Andrew Ferguson on Nagel

[Mike D]

This article by Andrew Ferguson on the response to Thomas Nagel's 'Mind and Cosmos' and the materialist viewpoint, was linked to by Bill Vallicella, and I found it interesting enough to be worth sharing here.

www.weeklystandard.com/articles/heretic_707692.html

[unkleE]

Mar 19, 2013 9:11:39 GMT Mike D said:

This article by Andrew Ferguson on the response to Thomas Nagel's 'Mind and Cosmos' and the materialist viewpoint, was linked to by Bill Vallicella, and I found it interesting enough to be worth sharing here.

www.weeklystandard.com/articles/heretic_707692.html

Thanks heaps for sharing it, I appreciated it for the clever way he wrote it to keep it interesting and informative at the same time, and for the actual content.

I don't know anything about Ferguson, or the Weekly Standard, but I gather he and it are right wing politically, and therefore likely to be opposed to the "new atheists" because the right would see them as uncouth, socially dangerous and crass. Is that where he's coming from?

That's not where I come from, but i still thought it was brilliantly written. Thanks again.

[Mike D]

I had never come across Ferguson or the Weekly Standard before, so I'm not sure of their political allegiances, I must confess. I do read Vallicella's stuff (Maverick Philosopher) quite a lot, and he is definitely quite conservative: I am more of a liberal, so I find some of his political stuff a little grating from time to time, but with enough interesting stuff to keep me going back! But he links to and refers to a lot of conservative articles and publications, so I would not be surprised if Ferguson and the Standard were as well.

[ignorantianescia]

According to Wikipedia the Weekly Standard's line is neoconservative and the articles do look like they come from the (neo)conservative end of the Republican Party. Presumably Ferguson's views are in line with this, also since he hyperbolically links "radical" redistributive economics to socialism, "a view [i.e. redistribution of wealth] that places him safely in the narrow strip of respectable political opinion among successful American academics" (page 3).

Edit: added a quote and a clarification.

[unkleE]

I have looked into this discussion a little more, and find it very interesting.

In October 2012, 14 eminent scientists, philosophers and other thinkers met for 3 days in a workshop entitled Moving Naturalism Forwards. As far as I can tell, it wasn't a public workshop, but the discussions were videoed.

Participants included Sean Carroll, Jerry Coyne, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Massimo Pigliucci, Alex Rosenberg & Stephen Weinberg (to name the ones I am familiar with). It must have been quite an honour to be invited to be part of that group!

Sean Carroll, Jerry Coyne and Massimo Pigliucci have all written notes on the discussions (see Carroll's blog for links to the others'). I note that Carroll seems to feel the discussion was more constructive and reached more agreement than Coyne seems to think.

Somewhat contrary to the impression created by Andrew Ferguson, I find the whole idea very interesting, exciting even. Of course I disagree fundamentally with their naturalism, and agree with many of Ferguson's criticisms of naturalism, but you can't get people of that calibre together and not have something interesting come out of it.

I really appreciated the topics that Carroll mentions in his notes, and which were listed as issues for the workshop and will be interested to see the conclusions they came to. It can only be good that naturalists and (presumably) atheists are grappling with difficulties for their position like freewill, ethics, consciousness, epistemology and meaning.

I think it is good, in a tactical sense, for christians that these discussions have occurred, for naturalism faces a deep dilemma I believe, not only of truth, but of "sale-ability". If they go with the brute logic of their position, then they come up with answers that most people (even some of them) won't except, and fully-informed naturalism will never be a public movement. But if they go (as Dennett seems to suggest) with the idea of a private truth and a public face on that truth, then some of them will know they are being "creative with the truth", and may question the whole thing.

I think interesting days are ahead - but then, they always are!!

[unkleE]

I have now read all three summaries of proceedings - a short one by Sean Carroll, a medium sized 3-part one by Jerry Coyne and a longer 3-part one by Massimo Pigliucci. I found them fascinating, and recommend them to all, especially the summary at the end of Pigliucci's third.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that although I didn't understand everything (neither could Carroll), I could keep track of most of it. Here are a few more thoughts.

1. There was very little mention of God, religion, etc, except occasionally when a viewpoint was criticised as giving comfort to religionists. I thought these atheists came across as much more interesting and likeable when not in polemic mode. (There may be a lesson for us christians there.)

2. But if you want to take about supernaturalism, you must use the words "woo" and "spooky", even if you are a world renowned scientist or philosopher.

3. Most of them are uncomfortable with strict reductionist incompatibilism, as espoused by Rosenberg. He had allies at some points in Coyne and occasionally Weinberg, but mostly his extremish views were rejected by the group. Strict physicalism was not popular, being seen as almost a matter of faith, because it was considered unlikely that "higher levels" could ever be explained by physics alone.

