In the philosophical tradition, there is a hidden but important debate between the advocates of a static metaphysics -- forms are more real than forces -- and a dynamic metaphysics -- forces are more real than forms. It's been said -- correctly, I think -- that one of Plato's accomplishments was to create the appearance/reality distinction in order to resolve the debate between Heraclitus and Parmenides. In those terms, it might said that Nietzsche's move is to reverse this priority. So there are "ousiological" metaphysicians and "metabological" metaphysicians -- metaphysicians of substance and metaphysicians of change.
Lately I've been trying to articulate why I've retreated from my enthusiasm for Nietzsche and for Deleuze, and I now think I'd want to put it this way: forms and forces are phenomenologically equiprimordial. And my quarrel with Nietzsche, but especially with Deleuze, is that they are no more sensitive to this experiential truth than are the philosophers in the tradition from Parmenides to Hegel which they reject.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Friday, August 8, 2008
A Pragmatics of the Multiple: A Brief Sketch
In a private correspondence, Yusef (of The Enlightenment Underground) suggested the term "a pragmatics of the multiple" for what I want to do here -- a term which I'm happy to accept!
The contrast I wish to draw is between a pragmatics of the multiple and the metaphysics of unity. The former not only allows for but insists on a multiplicity of ways of speaking with the further realization that different ways of speaking are different ways in which human needs, desires, interests, fears, and hopes are given voice -- that is, in which they take on a concrete and public existence in the on-going life and evolution of a culture. Since these multiple ways of speaking can be in conflict, as needs and desires and interests are in conflict, there arises an agonistic dimension to cultural life which cannot be entirely eliminated.
The latter, the metaphysics of unity, is the demand to locate the correct way of speaking -- the way of speaking that fits the world, which shows us how the world really is. Such a way of speaking would put an end to all social antagonisms by showing once and for all what is true and what is false in each sphere of discourse. The impulse or urge towards a metaphysics of unity was born, and not without good reason, in Plato's rejection of the Sophists and of Thucydides. Since then even if one does not embrace the Platonic solutions to the problems he poses, it was felt that one is obliged to formulate an alternative. Thus the panoply of metaphysical doctrines: Aristotelianism, Epicureanism, Stoicism, Neoplatonism, Christianity (Augustinianism, Thomism), Cartesianism, Spinozism, mechanism/materialism, idealism, phenomenalism, Hegelianism, Marxism, process metaphysics (Nietzsche, Whitehead, Dewey, de Chardin, Bergson), phenomenological ontology (Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty). Each doctrine opposes all the others and sets itself up as the most fundamental or highest truth of all things.
In the science/religion debate as it unfolds before us today, the deadlock is exacerbated by an insistence on the metaphysics of unity. Thus it is asked - do science and religion both refer to "the same reality"? Do they thereby conflict? Or do they refer to different "aspects" of "the same reality"? Or is one merely bias, subjective, opinion, and the other alone describes things as they really (basically, deeply, fundamentally, ultimately) are?
The pragmatics of the multiple offers a way out of this impasse by recognizing the metaphysics of unity as itself simply one more way of speaking. (This is, in effect, Nietzsche's jujitsu move against Plato. Among Nietzsche's Anglophone readers, Rorty has been unusual in his appreciation of the full force of this move.) But the pragmatics of the multiple is not mere Rortyian "conversation" any more than it is Habermasian "discourse." On the one hand, conversation and discourse are decisive turning-points in the trajectory that leads from the apes to the Enlightenment. There is no return to a time before Plato and before the ethics of dialogue, contra Nietzsche and contra Heidegger -- nor would we want such a return. The moral revulsion one feels at the world described by Thucydides is indication enough of that.
Thus a pragmatics of the multiple is also an ethics of dialogue. But it is one which, unlike the metaphysics of unity, does not attempt to put an end to dissent and to "dissensus." Nor, importantly, does it cordon off each vocabulary within its assigned territory -- science here, religion there, art over there in the darkened corner, and so on. Rather the pragmatics of the multiple seeks to enrich each vocabulary through its conflict with the others -- science with religion, art with science, religion with art. (Sanity with madness?) Each vocabulary must remain open to all the others and at the same time respond the provocations it receives from within its own traditions and procedures. A theologian cannot respond to the provocations of neo-Darwinism except theologically; an artist cannot respond to the provocations of religious doctrine except artistically.
