Religious Belief & Reformed Epistemology
Posted on February 1, 2010
Filed Under Peirce, Philosophy, Religion | 2 Comments
One thing that many religious thinkers have appealed to in religious epistemology is the idea of reformed epistemology. This is roughly the idea that you can be justified in a belief without having the conditions of your justification before you. That is you can know without being able to give reasons for your knowledge. Now I’m amazingly skeptical of this approach, whether the form by Alston or Plantinga. I know some Mormon thinkers have at times embraced this. (I seem to recall Dennis Potter talking about this back in the 90’s, for instance)
The problem I have with this is that it seems to avoid the central issue of giving reasons. I think we can salvage the general principle though. In this month’s philosopher’s carnival Chris Hallquist has up a nice discussion of reformed epistemology and moral realism. I particularly like this passage:
Vaccine Doctor Dismissal
Posted on January 29, 2010
Filed Under Politics, Science | 4 Comments
The doctor who perpetrated fraud regarding a vaccine link with Autism will finally be banned from medicine. Yes it’s not done yet, but it looks like it’ll happen soon. It’s hard to underestimate the damage to children this guy has done. Not to mention the irrational panic he’s caused in parents. Those parents who aren’t vaccinating are causing outbreaks of whooping cough, mumps and measles and other diseases. Not only that but it’s led to a general distrust of vaccines such that we saw many parents not vaccinating their kids this fall for swine flu. Speaking as someone who spent a few weeks in the hospital because of swine flu, I know just how terrible that is. (And, months after I came down with it prior to Thanksgiving I’m still on oxygen at night!)
I think even worse is that people like Andrew Wakefield have led to a general distrust of science. Some of the scandals in climate science (however overhyped and outright misrepresented by the media) have also contributed to this. All of this in turn has lead to a lot more people adopting pseudo-science like homeopathy. In some cases, such as some highly dangerous alternative treatments for autism, the treatments are far, far more dangerous than even any theoretical danger posed by purported mercury in vaccines. What’s worse is that people don’t apply the same skepticism they have of medicine to these alternative medicines.
Dreyfus and Heidegger
Posted on January 23, 2010
Filed Under Heidegger, Philosophy | 5 Comments
Interesting post over at Minds and Brains. It makes a claim about Dreyfus that is intriguing. (Dreyfus of course has a well received commentary on Being and Time as well as a highly influential class at Berkeley on the same that many subscribe to via iTunes U)
…it is this feature of Heideggerian thought which led me to become dissatisfied with Hubert Dreyfus’ insistence that Dasein’s nonrepresentational and “non-mental” absorbed coping is the total story insofar as Dasein is average. On the contrary, as the rift-structure indicates, and as John McDowell attempts to demonstrate in Mind and World and in his recent exchange with Dreyfus in Inquiry, human experience is thoroughly “conceptualized” in terms of linguistic “object carving.”
Thoughts on Derrida and Realism
Posted on January 18, 2010
Filed Under Derrida, Philosophy | Leave a Comment
I thought I was a bit alone in how I read Derrida. I always took him as a bit of a realist – although not a realist of the correspondence sort. That is he opposes the traditional story since Descartes of a clear inside and outside. In this story realism is an account of how thoughts in the inside correlate with objects in the outside. However I think Heidegger moves us away from that and Derrida even moreso with his criticism of the very inside and outside dichotomy.
I think Derrida’s early work on différance on up gets at this kind of deconstructive-realism.
Chemistry Set Generation
Posted on January 16, 2010
Filed Under Politics, Science | 4 Comments
I, like many, was enraged by this ridiculous story about a school that evacuated due to a “bomb threat”. The threat? An 11 year old with a science project in a Gatorade bottle – a motion detector. All this reminds me of the good old days of the chemistry set generation.
Back when I was a young kid in the 70’s chemistry sets were actual chemistry sets. There were tons of experiments you could do. I think a lot of us went into science because of science sets like that. No longer. Not only can’t you buy them anymore but you’d probably be put in prison if you let your kid play with such chemicals. For that matter half the stuff you can’t even buy anymore.
Should Downs Syndrome Be Cured?
Posted on January 15, 2010
Filed Under Politics, Science | 15 Comments
The New York Times has up an editorial, “Should Downs Syndrome be cured?” Of course. This idea that debilitating problems in babies should be left because others have it is ridiculous. Guess what, if you spend your childhood battling cancer it’ll change your personality as well.
