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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Eric Hovinds presuppositionalism argument
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Dafyd
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# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by George Spigot:
I have to admit I'd find it...disconcerting to debate with someone who believed I was lying.
As I understand it from what has been said in this thread, it is closer to the claim one sometimes gets on the internet that the reason one party is getting angry is that deep down they know the other party is right; or perhaps to Freudian ascriptions of repressed knowledge.
Of course, those kinds of claim are also pretty annoying and don't conduce to constructive debate, but they're not quite the same as ascriptions of conscious adishonesty.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by George Spigot:
I have to admit I'd find it...disconcerting to debate with someone who believed I was lying.
As I understand it from what has been said in this thread, it is closer to the claim one sometimes gets on the internet that the reason one party is getting angry is that deep down they know the other party is right; or perhaps to Freudian ascriptions of repressed knowledge.
Of course, those kinds of claim are also pretty annoying and don't conduce to constructive debate, but they're not quite the same as ascriptions of conscious adishonesty.
Does this mean that presuppers don't think that you could ever be convinced by their argument, (or even understand it), in any case, since you are blinded by sin, or in denial about the obvious existence of God? It would give a piquant flavour to any debate. There is a debate between Bruggencate and Dillahunty on youtube, but it's 2 hours long. Too long.
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
I managed an hour of it, and then my wife knocked on the door, and told me to stop screaming. It's like eating cardboard.
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chris stiles
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# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I managed an hour of it, and then my wife knocked on the door, and told me to stop screaming. It's like eating cardboard.
There are a couple of videos of Hitchens debating Doug Wilson that are similar.
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
Dillahunty is very slick but rather mechanical; Bruggencate is weird, and keeps asking D how he knows anything. D looks like a real pro, but, man, it's so boring.
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chris stiles
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# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Dillahunty is very slick but rather mechanical; Bruggencate is weird, and keeps asking D how he knows anything. D looks like a real pro, but, man, it's so boring.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6UU9C-WmvM
There you go. There is also a film featuring a debate, which includes little vignettes of them agreeing over other topics.
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Dafyd
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# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Does this mean that presuppers don't think that you could ever be convinced by their argument, (or even understand it), in any case, since you are blinded by sin, or in denial about the obvious existence of God? It would give a piquant flavour to any debate.
I think for any Christian no purely natural means can bring about faith; only grace can do that. God can however ordain that particular natural occasions are the occasion for grace.
The implications of this get a bit tricky if you're not a universalist obviously.
For Calvinists more so - and Calvinists are quite prepared to bite the bullet on the implications. So I suppose the presuppositionalists hope that God will use their apologetics as the occasion for grace, or at least the occasion for human beings to realise their own insufficiency without God.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
Quite. IME it's materialists conflating knowledge and certainty which is where a bit of this can be useful.
IME other than new atheist converts, materialists beyond their teen years don't take any stock in "certainty" at all.
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Leprechaun
Ship's Poison Elf
# 5408
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
Quite. IME it's materialists conflating knowledge and certainty which is where a bit of this can be useful.
IME other than new atheist converts, materialists beyond their teen years don't take any stock in "certainty" at all.
Tell that to Richard Dawkins.
But I meet materialists all the time saying stuff like "I don't take stuff on faith, I only accept what I can be certain of." I'm quite willing to concede that the ones I know are weird. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
Quite. IME it's materialists conflating knowledge and certainty which is where a bit of this can be useful.
IME other than new atheist converts, materialists beyond their teen years don't take any stock in "certainty" at all.
Tell that to Richard Dawkins.
Who is stuck in a seemingly endless adolescence of lashing out against that which he does not understand. One wonders if his prefrontal cortex ever really got hooked up right.
I will admit that perhaps my slice of experience is unbalanced. Most of the vocal atheists I have known have been philosophy grad students, who know better than to bark about chimerae like "certainty."
[ 05. March 2015, 13:35: Message edited by: mousethief ]
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by George Spigot:
Could we argue then that a presuppositional argument is begging the question?
It's often described like that, or as just circular. If God, therefore God. I suppose one of their tactics, is to challenge the other person's presuppositions; hence, how do you know what you know.
But I think there is some sleight of hand also, in the way that certainty and doubt are handled; hence, in the OP, 'you don't know anything'. Not correct.
