I recently took it upon myself to read Charles Taliaferro and Stewart Goetz‘s work Naturalism (for sale here).  I highly recommend the book for anyone looking for a good summary of some considerations of modern philosophy on the topic of naturalism.  The work is pithy, cogent, and I think easy to follow even for those not well-versed in the technical jargon and historic arguments surrounding this traditional metaphysical debate.  I would caution, though, that I think that the book seems to me overly critical of some features of naturalism, and also to me seems to overgeneralize many characteristics which I think abound in naturalists and non-naturalists alike.

I had the great pleasure of being introduced to Taliaferro last fall, and will likely be meet him again in a few days, so I took the time to throw together a little gut-reaction response to the work Natualism (which, I rather think might be better titled “Against Naturalism”, which indicates better that the purpose of this book seems to be the construction of an argument against naturalism, rather than some merely informational and “objective” presentation of historic facts and debates).

Here is my response to their work (in either ogg vorbis or mp3 format).

If you don’t feel like taking the 15 minutes to listen, here’s the gist of my thoughts, without most of the explanatory substance:

1. Yes, I agree with Goetz and Taliaferro that naturalism as they characterize it (through examples) stands on shaky ground, but…
2. Naturalist perspectives, being based on the ever-expanding realm of scientific advancement, are not simply reductionist.  Rather, their role can expand as our empirical observations and theories about these observations expand.  My feelings on this follow from my (mildly Kuhnian, i think) view that science is a primarily pragmatic rather than epistemological endeavor.
3. Because science offers us the opportunity to challenge traditional “supernatural” explanations, it bears the possibility to act as a corrective check for, or at least calls us to critically reflect upon, our folk psychology/physics/philosophy/metaphysics/dogmas.
4. Finally, I think that a strict, parsimonious, positive naturalism is not just likely epistemically problematic–it is psychologically untenable even for its most outspoken adherence (but so is anti-naturalism in some ways).  In the long run, though, if the apparent choice is between accepting on or the other tradtional dogma (either naturalist or unnaturalist), I would just assume have both perspectives around as long as possible duking it out, as neither seems wholy cogent to me.  With the argument preserved, we can pragmatically utilize one assumption in one context generally (say, anti-naturalism for religion; naturalism for science), but allow these perspectives to challenge each other in their own contexts as well.  In this way, I hope we can either realize that these distinctions are irrelevant, or that they are somehow complimentary, or that some better alternatives exist instead–and enjoy the fruits of continued argument.

What struck me as interesting, was that when I was looking for some alternative perspectives on naturalism while writing my response, one of the first results provided by my friend Google was lil’ ol me.  Yes, on the first page of my google results was an entry that I posted in October last year, entitled “Hobbes and Modern Science v. Descartes“.  Back in October, though, I was sort of on the other side of the argument.  Back then, I was chastizing modern science for its naturalist assumptions, rather than lauding it for bringing options to the table–at least until the end of the article.  In the end, though, it seems that both today and last october, I was arguing from one side (first against naturalists, then against anti-naturalists) in order to get to the middle.  In both places, I criticized dogmatism, dualism, and hubristic assumptions that we already know what types of substances make up the entirety of the cosmos.

The major discrepancy between my old article and my new one, it seems to me, is that I was content to characterize science in my October post as presuming the sort of materialistic naturalism that Goetz and Taliaferro seem to see in it, but this week I argued that that view of science is short-sighted.  Which description is more accurate?  In a way, I think both.  I think the end paragraph of my recorded response hints at the answer.  It seems that real human beings simply don’t portray stable, context independent dispositions of this sort.  In one context, we might all predictably be naturalists (say, when you consider whether or not you should worry about a 1,000 anvil falling on you from above), and in others we may all be anti-naturalists (say, when considering our plans for the future or interpreting our emotions).  It may simply not be possible to separate these two categories in a way that is both meaningful and able to be held by a real person over time.

Also, if you’re in the Sioux Falls area, I heartily implore you to come to Charles Taliaferro’s talk at the Augustana Naturalism Symposium this week; it will make your life better.

Also, I tried to stream my recorded response to Naturalism, but it does not seem to work for me.  Try it, if it shows up for you:

God: a more concrete version than that for which I will argue

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Ontological arguments are fun, aren’t they?  I’ve had this one on the back burner for a while now¹, and I had hoped to make some improvements before discussing it with anybody.  However, last night after finishing up an article on Levinas by Roger Burggraeve ², I came to all-too-many realizations which should have been obvious to me long ago.  One of these realizations is that my ideas will not improve substantially if they are not subjected to the unexpected (i.e. the perspectives of Others).

I should begin by mentioning a few caveats:

1. This is an argument, not a proof
2. The product of the argument is not the stereotypical Christian God, nor any other well-defined God with knowable attributes.  In fact, it is a more vague God than even that abstracted object of Anselm’s famous argument³.