In this way a pragmatics of the multiple differs from the demand for mere "tolerance" which asks us to not feel or think about the provocations which are all around us. At the same time it differs from a metaphysics of unity which demands the determination of a final, definitive way of speaking. Nor is it mere relativism, if only because relativism necessarily stands in relation to some absolute against which certain things (vocabularies, concepts, values, etc) are found relative. But the pragmatics of the multiple does not say that the place of the absolute is unoccupied; it says that there is no such place as 'the absolute', or more precisely, that metaphysics of unity is itself a vocabulary, albeit the most curious of them all.
The contrast I wish to draw is between a pragmatics of the multiple and the metaphysics of unity. The former not only allows for but insists on a multiplicity of ways of speaking with the further realization that different ways of speaking are different ways in which human needs, desires, interests, fears, and hopes are given voice -- that is, in which they take on a concrete and public existence in the on-going life and evolution of a culture. Since these multiple ways of speaking can be in conflict, as needs and desires and interests are in conflict, there arises an agonistic dimension to cultural life which cannot be entirely eliminated.
The latter, the metaphysics of unity, is the demand to locate the correct way of speaking -- the way of speaking that fits the world, which shows us how the world really is. Such a way of speaking would put an end to all social antagonisms by showing once and for all what is true and what is false in each sphere of discourse. The impulse or urge towards a metaphysics of unity was born, and not without good reason, in Plato's rejection of the Sophists and of Thucydides. Since then even if one does not embrace the Platonic solutions to the problems he poses, it was felt that one is obliged to formulate an alternative. Thus the panoply of metaphysical doctrines: Aristotelianism, Epicureanism, Stoicism, Neoplatonism, Christianity (Augustinianism, Thomism), Cartesianism, Spinozism, mechanism/materialism, idealism, phenomenalism, Hegelianism, Marxism, process metaphysics (Nietzsche, Whitehead, Dewey, de Chardin, Bergson), phenomenological ontology (Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty). Each doctrine opposes all the others and sets itself up as the most fundamental or highest truth of all things.
In the science/religion debate as it unfolds before us today, the deadlock is exacerbated by an insistence on the metaphysics of unity. Thus it is asked - do science and religion both refer to "the same reality"? Do they thereby conflict? Or do they refer to different "aspects" of "the same reality"? Or is one merely bias, subjective, opinion, and the other alone describes things as they really (basically, deeply, fundamentally, ultimately) are?
The pragmatics of the multiple offers a way out of this impasse by recognizing the metaphysics of unity as itself simply one more way of speaking. (This is, in effect, Nietzsche's jujitsu move against Plato. Among Nietzsche's Anglophone readers, Rorty has been unusual in his appreciation of the full force of this move.) But the pragmatics of the multiple is not mere Rortyian "conversation" any more than it is Habermasian "discourse." On the one hand, conversation and discourse are decisive turning-points in the trajectory that leads from the apes to the Enlightenment. There is no return to a time before Plato and before the ethics of dialogue, contra Nietzsche and contra Heidegger -- nor would we want such a return. The moral revulsion one feels at the world described by Thucydides is indication enough of that.
Thus a pragmatics of the multiple is also an ethics of dialogue. But it is one which, unlike the metaphysics of unity, does not attempt to put an end to dissent and to "dissensus." Nor, importantly, does it cordon off each vocabulary within its assigned territory -- science here, religion there, art over there in the darkened corner, and so on. Rather the pragmatics of the multiple seeks to enrich each vocabulary through its conflict with the others -- science with religion, art with science, religion with art. (Sanity with madness?) Each vocabulary must remain open to all the others and at the same time respond the provocations it receives from within its own traditions and procedures. A theologian cannot respond to the provocations of neo-Darwinism except theologically; an artist cannot respond to the provocations of religious doctrine except artistically.
In this way a pragmatics of the multiple differs from the demand for mere "tolerance" which asks us to not feel or think about the provocations which are all around us. At the same time it differs from a metaphysics of unity which demands the determination of a final, definitive way of speaking. Nor is it mere relativism, if only because relativism necessarily stands in relation to some absolute against which certain things (vocabularies, concepts, values, etc) are found relative. But the pragmatics of the multiple does not say that the place of the absolute is unoccupied; it says that there is no such place as 'the absolute', or more precisely, that metaphysics of unity is itself a vocabulary, albeit the most curious of them all.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Bounded in a Nutshell
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.
There is no more conflict between science and religion, nor any more need for reconciliation between them, than there is between carpentry and cooking.
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!
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