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Beeswax Altar
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# 11644
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by George Spigot:
Could we argue then that a presuppositional argument is begging the question?
Van Til would say that all reasoning is ultimately circular. Indeed, Van Til argued that even logic should not be presupposed by Christians. Still, presuppositionalists will allow their opponents to presuppose their worldview for the sake of argument. The argument is that presupposing anything but the God of the Bible leads to a contradictory and incoherent worldview. This is what the Hovinds is getting at when making the point about the atheist's worldview versus his own.
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Dafyd
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# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by George Spigot:
Could we argue then that a presuppositional argument is begging the question?
As I understand it, there's a strong version and a weak version.
The weaker version goes, 'everyone has presuppositions; I am honest about it, and some of your commitments mean you cannot be.'
The stronger version, I suppose, would go, 'the only coherent possible set of presuppositions are mine'. That seems to me rather stronger than could ever be warranted. But it's not exactly begging the question.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Jay-Emm
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# 11411
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
We've quoted one Lewis, but the other one has something relevant.
Lewis C
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Teufelchen
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# 10158
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by George Spigot:
Could we argue then that a presuppositional argument is begging the question?
As I understand it, there's a strong version and a weak version.
The weaker version goes, 'everyone has presuppositions; I am honest about it, and some of your commitments mean you cannot be.'
The stronger version, I suppose, would go, 'the only coherent possible set of presuppositions are mine'. That seems to me rather stronger than could ever be warranted. But it's not exactly begging the question.
This sounds a bit like Terry Pratchett's account of the Anthropic Principle, in which the strongest form is roughly expressed as "The universe came into being to facilitate the creation of the Chair of Applied Anthropics and its current occupant".
t
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Little devil
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Eliab
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# 9153
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Posted
I listened to the debate. Hovind doesn't come across well. His atheist opponent seemed both smarter and nicer, but not much of a debater.
She clearly wasn't remotely interested in the whole 'what is truth/how do you know' stuff, and wanted, not unreasonably, to discuss the actual claims and practices of religion, but Hovind wouldn't move on even after it was clear the subject was a dead end, and she failed to engage with him, because, I think, she suspect that his questions were designed to trap, so even when he set out premises that she couldn't disagree with, she didn't have the confidence to agree either.
If I were an atheist answering the argument, I'd try something like this:
"I see where you're going. If materialism is true, all my thought processes are at least potentially subject to interference from non-rational causes. My sense data and my conclusions from it are therefore somewhat precarious - I could always be deceived. OK. I agree.
And I also agree that my degree of certainty that my world view is true can at most be the maximum degree of certainty that my world view permits me to have in any other conclusion. That follows necessarily. And I've already agreed that my knowledge cannot be absolutely certain, so my confidence in atheism similarly cannot be absolute. But my thoughts and knowledge are, in general, good enough for most practical purposes.
The upshot of that is that IF materialism is true, the maximum level of justified confidence is in principle lower than it would be if theism was true. But that doesn't get us very far - we both agree that this is a question that lots of people get wrong, we just disagree about which they are. Human reasoning on this point clearly is not infallible, whichever of us is right. I don't claim to be able to prove atheism to mathematical certainty - you've established that I couldn't even if I wanted to. Shall we move on?"
It wouldn't work against Hovind, because he'd keep pushing false dichotomies, but it does at least engage with his legitimately points.
From the Christian point of view, I think the argument can be legitimately made that any worldview has to at least establish grounds for reasonable confidence that the thinking by which we arrive at that worldview is valid. Reconciling materialism (which at least arguably implies determinism) with the proposition that mental processes can be valid truth insights is a problem that atheism has to address: if all the atoms in my brain are only obeying physical laws, the idea that they have happened upon a reliable truth-finding strategy of general applicability is certainly not an obvious one. If the difficulty were insurmountable - if we can't on a materialist worldview justify valid thought, consciousness, free will, objective right and wrong - and yet are in practice convinced they exist, we have a reason not to be materialist.
Hovind, in the sample debate, didn't get anywhere near proving that, though, and if he had proved it, he'd be a long way off justifying Christianity, creationism, homophobia and the other issues that his opponent was trying to get him to address.
