UPDATE 9/16: On Friday I was interviewed about the book on the Stacy on the Right radio show. You can listen to the interview at the show's Facebook page.
Some months back I was interviewed by Doug Keck of EWTN Bookmark about my book Five Proofs of the Existence of God. The episode airs today on EWTN, and you can also watch it online either at the show’s website or at YouTube.
Some months back I was interviewed by Doug Keck of EWTN Bookmark about my book Five Proofs of the Existence of God. The episode airs today on EWTN, and you can also watch it online either at the show’s website or at YouTube.
The book has been reviewed in The Times Literary Supplement by atheist philosopher Simon Blackburn, who remains unconvinced. “In spite of Feser’s admirable industry,” he writes, “the whole enterprise does little more than suggest Kant’s description of a dazzling and deceptive illusion.” I have a response to Blackburn forthcoming in TLS.
Five Proofs is also now available in a German
translation as Fünf
Gottesbeweise, from Editiones
Scholasticae.
Why just 5 proofs? Why not more? How do you de-limit the number of proofs?
ReplyDeleteSounds like the definition of the prime colours...
He was rather clear in the text that these were simply ones that he chose.
DeleteLet's turn the tables on you. Why so obtuse? Why no common sense? Some questions have no easy answers.
DeleteIf an answer to a question (any question) is complex... then it is false.
DeleteA further interesting question is to ask; do these five proofs prove a single theistic concept or different theistic concepts?
DeleteLooking at the structure of the proofs, it would appear that they are not equivalent...
The reason he chose these 5 is because they are good arguments, they have been neglected and so are worth addressing, but also easier to explain to readers today than other proofs that might be good but require much more background knowledge. The 4th way by Aquinas is a good example of a proof that works but requires a lot of groundwork to explain because people are not exposed to the foundaitonal ideas behind it at all.
Delete"If an answer to a question (any question) is complex... then it is false."
Well that is just clearly not the case. Some topics are more complex than others, such explaining the special theory of relativity is more complex than explaining linear momentum, which is more complex than explaining velocity. Also, the use of certain terms change over time, like the term "motion" which has come to mean generally just change in position over time when it previously meant change of any kind. Also, like with the 4th way, some ideas are simply not taught and are generally taken for granted and that's not because they were refuted either.
"do these five proofs prove a single theistic concept or different theistic concepts?"
All the 5 proofs get to an inherently necessary being and all explain why there can't be more than one inherently necessary being, so all the proofs have to be pointing to the same being.
All the 5 proofs get to an inherently necessary being and all explain why there can't be more than one inherently necessary being, so all the proofs have to be pointing to the same being.
DeleteAnd the simple reason why the proofs point to the same being is because all five proofs are based upon reasoning by recurrence.
The problem is however, that you are simply taking it for granted that the five proofs are pointing to the same being... that are not.
DeleteCOMMON METHOD USED: RECURRENCE (PRINCIPLE OF HEREDERITARY)
FIVE PROOFS REFLECT THIS SYSTEM:
1/ (9+1)=10
2/ (8+2)=10
3/ (7+3)=10
4/ (6+4)=10
5/ (5+5)=10
The problem is that none of the results are the same though they all equal 10.
In fact, if one is to construct a concatenated proof the individual proofs need to be equivalent, i.e. share something in common... using the above system example... the proofs should have this form:
1/ (5+5)=10
2/ (5-(-5))=10
Both 1/ & 2/ are equivalent...
Dr Feser
DeleteI do however believe the Blackburn piece is just waffle... his thinking is all over the place... his writing is reminiscent of Stephen Law.
The TLS academic standard has dropped considerably in recent years...
Philip Rand said:
Delete"If an answer to a question (any question) is complex... then it is false."
First oof all, there are many questions that have complex answers. Second and most important, the answer to your question was very simple. He chose the five that he likes and things are strong. If that seems complex to you, perhaps there's something wrong with your brain.
