Evolutionary argument against naturalism
Encyclopedia
The evolutionary argument against naturalism (EAAN) is a philosophical argument regarding a perceived tension between biological evolutionary theory and philosophical naturalism
— the belief that there are no supernatural
entities or processes. The argument was proposed by Alvin Plantinga
in 1993 and "raises issues of interest to epistemologists, philosophers of mind, evolutionary biologists, and philosophers of religion". EAAN argues that the combination of evolutionary theory and naturalism is self-defeating on the basis of the claim that if both evolution and naturalism are true, then the probability of having reliable cognitive faculties is low.
in the first edition of his book Miracles
in 1947. Similar arguments were advanced by Richard Taylor
in Metaphysics, Stephen Clark
, Arthur Balfour
, Richard Purtill
and J. P. Moreland
. In 2003 Victor Reppert
developed a similar argument in detail in his book C.S. Lewis's Dangerous Idea, In Defense of the Argument from Reason. Contemporary philosophers who have employed a similar argument against physical determinism are James Jordan
and William Hasker
.
Plantinga proposed his "evolutionary argument against naturalism" in 1991. In the twelfth chapter of his book Warrant and Proper Function, Plantinga developed Lewis' idea, and constructed two formal arguments against evolutionary naturalism. He further developed the idea in an unpublished manuscript entitled "Naturalism Defeated" and in his 2000 book Warranted Christian Belief, and expanded the idea in Naturalism Defeated?, a 2002 anthology edited by James Beilby. He also responded to several objections to the argument in his essay "Reply to Beilby's Cohorts" in Beilby's anthology.
In the 2008 publication Knowledge of God Plantinga presented a formulation of the argument that solely focused on semantic epiphenomenalism instead of the former four jointly exhaustive categories.
, had seen that evolutionary naturalism seemed to lead to a deep and pervasive skepticism and to the conclusion that our unreliable cognitive or belief-producing faculties cannot be trusted to produce more true beliefs than false beliefs. He claimed that "Darwin
himself had worries along these lines" and quoted from an 1881 letter:
In the letter, Darwin had expressed agreement with William Graham
's claim that natural laws implied purpose and the belief that the universe was "not the result of chance", but again showed his doubts about such beliefs and left the matter as insoluble. Darwin only had this doubt about questions beyond the scope of science, and thought science was well within the scope of an evolved mind. Michael Ruse
said that by presenting it as "Darwin's doubt" that evolutionary naturalism is self-defeating, Plantinga failed to note that Darwin at once excused himself from philosophical matters he did not feel competent to consider. Others, such as Evan Fales, agreed that this citation allowed Plantinga to call the source of the problem EAAN addresses Darwin's Doubt. Also, contrary to Ruse's claim, Plantinga didn't label the idea that naturalism & evolution are self-defeating "Darwins Doubt". Instead he labeled the idea that given evolution and naturalism our cognitive faculties may not be reliable "Darwins Doubt". Plantinga asserts that "this doubt arises for naturalists or atheists, but not for those who believe in God. That is because if God has created us in his image, then even if he fashioned us by some evolutionary means, he would presumably want us to resemble him in being able to know; but then most of what we believe might be true even if our minds have developed from those of the lower animals."
Plantinga defined:
and suggested that the conditional probability
of R given N and E, or P(R|N&E), is low or inscrutable.
Plantinga's argument began with the observation that our beliefs can only have evolutionary consequences if they affect behaviour. To put this another way, natural selection does not directly select for true beliefs, but rather for advantageous behaviours. Plantinga distinguished the various theories of mind-body interaction into four jointly exhaustive categories:
Thus, Plantinga argued, the probability that our minds are reliable under a conjunction of philosophical naturalism
and naturalistic evolution is low or inscrutable. Therefore, to assert that naturalistic evolution is true also asserts that one has a low or unknown probability of being right. This, Plantinga argued, epistemically defeats
the belief that naturalistic evolution is true and that ascribing truth to naturalism and evolution is internally dubious or inconsistent.
and Elliott Sober
of the University of Wisconsin–Madison
set out to show that the arguments presented by Plantinga contain serious errors. Plantinga construed evolutionary naturalism as the conjunction of the idea that human cognitive faculties arose through evolutionary mechanisms, and naturalism which he equated to atheism. They tried to throw doubt on this conjunction with a preliminary argument that the conjunction is probably false, and a main argument that it is self defeating, if you believe it you should stop believing it.
