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.
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.