Now, if you think the proofs aren't good you can try and demonstrate so, but you won't because you know nothing about them.
Well, let's take Aquinas proof using motion… that is wrong straight off and is provably wrong...
DeleteMotion is NOT continuous, i.e. it does not form a continuum.
Recent quantum experiments in Cambridge (UK) confirm this.
However, what is wrong with each proof was not my point (in fact the best approach is Kant's, but Kant's approach is only partially correct)… my point concerned the fact that the five proofs differ and consequently are proofs for five different theistic concepts.
So, instead of offering proofs that combine into a single theistic thingy; it blurs the issue (which in fact is an interesting conclusion concerning theistic philosophical approaches).
But, then according to you... the choice was aesthetically motivated not understanding motivated...
Perhaps, I was too strong in my rebuttal of Aquinas... the motion thingy could be improved upon to take into account an ideal motion... but, it would end up being very cumbersome… much better to bite the bullet and develop the Kant position (he is half-way there anyway).
DeleteI was sure from the beginning that you didn't know what you were talking about. You see the argument from motion is not about motion in the modern sense of the world. "Motion" here means "change".
DeleteSo why don't you first learn what the arguments are all about before you comment on them?
As for different proofs leading to a different theistic concept, I disagree, they just arrive to the same God through a different way. But the main point which seems to be reinforced with everyone of your posts is that you know nothing about them, so whether they do or not you wouldn't know it.
Re: The problem is however, that you are simply taking it for granted that the five proofs are pointing to the same being...
DeleteIf by "taking it for granted" you mean "argues for it rigorously", then ok.
Motion and change have the same intentional content.
DeleteMy statement is still correct and empirically demonstrated: Change treated as a continuum is wrong... unless it is idealised, in which case the Aquinas idea becomes cumbersome...
Change expresses the interntionality of motion, i.e. its aboutness; therefore motion and change are equivalent.
DeleteThe comment concerning the redundancy of combined theistic proofs simply confirms that this is not possible.
Not possible because such an approach means that meaning must be kept constant.
It is not possible that a strictly inductive method of reasoning will achieve this; hence recourse to recursive
Reasoning (hereditary principle) that of itself defeats the endeavour.
Phillip, what are you saying? You're saying so much and yet so little.
DeleteYou say, "And the simple reason why the proofs point to the same being is because all five proofs are based upon reasoning by recurrence."
And then you say, The problem is however, that you are simply taking it for granted that the five proofs are pointing to the same being... that are not.
First you give us the reason they are pointing to the same being. Then you tell us they are not pointing to the same being. What is going on here? I'm not following your analysis at all.
Re: "It is not possible that a strictly inductive method of reasoning will achieve this; hence recourse to recursive Reasoning (hereditary principle) that of itself defeats the endeavour."
Can you elaborate? This just seems wrong. Dr. Feser doesn't use a "strictly inductive method" even if he does start out with things of ordinary experience.
Lastly, where, in any of the proof, does Feser assert a false/doubtful premise or a non-sequitur? Please explain why the premise is false/doubtful or why the premise is a non-sequitur.
Look, it's obvious you didn't read the book. if you want to read the book, and come back in an open thread and talk about it directly them that can be done. it has been obvious since the first post; it remains obvious. Stop wasting everybody's time it's bait.
DeleteI know you think you got a knockout argument or whatever, but it's more knock out if you actually apply it to the actual damn text rather than just attempted to deploy it without doing any work. this is going to be the case for every single argument you run into and you know that.
Hi John DeRosa...
DeleteIt would be best to go through your issues in a stepwise fashion.
1/ Dr. Feser doesn't use a "strictly inductive method" even if he does start out with things of ordinary experience.
YES he does, Dr Feser’s thesis is: the existence of God can be established with certainty by way of purely rational arguments.
Certainty here means: without any possibility of error.
Agreed?
John...
DeleteDr Feser’s thesis is: the existence of God can be established with certainty by way of purely rational arguments.