Firstly, they criticised Plantinga's use of a Bayesian framework in which he arbitrarily assigned initial probabilities without empirical evidence, predetermining the outcome in favor of traditional theism, and described this as a recipe for replacing any non-deterministic theory in the natural sciences, so that for example a probable outcome predicted by quantum mechanics
would be seen as the outcome of God's will. Plantinga's use of R to mean that "the great bulk" of our beliefs are true fails to deal with the cumulative effect of adding beliefs which have variable reliability about different subjects. Plantinga asserted that the traditional theist believes being made in God's image includes a reflection of divine powers as a knower, but cognitive science
finds human reasoning subject to biases and systematic error. Traditional theology is not shown to predict this varying reliability as well as science, and there is the theological problem
of the omnipotent Creator producing such imperfection. They described how Plantinga set out various scenarios of belief affecting evolutionary success, but undercut the low probability he previously required when he suggested an "inscrutable" probability, and by ignoring availability of variants he fails to show that false beliefs will be equally adaptive as his claim of low probability assumes. Even if his claims of improbability were correct, that need not affect belief in evolution, and they considered it would be more sensible to accept that evolutionary processes sometimes have improbable outcomes.
They assessed Plantinga's main argument which asserts that since the reliability of evolutionary naturalism is low or of inscrutable value, those believing it should withhold assent from its reliability, and thus withhold assent from anything else they believe including evolutionary naturalism, which is therefore self-defeating. They found this unconvincing, having already disputed his argument that the reliability is low. Even if E&N defeated the claim that 'at least 90% of our beliefs are true,' they considered that Plantinga must show that it also defeats the more modest claim that 'at least a non-negligible minority of our beliefs are true'. They considered his sentiment that high probability is required for rational belief to be repudiated by philosophical lessons such as the lottery paradox
, and that each step in his argument requires principles different from those he had described. They concluded that Plantinga has drawn attention to unreliability of cognitive processes that is already taken into account by evolutionary scientists who accept that science is a fallible exercise, and appreciate the need to be as scrupulous as possible with the fallible cognitive processes available. His hyperbolic doubt as a defeater for evolutionary naturalism is equally a defeater for theists who rely on their belief that their mind was designed by a non-deceiving God, and neither "can construct a non-question-begging argument that refutes global skepticism."
Professor of Philosophy J. Wesley Robbins contended that Plantinga's argument applied only to Cartesian philosophy of minds
but not to pragmatist philosophies of mind. Robbins' argument, stated roughly, was that while in a Cartesian mind beliefs can be identified with no reference to the environmental factors that caused them, in a pragmatic mind they are identifiable only with reference to those factors. That is to say, in a pragmatic mind beliefs would not even exist if their holder had not come in contact with external belief-producing phenomena in the first place.
Naturalism Defeated? also included Plantinga's replies to both the critical responses contained in the book and to some objections raised by others, including Fitelson & Sober:
discussed EAAN. He argued:
Ruse concluded his discussion of the EAAN by stating:
Plantinga stated that from a materialist's point of view a belief will be a neuronal event. In this conception a belief will have two different sorts of properties:
Plantinga thought that we have something of an idea as to the history of NP properties: structures with these properties have come to exist by small increments, each increment such that it has proved to be useful in the struggle for survival. But he then asked how the content property of a belief came about: "How does it [the content] get to be associated in that way with a given proposition?"
He said that materialists offer two theories for this question: According to the first, content supervenes upon NP properties; according to the second, content is reducible to NP properties. (He noted that if content properties are reducible to NP properties, then they also supervene upon them.) He explained the two theories as follows:
Plantinga argued that neural structures that constitute beliefs have content, in the following way: "At a certain level of complexity, these neural structures start to display content. Perhaps this starts gradually and early on (possibly C. elegans [a small worm with a nervous system composed of only a few neurons] displays just the merest glimmer of consciousness and the merest glimmer of content), or perhaps later and more abruptly; that doesn't matter. What does matter is that at a certain level of complexity of neural structures, content appears. This is true whether content properties are reducible to NP properties or supervene on them."
So given materialism some neural structures at a given level of complexity acquire content and become beliefs. The question then is according to Plantinga: "what is the likelihood, given materialism, that the content that thus arises is in fact true?"
This way of proceeding replaced the first step of Plantinga's earlier versions of the argument.
described Plantinga as believing in the truth of the attack on evolution presented by intelligent design
creationist
Phillip E. Johnson
, and as having endorsed Johnson's book Darwin on Trial
. Ruse said that Plantinga took the conflict between science and religion
further than Johnson, seeing it as not just a clash between the philosophies of naturalism and theism, but as an attack on the true philosophy of theism by what he considers the incoherent and inconsistent philosophy of naturalism.
Plantinga has stated that EAAN is not directed against "the theory of evolution, or the claim that human beings have evolved from simian ancestors, or anything in that neighborhood". He also claimed that the problems raised by EAAN do not apply to the conjunction of theism
and contemporary evolutionary science. In his essay Evolution and Design Plantinga outlines different ways in which theism
and evolutionary theory can be combined.
In the foreword to the anthology Naturalism Defeated? James Beilby wrote: "Plantinga's argument should not be mistaken for an argument against evolutionary theory in general or, more specifically, against the claim that humans might have evolved from more primitive life forms. Rather, the purpose of his argument is to show that the denial of the existence of a creative deity is problematic."
