Stumbling Upon Plantinga

At a local bar I conversed with an undergraduate student in philosophy at my university. She was in one of my math classes ages ago and recognized me. We discussed a plethora of topics ranging from current political affairs, the economy, and our personal philosophical outlook.

Like many of the intelligent girls I know or have conversed with it at my school, she was raised Catholic and still considers herself a practicing Catholic. When we got to the point in the conversation about our philosophical positions, she seemed a bit amazed to be conversing with a metaphysical naturalist. To her, naturalism was self-defeating.

I thought this was odd. How is naturalism self-defeating? Certainly the demand of strict empiricism as the test of demarcation of true beliefs from false constructs cannot be proven without a recourse in circularity, but this circularity is characteristic in all epistemological systems (eg. strict rationalism is unable to justify itself independent of its methodology of using reason and deductive arguments, the very composition which makes the method rational). A quality that is exhibited in all systems cannot, in and of itself, be the sole reason to dismiss one system in favor of another unless one desires to adopt global skepticism, a position which (though plausibly true) does not render itself very well in philosophical conversations.

However, this is exactly what she had in mind. As a Catholic and an intelligent young woman, she takes the theory of evolution as a valid representation of reality. However, from the precepts of the theory of evolution under naturalism (ie. unguided processes), she indicates that there is a low probability of obtaining true beliefs. This result comes from the observation that true beliefs and false beliefs can arise naturally and unguided natural selection would not differentiate between the two. So there is a probability that a false belief could arise and maintain itself as a true belief despite it being false. As false beliefs have a greater potential to arise naturally than true beliefs, the probability of a belief being true becomes low. Therefore, the belief that evolution is unguided cannot be determined as true and, under this system, contain a high probability of being false. Thus, under these conditions, naturalism is self-defeating by positioning itself as a strongly possible false belief.

As she was discussing her view, she mentioned it was not original to her. It was a reworking of Plantinga's evolutionary argument against naturalism. I have heard that Plantinga developed a rationalist argument against naturalism, but to be honest I never read in detail his argument before. Nor have I read his argument in detail upon writing this post. I do have the PDF downloaded and plan on going to the library tomorrow between classes to check out some books that discuss the argument. But if the philosophy undergraduate student portrayed the argument concisely, then I have some preliminary issues with the argumentation form.

As stated previously, the metaphysical naturalist (particularly my flavor) has a greater loyalty to empiricism over rationalism. To be concise, rationalism leads only to an operational description of reality but empirical observations are reality that, indeed, back-up and trump the previous operational descriptors. But, I digress some.

The empiricist seeks facts which play a role in transparent explanations. That is, the empiricist seeks explanatory clarity to grant us a modicum of confidence in our explanations of the world. In essence, our explanations and beliefs must be naturalized to satisfy this level of explanatory clarity and transparency. Our descriptors must also be parsimonious with respect to the given facts and intersubjective conclusions concerning these facts, or else we lose our sense of transparency. Indeed, as the history of science has shown in the fields of chemistry and physics (to name the ones I work with more closely), parsimony gives a resulting theory of reality that describes reality more closely until more data (ie more facts) are collected.

But how did this mode of thinking develop? Of course, this structure developed through evolutionary processes. In essence, whereas the argument stated denies adaptive beliefs, it is the very practice of empiricism which is adaptive. During the course of our evolutionary history we became selected out by our cognitive ability to model the world. Civilization, which relied heavily upon the development of agriculture, developed from the observations of interactions of the natural environment. We developed clothing as a response to migration into temperate zones. Our history is rich with beliefs developed via an empirical model, and it is also rich with ideas rejected due to failure to adhere to empirical observations. How is one able to determine that this is probably false if, indeed, natural selection favored the population that was able to control their environment via pragmatic methods over the population which was subdued by their environment?

Certainly, the metaphysical naturalist could be mistaken. A god could be actualized via the pursuit of science, but then this god would become naturalized, and in doing so become clearly explainable and parsimonious. These are not the characteristics of any of the revealed gods. Though one could posit a sort of god as an initiator, there is no indication that this initiator plays an overtly active role. Those who adhere to empiricism out of pragmatic reasons and the powerful ability for it to explain reality concisely, whether absolutely or close enough for conventional explanations, demand a posited god to be detectable and predictable. These criteria have not been met by the individuals possessing the positive belief in said entity.

As well, we could all be living a conscious fantasy. However, even if this were true, the rationalist is at no better a position than the empiricist, and the theist is at no better a position than the atheist. As both live in the truly-false world, like a brain in the vat, one would be unable to differentiate the true beliefs developed via supra-worldly help (ie religious revelation) from the beliefs developed by worldly methods. Ironically, this is because the supra-worldly method would be forced to intersect with a worldly entity that is affected by the aspect of being in a truly-false world. In essence, this is a more sophisticated version of the argument from conflicting revelations taken under the assumption of the being existing in a truly-false world.

So, in summary, I find the summation of Plantinga's argument lacking. It seems to assume a certain linear fashion of the development of beliefs despite the observation of various evolutionists that belief develop is non-linear. Also, it seems to fail to address adaptive beliefs that the very survival of the species hinges upon. Plantinga attempts to write-off the beauty of unguided natural selection with appeals to pure rationalism. I'll address his arguments in full at a later date, perhaps, but for now my preliminary review seems strong enough for a web log post.