Just to make Dr Feser's inductive approach clear, I can use this analogy to highlight the methodology:
Dr Feser is stranded on a desert island in the Pacific Ocean. He writes a rescue message and places it in a bottle, tossing it into the ocean.
His thesis is that it is rational to toss the rescue message bottle in the ocean and further, it is a certainty that the rescue message will be found.
Dear iwpoe: Thank you, thank you, thank you. Why spend so much time on a pedantic nitwit who quite obviously has not read the book and does not understand the arguments?
DeleteJust do as my name indicates.
DeleteJohn…
DeleteYour second query is:
First you give us the reason they are pointing to the same being. Then you tell us they are not pointing to the same being. What is going on here?
This is how Feser is using recurrence:
This list is valid:
1. The Aristotelian Proof
2. The Neo-Platonic Proof
3. The Augustinian Proof
4. The Thomistic Proof
5. The Rationalist Proof
6. The Evil God Proof
Def: God is Good.
Proofs 1-5 demonstrate hereditary type.
1/ If a proof is true for any member of a sequence of proof, its truth for the successor of the member would follow a logical necessity.
2/ The first proof is true for the first proof of the sequence (This is the induction step)
Now, in view of the hereditary nature, the proofs, being true of the first proof, must be true of the second, and being true of the second it must be true of the third, etc, etc. This continues in this way till the proofs have exhausted the whole sequence, i.e. reached its last member (proof 5).
Proof 6 is not a member of the sequence because it does not satisfy God is Good violating hereditary. So, it is removed from the proofs and the proofs are de-limited.
List using hereditary principle.
1. The Aristotelian Proof
2. The Neo-Platonic Proof
3. The Augustinian Proof
4. The Thomistic Proof
5. The Rationalist Proof
The problem is that Feser’s reasoning to reject Proof 6 is also valid for the remaining proofs to be rejected, i.e. the 5 remaining proofs using the Principle of Determinability all differ. The fact that he uses 5 differing proofs to make his case for the certainty of theism defeats his own thesis because what he is stating (though not aware of it) is that ultimately the determinability of theism is outside the order of intelligibility.
Obvious bait is obvious
DeleteREAD THE BOOK. None of this has anything to do with the sorts of proofs used nor does it have anything to do with what's in the text. As far as I can tell you are bloviating- possibly erroneously -about mathematical induction, which has *nothing* to do with what's being done in thomism.
DeleteI agree that Ed owes us a better account of epistemology, but everything you're talking about is utterly irrelevant to what's being done. You depend, and I don't know if you do this on purpose, upon the intimidation that comes from your bringing in a speciality field to even operate here. Since you aren't going to do the work to bridge the gap between the specialty field and the book, which you've clearly either not read or engaged with superficially, your approach to the matter is sophistical. It's a convoluted way to say 'hey guys, mathematical induction is an area of study'.
iwpoe
DeleteYes, obvious bait is obvious... and The Five Proofs of Gods Existence satisfies your statement.
Colossians 2:8
Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.
While Philip appears to be writing in English, I must confess I'm not sure he actually using our language.
Delete"This is how Feser is using recurrence:"
DeleteFeser is not using "recurrence" or recursion (or to be more precise, induction; recursion is a method of defining total functions, induction is a method of proof) anywhere.
Furthermore, induction is a method to prove universal quantified statements of the form An P(n) where P is a predicate and n is a variable ranging over the natural numbers. The method of proof is to show P(0) and the implication P(n) => P(n + 1) for every n. The proof of the method follows as a special case of the recursion theorem.
I am being overly pedantic to justify the next sentences: you are an ignoramus who does not have a freaking clue of what you are talking about. Your remarks about recurrence are dumbfoundingly stupid, as you do not even have a bare semblance of the structure of an induction argument. You are probably one of those atheists who thinks every Christian is, at the very least, as stupid and ignorant as you are. Friendly suggestion: go read a book; go silent.
grodrigues
DeleteI stand by my analysis.