I think a lot of this sort of discussion comes out of (a) a nervousness to change what people perceive as God’s creation (b) a desire for parents to have kids like them (and with the same handicaps like blindness or deafness) (c) some idea of personality essentialism.
I think (a) is ridiculous as the cancer example demonstrates. A friend of mine had a baby born with a bad infection. Few would say we ought just leave it infected because of some religious belief. So why would we leaven blindness, deafness, Downs Syndrome, Autism or other such things alone?
I think (b) is pretty selfish and ridiculous as well. It’s often a way for people who feel discriminated against or unaccepted to make themselves more mainstream. But limiting your children’s options for that sort of political gain seems like a modern form of child sacrifice.
Finally (c) is ridiculous as well for the reasons I mentioned. Clearly part of our personality is genetic but a big part is environmental as well. Given that, how on earth can anyone hold to that sort of essentialism?
I think we do have to push for a more accepting society. However using disabled children who needn’t be disabled to bring that about is just the height of selfishness.
All that said I think people are putting the cart before the horse on this. “Cures” for forms of autism, Downs Syndrom and so forth are still iffy and at best a long ways off. Further, I think as a reality, few parents would leave their kids in those circumstances when they needn’t be. The bigger issue honestly is how parents pay for such treatments. I think society clearly would be better off if these things were covered by society.
Levinas, Heidegger & Objects
Posted on January 14, 2010
Filed Under Heidegger, Philosophy | Leave a Comment
Enowning linked to a post by dis|closure on “enjoying your objects.” It’s interesting as it raises one place where I think Levinas simply gets Heidegger wrong.
Levinas refutes the Heideggerian notion that the existents in our lives, whether they be bread, hammers, pens, etc. are simply tools, or “means of life.” Levinas claims that, though we might need such tools, they are actually enjoyed. This is the beginning of the concept he calls “living from…” Levinas claims, in opposition to the Heideggerian school of thought, that “existence is not exhausted by utilitarian schematism that delineates (existents) as having the existence of hammers, needles, or machines. They are always in a certain measure– and even the hammers, needles, and machines are objects of enjoyment…”
Heidegger on Dewey
Posted on January 11, 2010
Filed Under Heidegger, Peirce, Philosophy | 3 Comments
Despite having a lot of parallels with the pragmatism movement Heidegger had a very dim view of American philosophy and Dewey in particular.
Pragmatism in general but Dewey in particular thoughts that philosophy had to include all the other kinds of experiences we have beyond what philosophy had traditionally considered. This was a scandal in Europe since it seemed to make philosophy depend upon cmmonplace values and desires.
Yet of course it was precisely a move in this direction that Husserl critiqued philosophy with. And Heidegger can be seen as a radicalization of this tendency already within Husserl. To such an extent that we find objects of knowledge resulting from the breakdown of everyday, often “hidden” phenomena such as hammering or painting. So it’s rather surprising to find Heidegger making the below attack on Dewey due to this focus on the practical. Heck, imagine had Dewey mentioned the experience of a farmer wearing shoes!
Beyond Realism and Idealism
Posted on January 10, 2010
Filed Under Derrida, Heidegger, Peirce, Philosophy | 4 Comments
I’ve been reading, off and on, various blogs by speculative realists. Since I’m still recovering my health I’ve not delved into any of their formal works yet. (Plus I still have some Badiou and Davidson to finish before starting any new projects) Still, some of the blog posts, especially by Harman, really make me think. There were two I’ve been reading today some of you might find interesting. The first is “Intention is not structured like a language” over at We Have Never Been Blogging. The other is “Phenomenology, Discourse and their Objects” at Deontologists.
Reading these blogs has been very enjoyable and thought provoking. That said I think I ultimately disagree with how they take the post-Husserlian phenomenologists who I just don’t think are as cut off from the object as they suggest. But that gets into the whole issue of “de-worlding” in Heidegger and I don’t have time to give my thoughts there. Even if one acknowledges (as Derrida and I think Marion have) that we have to go beyond phenomenology I don’t think that means we reject it. (Or at least not the sort Heidegger does – Husserl’s more Cartesian formulation is problematic) I appreciate what speculative realism is trying to do. I just think it’s throwing out of phenomenology is problematic. I think the pragmatists have the solution of course, and I fully confess to reading Heidegger and Derrida through a pragmatic lens.
