In a comment to Science, Religion, and Metaphysics, I made this remark which I want to bring up to the front for closer examination:
There is no more conflict between science and religion, nor any more need for reconciliation between them, than there is between carpentry and cooking.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Science, Religion, Metaphysics: Some Preliminaries
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.
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.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Education and Philosophy (Part I)
Doing without the usual fanfare and preamble -- that is, doing it by way of loudly announcing that I am doing without it -- I want to introduce two motifs for subsequent elaboration --
that education is the production of freedom and
that philosophy is education for adults
Thus and so!
that education is the production of freedom and
that philosophy is education for adults
Thus and so!
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Doing Without "Facts 'vs' Values"
In the discussion under Intelligent Design and Evolution, Kirby and Olorin have been going back on forth on the relation between science and ethics.
The proof of the pudding of the sort of pluralism I've inherited and which I'm developing here and elsewhere is in the eating, esp. when it comes to these sorts of issues. Here, I want to contrast pluralism with two bad alternatives.
The first option, and which is in many respects the dominant discourse of academic philosophy and the academy generally, is a version of "scientism." This much-abused term will stand in, here, for the notion that scientific methods are the only legitimate processes whereby objective knowledge (which goes beyond ordinary perceptual consciousness) can be acquired. (I'm not delighted with this definition and may need to revise it subsequently.) On this view, "values" pose a number of interrelated problems. One problem is that when scientific theories are taken as having a monopoly on objective knowledge, values may become seen as "subjective." Apart from the considerable ethical and political problems this causes, it also arouses the philosophical problem of how to fit "values" into a world of "facts." In this case, the relation between science and ethics can be seen as arbitrary, science can be regarded as "value-neutral," and countless other difficulties arise like the heads of the Hydra.
The second option, which stands in a dialectical relation to the first, is to give ethics a metaphysical foundation (see note (1) below). On this view -- which, I must admit, I lack any real intuitive feeling for -- values cannot be merely subjective or conventional, but they also cannot be grounded in the sort of knowledge that science yields (but see note (2) below). Thus values cannot be "natural" but must instead have some sort of transcendent foundation. Alternatively: when the very idea of a transcendent foundation ceases to be rationally compelling and emotionally motivating -- i.e. the moment of "the death of God" -- then the abyss of nihilism threatens to yank out the foundation of civilization from under our very feet. There is something tiring and boring about how this argument then proceeds -- as if on cue, the exhibits are presented -- Exhibit 1: Nazism; Exhibit 2: Stalinism; Exhibit 3: terrorism.
The alternative I wish to explore takes its cue from a remark by John Dewey: "But values are as unstable as the forms of clouds" (Experience and Nature, excerpts available as PDF here). The forms of clouds! Are they not real? To what sort of reductive, scientistic physicalism must one be beholden in order to insist that clouds are not real (are not "really real")? If clouds are not real, I want to say, then nothing can count as "real". And so too are values -- they are as real as anything other aspect of our lived experience as a certain kind of animal -- the sort of animal that engages with its world through a plurality of discursive social practices.
-------------------------------------------------------
Notes:
(1) The dialectic, as I see it, can be seen roughly as if each viewpoint is a reaction-formation to the other. Thus, the Greek atomists reacted against ancient Greek religion and made possible the Sophists; Plato and Aristotle reacted against the Sophists; early modern philosophers reacted against Scholasticism; the Romantics reacted against the Enlightenment; religious fundamentalists reacted against 'modernity'. The "culture wars" have been with us for a long, long time!)
(2) Off the top of my head, I can think of two exceptions in the history of philosophy -- Aristotle and Spinoza -- who hold that ethics is grounded in the metaphysical structure of reality and that science provides insight into this structure. But Aristotle is a tricky case, since "science" does not mean for us post-Baconians what it mean to Aristotle or the Scholastics.
The proof of the pudding of the sort of pluralism I've inherited and which I'm developing here and elsewhere is in the eating, esp. when it comes to these sorts of issues. Here, I want to contrast pluralism with two bad alternatives.