Feser is generalising his five proofs by projecting a similarity of a part of a class (each individual proof case) on to a whole of that class (Theism).
You are partially correct... I am not a theist.
What are you f****** talking about? that is explicitly not what he is doing. You can perhaps interpret it that way, but then you have to do the argument to validate the interpretation since it is entirely contrary to what he says he is doing. You come off like a loon or an obtuse person.
DeleteThere used to be people who talked about Aristotle as if he were a logical positivist of a certain kind. Now, of course, this is Looney Tunes, but at the very least such collars tended to try to justify this absurd interpretation. in your case, I have no idea what you are talking about. I've read this book three times. Ed May indeed have problems in his work, but they have nothing to do with what you are talking about. Ed is not engaged in mathematical induction which is what you seem to be on about. If you want to show that he has to be or is, do the damn argument and read the damn book and then give *an actual exegesis to show that's the case*.
DeleteKripke's Wittgenstein and Herbert Dreyfus' Heidegger are (highly questionable) *well argued interpretations* of the author. That is the way such a thing is done. DO THE WORK.
Don't feed him. Even if you prove him wrong, he will just switch to another silly claim out of nowhere. The convo will go nowhere.
DeleteJust leave him.
iwpoe
DeleteAs I mentioned previously, Prof Feser is not aware of what he is doing; but this is the crux of Blackburn's critique (though even here Blackburn is lost for words as to the problem he is attempting to reveal)
I have outlined Prof Feser's methodology below:
DO FOR EACH PROOF(5 in total)
STAGE 1: Key description
STAGE 2: Key description -> Key divine attribute
STAGE 3: Explicit logical inferences of STAGE 2
END DO
RESULT: The existence of God established with certainty.
This is what Prof Feser is doing, right?
Prof Feser
DeleteYou may not realise it, but Blackburn has handed you a gift with his reference to Kant's Noumenon…
Scientifically, Jerne's anti-body theory is an example that it is not a dazzling and deceptive illusion.
Don't waste the opportunity...
DO YOUR OWN WORK. Don't pass work over to us to do. You are a hack and a crank until you are willing to make your argument. Ed is not doing anything like what you are talking about. Go waste other people's time.
DeleteBilly,
DeleteIt's necessary because some people use these comments as commentary on Ed. You could waste a very long time trying to vindicate this empty noise and insinuation.
iwpoe
DeleteProf Feser's methodology below:
DO FOR EACH PROOF(5 in total)
STAGE 1: Key description
STAGE 2: Key description -> Key divine attribute
STAGE 3: Explicit logical inferences of STAGE 2
END DO
RESULT: The existence of God established with certainty.
The above system is an example of complete induction (Aristotle's "deduction from induction", ex epagoges sullogismos), where the premises are less general than the conclusion, but collectively exhaust the instances covered by the conclusion.
The Five Proofs of the Existence of God is based on Aristotles method of complete induction to arrive at its conclusion.
So, in reality, the book is really using ONLY A SINGLE PROOF METHOD to prove the existence of God, i.e. Aristotle's complete induction method!
So, essentially what Blackburn is trying to state (and correctly) is that Five Proofs of the Existence of God doesn't add up!
Philip, the problem is you have forgotten about Pythagoras' theorem. The Neoplatonic proof squared + the Augustinian squared eqauls the of the Thomistic proof. I think you will find this handedly preempts your objection. QED.
Deleteiwpoe
DeleteThough you have read Five Proofs of the Existence of God three times... it appears you have not read the Introduction, even once...
I suggest you turn to page 11 of the introduction... Prof Feser outlines his complete induction method clearly...
Anonymous
DeleteNo... the problem is yours... because the Pythagorean Theorem is heuristic...
Philip, good point, but couldn't we invoke the law of cosines here?
DeleteQuantum Kant bosons are certainly retortions of null set inconsistencies.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteAnonymous
DeleteYes, it is and no, cosecant...
The issue surrounds philosophy.