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Richard Dawkins
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
I think that the problem of consciousness has led some atheist philosophers to abandon materialism. For example, Chalmers, who has discussed the 'hard problem' at length, is a dualist; other solutions are panpsychism and idealism, although maybe the latter leads us inexorably back to God. Also, dual aspect monism, which, curiously, was favoured by Bertrand Russell for a period.
Also, I'm not sure about Buddhist and Hindu atheists; and some atheists seem to reject all metaphysics.
[ 06. March 2015, 23:03: Message edited by: quetzalcoatl ]
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Martin60
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# 368
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
quote:
Originally posted by George Spigot:
Could we argue then that a presuppositional argument is begging the question?
Van Til would say that all reasoning is ultimately circular. Indeed, Van Til argued that even logic should not be presupposed by Christians. Still, presuppositionalists will allow their opponents to presuppose their worldview for the sake of argument. The argument is that presupposing anything but the God of the Bible leads to a contradictory and incoherent worldview. This is what the Hovinds is getting at when making the point about the atheist's worldview versus his own.
Van Til isn't wrong. And presupposing the God of the Bible leads to a contradictory and incoherent worldview.
I, of course, superiorly presuppose a pre- and post- Biblical God. Which leads to a superior contradictory and incoherent worldview.
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Love wins
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HughWillRidmee
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# 15614
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Posted
Moses knowses
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The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things.. but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them...
W. K. Clifford, "The Ethics of Belief" (1877)
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kankucho
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# 14318
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Posted
This from the OP:
quote:
A: "But I could argue the same thing. How do you know god exists?"
E: "Because I have divine revelation from god".
A: "But you just said we can't know anything".
E: "No no that's your world view not mine".
The atheist's subsequent line of questioning – which I haven't gleaned from the comments so far – should be: "via what receptor does God reveal himself to you? And "could that receptor be wrong?"
Because with this claim all Hovind is doing is saying he hears a voice inside his head or has a warm, fuzzy feeling that a benign unseen presence is watching over him (perhaps someone with enough time on their hands to have watched the linked video in its entirety would tell us whether Hovind unwraps the specific details of his revelatory experience). The supposed revelation is only coming from God IF God exists. If God DOESN'T exist, the presuppositionalist is just another schizophrenic.
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Beeswax Altar
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# 11644
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Posted
No...the presuppositionalist wouldn't appeal to religious experience as evidence of divine revelation. For them, the Bible is divine revelation. How do they know it's divine revelation? They don't know that it is necessarily. However, the next phase of presuppositional apologetics is to demonstrate how rational thought only makes sense by presupposing that the Bible is divine revelation. Basically, presuppositional apologists use questions as a sword and biblical prooftexts as a buckler.
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by kankucho:
This from the OP:
quote:
A: "But I could argue the same thing. How do you know god exists?"
E: "Because I have divine revelation from god".
A: "But you just said we can't know anything".
E: "No no that's your world view not mine".
The atheist's subsequent line of questioning – which I haven't gleaned from the comments so far – should be: "via what receptor does God reveal himself to you? And "could that receptor be wrong?"
Because with this claim all Hovind is doing is saying he hears a voice inside his head or has a warm, fuzzy feeling that a benign unseen presence is watching over him (perhaps someone with enough time on their hands to have watched the linked video in its entirety would tell us whether Hovind unwraps the specific details of his revelatory experience). The supposed revelation is only coming from God IF God exists. If God DOESN'T exist, the presuppositionalist is just another schizophrenic.
Well, OK, but the schizophrenia reference is bollocks. You're not really going to say that religion is a mental illness, are you?
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kankucho
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# 14318
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Posted
Leaving aside any number of begged counter-arguments, an honest conclusion may then be acceptance that there is no such thing as rational thought: merely IRrational thought with attitude. Acceptance/ mindfulness of that makes the godless universe not such a bad place. There's What Is and there's how consciousness perceives What Is from a myriad of perspectives (Buddhism has neat expressions for that: 'kyo' and 'chi', the idea being that reality is a fusion of the two). It's an inability to deal with the possible impossibility ( ![[Ultra confused]](graemlins/confused2.gif) ) of objective thought that sends people scuttling for such imagined comfort blankets as presuppositionalism.