Naturalism (philosophy)
Naturalism commonly refers to the philosophical viewpoint that the natural universe and its natural laws and forces operate in the universe, and that nothing exists beyond the natural universe or, if it does, it does not affect the natural universe that we know...
— the belief that there are no supernatural
Supernatural
The supernatural or is that which is not subject to the laws of nature, or more figuratively, that which is said to exist above and beyond nature...
entities or processes. The argument was proposed by Alvin Plantinga
Alvin Plantinga
Alvin Carl Plantinga is an American analytic philosopher and the emeritus John A. O'Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. He is known for his work in philosophy of religion, epistemology, metaphysics, and Christian apologetics...
in 1993 and "raises issues of interest to epistemologists, philosophers of mind, evolutionary biologists, and philosophers of religion". EAAN argues that the combination of evolutionary theory and naturalism is self-defeating on the basis of the claim that if both evolution and naturalism are true, then the probability of having reliable cognitive faculties is low.
Development of the idea
The idea that "naturalism" undercuts its own justification was put forward by C. S. LewisC. S. Lewis
Clive Staples Lewis , commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as "Jack", was a novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist from Belfast, Ireland...
in the first edition of his book Miracles
Miracles (book)
Miracles is a book written by C. S. Lewis, originally published in 1947 and revised in 1960. Lewis argues that before one can learn from the study of history whether or not any miracles have ever occurred, one must first settle the philosophical question of whether it is logically possible that...
in 1947. Similar arguments were advanced by Richard Taylor
Richard Taylor (philosopher)
Richard Taylor was an American philosopher renowned for his dry wit and his contributions to metaphysics. He was also an internationally-known beekeeper....
in Metaphysics, Stephen Clark
Stephen R. L. Clark
Stephen Richard Lyster Clark is a British philosopher and former professor of philosophy at the University of Liverpool.Clark specializes in the philosophy of religion, political philosophy, science fiction, and animal rights...
, Arthur Balfour
Arthur Balfour
Arthur James Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour, KG, OM, PC, DL was a British Conservative politician and statesman...
, Richard Purtill
Richard Purtill
Richard Purtill , is the Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Western Washington University, Bellingham, Washington, as well as an author of fantasy and science fiction, critical non-fiction on the same genres, and various works on religion and philosophy. He is best known for his novels of the...
and J. P. Moreland
J. P. Moreland
James Porter Moreland , better known as J. P. Moreland, is an American philosopher, theologian, and Christian apologist...
. In 2003 Victor Reppert
Victor Reppert
Dr. Victor Reppert is an American philosopher best known for his development of the Argument from Reason. He is the author of C.S. Lewis's Dangerous Idea and numerous academic papers in journals such as Christian Scholars' Review, International Journal for the Philosophy of Religion, Philo and...
developed a similar argument in detail in his book C.S. Lewis's Dangerous Idea, In Defense of the Argument from Reason. Contemporary philosophers who have employed a similar argument against physical determinism are James Jordan
James Jordan
-Sports:*James Jordan , English first-class cricketer*Jimmy Jordan , American Major League Baseball player*Jim Jordan , American guard-Arts:*Jim Jordan , American radio comedy performer...
and William Hasker
William Hasker
R. William Hasker is an American Christian philosopher and Distinguished Professor Emeritus of philosophy at Huntington University. For many years he was editor of the prestigious journal Faith and Philosophy. He has published many journal articles and books dealing with issues such as the...
.
Plantinga proposed his "evolutionary argument against naturalism" in 1991. In the twelfth chapter of his book Warrant and Proper Function, Plantinga developed Lewis' idea, and constructed two formal arguments against evolutionary naturalism. He further developed the idea in an unpublished manuscript entitled "Naturalism Defeated" and in his 2000 book Warranted Christian Belief, and expanded the idea in Naturalism Defeated?, a 2002 anthology edited by James Beilby. He also responded to several objections to the argument in his essay "Reply to Beilby's Cohorts" in Beilby's anthology.
In the 2008 publication Knowledge of God Plantinga presented a formulation of the argument that solely focused on semantic epiphenomenalism instead of the former four jointly exhaustive categories.
Plantinga's 1993 formulation of the argument
Plantinga's argument attempted to show that to combine naturalism and evolution is self-defeating, because, under these assumptions, the probability that humans have reliable cognitive faculties is low or inscrutable. He claimed that several thinkers, including C. S. LewisC. S. Lewis
Clive Staples Lewis , commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as "Jack", was a novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist from Belfast, Ireland...
, had seen that evolutionary naturalism seemed to lead to a deep and pervasive skepticism and to the conclusion that our unreliable cognitive or belief-producing faculties cannot be trusted to produce more true beliefs than false beliefs. He claimed that "Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
himself had worries along these lines" and quoted from an 1881 letter:
In the letter, Darwin had expressed agreement with William Graham
William Graham
William Graham may refer to:In politics and government:* Sir William de Graham, 12th century Scottish knight* William Graham, 1st Earl of Montrose , Scottish nobleman* William Graham, 2nd Earl of Montrose , Scottish nobleman...