DeleteClearly a philosophical approach is incorrect, Colossians 2:8 says as much:
Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.
Which leaves as to what is the best approach, here Hebrews 11:3 gives a clue:
Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.
This verse is extremely scientific.
Consider something that is seen i.e. a chair. And yet it would be correct to say that it is made of things that cannot be seen, i.e. bosons and fermions. And even more startling would be the that in reality the chair is mostly comprised of empty space, i.e. volumetrically 1 part in 10^15 of its volume.
So here, scientifically the Bible is correct.
And yet, we all would have faith to sit on it...
Yet one further example of how even a Cambridge professor of philosophy won't shy away from engaging in the very same sophomoric hand-waving as your average Internet Gnu troll when it comes to arguing about God and religion... So much for "Enlightenment" indeed...
ReplyDeleteBlackburn is quite brutal there.
ReplyDeleteHowever; "These principles are scholastic, both as a matter of history, and in the sense that they work in highly abstract terms that have little or no place in physical science. So in spite of Feser’s admirable industry the whole enterprise does little more than suggest Kant’s description of a dazzling and deceptive illusion."
I can guess one responce that you will make to this here paragraph.Do let us know when the responce is published!
I do find it somewhat amusing that he is all "Rah, rah!" for science while at the same time extolling the virtues of philosophers whose thought tended to make science as a meaningful description of how reality is considerably more difficult than what you'd find on an Aristotelian or Scholastic view.
DeleteThat's not even an argument. How about instead of this type of rhetoric, Blackburn can show where Feser's argument fails. That is, he can point to an unclear term, a false premise, or a non-sequitur. But he can't just complain it's abstract.
DeleteHere let me translate that passage out of PhD bullshit:
Delete"Ed uses really old words! Also, I don't understand them, and anyway I've decided that if certain other sciences don't use these words then they are incomprehensible by anybody. Now, let me passive-agressively suggest that Kant has already refuted Ed on my behalf. Now, I'm not going to to show how. Just accept this wink and not instead."
There you go. No need to fret over her meaning.
What is there to respond to in Blackburn? I didn’t see an argument.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if you've presaged his response.
DeleteYou did not see because there is none. It is a screed ending with the inevitable, but highly ironic, accusation of:
Delete"His ancient exercises in logic are more than just intellectual amusements. They are preludes to the will to power, and if it were not for the Enlightenment, so little admired by John Gray, they would doubtless have continued to be preludes to persecutions and the auto-da-fé."
One can write such stuff easily, if one is just abandons oneself to the stupidity and ignorance of the Simon Blackburns of this world. If one gets payed to do it, as I presume he was, we have, to borrow his own expression, "prelude(s) to the will to power".
Pathetic.
Great interview! I defend the Aristotelian Proof and the Rationalist Proof in two recent episodes of the Classical Theism Podcast.
ReplyDeletewww.classicaltheism.com/core3
www.classicaltheism.com/core4
Good job!
DeleteYou do not defend properly why the Prime mover is unchangeable and not subject to motion.
DeleteThe reason is not the fact that he is not changing when he is functioning as a prime mover or otherwise, it will require another cause and won't be the prime mover because the prime mover can have potentials that are not actualized when it is functioning as the prime mover and maybe even potentials that are never actualized in which case it would be an unmoved mover but not unchangeable nor pure act.
What makes the Unmoved Mover Pure Act is the fact that his causal power is as Feser says in his book is that the Unmoved Mover is "something that has its causal power in a
“built-in” or nonderivative way."
That's what makes it pure act. As a result, the prime mover can not have any admixture of potency since if it did have any potency, then it could in principle depend on and derive its motion from another prior member to actualize the potency it has (per premise 2). But since the prime mover has its causal power in an independent rather than dependent or derivative fashion, it can not have any potencies and therefore must be purely actual without any potencies. This is also explained in his post here (http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2010/08/edwards-on-infinite-causal-series.html) where he says:
> "This explanatory regress cannot possibly terminate in anything other than something which has absolutely independent causal power, which can cause or “actualize” without itself having to be actualized in any way, and only what is purely actual can fit the bill."