The first option, and which is in many respects the dominant discourse of academic philosophy and the academy generally, is a version of "scientism." This much-abused term will stand in, here, for the notion that scientific methods are the only legitimate processes whereby objective knowledge (which goes beyond ordinary perceptual consciousness) can be acquired. (I'm not delighted with this definition and may need to revise it subsequently.) On this view, "values" pose a number of interrelated problems. One problem is that when scientific theories are taken as having a monopoly on objective knowledge, values may become seen as "subjective." Apart from the considerable ethical and political problems this causes, it also arouses the philosophical problem of how to fit "values" into a world of "facts." In this case, the relation between science and ethics can be seen as arbitrary, science can be regarded as "value-neutral," and countless other difficulties arise like the heads of the Hydra.
The second option, which stands in a dialectical relation to the first, is to give ethics a metaphysical foundation (see note (1) below). On this view -- which, I must admit, I lack any real intuitive feeling for -- values cannot be merely subjective or conventional, but they also cannot be grounded in the sort of knowledge that science yields (but see note (2) below). Thus values cannot be "natural" but must instead have some sort of transcendent foundation. Alternatively: when the very idea of a transcendent foundation ceases to be rationally compelling and emotionally motivating -- i.e. the moment of "the death of God" -- then the abyss of nihilism threatens to yank out the foundation of civilization from under our very feet. There is something tiring and boring about how this argument then proceeds -- as if on cue, the exhibits are presented -- Exhibit 1: Nazism; Exhibit 2: Stalinism; Exhibit 3: terrorism.
The alternative I wish to explore takes its cue from a remark by John Dewey: "But values are as unstable as the forms of clouds" (Experience and Nature, excerpts available as PDF here). The forms of clouds! Are they not real? To what sort of reductive, scientistic physicalism must one be beholden in order to insist that clouds are not real (are not "really real")? If clouds are not real, I want to say, then nothing can count as "real". And so too are values -- they are as real as anything other aspect of our lived experience as a certain kind of animal -- the sort of animal that engages with its world through a plurality of discursive social practices.
-------------------------------------------------------
Notes:
(1) The dialectic, as I see it, can be seen roughly as if each viewpoint is a reaction-formation to the other. Thus, the Greek atomists reacted against ancient Greek religion and made possible the Sophists; Plato and Aristotle reacted against the Sophists; early modern philosophers reacted against Scholasticism; the Romantics reacted against the Enlightenment; religious fundamentalists reacted against 'modernity'. The "culture wars" have been with us for a long, long time!)
(2) Off the top of my head, I can think of two exceptions in the history of philosophy -- Aristotle and Spinoza -- who hold that ethics is grounded in the metaphysical structure of reality and that science provides insight into this structure. But Aristotle is a tricky case, since "science" does not mean for us post-Baconians what it mean to Aristotle or the Scholastics.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Why Educate?
In a comment to Intelligent Design and Evolution, Olorin writes:
As is my usual style, I'll address what I see as the minor points of contention before moving on the big ones. The minor point is this: there's a difference between (1) design theory necessarily entails the existence of at least one supernatural being and (2) design theory necessarily entails the existence of God as conceived by classical theism. ID is "inherently religious" only if (2) is true, not if (1) is true. I don't think I need to show that (2) is false; Kant did a perfectly good job of that in the Critique of Pure Reason in 1781. That's why design theorists assiduously avoid claiming that the supernatural designer is God -- it's because they know they can't get away with it -- not in an empirical or even political sense, but in a strictly philosophical sense. (To the extent that the "strictly philosophical" can be separated out from the empirical and the political!)
(In fact, I do believe that most people who support intelligent design are theists, and moreover, theists of a very specific sort. Their theism certainly feeds into their motives for wanting design theory to be true, and their motives for wanting it taught alongside evolutionary theory. But motives are not reasons, and the luminaries of the design revolution are all too keenly aware of that!)
The main point I want to address is this: "If a theory has no scientific evidence nor any hope of scientific evidence, then teaching it in a science class is not teaching science."
Whether or not I accept this depends on what is meant by "teaching science." If "teaching science" just means "conveying to students the best of contemporary scientific theories," then I'll concede the point without reservation. But here is where I demur. Instead, I want to broaden and deepen the meaning of "teaching science" to "teaching students how to evaluate scientific theories, how to appreciate the process whereby theories are generated and tested, and how to situate science in a cultural, historical, and political context."