's claim that natural laws implied purpose and the belief that the universe was "not the result of chance", but again showed his doubts about such beliefs and left the matter as insoluble. Darwin only had this doubt about questions beyond the scope of science, and thought science was well within the scope of an evolved mind. Michael Ruse
Michael Ruse
Michael Ruse is a philosopher of biology at Florida State University, and is well known for his work on the creationism/evolution controversy and the demarcation problem in science...
said that by presenting it as "Darwin's doubt" that evolutionary naturalism is self-defeating, Plantinga failed to note that Darwin at once excused himself from philosophical matters he did not feel competent to consider. Others, such as Evan Fales, agreed that this citation allowed Plantinga to call the source of the problem EAAN addresses Darwin's Doubt. Also, contrary to Ruse's claim, Plantinga didn't label the idea that naturalism & evolution are self-defeating "Darwins Doubt". Instead he labeled the idea that given evolution and naturalism our cognitive faculties may not be reliable "Darwins Doubt". Plantinga asserts that "this doubt arises for naturalists or atheists, but not for those who believe in God. That is because if God has created us in his image, then even if he fashioned us by some evolutionary means, he would presumably want us to resemble him in being able to know; but then most of what we believe might be true even if our minds have developed from those of the lower animals."
Plantinga defined:
- N as naturalism, which he defined as "the idea that there is no such person as God or anything like God; we might think of it as high-octane atheism or perhaps atheism-plus."
- E as the belief that human beings have evolved in conformity with current evolutionary theory
- R as the proposition that our faculties are "reliable", where, roughly, a cognitive faculty is "reliable" if the great bulk of its deliverances are true. He specifically cited the example of a thermometer stuck at 72 °F (22.2 °C) degrees placed in an environment which happened to be at 72 °F as an example of something that is not "reliable" in this sense
and suggested that the conditional probability
Conditional probability
In probability theory, the "conditional probability of A given B" is the probability of A if B is known to occur. It is commonly notated P, and sometimes P_B. P can be visualised as the probability of event A when the sample space is restricted to event B...
of R given N and E, or P(R|N&E), is low or inscrutable.
Plantinga's argument began with the observation that our beliefs can only have evolutionary consequences if they affect behaviour. To put this another way, natural selection does not directly select for true beliefs, but rather for advantageous behaviours. Plantinga distinguished the various theories of mind-body interaction into four jointly exhaustive categories:
- epiphenomenalismEpiphenomenalismIn philosophy of mind, epiphenomenalism, also known as Type-E Dualism, is a view that "mental" states do not have any influence on "physical" states.-Background:...
, where behaviour is not caused by beliefs. "if this way of thinking is right, beliefs would be invisible to evolution" so P(R/N&E) would be low or inscrutable - Semantic epiphenomenalism, where beliefs have a causative link to behaviour but not by virtue of their semantic content. Under this theory, a belief would be some form of long-term neuronal event. However, on this view P(R|N&E) would be low because the semantic content of beliefs would be invisible to natural selection, and it is semantic content that determines truth-value.
- Beliefs are causally efficacious with respect to behaviour, but maladaptive, in which case P(R|N&E) would be low, as R would be selected against.
- Beliefs are causally efficacious with respect to behaviour and also adaptive, but they may still be false. Since behaviour is caused by both belief and desire, and desire can lead to false belief, natural selection would have no reason for selecting true but non-adaptive beliefs over false but adaptive beliefs. Thus P(R|N&E) in this case would also be low. Plantinga pointed out that innumerable belief-desire pairs could account for a given behaviour; for example, that of a prehistoric hominid fleeing a tiger:
Perhaps Paul very much likes the idea of being eaten, but when he sees a tiger, always runs off looking for a better prospect, because he thinks it unlikely the tiger he sees will eat him. This will get his body parts in the right place so far as survival is concerned, without involving much by way of true belief. ... Or perhaps he thinks the tiger is a large, friendly, cuddly pussycat and wants to pet it; but he also believes that the best way to pet it is to run away from it. ... Clearly there are any number of belief-cum-desire systems that equally fit a given bit of behaviour.
Thus, Plantinga argued, the probability that our minds are reliable under a conjunction of philosophical naturalism
Metaphysical naturalism
Metaphysical naturalism, also called ontological naturalism and philosophical naturalism, or just naturalism, is a philosophical worldview and belief system that holds that there is nothing but natural elements, principles, and relations of the kind studied by the natural sciences, i.e., those...
and naturalistic evolution is low or inscrutable. Therefore, to assert that naturalistic evolution is true also asserts that one has a low or unknown probability of being right. This, Plantinga argued, epistemically defeats
Defeater
In epistemology, a defeater is a belief B1 that is held to be incompatible with another belief B2, hence arguments or evidence supporting B1 can be used to refute B2....
the belief that naturalistic evolution is true and that ascribing truth to naturalism and evolution is internally dubious or inconsistent.