Good content otherwise. Keep it up.
Dr. Feser has also addressed this question in "Aquinas: A Beginner's Guide", in the section dealing with the First Way. An excerpt from his answer: "For suppose it had some potency relevant to its existence (its existence being what is relevant to its status as the end of the regress as we have continued it). Then either some other thing actualizes that potency, in which case we haven’t really stopped the regress after all, contrary to hypothesis; or some already actual part of it actualizes the potency, in which case that already actual part would itself be both pure act and, properly speaking, the true first mover. Now, having no potency to actualize, such a being could not possibly change or move. Thus we have reached a first mover that is not only unmoved, but unmovable."
DeleteMohamed,
DeleteThanks for the feedback. I will definitely make that clearer in future episodes on the argument. I agree with your analysis. I intend to do a few more episodes on the Aristotelian proof in the near future.
@John DeRosa
DeleteCan you do an episode on how B-theory would interact with the act/potency distinction.
Does the Principle of Proportionate Causality entail the First Law of Thermodynamics or any sort of conservation law whereby a closed system cannot give an unlimited energy supply to it's enviroment? Or does it not?
ReplyDeleteOne of the reasons it seems that the Principle of Causality and PPC doesn't entail any law of thermodynamics or conservation is because of, for example, the metaphysical possibility of magic coins that when hit with a hammer seperate into two full sized coins, or do so spontaneously after some time, and thus split into two coins and can clone themselves. Such a magic coin is easily metaphysically possible, since it's attribute of cloning can be derived from it's formal nature.
Such a coint would violate thermodynamics and conservation laws, but can be accomodated by metaphysics.
Also, in the early 20th century, there was for a short time controversy and speculation about the chemical element radium, which exhibited the ability to be heated up and retain it's heat and then radiate a seemingly unlimited supply of heat without loosing it's own heat supply, thereby violating conservation laws. This clearly doesn't violate PPC, since it could easily be in the nature of radium to have an unlimited supply of heat in itself when it is heated by something else. The nature of animals was also thought at the time to be beyond simple conservation laws, and as such represented an exception to thermodynamics and conservation, though some contested that and wanted everythign material to be subject to conservation and thermodynamics laws.
And yet another important consideration about conservation of energy laws is that even in the Middle Ages, people believed the heavenly bodies were unchanging things which either have always existed, or will continue to move without needing to ever stop, thus having an unlimited amount of energy. If people in the Middle Ages didn't think this violates PC or PPC, then clearly the laws of causality and metaphysics don't depend on conservation or thermodynamic laws either, and can easily accomodate the possibility that thermodynamic and conservation laws are false as well.
What do you think? Is a universe where thermodynamics and conservation laws don't actually hold metaphysically possible, or does the PC and PPC somehow entail a certain conservation law in some way such that physics could in principle prove or refute metaphysics?
Conservations laws in physics reflect corresponding fundamental symmetries. Energy conservation reflects temporal invariance. Momentum conservation reflects spatial invariance.
DeleteThe laws of physics are same now as they were 1 million years ago. Given this, there is a conserved quantity which we call energy.
Look at Noether's theorem.
Atoms and electrons are forever moving about. They don't stop and there is no problem with energy conservation. Hence your point about heavenly bodies being unchanging things which violates conservation of energy is wrong.
You need a deeper understanding of what conserved quantities are and how do they arise.
Physics postulates new forms of energy all the time to account for missing energy. What else is dark energy?
If we were to find a case of, say, a chemical element which has a finite amount of heat yet can radiate an unlimited amount of it, and let's also say we were to refrain from imagining new forms of energy to explain such a thing, would this type of thing be metaphysically possible?
DeleteWould PC and PPC accomodate such a thing easily?