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"We are a way for the cosmos to know itself" – Dr. Carl Sagan
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by kankucho:
Leaving aside any number of begged counter-arguments, an honest conclusion may then be acceptance that there is no such thing as rational thought: merely IRrational thought with attitude. Acceptance/ mindfulness of that makes the godless universe not such a bad place. There's What Is and there's how consciousness perceives What Is from a myriad of perspectives (Buddhism has neat expressions for that: 'kyo' and 'chi', the idea being that reality is a fusion of the two). It's an inability to deal with the possible impossibility ( ) of objective thought that sends people scuttling for such imagined comfort blankets as presuppositionalism.
That's interesting; I've spent about a year debating objective morality, (elsewhere), and I think you're right. The absence of objectivity seems to freak some people out. I blame the parents.
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by kankucho:
Because with this claim all Hovind is doing is saying he hears a voice inside his head or has a warm, fuzzy feeling that a benign unseen presence is watching over him (perhaps someone with enough time on their hands to have watched the linked video in its entirety would tell us whether Hovind unwraps the specific details of his revelatory experience). The supposed revelation is only coming from God IF God exists. If God DOESN'T exist, the presuppositionalist is just another schizophrenic.
No, it's a better argument than that. He's not appealing to personal experience, but saying, in effect, that you can only have confidence that a worldview is true, if that worldview gives you reasons for thinking that human sense data and reasoning is valid.
Suppose I were to say that my worldview was that all human thought was the direct physical result of the random firing of synapses, and there was no reason to suppose that the experience that emerges has anything but random content. It is (I hope) obvious that I could never have any good reason for thinking that this worldview was true. I have denied the possibility of having a good reason for believing anything.
Hovind is saying that his worldview allows for the possibility of his thoughts NOT being merely the consequence of random (or deterministic) physical causes. His challenge to the atheist is a real one - can atheism provide a basis for thought being valid at all? His error was pursuing that philosophical line in a debate with an opponent who wasn't remotely interested in engaging with it, and nonetheless pushing it well past the bounds of utility, entertainment and courtesy.
There is an argument with real weight concealed behind the bluster - although it doesn't prove that atheism/materialism is actually false. At best it could only establish that if atheism/materialism were true, we couldn't have any rational grounds for asserting that with confidence.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Isn't instrumentalism one of the replies to that? For example, that science is not aiming for truth or reality? But science works, more or less; it's a tool, or a method, not a philosophy. Hence, methodological naturalism does not say, there is only nature.
Well, this is akin to postmodernism, but let's not go there.
[ 19. March 2015, 16:35: Message edited by: quetzalcoatl ]
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kankucho
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# 14318
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
quote:
Originally posted by kankucho:
Because with this claim all Hovind is doing is saying he hears a voice inside his head or has a warm, fuzzy feeling that a benign unseen presence is watching over him (perhaps someone with enough time on their hands to have watched the linked video in its entirety would tell us whether Hovind unwraps the specific details of his revelatory experience). The supposed revelation is only coming from God IF God exists. If God DOESN'T exist, the presuppositionalist is just another schizophrenic.
No, it's a better argument than that. He's not appealing to personal experience, but saying, in effect, that you can only have confidence that a worldview is true, if that worldview gives you reasons for thinking that human sense data and reasoning is valid...
But that challenge cannot be the meaning of, nor justification for, "I have divine revelation from god", which can only be interpreted as a claim to his own experience. If he's not prepared to satisfactorily unwrap that claim before shifting the locus to his opponent's grounds for certainty, then the debate should be declared in his opponent's favour at that point.
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
That's a good point; from what I've seen of debates with presuppers, they launch attack after attack on the other speaker's ability to know anything, but smugly assume their own incorrigibility. Hence, get your retaliation in first.
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Beeswax Altar
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# 11644
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Posted
quote:
originally posted by kanchuko:
But that challenge cannot be the meaning of, nor justification for, "I have divine revelation from god", which can only be interpreted as a claim to his own experience. If he's not prepared to satisfactorily unwrap that claim before shifting the locus to his opponent's grounds for certainty, then the debate should be declared in his opponent's favour at that point.