Fitelson and Sober's response
In a 1998 paper Branden Fitelson of the University of California, BerkeleyUniversity of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
and Elliott Sober
Elliott Sober
Elliott Sober is Hans Reichenbach Professor and William F. Vilas Research Professor in the Department of Philosophy at University of Wisconsin–Madison. Sober is noted for his work in philosophy of biology and general philosophy of science. Sober taught for one year at Stanford University and has...
of the University of Wisconsin–Madison
University of Wisconsin–Madison
The University of Wisconsin–Madison is a public research university located in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. Founded in 1848, UW–Madison is the flagship campus of the University of Wisconsin System. It became a land-grant institution in 1866...
set out to show that the arguments presented by Plantinga contain serious errors. Plantinga construed evolutionary naturalism as the conjunction of the idea that human cognitive faculties arose through evolutionary mechanisms, and naturalism which he equated to atheism. They tried to throw doubt on this conjunction with a preliminary argument that the conjunction is probably false, and a main argument that it is self defeating, if you believe it you should stop believing it.
Firstly, they criticised Plantinga's use of a Bayesian framework in which he arbitrarily assigned initial probabilities without empirical evidence, predetermining the outcome in favor of traditional theism, and described this as a recipe for replacing any non-deterministic theory in the natural sciences, so that for example a probable outcome predicted by quantum mechanics
Quantum mechanics
Quantum mechanics, also known as quantum physics or quantum theory, is a branch of physics providing a mathematical description of much of the dual particle-like and wave-like behavior and interactions of energy and matter. It departs from classical mechanics primarily at the atomic and subatomic...
would be seen as the outcome of God's will. Plantinga's use of R to mean that "the great bulk" of our beliefs are true fails to deal with the cumulative effect of adding beliefs which have variable reliability about different subjects. Plantinga asserted that the traditional theist believes being made in God's image includes a reflection of divine powers as a knower, but cognitive science
Cognitive science
Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary scientific study of mind and its processes. It examines what cognition is, what it does and how it works. It includes research on how information is processed , represented, and transformed in behaviour, nervous system or machine...
finds human reasoning subject to biases and systematic error. Traditional theology is not shown to predict this varying reliability as well as science, and there is the theological problem
Theodicy
Theodicy is a theological and philosophical study which attempts to prove God's intrinsic or foundational nature of omnibenevolence , omniscience , and omnipotence . Theodicy is usually concerned with the God of the Abrahamic religions Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, due to the relevant...
of the omnipotent Creator producing such imperfection. They described how Plantinga set out various scenarios of belief affecting evolutionary success, but undercut the low probability he previously required when he suggested an "inscrutable" probability, and by ignoring availability of variants he fails to show that false beliefs will be equally adaptive as his claim of low probability assumes. Even if his claims of improbability were correct, that need not affect belief in evolution, and they considered it would be more sensible to accept that evolutionary processes sometimes have improbable outcomes.
They assessed Plantinga's main argument which asserts that since the reliability of evolutionary naturalism is low or of inscrutable value, those believing it should withhold assent from its reliability, and thus withhold assent from anything else they believe including evolutionary naturalism, which is therefore self-defeating. They found this unconvincing, having already disputed his argument that the reliability is low. Even if E&N defeated the claim that 'at least 90% of our beliefs are true,' they considered that Plantinga must show that it also defeats the more modest claim that 'at least a non-negligible minority of our beliefs are true'. They considered his sentiment that high probability is required for rational belief to be repudiated by philosophical lessons such as the lottery paradox
Lottery paradox
Henry E. Kyburg, Jr.'s lottery paradox arises from considering a fair 1000 ticket lottery that has exactly one winning ticket. If this much is known about the execution of the lottery it is therefore rational to accept that some ticket will win. Suppose that an event is very likely only if the...
, and that each step in his argument requires principles different from those he had described. They concluded that Plantinga has drawn attention to unreliability of cognitive processes that is already taken into account by evolutionary scientists who accept that science is a fallible exercise, and appreciate the need to be as scrupulous as possible with the fallible cognitive processes available. His hyperbolic doubt as a defeater for evolutionary naturalism is equally a defeater for theists who rely on their belief that their mind was designed by a non-deceiving God, and neither "can construct a non-question-begging argument that refutes global skepticism."
Robbins' response
Indiana University South BendIndiana University South Bend
Indiana University South Bend is the third largest campus of the Indiana University system. It is popularly known as IUSB or IU South Bend. It is located in South Bend, Indiana, in St. Joseph County, Indiana.-History:...
