Re: [asa] Natural Selection and Reliable Beliefs

Right -- but doesn't "appletree" imply certain properties, including things
like fixity and hardness?

On Feb 9, 2008 10:35 PM, D. F. Siemens, Jr. <dfsiemensjr@juno.com> wrote:

> You've put in a lot of extra things. Plantinga's statement can be
> presented as:
> (Ex)[appletree(x) & witch(x) & blooming(x)]
> which indicates that there exists at least one entity, x, with the three
> characteristics. "And" has the logical requirement to be true only when all
> the propositions joined are true. So all it takes in the claim that it is a
> witch to make the whole false, even though the other conjuncts are true.
>
> I don't wonder that you have a problem with some of Plantinga's arguments.
> I've run across his views repeatedly, and now usually don't bother with
> them. The fact is that all philosophers have to assume some things to get
> started, but Plantinga seems to swallow whales. My impression is that he is
> a good friend to ID, which I hold to be grossly in error.
> Dave (ASA)
>
> On Sat, 9 Feb 2008 20:07:39 -0500 "David Opderbeck" <dopderbeck@gmail.com>
> writes:
>
> On the philosophy of religion blog Prosblogion (
> http://prosblogion.ektopos.com/archives/2008/02/naturalism-evol.html),
> I've been going back and forth with someone about Plantinga's argument
> against natural selection producing reliable beliefs. I happen to like
> Plantinga and reformed epistemology generally, but I don't understand the
> force of this particular argument.
>
> Right now the discussion turns on a hypothetical creature, in a
> hypothetical world in which naturalism is true, that believes trees are
> witches. The creature has the belief "appletree witch is blooming." That
> the creature could hold this belief supposedly demonstrates that natural
> selection can result in unreliable beliefs, which supposedly leads to the
> conclusion that there is no reason to accept an epistemology rooted in
> natural selection / naturalism.
>
> I understand that by the rules of formal logic, a proposition can't be
> partly true. However, it seems silly to me to claim that "appletree witch
> is blooming" is really a single proposition that must be either true or
> false. Below is what seems to make sense to me. Logicians, am I just
> getting the rules of logic wrong here?
>
> If "appletree witch is blooming" has to be analyzed only as single
> proposition, this just seems like an unrealistic language game to me.
> People / organisms simply don't form beliefs like this all at once.
>
> "Appletree witch is blooming" includes at least the following beliefs that
> realistically would develop separately because they each have survival value
> in diffent contexts. They can be stated as separate propositions:
>
> p1 there is an appletree
> p1(a) appletrees have the proprty of hardness
> p1(b) appletrees have the property of fixity
> p1(c) if I crash into the appletree it will hurt me
>
> p2 appletree is a witch
> p2(a) witches have the property of protecting or cursing the clan
> p2(b) witches ought to be venerated so that the clan is protected
> p2(c) the clan needs a shaman to communicate with the witches
>
> p3 appletree is blooming
> p3(a) blooms have the property of emitting fragrance
> p3(b) blooms lead to buds and fruit
> p3(c) blooms have magical properties that the shaman can use to appease
> witches
>
> So fine, "appletree witch is blooming," standing alone as a single
> proposition, technically is false. But who cares aside from the guy who
> wrote the logic textbook? p1 that I stated above confers survival value
> based on properties of the external universe and is reliable.
>
> I'd suggest that Plantinga's argument here works only if *all *of the
> beliefs subsidiary to the challenged proposition are also unreliable.
> Otherwise, the best you can say is that natural selection will produce some
> reliable beliefs because all organisms encounter the same physical universe,
> even while natural selection might also result in some unreliable beliefs.
>
>
>

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Received on Sun Feb 10 12:48:26 2008