A long-standing motivation for my philosophical work has been the relationship -- sometimes adversarial, sometimes conversational -- between "science" and "religion." [I come to this relationship as someone who has strong undergraduate background in science (neuroscience and paleontology) and as someone who does not identify with a particular religious institution but who nevertheless feels the pull of religious experience.]
Much like Richard Rorty, Hilary Putnam, Stanly Cavell, and Jurgen Habermas, I want to find a way of resisting the temptation to endorse or create a doctrinal metaphysics -- not even a metaphysics of becoming, process, or "difference" in the senses of Nietzsche, Dewey, Whitehead, or Deleuze. (Despite my strong affinity for such metaphysics!)
(This is not to say that I think one can simply dispense with metaphysics; rather I tend to think, along with Cavell and Putnam, that the temptation to metaphysics is deeply ingrained in the Western psyche. I would not want to interpret this temptation as a transhistorical dimension of the human condition, but neither is it something that can be lightly thrown off, as Rorty seems to think.)
The crux of my pragmatic pluralism is that the question "what is there?" must always be re-phrased as "what is there in which respect?" For only when that latter question is answered do we have a specified domain the entities of which can be considered. For example, consider the question, "does Sherlock Holmes' wife exist?" This question can only be answered by first specifying the domain of discourse which is relevant. If the domain of discourse is "the real world," then the answer is "no" (but neither does Holmes, of course). If the domain of discourse is "the world of the Holmes stories as authored by Doyle," then the answer is "no" (but for a different reason -- because Holmes never married.)
But this line of thought works not only for literary creations -- it works just the same way for all discursive practices. Quarks and protons certainly exist -- within the framework of modern quantum mechanics. (Whether we will still say that they exist within the framework of whatever theory eventually succeeds quantum mechanics is an open question!) And even in ordinary language, we are confronted with a plurality of ways of distinguishing between aspects of lived experience.
Suppose I had had chicken for dinner last night instead of steak. Then I today would be a different system of molecules. But it seems odd (to say the least!) that I would therefore be a different person. One might be tempted to side with dualism here. But my alternative is to insist that there is no deep and fundamental truth of "what I am", tout court. Considering me as a system of molecules, and considering me as a person, are not different metaphysical realities -- they are different ways of considering, which is to say, different ways of using language. (As Rorty would say, they are different "vocabularies".)
If one succumbs to the temptation of metaphysics (and it is difficult not to succumb), then one will be interpret science, and/or religion, as metaphysical doctrines. And that is the decisive move which is taken for granted, and which I want to avoid. For once that move is made, everything else follows. Only then can one ask if science and religion are concerned with the same reality or different realities, e.g. "natural" and "supernatural". Or assert that where science and religion conflict, one or the other must be rejected. Both hard-core theism and hard-core atheism emerge only once it is accepted that metaphysics is the only way of speaking.
By contrast, the pluralism I want to develop here is a way of sidestepping the metaphysical impulse entirely. Instead, the question is one of which entities we are committed to speaking about when we employ a certain vocabulary (that of genetics, physics, psychology, literature, art, music, philosophy, etc.). In my terms, the temptation of metaphysics is the dream of a final, absolute, and uniquely correct vocabulary in terms of which everything real can be described. And that dream is one from which I have not only awoken but from which I find myself in the process of constantly having to awaken myself from.
Showing posts with label religion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label religion. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Why I Am (Almost) a "Militant Atheist"
There's been quite a buzz and stir in both mainstream media and the blogosphere over "the New Atheism", as ushered in by a troika of advocates for a militant, take-no-prisoners-rhetoric: Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett's Breaking the Spell, and Richard Dawkins. Of these, I shall restrict my attention to Harris, because I've read The End of Faith recently. Despite the adage that "a philosopher is someone who knows what is in books he has not read," I shall err on the side of caution.
Harris' basic claim is, I think, exactly right: we give religious claims a "free pass," and exempt them from the critical scrutiny we routinely give to claims offered in politics, science, economics, history, and so forth. If someone says, "I oppose single-payer health care!" it is expected that others will say, "on what grounds?" But if someone says, "I believe in a God who has revealed Himself in history!" the usual response is not "on what grounds?" but rather "golly, I'm very impressed by the sincerity of your conviction." Harris, much like Slavoj Zizek, shows that this is, at best, mere condescension. Critically examining the beliefs of others, and offering up one's own beliefs for critical examination by others, is precisely how one demonstrates respect for the other as a mature and rational person -- and that one deserves to be so recognized in turn.
Harris defines "faith" as acceptance of unjustified assertions about history and metaphysics. Thus, claims about the revelation at Sinai, or the Crucifixion, are taken to be assertions about matters of fact, both historical and metaphysical. But they fail to pass the test of warrant, or of justification, by the best standards currently accepted. This is the core of the argument. He also makes some slightly hysterical assertions of his own about how religion is the cause of much of the world's suffering and violence, and he ends up taking a position very close to that of Christopher Hitchens: the secular and enlightened West is engaged in a struggle to the death with fundamentalist Islam, and since "they" cannot be permitted to prevail, any action undertaken against "them" is justified, including pre-emptive war, torture of "enemy combatants," etc. I shall not engage with that part of the argument, except to note in passing that it's not an obviously stupid thing to say, and that it deserves a more thorough fisking than it has thus far, to my knowledge, received.