Professor of Philosophy J. Wesley Robbins contended that Plantinga's argument applied only to Cartesian philosophy of minds
Dualism (philosophy of mind)
In philosophy of mind, dualism is a set of views about the relationship between mind and matter, which begins with the claim that mental phenomena are, in some respects, non-physical....
but not to pragmatist philosophies of mind. Robbins' argument, stated roughly, was that while in a Cartesian mind beliefs can be identified with no reference to the environmental factors that caused them, in a pragmatic mind they are identifiable only with reference to those factors. That is to say, in a pragmatic mind beliefs would not even exist if their holder had not come in contact with external belief-producing phenomena in the first place.
Naturalism Defeated?
A collection of essays entitled Naturalism Defeated? (2002) contains responses by 11 philosophers to EAAN. According to James K. Beilby, editor of the volume, Plantinga's proposition "raises issues of interest to epistemologists, philosophers of mind, evolutionary biologists, and philosophers of religion". The responsive essays include the following:- William RamseyWilliam RamseyWilliam Ramsey may refer to:*William Marion Ramsey , American politician and judge in Oregon*William of Ramsey, 13th century English Benedictine monk of Croyland Abbey*William Ramsey , 14th century English architect...
argued that Plantinga "overlooks the most sensible way . . . to get clear on how truth can be a property of beliefs that bestows an advantage on cognitive systems". He also argued that some of our cognitive faculties are slightly unreliable, and E&N seems better suited than theism to explain this imperfection. - Jerry FodorJerry FodorJerry Alan Fodor is an American philosopher and cognitive scientist. He holds the position of State of New Jersey Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University and is the author of many works in the fields of philosophy of mind and cognitive science, in which he has laid the groundwork for the...
argued that there is a plausible historical scenario according to which our minds were selected because their cognitive mechanisms produced, by and large, adaptive true beliefs. - Evan Fales argued that Plantinga had not demonstrated that the reliability of our cognitive faculties is improbable, given Neo-Darwinism, and emphasizes that "if Plantinga's argument fails here, then he will not have shown that [N&E] is probabilistically incoherent." Also, given how expensive (in biological terms) our brain is, and considering we are rather unremarkable creatures apart from our brains, it would be quite improbable that our rational faculties be selected if unreliable. "Most of our eggs are in that basket," said Fales. Fales argued along the same as Robbins: take a mental representation, of heat, for example. Only so long as it is really caused by heat can we call it a mental representation of heat; otherwise, it is not at all a mental representation, of heat or of anything else: "so long as representations [semantics] are causally linked to the world via the syntactic structures in the brain to which they correspond [syntax], this will guarantee that syntax maps onto semantics in a generally truth-preserving way." This is a direct response to one of Plantinga's scenarios where, according to Plantinga, false-belief generating mechanisms may have been naturally selected.
- Michael Bergmann suggested that Thomas ReidThomas ReidThe Reverend Thomas Reid FRSE , was a religiously trained Scottish philosopher, and a contemporary of David Hume, was the founder of the Scottish School of Common Sense, and played an integral role in the Scottish Enlightenment...
offered the resources for a commonsense (Reidian) defense of naturalism against EAAN. - Ernest SosaErnest SosaErnest Sosa is an American philosopher primarily interested in epistemology. He is currently Board of Governors Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University. He has been at Rutgers full-time since January, 2007; previously, he had been at Brown University since 1964...
drew on features of Descartes' epistemology to argue that while "[i]ssues of circularity do arise as to how we can rationally and knowledgeably adopt [an epistemically propitious] view about our own epistemic powers," nonetheless, "these problems are not exclusive to naturalism." - James Van Cleve suggested that even if the probability thesis is true, it need not deliver an undefeated defeater to R, and that even if one has a defeater for R, it doesn't follow that one has a defeater for everything.
- Richard Otte thought that the argument "ignore[d] other information we have that would make R likely."
- William Talbott suggested that "Plantinga has misunderstood the role of undercutting defeaters in reasoning."
- Trenton MerricksTrenton MerricksTrenton Merricks is a philosopher at the University of Virginia. His main fields are metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophy of religion. He is perhaps most famous for his account of nihilism , according to which, chairs and trees and things like that do not exist...
said that "in general, inferences from low or inscrutable conditional probability to defeat are unjustified." - William AlstonWilliam AlstonWilliam Payne Alston was an American philosopher. He made influential contributions to the philosophy of language, epistemology and Christian philosophy. He earned his Ph.D...
argued that the claim that P(R/N&E) is low is poorly supported; if, instead, it is inscrutable, this has no clear relevance to the claim that (1) is a defeater for N&E.
Naturalism Defeated? also included Plantinga's replies to both the critical responses contained in the book and to some objections raised by others, including Fitelson & Sober:
- Plantinga expounded the notion of Rationality Defeaters in terms of his theory of warrant and proper function and distinguishes between Humean Defeaters and Purely Alethic Defeaters, suggesting that although a naturalist will continue to assume R "but (if he reflects on the matter) he will also think, sadly enough, that what he can't help believing is unlikely to be true."