I suppose I'm feeling somewhat frustrated both by the larger debate and by how this conversation is unfolding here on Impure Reason. What I'm interested doing is breaking down the artificial boundaries between the teaching of science, the teaching of history, the teaching of poetry. How can students appreciate Blake without appreciating Newton? How can they understand Romanticism without the Enlightenment? Or fundamentalism without understanding Biblical criticism and "Darwinism"? (Not to mention neo-Darwinism and the Modern Synthesis!)
What it comes down is this: why do we educate? If we educate so that the next crop of wage-slaves can take the place of those who have moved on, then fine -- but then, let's cut the bullshit about "democracy" and "citizenship." Or, let's put our money where our mouth is -- in which case, let's actually teach students how to think, how to listen, how to speak, how to reason, how to experience -- and if we do that, and if we seriously want to equip students with the cognitive tools they need to actually be the informed and responsible citizens we say we want them to be, then hell yes -- let's "teach the controversy" -- and bring some epistemology and philosophy of science and, why the hell not, some history and poetry into the science classroom too, and some science into the literature classroom.
Practical? Hell no! But worth doing? Hell yes!
“Given what you've said above, about the status of intelligent design as a scientific theory (i.e. that it has none), should we conclude that it therefore should be denied a voice within a science classroom?” Well, look at it this way. Do you want me to teach French in your chemistry class? What purpose would that serve? If a theory has no scientific evidence nor any hope of scientific evidence, then teaching it in a science class is not teaching science. Then, too, as I argued before, ID is inherently a religious theory, whether or not it employs explicitly religious terminology. So, besides being a waste of time, teaching ID as science runs afoul of the Constitution by imparting the cachet of science to a particular religious tenet.
As is my usual style, I'll address what I see as the minor points of contention before moving on the big ones. The minor point is this: there's a difference between (1) design theory necessarily entails the existence of at least one supernatural being and (2) design theory necessarily entails the existence of God as conceived by classical theism. ID is "inherently religious" only if (2) is true, not if (1) is true. I don't think I need to show that (2) is false; Kant did a perfectly good job of that in the Critique of Pure Reason in 1781. That's why design theorists assiduously avoid claiming that the supernatural designer is God -- it's because they know they can't get away with it -- not in an empirical or even political sense, but in a strictly philosophical sense. (To the extent that the "strictly philosophical" can be separated out from the empirical and the political!)
(In fact, I do believe that most people who support intelligent design are theists, and moreover, theists of a very specific sort. Their theism certainly feeds into their motives for wanting design theory to be true, and their motives for wanting it taught alongside evolutionary theory. But motives are not reasons, and the luminaries of the design revolution are all too keenly aware of that!)
The main point I want to address is this: "If a theory has no scientific evidence nor any hope of scientific evidence, then teaching it in a science class is not teaching science."
Whether or not I accept this depends on what is meant by "teaching science." If "teaching science" just means "conveying to students the best of contemporary scientific theories," then I'll concede the point without reservation. But here is where I demur. Instead, I want to broaden and deepen the meaning of "teaching science" to "teaching students how to evaluate scientific theories, how to appreciate the process whereby theories are generated and tested, and how to situate science in a cultural, historical, and political context."
I suppose I'm feeling somewhat frustrated both by the larger debate and by how this conversation is unfolding here on Impure Reason. What I'm interested doing is breaking down the artificial boundaries between the teaching of science, the teaching of history, the teaching of poetry. How can students appreciate Blake without appreciating Newton? How can they understand Romanticism without the Enlightenment? Or fundamentalism without understanding Biblical criticism and "Darwinism"? (Not to mention neo-Darwinism and the Modern Synthesis!)
What it comes down is this: why do we educate? If we educate so that the next crop of wage-slaves can take the place of those who have moved on, then fine -- but then, let's cut the bullshit about "democracy" and "citizenship." Or, let's put our money where our mouth is -- in which case, let's actually teach students how to think, how to listen, how to speak, how to reason, how to experience -- and if we do that, and if we seriously want to equip students with the cognitive tools they need to actually be the informed and responsible citizens we say we want them to be, then hell yes -- let's "teach the controversy" -- and bring some epistemology and philosophy of science and, why the hell not, some history and poetry into the science classroom too, and some science into the literature classroom.