He isn't claiming he has divine revelation from God. He's claiming that the Bible is divine revelation from God. The proof is that rational thought is impossible without the Bible. Before you question if the Bible is the word of God, the presuppositional apologist will want you to establish the basis for your attack. Again, he will have prooftexts at the ready to justify any question you ask. If you claim to reject the notion of rational thought, the questioning will then turn to probing to see if you actually live as if you reject the possibility of rational thought. If you suggest a different religion, the questioning will then turn to the claims of that religion.
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
Looking at it again, the presupp side just seems sour and empty and uncharitable to me. What a ghastly and immature way to discuss anything. I watched one of the debates and it made me feel ill.
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Beeswax Altar
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# 11644
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Posted
Which I'm obliged to tell you is a strong indication that you are among the preterite and will burn in hell
Not that you can do anything about it or anything.
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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-Og: King of Bashan
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kankucho
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# 14318
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
He isn't claiming he has divine revelation from God.
I quoted the exact words attributed to him in the OP. They were 'I have a divine revelation from God'.
I appreciate the OP is a summary. However, if he's actually claiming that his revelation comes from having read a book, then he has to account for the same problem of unreliable sensory perception that he accuses his opponent of.
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Kankucho Bird Blues
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Beeswax Altar
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# 11644
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Posted
The Bible is the divine revelation from God. It provides the basis for presuppositional apologists epistemology. Using reason only makes sense if you presuppose the existence of God of the Bible. The presuppositionalist presupposes that. So, his use of reason makes sense. He wants to know why you can claim to know anything without presupposing the existence of the God of the Bible.
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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
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Beeswax Altar
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# 11644
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Posted
Only if you can demonstrate that he is wrong. Again, new atheist arguments consist of ridiculing straw men and smugly proclaiming long discredited philosophical ideas as what all the smart people believe. The next new atheist I see who isn't an asshole arguing in bad faith will be the first.
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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
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HughWillRidmee
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# 15614
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Only if you can demonstrate that he is wrong. Again, new atheist arguments consist of ridiculing straw men and smugly proclaiming long discredited philosophical ideas as what all the smart people believe. The next new atheist I see who isn't an asshole arguing in bad faith will be the first.
1- I'm definitely an old atheist, but feel free to consider me an asshole if it makes you happy.
2 - I have real and adopted relatives in UK and US who fervently believe that the earth was made by God as it is (almost) some 6000ish years ago, that their God can, and does, suspend the laws of physics with impunity, and that the sun shines out of the rear end of Eric Hovind and his ilk. Your straw man is not their straw man and they will be as sure of their philosophical superiority as you appear to be of yours.
3 - What I suspect you have in common with said relations is the belief in a deity, that said deity somehow interacts with humanity, that people are bad and the deity is good, that humanity should defer to an undemonstrable concept, that science is OK when it does what you want but not when it doesn't fit with your beliefs, that said deity loves us, will inflict heaven or not-heaven on us and is useless with money. Are some/all/none of these long discredited philosophical ideas?
Sorry if I've misconstrued your beliefs. The reason that the "straw man/you don't understand my belief" line is so superficially successful is because there are so many different versions of Christian belief that each Christian (unless they take the view that "whatever my church/pastor believes is what I believe") holds a unique belief package. I spent time last spring with a delightful guy who believes that Obama is a Muslim, that the earth is less than 10k years old, that every word in the Bible is inspired by a triune God and therefore somehow true, that saying the "sinner's prayer" guarantees heaven, the office of pastor is limited to men, that Christians must oppose homosexuality (since being gay is a demon-inspired choice by the individual), that marriage has always been between one man and one woman (I don't think he's heard of the stories about King Solomon)....but when I mentioned "speaking in tongues" explained quite forcefully that that was only granted to the apostles (as in 12) and anyone who claimed to do so today is a Pentecostalist and just play-acting. Finding that lot out took many minutes and leaves huge areas of his (totally sincere) christianity untouched.
Have you watched The Courtier's Reply
Would you consider it necessary to immerse yourself in the great expositions of astrology before deciding that the apparent location of various suns is unlikely to be linked to whether you will meet a man wearing a pink hat on next Tuesday rather than next Wednesday?
I know that there are many books written about fairies, some with several full page colour plates, I know that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle believed in them and that Disney has several web pages devoted to them; should I expect to find a colony larking around at the bottom of my garden?