- Plantinga argued that semantic epiphenomenalism is very likely on N&E because, if materialismMaterialismIn philosophy, the theory of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. In other words, matter is the only substance...
is true, beliefs would have to be neurophysiological events whose propositional content cannot plausibly enter the causal chain. He also suggests that the reliability of a cognitive process requires the truth of a substantial proportion of the beliefs it produces, and that a process which delivered beliefs whose probability of truth was in the neighbourhood of 0.5 would have a vanishingly unlikely chance of producing (say) 1000 beliefs 75% of which were true. - In The conditionalisation problem, Plantinga discussed the possibility that N+ i.e. "Naturalism plus R," could be a basic belief thus staving off defeat of R, suggesting that this procedure cannot be right in general otherwise every defeater could automatically be defeated, introducing the term "defeater-deflector " and initially exploring the conditions under which a defeater-deflector can be valid.
- Plantinga concluded that the objections pose a challenge to EAAN, but that there are successful arguments against the objections.
Ruse's response
In a chapter titled 'The New Creationism: Its Philosophical Dimension', in The Cultures of Creationism, philosopher of science Michael RuseMichael Ruse
Michael Ruse is a philosopher of biology at Florida State University, and is well known for his work on the creationism/evolution controversy and the demarcation problem in science...
discussed EAAN. He argued:
- That the EAAN conflates methodological and metaphysical naturalism.
- That "we need to make a distinction that Plantinga fudges" between "the world as we can in some sense discover" and "the world in some absolute sense, metaphysical reality if you like." Then, "Once this distinction is made, Plantinga's refutation of naturalism no longer seems so threatening."
- That "It is certainly the case that organisms are sometimes deceived about the world of appearances and that this includes humans. Sometimes we are systematically deceived, as instructors in elementary psychology classes delight in demonstrating. Moreover, evolution can often give good reasons as to why we are deceived." We know there are misconceptions arising from selection as we can measure them against reliable touchstones, but in Plantinga's hypothesised deceptions we are deceived all the time which is "not how evolution's deceptions work". He comments that in Plantinga's thinking we have confusion between the world as we know it, and the world as it might be knowable in some ultimate way, but "If we are all in an illusion then it makes no sense to talk of illusion, for we have no touchstone of reality to make absolute judgements."
Ruse concluded his discussion of the EAAN by stating:
To be honest, even if Plantinga's argument [the EAAN] worked, I would still want to know where theism ends (and what form this theism must take) and where science can take over. Is it the case that evolution necessarily cannot function, or it is merely false and in another God-created world it might have held in some way — and if so, in what way? Plantinga has certainly not shown that the theist must be a creationist, even though his own form of theism is creationism.
Plantinga's 2008 formulation of the argument
In the 2008 publication Knowledge of God Plantinga presented a formulation of the argument that solely focused on semantic epiphenomenalism instead of the former four jointly exhaustive categories.Plantinga stated that from a materialist's point of view a belief will be a neuronal event. In this conception a belief will have two different sorts of properties:
- electro-chemical or neurophysiological properties (NP properties for short)
- and the property of having content (It will have to be the belief that p, for some proposition p).
Plantinga thought that we have something of an idea as to the history of NP properties: structures with these properties have come to exist by small increments, each increment such that it has proved to be useful in the struggle for survival. But he then asked how the content property of a belief came about: "How does it [the content] get to be associated in that way with a given proposition?"
He said that materialists offer two theories for this question: According to the first, content supervenes upon NP properties; according to the second, content is reducible to NP properties. (He noted that if content properties are reducible to NP properties, then they also supervene upon them.) He explained the two theories as follows:
- Reducibility: A belief is a disjunction of conjunctions of NP properties.
- Strong Supervenience (S+): For any possible worlds W and W* and any structures S and S*, if S has the same NP properties in W as S* has in W*, then S has the same content in W as S* has in W*. Supervenience can either be broadly logical supervenience or nomic supervenience.
Plantinga argued that neural structures that constitute beliefs have content, in the following way: "At a certain level of complexity, these neural structures start to display content. Perhaps this starts gradually and early on (possibly C. elegans [a small worm with a nervous system composed of only a few neurons] displays just the merest glimmer of consciousness and the merest glimmer of content), or perhaps later and more abruptly; that doesn't matter. What does matter is that at a certain level of complexity of neural structures, content appears. This is true whether content properties are reducible to NP properties or supervene on them."
So given materialism some neural structures at a given level of complexity acquire content and become beliefs. The question then is according to Plantinga: "what is the likelihood, given materialism, that the content that thus arises is in fact true?"
This way of proceeding replaced the first step of Plantinga's earlier versions of the argument.