Practical? Hell no! But worth doing? Hell yes!
Pragmatism and Pluralism
In a comment below, I was asked as to what motivated my shift from What is Fundamentalism? to Fundamentalism vs. Pragmatism?
The shift in my position was prompted by thinking about fundamentalism in light of what John Dewey says in A Common Faith and Reconstruction in Philosophy. He uses similar language to describe the errors of fundamentalism in CF and the errors of rationalism in RP, and this prompted me to consider their similarities.
I was also reminded of Peirce's essay "The Fixation of Belief" and re-thinking that little essay in light of the posts I read in Uncommon Descent. Several of the regular commentators there are skilled or semi-skilled in philosophy, theology, and law, and they are very good at presenting arguments for their views, and at finding problems with the arguments presented by others.
What they are not good at, however, is recognizing the importance of experiments that can test their premises or their consequences. (It does not seem to me that they even recognize the difference between argument and experiment!)
For example, one of the more astute commenters there repeatedly hammers home the point that world-views must be given proper intellectual foundations. (He makes this point in order to establish that theism is more adequate than materialism.) This is not a stupid or foolish thing to say -- not at all! But it does show what to my way of thinking is a restricted and narrow conception of what intellectual activity consists of. It does not, for example, consider the pragmatist conception of intellectual life as one that is explicitly and emphatically anti-foundationalist, pluralistic, and melioristic.
I have therefore come to think that Peirce, James, and Dewey were exactly right to stress the importance of openness to experience as having a transformative effect on concepts and theories. And I also think that the anti-foundationalistic arguments of Quine and Sellars, but above all Wittgenstein, are, while not decisive, at any rate illuminating in showing us how the world, and our relationships with it, can be seen as drastically different than they are taken to be from within the rationalistic framework.
Which brings me to my next major point for this post: the meaning and value of "pluralism." For the time being, I'll provisionally define pluralism as a negative thesis: the claim that there is no single description of reality that fully satisfies all human needs and interests. There are some needs and interests that are satisfied by science (and of course different needs and interests are satisfied by different sciences in different ways); others by history; still others by poetry, or by music, or by religion, or by communion with bird and trees and wild things; or by love and friendship.
I don't have a perfect term for the contrast with "pluralism" -- "fundamentalism" comes to mind, as does "monism" (of course), "rationalism," and "Platonism." I shall use "rationalism" here as a general term for the thought that there is, or must be, a single description of reality which fully satisfies all genuine human needs and interests. (Notice my use of 'genuine' here -- see note (1) below!)
By this light, classical (non-liberal) Christianity is a form of rationalism, but so too are the metaphysical systems of philosophy -- including those of antiquity, such as Platonism, Aristotelianism, Epicureanism, and Stoicism -- and those of modernity, such as those of Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Berkeley, Kant, Hegel, and Marx. But so too is the metaphysical naturalism and 'scientism' that has been a rival to theological metaphysics since the time of Hobbes, and which today finds no shortage of defenders among scientists (e.g. Dawkins, Pinker), philosophers, and cultural critics (e.g. Hitchens). (But see note (2) below.)
In short, my contention here is that religious fundamentalism and 'scientistic' fundamentalism -- the most extreme, and therefore the loudest, of the views in the debate between intelligent design supporters and evolutionists -- are both contemporary fruits of the rationalist tree. The pluralism which I support, and to which I hope to contribute, is therefore critical of both of them.
Notes:
----------------------
(1) A rationalist promises to satisfy all genuine human needs and interests; conversely, whatever needs and interests are not satisfied by a certain description of reality, the rationalist maintains, are not genuine but false or misleading or distorted. This line of thought can be clearly discerned in Platonism, in Christianity, and in Marxism. I do not contend, by way of contrast, that there are no preferences to be made with respect to human needs and interests. On the contrary, I'm a strong advocate of the capability approach when it comes to social justice, and I am something of an ethical perfectionist in terms of self-relations. (Reading 'ethical perfectionism' in a broad sense so as to include virtue ethics.) I am pluralist insofar as I don't think that there is any correct way of hearing, and responding to, the perfectionist call.