What reason do we have for assuming that the ideas which you think have replaced the "long discredited philosophical ideas" won't themselves, ere long, be the next generation of "long discredited philosophical ideas"?
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The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things.. but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them...
W. K. Clifford, "The Ethics of Belief" (1877)
Posts: 894 | From: Middle England | Registered: Apr 2010
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Beeswax Altar
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# 11644
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Posted
Thank you for proving my point. Heck, you prove the presuppositionalists point. The verification principle is self refuting. It Wil always be self refuting. If some new atheist would like to demonstrate how it isn't, I'll be happy to listen. Until then, new atheism is nothing more than logical fallacies supported by appeals to more logical fallacies. While presuppositions apologetics is not likely to win many converts, it does at least start the debate where it has to be started.
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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
Which atheists follow verificationism? I thought that was dumped by Popper in the 30s?
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
Have you watched The Courtier's Reply
Ah - the Richard Dawkins Charter for the Construction of Straw Men?
quote:
Would you consider it necessary to immerse yourself in the great expositions of astrology before deciding that the apparent location of various suns is unlikely to be linked to whether you will meet a man wearing a pink hat on next Tuesday rather than next Wednesday?
Do astrologers really think they can predict whether you will meet a man wearing a pink hat on Tuesday rather than Wednesday?
Rather more importantly, I am not writing books about why astrology is wrong. I am not posting on a website for astrological unrest.
I cannot engage with and evaluate every belief system that differs from mine. The principle of selection is the people with whom I interact. Not whether my straw man construction of their ideas meets my a priori standards of argument. That would be just an excuse for me to evade criticism of my beliefs.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
One of the interesting aspects of the presupp position is that it seems ultra-skeptical, at least to others' claims, but argues that it is vouchsafed certain knowledge of some kinds by God.
This sounds rather like Pyrrhonism, which I think Hume, amongst others, resurrected, for example, in the discussion of history - how do we know that Caesar crossed the Rubicon, and so on. Some writers argue also that Popper incorporated Pyrrhonism into his thinking, but I don't know enough about that.
Anyway, the ultra-skeptic can indeed say that knowledge is impossible. What is the opponent to say (not always an atheist, by the way)?
Well, Popper argued that science is always an approximation; you can also cite the role of guesswork, but your guesses have to be tested via further observations.
In a more homely manner, I don't know that the sun will rise tomorrow, but I can guess that it will, and lo and behold, it seems to work.
I think here the presuppers might say that my knowledge is not rationally founded; well, I think that's true, it's non-rational rather than irrational, however.
Here you usually get arguments about tools and so on - for example, I can use a certain type of logic as a tool, but I adopt it by fiat. That's the work it works, and by gum, it does work. I believe Mr Dawkins has the rather indelicate saying, 'science, it works, bitches'. Dear me.
There is further stuff about science not aiming for reality, but that is controversial, bitches.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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# 76
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Posted
Aye, Quetz. That's the thing. It works. Mostly.
It seems to me that the argument's just pushing the "how can you really know?" argument back a notch, to "God said so." I'm not sure why the presupposition of the existence of God is so much better than the presupposition that we can on the whole trust our senses; the latter gives us space travel, computers, modern medicine and telly. The former - well, only stuff you can perceive by faith, it seems, apart from crusades, autos da fe, etc.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Aye, Quetz. That's the thing. It works. Mostly.
It seems to me that the argument's just pushing the "how can you really know?" argument back a notch, to "God said so." I'm not sure why the presupposition of the existence of God is so much better than the presupposition that we can on the whole trust our senses; the latter gives us space travel, computers, modern medicine and telly. The former - well, only stuff you can perceive by faith, it seems, apart from crusades, autos da fe, etc.
I think the presuppers might say that you can't rationally claim that your senses are reliable; but we can adopt it as a provisional tool again. Or in fact, we can adopt it by fiat, which is not rational, of course, but again, it produces results.
In fact, you can presuppose anything you like, as with Last Thursdayism, or the Matrix, it's just not very interesting or productive.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Aye, Quetz. That's the thing. It works. Mostly.
It seems to me that the argument's just pushing the "how can you really know?" argument back a notch, to "God said so." I'm not sure why the presupposition of the existence of God is so much better than the presupposition that we can on the whole trust our senses; the latter gives us space travel, computers, modern medicine and telly. The former - well, only stuff you can perceive by faith, it seems, apart from crusades, autos da fe, etc.