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Heidegger and Science
Posted on January 8, 2010
Filed Under Heidegger | 3 Comments
I was discussing science, math and Heidegger the other day. I came upon a paper by Joseph Rouse that is useful. “Heidegger on Science and Naturalism” (PDF) He’s done quite a lot on it.
The important thing to remember with Heidegger is that mathematics is more than numbers. Unsurprising since it is for mathematicians as well. However a lot of people who haven’t taken math outside of High School are often ignorant of just what mathematics is. For Heidegger mathematics is a kind of very basic ontological structure. Mathematics as done by mathematicians is made possible by this ontology. (As is in the numerical)
God and Completion
Posted on January 5, 2010
Filed Under Religion | 5 Comments
It seems to me that several major strains of Mormon thought have paradoxes within God. However the paradoxes are quite different than say some Christian theologians had paradox. (Say Anselm) The traditional Christian paradoxes tended to argue that God is either not bound by logic or that he is so Other that our understanding can’t grasp him. (Often parallel to how the neoPlatonic One subsumes all)
The big paradox within Mormonism seems to be that progression to be true progression demands simultaneously a gap or lack and a dissatisfaction with the gap. So you must desire a gap you don’t desire. Of course such contradictory desires are phenomena we encounter regularly. However the traditional view of God in most traditions tends to be a view of perfection as consistency. It’s interesting that for eternal progression to be meaningful (i.e. something God is engaged with rather than something that merely happens around him as in Bruce R. McConkie’s more nominalistic view) that God must be contradictory in this fashion.
Back from the Beyond
Posted on January 5, 2010
Filed Under Philosophy | 5 Comments
Well I’m back to blogging. I was in the hospital for two weeks and then spent three weeks at home on oxygen. I’m now able to be out a bit without oxygen so long as I don’t do too much physical and so long as there isn’t an inversion here in the valley. The doctor said I probably won’t be back to quasi-normal until February.
So posting will be resuming.
Swine Flu
Posted on December 5, 2009
Filed Under Blog | 29 Comments
Sorry for no posts. I came down with a very, very bad case of swine flu and ended up needing hospitalization for it. (I need assistance to breath)
It really sucks – especially given how hard I tried to get the vaccine.
I’m still in the hospital and have no idea when I’ll be out.
Faith Instinct
Posted on November 23, 2009
Filed Under Religion, Science | Leave a Comment
Over at Gene Expression Razib reviews Nicholas Wade’s The Faith Instinct. It sounds like a different sort of book from the more cognitive science oriented ones like Scott Atran’s In Gods We Trust. (Which I enjoyed a great deal). One problem I’ve always had over the question of the evolution of religion is that the issue seemed too broad. “Religion” as a category always struck me as inherently problematic. Part of that is because I think the evidence points towards religion and government evolving very closely together. In other words I don’t think you can really separate out, except in a very artificial way, religion from government, agriculture or civilization in general. While today we can make clear distinctions I think such distinctions are pretty misleading in ancient or primitive peoples.
At a minimum one might want to separate out common religious beliefs from common religious rituals. And then keep both somewhat separate from the issue of religious comportment. That is, how we as humans engage the world. Which often has implications for religion. I think Atran did a great job of this arguing that a lot of aspects of religion arise out of common cognitive apparatus when applied to certain situations.
Ethics and the Death of God
Posted on November 22, 2009
Filed Under Philosophy, Religion | 11 Comments
I was reading a post at Secular Right that was bringing up the old canard about needing the idea of God to ground moral order. This is the idea that atheism intrinsically leads to immorality. Now of course this is demonstrably false. I don’t see any evidence that atheists or agnostics in the US are particularly more immoral than believers of any particular faith. However the way both sides tend to debate the issue always struck me as odd.
Now first my usual caveats. I don’t study Ethics much and tend to be a skeptic towards most philosophical conceptions of ethics.
That said, it seems the real question is less what the good is than the question about why on earth one should want to be good. There the real issue isn’t God but life after death. After all, it’s quite possible to believe in God but believe there is no after life. (Some even think that the early Jews may have held such an idea with the belief in the resurrection being a much later belief) If you end absolutely at your death then the existence of God can’t really ground whether you ought behave well in life. Likewise one could easily conceive of the non-existence of God while believing in life after death. (Say reincarnation)
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