(2) There are in fact many different kinds of rationalism and pluralism. For example, Sam Harris in his The End of Faith insists that there is only viable method for assessing beliefs -- the method of science -- but allows that some "religious" beliefs could be vindicated by such a method. In particular, he suggests that the Buddhist belief in reincarnation could be so vindicated. But this does not detract from his larger point, which is that no belief which is not justified through scientific means should be treated as justified at all. Whereas my pluralism goes "all the way down," even to the point of embracing pluralism with respect to forms of justification
The shift in my position was prompted by thinking about fundamentalism in light of what John Dewey says in A Common Faith and Reconstruction in Philosophy. He uses similar language to describe the errors of fundamentalism in CF and the errors of rationalism in RP, and this prompted me to consider their similarities.
I was also reminded of Peirce's essay "The Fixation of Belief" and re-thinking that little essay in light of the posts I read in Uncommon Descent. Several of the regular commentators there are skilled or semi-skilled in philosophy, theology, and law, and they are very good at presenting arguments for their views, and at finding problems with the arguments presented by others.
What they are not good at, however, is recognizing the importance of experiments that can test their premises or their consequences. (It does not seem to me that they even recognize the difference between argument and experiment!)
For example, one of the more astute commenters there repeatedly hammers home the point that world-views must be given proper intellectual foundations. (He makes this point in order to establish that theism is more adequate than materialism.) This is not a stupid or foolish thing to say -- not at all! But it does show what to my way of thinking is a restricted and narrow conception of what intellectual activity consists of. It does not, for example, consider the pragmatist conception of intellectual life as one that is explicitly and emphatically anti-foundationalist, pluralistic, and melioristic.
I have therefore come to think that Peirce, James, and Dewey were exactly right to stress the importance of openness to experience as having a transformative effect on concepts and theories. And I also think that the anti-foundationalistic arguments of Quine and Sellars, but above all Wittgenstein, are, while not decisive, at any rate illuminating in showing us how the world, and our relationships with it, can be seen as drastically different than they are taken to be from within the rationalistic framework.
Which brings me to my next major point for this post: the meaning and value of "pluralism." For the time being, I'll provisionally define pluralism as a negative thesis: the claim that there is no single description of reality that fully satisfies all human needs and interests. There are some needs and interests that are satisfied by science (and of course different needs and interests are satisfied by different sciences in different ways); others by history; still others by poetry, or by music, or by religion, or by communion with bird and trees and wild things; or by love and friendship.
I don't have a perfect term for the contrast with "pluralism" -- "fundamentalism" comes to mind, as does "monism" (of course), "rationalism," and "Platonism." I shall use "rationalism" here as a general term for the thought that there is, or must be, a single description of reality which fully satisfies all genuine human needs and interests. (Notice my use of 'genuine' here -- see note (1) below!)
By this light, classical (non-liberal) Christianity is a form of rationalism, but so too are the metaphysical systems of philosophy -- including those of antiquity, such as Platonism, Aristotelianism, Epicureanism, and Stoicism -- and those of modernity, such as those of Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Berkeley, Kant, Hegel, and Marx. But so too is the metaphysical naturalism and 'scientism' that has been a rival to theological metaphysics since the time of Hobbes, and which today finds no shortage of defenders among scientists (e.g. Dawkins, Pinker), philosophers, and cultural critics (e.g. Hitchens). (But see note (2) below.)
In short, my contention here is that religious fundamentalism and 'scientistic' fundamentalism -- the most extreme, and therefore the loudest, of the views in the debate between intelligent design supporters and evolutionists -- are both contemporary fruits of the rationalist tree. The pluralism which I support, and to which I hope to contribute, is therefore critical of both of them.
Notes:
----------------------
(1) A rationalist promises to satisfy all genuine human needs and interests; conversely, whatever needs and interests are not satisfied by a certain description of reality, the rationalist maintains, are not genuine but false or misleading or distorted. This line of thought can be clearly discerned in Platonism, in Christianity, and in Marxism. I do not contend, by way of contrast, that there are no preferences to be made with respect to human needs and interests. On the contrary, I'm a strong advocate of the capability approach when it comes to social justice, and I am something of an ethical perfectionist in terms of self-relations. (Reading 'ethical perfectionism' in a broad sense so as to include virtue ethics.) I am pluralist insofar as I don't think that there is any correct way of hearing, and responding to, the perfectionist call.