Or, if you don't like the above example, let's just grant that conservation laws are false. Would that be metaphysically possible, even though it violates all physics and fundamental symmetries?
Physics would, in this case, postulate a new form of energy that this novel substance possesses. Note that historically this is exactly what happened with the problem of energy source of the Sun.
DeleteRefrain from positing new form of energy?
DeleteIs to refrain from doing physics and it is a self-contradiction --- to reason and refrain from doing it
Yes, that's what physicists would inevitably try to do.
DeleteHowever, I explicitly stated in the first paragraph that the question here is of metaphysical possibility, not what physics would do in the end.
Let us grant here, for the sake of argument, that this novel substance DOES IN FACT violate laws of conservation of energy and thermodynamics, and that any and all attempts to propose a novel energy are mistaken.
Would this novel substance be metaphysically possible still, even though it actually violates conservation laws?
It would seem to me that such a substance is metaphysically possible, since it doesn't violate causality, and we could easily explain it's operation via formal causality. But I'm not sure about that which is why I'm asking people here to confirm or deny the metaphysical possibility of such a substance.
Gyan
DeleteNew form of energy?
What does that mean?
How does one achieve a new form of energy from the equivalence relation:
E^2 = (c^2)(μ^2) + (m^2)(c^4)
linking mass, momentum and energy. It is taken to define coordinates μ and E as momentum and energy values respectively.
JoeD,
DeleteConservation of energy is not an arbitrary and disposable tack-on to the structure of physics. It is a consequence of the time invariance of the fundamental equations of physics.
You have a substance that is emitting energy in an inexplicable fashion. If you do physics, you must posit some internal energy that that substance possesses which it is emitting via some physical process. Total energy is conserved.
IF you don't like this, then you aren't interested in doing physics and you have no justification in invoking conservation of energy or any other physics concepts.
That's why I remarked earlier, that your scenario is a self-contradiction.
If we lived in a universe where the laws of physics weren't constant, and time invariance weren't a part of the universe, would a violation of conservation be possible?
DeleteWould it at least be metaphysically possible?
"If we lived in a universe where the laws of physics weren't constant, and time invariance weren't a part of the universe, would a violation of conservation be possible?"
DeleteEnergy conservation *is* violated in the actual universe, this is a standard consequence of GR, where the Noether's theorem does not apply because there is no global time foliation.
One can get conservation of energy back by, very roughly speaking, counting the energy of the gravitational field as negative. The problem is that there are strong obstacles to doing this as it is impossible to define an energy *density* for the gravitational field, so what you are left with is either trivial or at the very least, practically useless.
It should also be noted that even classically there is no problem with violation of conservation of energy. There is no problem in principle with non-conservative forces -- the usual way to model friction and similar effects is to use precisely a dissipative force. If we ever found that one of the fundamental forces was non-conservative, physics would continue fine thank you.
@grodrigues,
DeleteSo violations of conservation of energy that are dissipative are quite acceptable to physics.
But what about violations where energy is actually created, not just destroyed?
The scenario I described above of a chemical element that is heated, has a finite amount of heat in itself yet can radiate an unlimited amount of heat would be such a scenario, as would the cloning coins that eventually split into 2 coins via formal causality is another.
Both scenarios I just described above seem to be metaphysically possible, since the effects of finite-heat-but-unlimited-heat-radiation and magic cloning (and therefore mass and energy increase) don't seem to violate any principle of causality, even though they do violate thermodynamics and conservation.
Also, do the effects you describe above in your post also violate thermodynamics? If so, then this means physics could also accept violations of thermodynamics as well.
This would then mean a perpetual motion machine is possible as well, and not just metaphysically.
I guess the EmDrive (infamous for violating conservation of momentumm) isn't so implausible after all.
JoeD
DeleteDissipation is a simplification when we focus on a subsytem (such as a moving body) and treat its interaction with the rest of the world as dissipative
Including the environment in a through way wojld result in conservation of energy.