Instead, I want to return to the heart of the argument: that religious claims are unjustifed (and, though Harris dodges this point, he clearly insinuates that such claims are also unjustifiable) assertions about matters of fact. In response, I would offer up several related considerations:
1) that the vast majority of religious practictioners do, in fact, regard their beliefs as assertions, and that religious narratives are taken as on an epistemic par with scientific theories, that is, as actually explaining something;
2) that all assertions and explanations are subject to what the philosopher Wilfrid Sellars calls "the space of reasons," a notion much expanded upon by Richard Rorty, John McDowell, and Robert Brandom -- that is, no assertion is exempt from the question, "why do you believe that?"
And (1) and (2), taken together, would seem to put me squarely in Harris' camp as a "militant atheist." Nevertheless, I must demur, because
3) I deny that interpreting religious vocabulary as consisting of assertions is the best way of making sense of religious language.
This might seem to commit me to a sort of "emotivism" or "subjectivism" about religion. I don't think so, but maybe. Certainly there are many proponents of religious claims who are deathly allergic to any attempt to interpret religious language in "symbolic" term (Tillich is anathema to many of the soi-dissant "Christians" I've met). To do so, in their view, is to trivialize religion -- to give it a marginal, rather than central, cultural role.
If one accepts the priority of science, in either a metaphysical or methodological version, then it would seem that the only place for art or literature is as an emotional outpouring -- without any truth-value (i.e. neither true or false). (Harris' commitment to both metaphysical and methodological scientism comes to the fore when he considers Buddhism. Buddhism is exempted from the general critique of all other religions because, he claims, Buddhism consists of assertions that can be empirically confirmed.)
As a pragmatist, my fundamental epistemological commitments are different from Harris' version of scientific-metaphysical realism. I take it that there are many different vocabularies at our disposal -- the language of physics, the language of neuroscience, the language of literature. It is therefore no marginalization of religion to say that religious language is more like literature than it is like physics.
And that is why I am almost, but not quite, a militant atheist.
Harris' basic claim is, I think, exactly right: we give religious claims a "free pass," and exempt them from the critical scrutiny we routinely give to claims offered in politics, science, economics, history, and so forth. If someone says, "I oppose single-payer health care!" it is expected that others will say, "on what grounds?" But if someone says, "I believe in a God who has revealed Himself in history!" the usual response is not "on what grounds?" but rather "golly, I'm very impressed by the sincerity of your conviction." Harris, much like Slavoj Zizek, shows that this is, at best, mere condescension. Critically examining the beliefs of others, and offering up one's own beliefs for critical examination by others, is precisely how one demonstrates respect for the other as a mature and rational person -- and that one deserves to be so recognized in turn.
Harris defines "faith" as acceptance of unjustified assertions about history and metaphysics. Thus, claims about the revelation at Sinai, or the Crucifixion, are taken to be assertions about matters of fact, both historical and metaphysical. But they fail to pass the test of warrant, or of justification, by the best standards currently accepted. This is the core of the argument. He also makes some slightly hysterical assertions of his own about how religion is the cause of much of the world's suffering and violence, and he ends up taking a position very close to that of Christopher Hitchens: the secular and enlightened West is engaged in a struggle to the death with fundamentalist Islam, and since "they" cannot be permitted to prevail, any action undertaken against "them" is justified, including pre-emptive war, torture of "enemy combatants," etc. I shall not engage with that part of the argument, except to note in passing that it's not an obviously stupid thing to say, and that it deserves a more thorough fisking than it has thus far, to my knowledge, received.
Instead, I want to return to the heart of the argument: that religious claims are unjustifed (and, though Harris dodges this point, he clearly insinuates that such claims are also unjustifiable) assertions about matters of fact. In response, I would offer up several related considerations:
1) that the vast majority of religious practictioners do, in fact, regard their beliefs as assertions, and that religious narratives are taken as on an epistemic par with scientific theories, that is, as actually explaining something;
2) that all assertions and explanations are subject to what the philosopher Wilfrid Sellars calls "the space of reasons," a notion much expanded upon by Richard Rorty, John McDowell, and Robert Brandom -- that is, no assertion is exempt from the question, "why do you believe that?"
And (1) and (2), taken together, would seem to put me squarely in Harris' camp as a "militant atheist." Nevertheless, I must demur, because
3) I deny that interpreting religious vocabulary as consisting of assertions is the best way of making sense of religious language.
This might seem to commit me to a sort of "emotivism" or "subjectivism" about religion. I don't think so, but maybe. Certainly there are many proponents of religious claims who are deathly allergic to any attempt to interpret religious language in "symbolic" term (Tillich is anathema to many of the soi-dissant "Christians" I've met). To do so, in their view, is to trivialize religion -- to give it a marginal, rather than central, cultural role.
If one accepts the priority of science, in either a metaphysical or methodological version, then it would seem that the only place for art or literature is as an emotional outpouring -- without any truth-value (i.e. neither true or false). (Harris' commitment to both metaphysical and methodological scientism comes to the fore when he considers Buddhism. Buddhism is exempted from the general critique of all other religions because, he claims, Buddhism consists of assertions that can be empirically confirmed.)
As a pragmatist, my fundamental epistemological commitments are different from Harris' version of scientific-metaphysical realism. I take it that there are many different vocabularies at our disposal -- the language of physics, the language of neuroscience, the language of literature. It is therefore no marginalization of religion to say that religious language is more like literature than it is like physics.
And that is why I am almost, but not quite, a militant atheist.
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