(2) There are in fact many different kinds of rationalism and pluralism. For example, Sam Harris in his The End of Faith insists that there is only viable method for assessing beliefs -- the method of science -- but allows that some "religious" beliefs could be vindicated by such a method. In particular, he suggests that the Buddhist belief in reincarnation could be so vindicated. But this does not detract from his larger point, which is that no belief which is not justified through scientific means should be treated as justified at all. Whereas my pluralism goes "all the way down," even to the point of embracing pluralism with respect to forms of justification
Thursday, July 24, 2008
What is "Darwinism"?
Now that I'm wading into the intelligent design/evolution controversy, I want to say something about how I position myself, terminologically.
There's some debate about the meaning of terms such as "evolution," "evolutionary biology," "Darwinism," "neo-Darwinism," etc. I would distinguish between weak Darwinism and strong Darwinism.
"Weak Darwinism" is best characterized through a quote by the philosopher Richard Rorty:
This basic idea -- telling a story that goes from Miocene apes who were the ancestors of both us and chimpanzees, through Pliocene hominids to the emergence of Homo sapiens, and from the rudimentary cultures and forgotten myths of the Upper Pleistocene through to mythologies of ancient Greece and Israel and beyond that to the Enlightenment (along with the immanent critique of the Enlightenment of Nietzsche, Adorno, Dewey, and Foucault) -- that insistence on continuity is what I call weak Darwinism, and I'm proud to consider myself a "weak Darwinian" or a "Darwinian in the weak sense."
It is "weak" because it is not committed to any position about the empirically detectable mechanisms through which these events unfolded.
By contrast, I would call "strong Darwinism" the position that unpredictable mutations and natural selection are individually necessary and jointly sufficient in explaining biological change, including cognitive change. Richard Dawkins is certainly a "strong Darwinian" in this sense.
I am not a "strong Darwinian," because I think -- from my very amateur position! -- that neo-Darwinism must be supplemented with a theory of form. The best candidates for such a theory today, from what I can tell, lie in the sciences of self-organizing systems and what is called "autopoeisis." Recently I have encountered the idea of an "Extended Evolutionary Synthesis" (PDF). I doubt that an EES is the complete theory, either, but I would regard it as a helpful step in the right direction of getting us closer to being able to tell a story, with fewer discontinuities, that runs from the apes to the Enlightenment -- and beyond.
There's some debate about the meaning of terms such as "evolution," "evolutionary biology," "Darwinism," "neo-Darwinism," etc. I would distinguish between weak Darwinism and strong Darwinism.
"Weak Darwinism" is best characterized through a quote by the philosopher Richard Rorty:
as good Darwinians, we want to introduce as few discontinuities as possible into the story of how we got from the apes to the Enlightenment.
This basic idea -- telling a story that goes from Miocene apes who were the ancestors of both us and chimpanzees, through Pliocene hominids to the emergence of Homo sapiens, and from the rudimentary cultures and forgotten myths of the Upper Pleistocene through to mythologies of ancient Greece and Israel and beyond that to the Enlightenment (along with the immanent critique of the Enlightenment of Nietzsche, Adorno, Dewey, and Foucault) -- that insistence on continuity is what I call weak Darwinism, and I'm proud to consider myself a "weak Darwinian" or a "Darwinian in the weak sense."
It is "weak" because it is not committed to any position about the empirically detectable mechanisms through which these events unfolded.
By contrast, I would call "strong Darwinism" the position that unpredictable mutations and natural selection are individually necessary and jointly sufficient in explaining biological change, including cognitive change. Richard Dawkins is certainly a "strong Darwinian" in this sense.
I am not a "strong Darwinian," because I think -- from my very amateur position! -- that neo-Darwinism must be supplemented with a theory of form. The best candidates for such a theory today, from what I can tell, lie in the sciences of self-organizing systems and what is called "autopoeisis." Recently I have encountered the idea of an "Extended Evolutionary Synthesis" (PDF). I doubt that an EES is the complete theory, either, but I would regard it as a helpful step in the right direction of getting us closer to being able to tell a story, with fewer discontinuities, that runs from the apes to the Enlightenment -- and beyond.
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