Instead, most of them liked compatibilism, non-reductive approaches like emergence (though there were disagreements here) and the indeterminacy that quantum physics may allow. They think that they shouldn't use the words "free will" but use terms like voluntary. I think, like Dennett's compatibilism, that this is smoke and mirrors and playing with words (and Coyne seems to think the same).

There was disagreement about whether the public should be told what they believe science has shown about consciousness, freewill and ethics - some felt we can cope, but other felt that dishonesty and selfish behaviour would increase.

4. Most were uncomfortable with the thought that morality may be derivable from science, but prefer it to remain a societal thing which we learn and choose, but informed by science.

5. They agreed that scientists have sometimes been too dismissive of philosophy, and Pigliucci suggested a number of ways in which the two should work more closely together. Contrary to some opinions I've seen, they could give examples where philosophy has helped science and vice versa.

6. This point was reinforced by the impression I gained from all three summaries (two by scientists and one by a philosopher) that the philosophers had the most worthwhile contributions to make, while the scientists (with the possible exception of Weinberg) had lesser contributions - in some areas but not in others. This is as I would expect it, but may be a surprise to some scienticists.

Rosenberg's contribution seemed to be mainly negative - as the super reductionist-nihilist "bad cop" that the others could disagree with (a useful role nonetheless), while Dennett may have made the largest contribution of all, and Pigliucci the most thoughtful. Of the scientists, Dawkins seemed to contribute little, Weinberg the most.

7. I have little doubt that these guys are a threat to christianity in some ways, but an opportunity in another. They have information and ideas we can learn from, but also a number of dilemmas that they probably can never answer. I feel they will lose the general public if they explain everything, but give ammunition to theists if they pull back from the logic of their position. I felt Rosenberg was the most consistent one, yet in the end his viewpoint was the least attractive and was largely rejected. Perhaps christians need a summit of our own to crank our thought up to the same level. (Not that I think God is going to allow himself to be made irrelevant by a bunch of very clever people.)

Those are just my impressions. Hope they encourage you to check it out for yourself.

[Mike D]

unkleE

Thank you for doing the digging on that - the Moving Naturalism Forwards workshop does seem to have been rather interesting - I've made my way through Carroll's notes and part of Pigliucci's (those please don't test me on how much I can recall!). My little snark at the proceedings would be the number of scientists among that group who have previously declared that philosophy was a dead subject with nothing to contribute, and who have now attended a workshop to discuss philosophy and philosophy of science.

[Mike D]

I liked this: from Pigliucci's second set of notes, on the discussion about free will:

Jerry [Coyne] then plunged into his standard worry, the same that motivates authors like Sam Harris: we don’t want to give ground to theologically-informed views of morality, and incompatibilism about free will (“we are the puppets of our genes and our environments”) is the best way to do it. Dennett was visibly shaking his head throughout (so was I, inwardly...).

;D

[ignorantianescia]

Do they keep using "incompatibilism" as a synonym for "determinism" or is it just that quote and UnkleE's paraphrase? More importantly, do they give libertarianism even a second thought?

As you might tell, I hadn't bothered to read the naturalists' accounts as I thought that anybody but these were more likely to move naturalism forwards, but it seems that was a cynical misjudgment.

[unkleE]

Mar 22, 2013 15:47:23 GMT ignorantianescia said:

Do they keep using "incompatibilism" as a synonym for "determinism" or is it just that quote and UnkleE's paraphrase? More importantly, do they give libertarianism even a second thought?

I have read all the summaries several times, but not watched the videos of the discussions, so that is the limited basis of my answer.

I don't think they confused determinism and incompatibilism. I think determinism, and hence not libertarianism, were assumed by all. They understand the logic that granted naturalism, there is nothing else to our brains but the physical processes, and so our choices are determined. But only Rosenberg and Coyne, as far as I can tell, are incompatibilists, the others are all compatibilists (Dennett is of course the leader in this).

But it seemed to me that the more they discussed the issues, the more it led them into their own form of "woo" and "spooky stuff" as they tried to have their deterministic cake but also eat free will too (sorry about the silly metaphor). They redefine free will without really saying how, and they decided that "voluntary" and "involuntary" were better words than "free will". But it seems to me this was only because it allowed them to obfuscate more easily.

In the end, I felt this discussion really showed the terrible weaknesses of naturalism very strongly.

As you might tell, I hadn't bothered to read the naturalists' accounts as I thought that anybody but these were more likely to move naturalism forwards, but it seems that was a cynical misjudgment.

I think the three accounts are well worth reading, (1) for an insight into how some of the best minds are thinking about important issues, and (2) to see the interaction of different disciplines.

But did it move naturalism forwards? It certainly helped define areas of agreement and difficulty, but I would say their failure (in my assessment) to resolve any of the really hard issues only moved naturalism forward towards the conclusion that it is a too simplistic philosophy. But I don't expect they would see it that way, although perhaps Coyne might come to that view. (I thought Coyne was the most open to reconsidering his approach, as much as that could be judged from this distance.)