I think the presuppers might say that you can't rationally claim that your senses are reliable; but we can adopt it as a provisional tool again. Or in fact, we can adopt it by fiat, which is not rational, of course, but again, it produces results.
In fact, you can presuppose anything you like, as with Last Thursdayism, or the Matrix, it's just not very interesting or productive.
But I don't see how you can rationally claim God as a presupposition either. Indeed, Ockham's Razor would rather point to the trustworthiness of the senses as a better supposition than God, to my mind.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
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Posted
Why is Ockhams Razor valid? Why is pragmatism valid? You have to establish the validity of those things before the presuppositional apologist will bother to address an argument based on them. The presuppositional apologist will contend he has no problem with science and that science only makes sense if you presuppose the existence of the God of the Bible.
And "But Science" is a poor argument period. Also, the argument that religion gave us nothing but violence while the enlightenment which owes nothing to religion gave us science, peace, and ice cream castles has no basis in history. Other than that...
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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
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Leprechaun
Ship's Poison Elf
# 5408
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Aye, Quetz. That's the thing. It works. Mostly.
It seems to me that the argument's just pushing the "how can you really know?" argument back a notch, to "God said so." I'm not sure why the presupposition of the existence of God is so much better than the presupposition that we can on the whole trust our senses; the latter gives us space travel, computers, modern medicine and telly. The former - well, only stuff you can perceive by faith, it seems, apart from crusades, autos da fe, etc.
I think the presuppers might say that you can't rationally claim that your senses are reliable; but we can adopt it as a provisional tool again. Or in fact, we can adopt it by fiat, which is not rational, of course, but again, it produces results.
In fact, you can presuppose anything you like, as with Last Thursdayism, or the Matrix, it's just not very interesting or productive.
But I don't see how you can rationally claim God as a presupposition either. Indeed, Ockham's Razor would rather point to the trustworthiness of the senses as a better supposition than God, to my mind.
Yes, but this is about presuppositions. The presupper points out that if we presuppose that we are made in the image of God we should be able to trust our senses, whereas if it is pure materialism there is no reason to presuppose that.
I find the strength of that to be overstated - but where it's useful is where (as per Yorick above) people start setting up science (fact) vs faith (not). Trusting that our senses give us access to the world outside us is an act of faith. Theists say they have a good reason to make that act of faith and (e.g.) materialists don't.
[ 20. March 2015, 15:58: Message edited by: Leprechaun ]
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He hath loved us, He hath loved us, because he would love
Posts: 3097 | From: England - far from home... | Registered: Jan 2004
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
I would say that trusting our senses is a mixture of guesswork and habit. It works most of the time, but not all the time.
That's why I would say that this is not a rational foundation; but then I don't think there are any.
As to materialism - since I'm not one, I'm not sure, but I know atheists who argue that science is not after truth in any case.
Obviously, some people do argue for science as a truth-seeker, but I'm not sure how they justify that - I suppose because it works?
But then I think that Yorick overcooks the case for materialism.
[ 20. March 2015, 16:13: Message edited by: quetzalcoatl ]
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
quote:
I find the strength of that to be overstated - but where it's useful is where (as per Yorick above) people start setting up science (fact) vs faith (not). Trusting that our senses give us access to the world outside us is an act of faith. Theists say they have a good reason to make that act of faith and (e.g.) materialists don't.
Not convinced by that. I am currently suffering from sciatica and find that exercise, ibuprofen and paracetamol do something to alleviate the matter. Now for a non-prenup that is quite sufficient. AFAICS a presup would say, 'aha! unless you believe i the God of Scripture, how can you be sure it works?' AFAICS the presup position is that they can be sure that my mixture of exercise, ibuprofen and paracetamol work because it is guaranteed by a guarantee handed down by Almighty God from heaven and because my leg hurts less. As a non-presupper I would say that I trust it because my leg hurts less.
AFAICS, it's a case of the quickness of the 'and deceives the 'heye. Yer presupper insists that belief can only be justified if it is founded on belief on Almighty God. For most of us belief is provisional. If it works this time it's fine.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
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