Hey, Chef - thanks for this. Great stuff. I'm gate-crashing here because of some philosophical problems I've seen in my (former) neck of the academic woods. So I'm behind and unsophisticated, but trying to learn nonetheless.
Two questions.
(1) Isn't Plantinga's original argument (the N. E. R. one) slightly different in what it wants to achieve compared with Cassini's and yours?
So, if I shorten (or caricature[?]) the two last-named, can we say they come to something like pragmatic self-refutation regarding induction? (So, for Cassini, the absolute heart of the matter is, How can Hume himself have no epistemic limits in order to say that we all have epistemic limits. And then for your argument, doesn't premiss 4 say this, again, at its core?)
By contrast, in Plantinga's original argument, it's not so much about induction as it is about the two doctrines clashing when their fundamental principles are put in touch with one another, is it?
(2) Of course I agree with you that there are problems with P.'s argument, and of course you're right to note that it bears on induction regardless of what I've said in (1).
What I'm interested in here is that, when P.'s original argument is combined with 'Paul', I think there's something more here about evolution. Couldn't it be that Paul is a better example of evolution at work, so to speak, in a 'modern' human. For example, Paul's seeming confusion may be that he just doesn't see, and so 'know', as many tigers nowadays as Paul's ancestors did - ancestors who would not be so confused and who would adhere to what you've written here.
In short, and this is an unfair and vast question for a blog-post, but isn't there something to the notion that there is some historical variance in evolution? eg, where evolution is working on us in different ways according to different epochs? And if so, then would it mean that evolution's workings are not quite as static as they might need to be in order to polish off P.'s original argument regarding the conflicting doctrines?
Sweet. Thanks again for the posts! Much appreciated.
>By contrast, in Plantinga's original argument, it's not so much about induction as it is about the two doctrines clashing when their fundamental principles are put in touch with one another, is it?
Yeah. I don't want to overstate how similar I think our arguments are, I just think Platinga's original argument points to a more general sort of argument that could be something like this:
1. p is a defeater of the belief that our cognitive faculties are reliable
2. Any defeater of that belief is a defeater of any belief at all
3. So p is self-defeating.
The meat of the argument, and the hard part, of course, is always going to be to prove (1), which is where the conflicting doctrines stuff has to do its work in his argument.
>but isn't there something to the notion that there is some historical variance in evolution? eg, where evolution is working on us in different ways according to different epochs?
If I'm understanding your point correctly, I think there could be truth to that. I guess this bears on the nature vs. nurture question. If we stipulate some evolutionary timeline prior to modern man, it seems plausible to me that we might have some built-in instincts that are holdovers from our ancestors, like the instinct not to be eaten by tigers. Would Paul's behavior and beliefs be more influenced by that or by the lack of tigers in his environment? We could imagine a scenario where beliefs and behaviors like these are softly heritable and Paul passes them on in the modern era. It strikes me as possible.
I don't have an issue with one person or even a handful of people like Paul having strange beliefs about tigers, but it seems like, on a long enough evolutionary time scale, the Pauls of the world would have to be reproductively out-competed (and then you could make a probabilistic argument that, even if there are some Pauls in the world, I am not likely to be one of them). For one, just think about how someone like Paul living today would struggle to find a mate if he shared his odd beliefs! "I want to be eaten by a tiger," isn't a great icebreaker at parties. He'd have to somehow hide his beliefs completely to have any chance of mating, or find someone equally deranged. A Paulina.
>Sweet. Thanks again for the posts! Much appreciated.
Ha, ha. 'A Paulina'. Yeah, I see what you mean here. I was indeed thinking something like that, ie, something like, now more than ever, Pauls and Paulinas are getting luckier and luckier. Or that they have some trait in addition to the 'I want to be eaten by tigers' desire, a trait that outweighs that desire. Ha, ha. But nothing I think or say on evolution should I press too far... Thanks for indulging me, and I'll check in again soon to read more. Cheers!
