its a double standard to assert, as Gary Gutting does, that atheism, and apparently only atheism, be required to adhere to such an impossible standard.
Gary Gutting disputes Dawkins' assertion that god as "a highly complex being would itself require explanation". However, the evidence that we have is that intelligence of the sort attributed to god requires brains and brains are complex. So, putting aside the obvious dubiousness of the assumption that an all-knowing being is feasible, an all-knowing being would be very complex indeed on a weight of the available evidence standard. Why should we abandon weight of the evidence for any particular other "possibilities", as Gary Gutting advocates? Theological arguments that weight of the evidence isn't the proper standard are cited, but please pardon me when I assert that those arguments are all sophistry. If Dawkins' "ignores those discussions" then I say good for him. If more people took such weightless, arbitrary, and unjustified possibilities as "god" being the "necessary being" less seriously then we would have more rational deliberations. Gary Gutting accuses Dawkins' of taking leaps, but going from the universe exists to "necessary being" and then from "necessary being" to "god" are leaps greater than any leaps found in the contents of Dawkins' arguments for atheism.
Gary Gutting then cites public opinion favoring the existence of god as evidence for god. If the overall weight of the evidence is against public opinion then majority public most likely is wrong, as it has occasionally been wrong throughout history. The fact is that there are many bad reasons for people to believe in gods and we have multiple sources of evidence that people's beliefs regarding gods have little to do with the facts of the matter and much to do with human emotional and intellectual limitations. For example, it is implausible that a majority of beliefs about gods throughout history are true because those beliefs are self-contradictory and mutually exclusive, so we have good reason to think that people's ubiquitous beliefs about gods are wrong.
I am most unimpressed with the free floating, unanchored, evidence-less, philosophizing for god belief on the basis of mere possibilities that Gary Gutting promotes. We have no good justification for taking such arguments seriously.
"At this point, the dispute between theists and atheists morphs into one of the most lively (and difficult) of current philosophical debates—that between those who think consciousness is somehow reducible to material brain-states and those who think it is not. This debate is far from settled and at least shows that materialism is not something atheists can simply assert as an established fact. It follows that they have no good basis for treating the existence of God as so improbable that it should be denied unless there is decisive proof for it. This in turn shows that atheists are at best entitled to be agnostics, seriously doubting but not denying the existence of God."
The fact is that we have excellent evidence that consciousness (thoughts, feelings, desires, etc.) exists only as a material product of a nervous system and brain: Consciousness manifests itself according to both absolute brain size (because brain resources are needed to produce consciousness) and brain size relative to body size (since brain resources are also devoted to supporting bodily functions). Therefore consciousness is a material phenomena. This method of reaching conclusions is called logical best fit on the overall weight of the available evidence. We don't have to be professional scientists or philosophers to adopt this method of applied logic, its freely available to everyone and in fact its commonly recognized as the best method. We can adopt this method and at the same time recognize that some phenomena may be too complex, indeterminate, or informationally hidden to fully understand scientifically. We don't have perfect methods for finding the ultimate truth, we cannot have perfect and complete knowledge, but we do have a reliable method versus non-reliable methods for justifying beliefs.
Furthermore, we cannot properly conclude that our present ignorance, or even the inevitability of our future ignorance, is evidence for "immaterial realities" in general or for any god in particular. Theists tend to favor appeals to ignorance as evidence for god, personal interpretations of personal experiences as evidence for god, argument by assertion of possibilities as evidence for god, what I call "the dog eats the homework" and other excuses for not having, or even needing, supporting empirical evidence, and the like. These are unreliable methods for justifying beliefs, and poor excuses for not relying on evidence, that rational people rightly reject in many other contexts as seriously flawed and should also reject here.
As far as doubting versus denying, we should hold our beliefs in proportion to the evidence. If little evidence is for, and much evidence is against, then denying is more appropriate than doubting. There is very little in the way of solid evidence favoring god, so given the ample evidence against, god denial is proportional to the evidence. Gary Gutting fails, completely, to put forward evidence for any gods in his article.
Furthermore, we don't need "decisive proof" to deny a far-fetched hypothesis. We have no decisive proof that the sun will "rise" tomorrow, yet we are justified in denying that tomorrow our sun will inexplicably disappear from the universe. Most, if not all, of our knowledge is contingent and probabilistic, its based on weight of the evidence. Outside of mathematics and pure logic we don't have "decisive proof", no one operates by such an impractical standard. Its a double standard to assert, as Gary Gutting does, that atheism, and apparently only atheism, be required to adhere to such an impossible standard.
Gary Gutting disputes Dawkins' assertion that god as "a highly complex being would itself require explanation". However, the evidence that we have is that intelligence of the sort attributed to god requires brains and brains are complex. So, putting aside the obvious dubiousness of the assumption that an all-knowing being is feasible, an all-knowing being would be very complex indeed on a weight of the available evidence standard. Why should we abandon weight of the evidence for any particular other "possibilities", as Gary Gutting advocates? Theological arguments that weight of the evidence isn't the proper standard are cited, but please pardon me when I assert that those arguments are all sophistry. If Dawkins' "ignores those discussions" then I say good for him. If more people took such weightless, arbitrary, and unjustified possibilities as "god" being the "necessary being" less seriously then we would have more rational deliberations. Gary Gutting accuses Dawkins' of taking leaps, but going from the universe exists to "necessary being" and then from "necessary being" to "god" are leaps greater than any leaps found in the contents of Dawkins' arguments for atheism.
Gary Gutting then cites public opinion favoring the existence of god as evidence for god. If the overall weight of the evidence is against public opinion then majority public most likely is wrong, as it has occasionally been wrong throughout history. The fact is that there are many bad reasons for people to believe in gods and we have multiple sources of evidence that people's beliefs regarding gods have little to do with the facts of the matter and much to do with human emotional and intellectual limitations. For example, it is implausible that a majority of beliefs about gods throughout history are true because those beliefs are self-contradictory and mutually exclusive, so we have good reason to think that people's ubiquitous beliefs about gods are wrong.
I am most unimpressed with the free floating, unanchored, evidence-less, philosophizing for god belief on the basis of mere possibilities that Gary Gutting promotes. We have no good justification for taking such arguments seriously.
No comments:
Post a Comment