EAAN, intelligent design and theistic evolution
In his discussion of EAAN, Michael RuseMichael Ruse
Michael Ruse is a philosopher of biology at Florida State University, and is well known for his work on the creationism/evolution controversy and the demarcation problem in science...
described Plantinga as believing in the truth of the attack on evolution presented by intelligent design
Intelligent design
Intelligent design is the proposition that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection." It is a form of creationism and a contemporary adaptation of the traditional teleological argument for...
creationist
Creationism
Creationism is the religious beliefthat humanity, life, the Earth, and the universe are the creation of a supernatural being, most often referring to the Abrahamic god. As science developed from the 18th century onwards, various views developed which aimed to reconcile science with the Genesis...
Phillip E. Johnson
Phillip E. Johnson
Phillip E. Johnson is a retired UC Berkeley law professor and author. He became a born-again Christian while a tenured professor and is considered the father of the intelligent design movement...
, and as having endorsed Johnson's book Darwin on Trial
Darwin on Trial
Darwin on Trial is a 1991 book about the theory of evolution and the creation-evolution debate. It was written by Harvard graduate and University of California, Berkeley law professor emeritus Phillip E. Johnson...
. Ruse said that Plantinga took the conflict between science and religion
Conflict thesis
The conflict thesis proposes an intrinsic intellectual conflict between religion and science. The original historical usage of the term denoted that the historical record indicates religion’s perpetual opposition to science. Later uses of the term denote religion’s epistemological opposition to...
further than Johnson, seeing it as not just a clash between the philosophies of naturalism and theism, but as an attack on the true philosophy of theism by what he considers the incoherent and inconsistent philosophy of naturalism.
Plantinga has stated that EAAN is not directed against "the theory of evolution, or the claim that human beings have evolved from simian ancestors, or anything in that neighborhood". He also claimed that the problems raised by EAAN do not apply to the conjunction of theism
Theism
Theism, in the broadest sense, is the belief that at least one deity exists.In a more specific sense, theism refers to a doctrine concerning the nature of a monotheistic God and God's relationship to the universe....
and contemporary evolutionary science. In his essay Evolution and Design Plantinga outlines different ways in which theism
Theism
Theism, in the broadest sense, is the belief that at least one deity exists.In a more specific sense, theism refers to a doctrine concerning the nature of a monotheistic God and God's relationship to the universe....
and evolutionary theory can be combined.
In the foreword to the anthology Naturalism Defeated? James Beilby wrote: "Plantinga's argument should not be mistaken for an argument against evolutionary theory in general or, more specifically, against the claim that humans might have evolved from more primitive life forms. Rather, the purpose of his argument is to show that the denial of the existence of a creative deity is problematic."
See also
- Epistemology
- EvolutionEvolutionEvolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
- SkepticismSkepticismSkepticism has many definitions, but generally refers to any questioning attitude towards knowledge, facts, or opinions/beliefs stated as facts, or doubt regarding claims that are taken for granted elsewhere...
- Hyperbolic doubt
- Naturalism (philosophy)Naturalism (philosophy)Naturalism commonly refers to the philosophical viewpoint that the natural universe and its natural laws and forces operate in the universe, and that nothing exists beyond the natural universe or, if it does, it does not affect the natural universe that we know...
- Philosophy of mindPhilosophy of mindPhilosophy of mind is a branch of philosophy that studies the nature of the mind, mental events, mental functions, mental properties, consciousness and their relationship to the physical body, particularly the brain. The mind-body problem, i.e...
- Problem of mental causationProblem of mental causationThe problem of mental causation is a conceptual issue in the philosophy of mind. That problem, in short, is how to account for the common-sense idea that intentional thoughts or intentional mental states are causes of intentional actions...
- TheismTheismTheism, in the broadest sense, is the belief that at least one deity exists.In a more specific sense, theism refers to a doctrine concerning the nature of a monotheistic God and God's relationship to the universe....
External links
- Plantinga's paper: "Naturalism Defeated" (pdf)
- Audio recording of Plantinga's presentation of the Evolutionary Argument Against Evil, Biola University: listen online or download (11.2 MB. Requires RealPlayer). An extensive outline of this lecture is available on the website of philosopher Michael Sudduth.
- Naturalism Defeated? reviewed by John F. Post at Notre DameUniversity of Notre DameThe University of Notre Dame du Lac is a Catholic research university located in Notre Dame, an unincorporated community north of the city of South Bend, in St. Joseph County, Indiana, United States...
Philosophical Reviews - Evil and Evolution (The Great Debate) a debate between philosopher Paul DraperPaul Draper (philosopher)Paul Draper is an American philosopher, most known for his work in the philosophy of religion. He is currently a professor at Purdue University.He studied at the University of California, graduating B.A. in 1979, M.A. in 1982 and Ph.D. in 1985...
, who was one of the first to argue that the cruelty and suffering in evolution is not compatible with theism, and Alvin PlantingaAlvin PlantingaAlvin Carl Plantinga is an American analytic philosopher and the emeritus John A. O'Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. He is known for his work in philosophy of religion, epistemology, metaphysics, and Christian apologetics...
, who responds that evolution is rather in conflict with naturalism based on the argument in this article.