Hey, Chef - thanks for this. Great stuff. I'm gate-crashing here because of some philosophical problems I've seen in my (former) neck of the academic woods. So I'm behind and unsophisticated, but trying to learn nonetheless.
Two questions.
(1) Isn't Plantinga's original argument (the N. E. R. one) slightly different in what it wants to achieve compared with Cassini's and yours?
So, if I shorten (or caricature[?]) the two last-named, can we say they come to something like pragmatic self-refutation regarding induction? (So, for Cassini, the absolute heart of the matter is, How can Hume himself have no epistemic limits in order to say that we all have epistemic limits. And then for your argument, doesn't premiss 4 say this, again, at its core?)
By contrast, in Plantinga's original argument, it's not so much about induction as it is about the two doctrines clashing when their fundamental principles are put in touch with one another, is it?
(2) Of course I agree with you that there are problems with P.'s argument, and of course you're right to note that it bears on induction regardless of what I've said in (1).
What I'm interested in here is that, when P.'s original argument is combined with 'Paul', I think there's something more here about evolution. Couldn't it be that Paul is a better example of evolution at work, so to speak, in a 'modern' human. For example, Paul's seeming confusion may be that he just doesn't see, and so 'know', as many tigers nowadays as Paul's ancestors did - ancestors who would not be so confused and who would adhere to what you've written here.
In short, and this is an unfair and vast question for a blog-post, but isn't there something to the notion that there is some historical variance in evolution? eg, where evolution is working on us in different ways according to different epochs? And if so, then would it mean that evolution's workings are not quite as static as they might need to be in order to polish off P.'s original argument regarding the conflicting doctrines?
Sweet. Thanks again for the posts! Much appreciated.
>By contrast, in Plantinga's original argument, it's not so much about induction as it is about the two doctrines clashing when their fundamental principles are put in touch with one another, is it?
Yeah. I don't want to overstate how similar I think our arguments are, I just think Platinga's original argument points to a more general sort of argument that could be something like this:
1. p is a defeater of the belief that our cognitive faculties are reliable
2. Any defeater of that belief is a defeater of any belief at all
3. So p is self-defeating.
The meat of the argument, and the hard part, of course, is always going to be to prove (1), which is where the conflicting doctrines stuff has to do its work in his argument.
>but isn't there something to the notion that there is some historical variance in evolution? eg, where evolution is working on us in different ways according to different epochs?
If I'm understanding your point correctly, I think there could be truth to that. I guess this bears on the nature vs. nurture question. If we stipulate some evolutionary timeline prior to modern man, it seems plausible to me that we might have some built-in instincts that are holdovers from our ancestors, like the instinct not to be eaten by tigers. Would Paul's behavior and beliefs be more influenced by that or by the lack of tigers in his environment? We could imagine a scenario where beliefs and behaviors like these are softly heritable and Paul passes them on in the modern era. It strikes me as possible.
I don't have an issue with one person or even a handful of people like Paul having strange beliefs about tigers, but it seems like, on a long enough evolutionary time scale, the Pauls of the world would have to be reproductively out-competed (and then you could make a probabilistic argument that, even if there are some Pauls in the world, I am not likely to be one of them). For one, just think about how someone like Paul living today would struggle to find a mate if he shared his odd beliefs! "I want to be eaten by a tiger," isn't a great icebreaker at parties. He'd have to somehow hide his beliefs completely to have any chance of mating, or find someone equally deranged. A Paulina.
>Sweet. Thanks again for the posts! Much appreciated.
You're making me blush!
Ha, ha. 'A Paulina'. Yeah, I see what you mean here. I was indeed thinking something like that, ie, something like, now more than ever, Pauls and Paulinas are getting luckier and luckier. Or that they have some trait in addition to the 'I want to be eaten by tigers' desire, a trait that outweighs that desire. Ha, ha. But nothing I think or say on evolution should I press too far... Thanks for indulging me, and I'll check in again soon to read more. Cheers!