My argument is something done for my own pleasure and as an example of my method of applying philosophical categories.  One of my long-standing criticisms of most philosophers and most philosophies, is that they tend to proffer, promote, and perpetuate false dichotomies and sets of categories which hold some of these qualities:

• Categories or alternatives are presented as binary opposites, when they are not.  In fact, I would argue that in most of these cases, so-called binary opposites are not even mutually exclusive.
• Likewise, categories are presented as distinct when they are not necessarily so.
• Categories, distinctions, or divisions are presented as the only available or important options, when in fact the only “only” which these categories have in common is that they were the only categories or distinctions that the philosopher could think of at the time.
• Categories distinguish quantities or qualities based on the assumption that these can be meted out discretely, when in fact it is not clear that they can be.

Note that one mode of categorization that I am explicitly ruling out here, is the classic binary 2×2 table.  I don’t think, in other words, that our perceptions, experience, and reason give us enough information to presuppose that, for example, a thing must either be or not be, a thing must either be good or not be good, a thing must either be one thing or many things⁴

In response to this, I have tried to think up some sort of system of categories which can be applied to the real world, and the only categorization I have been able to think up⁵ is the following, presented in a nice⁶, discrete table:

Note: Please forgive my imprecise/confusing language; I have no real experience yet in formal logic.

Now, this little categorization is fun, because it allows me to get away with a lot.  The “anything else” category includes such gems of possibility as: 1) the given quality is extant, 2) the given quality is both extant and not extant, 3) the given quality is somehow neither extant nor not-extant, , 4) the artificially abstracted categorical quality is not itself measurable, identifiable, abstract-ible, describable, or is otherwise irrelevant, or–my favorite–5) anything else.

The Argument for God’s Existence!

Just for fun, I’ll apply my categorization method to God’s existence.  Take the following possibilities:

1. solipsism: either you and only you exist, in a discretely definable way, or…
2. anything else

I suspect I have already gotten you, by this point, to agree to the equation, and, in most cases, to believe that option #1 is false⁷.  Now comes the controversial part of the argument–the definition of God.  My challenge here is to find a way to get you to accept “anything else” as implying God.  A slight reformulation might help get my point across before I go any further.  Take, now, these possibilities:

1. solipsism: either you know/perceive, all that there is to be known/perceived⁸
2. anything else

A tempting route to go from here is to say “if I do not perceive/know everything that can be known/perceived, what exists which can be, counterfactually, perceived?”, or, in other words, “what is the source of my knowledge?”.  Hopefully there are a few romantic transcendentalists out there who are willing to let me apply Ralph Waldo Emerson’s definition of God/Nature here: the vague not-me⁹.  Of course, this assumes a source is required and that it is the excess of knowledge that makes is disagree with proposition #1.  There is no need, however, to presume any discrete division between a me and a not-me.  It might also be the case, that neither I nor knowledge/perception are discrete in such a way as to fit into the restrictive bounds of option #1.  This is fine, because the fluidity of self-identity jibes well with other definitions of God, such as Spinoza’s great pantheist notion, certain Buddhist and shamanistic approaches, and the like.  Phenomenologists among us will point out that all we need is an Other to demonstrate against proposition #1, and the Other need not be God.  I am rather content, though, to let this Other stand retain the same role as Emerson’s not-me, such that the Other, or indeed an aggregate of others, fulfills the minimum role of God, should no other discrete being be evident.

Okay, whatever…

Alright, perhaps I did not quite get to the grand argument for God’s existence.  What did I learn in the process?  While I have appreciated attempts to give philosophical systems some sort of reasoned foundation, it seems all of these attempts rely on assumptions which do not necessarily hold.  In attempting my own such system, I found really, only one small means of sorting out knowledge which I have been unable to disprove as a tool (my either/or tool used and explained above).  Unfortnuately, this tool, as applied, typically only allows me to say only “okay…so…’anything else’ is the reality”.  In other words, I have found that the strictest standards of scrutiny have shown me that, if we want to say anything, we have to start making precarious generalizations, inadequate analogies, erroneous abstractions, and arbitrary categorizations at some point, if we want to be able to say anything interesting or useful.  Hopefully, time and energy will and has allowed us to demonstrate (with faith in probability as a founding assumption, unfortunately) which of the unprovable tools of logic, perception, and knowledge-making (modus ponens, modus tollens, statistics, calculus, analogies, etc.) give us results that are more true, more often (or at least more beneficial).  Still, I hope my categorization example has gotten someone out there to ponder, in some useful way, the similarity between believing in any not-me and beliving in God.  I do love feedback, if for anyone who has managed to get through this wordy writing.  If you have any rule of logic that you think might survive my scrutiny, I would love to hear about it!