Again conservation of energy reflects time invariance of equations of physics and can not be discarded at whim
JoeD
DeleteDissipation is a simplification when we focus on a subsytem (such as a moving body) and treat its interaction with the rest of the world as dissipative
Including the environment in a through way wojld result in conservation of energy.
Again conservation of energy reflects time invariance of equations of physics and can not be discarded at whim
JoeD,
DeleteYou write:
"a chemical element that is heated, has a finite amount of heat in itself"
You use physics terms but in ways that do not make sense in physics. Question, how does one know that a given material has finite amount of heat (or rather energy)?
In physics, one says a given material has this amount of this type of energy. This much kinetic energy, this much chemical energy and so on. What kind of energy that can be released or emitted depends upon the situation. Nuclear energy, though it vastly exceeds chemical energy, is not normally emitted by stable elements.
Your scenario needs to be made precise physics-wise and only then the discussion can proceed fruitfully.
@JoeD:
DeleteOk, I should go back and clarify a couple of points, as this will hopefully answer your questions.
In an expanding universe, if you trace out the geodesic of a photon and measure its energy, it is a consequence of GR that it looses energy; this energy is *not* in the form of radiation, say, so we have here what would count as a straightforward violation of energy conservation. And this is not a mere technical curiosity, as it underpins our current cosmology. If you run the film backwards, that is, the universe is contracting, you have the answer to your first question.
About your scenarios, I think you are going about it the wrong way. It seems to me you are starting with some convoluted scenario, and one that is prima facie metaphysically problematic, and asking if it is possible. But what I am doing is going from the other end, is taking what is indeed possible -- at least possible given our current understanding -- and propose *that*.
There is more to say, and I will say it below, but let me first dispel a confusion caused by my technical use of terms. When I spoke of "non-conservative" forces, and used the term "dissipative" as a synonym, I was using it as explained here for example. Dissipative forces, as the term is commonly used for friction is a subcase of it. As the article makes clear, the problem with non-conservative forces is that there is no notion of potential, and therefore it is meaningless (minus some technical caveats) to speak of energy conservation. But such forces pose no problem *in principle* to physics, nor do strictly dissipative forces -- saying that a more detailed analysis reveals fiction is mere aggregate modelization of conservative fundamental forces is not an answer to anything I said.
Let me get back to the example of GR. As I also said, one can try to "adjust the books" and get back energy conservation by, very roughly and crudely speaking, counting the energy of the gravitational field as negative. The problem with this is that it is impossible, and provably so, to define an energy density. To bring the real problem into the light, think about the essence of what a conservation law is: it basically means that some quantity remains constant along the time evolution of a system. But in GR, the system is the *whole space-time* so it is meaningless to speak of its evolution. That is why Noether's theorem (in the differential form) does not apply. For it to apply you would have to know what a "time translation" is, and for that you would have to have a time direction (technically, a global time foliation), which is precisely what you cannot have in GR -- at least not in general. In some special cases like asymptotical flatness, you can come up with an energy notion that has all the desired desiderata.
Now, there are still a couple moves that you could make, but they are also problematic in that in general (and I am not an expert, so hit the books if you really want to know) they are either trivial, or useless in practice. Think about it. Minus some technical hypothesis, you can take extensive quantities as integrals of (scalar) fields over the entire space-time manifold and invoke variational principles. But what the heck is the meaning of such quantities? What does it mean to say "I sum up the quantity of electrons throughout the past, present and future and got x"? What the heck is x measuring?
grogrigues
DeleteYou state:In an expanding universe, if you trace out the geodesic of a photon and measure its energy, it is a consequence of GR that it looses energy; this energy is *not* in the form of radiation, say, so we have here what would count as a straightforward violation of energy conservation.
No. One does not require slights of hand to conserve energy. Gravitational effects are caused by local distortion to the local density of momentum and energy.
If conservation of energy is regularly violated as you intimate, then it should be easy to balance a sharpened pencil on it's tip on a table...
@grodrigues,
DeleteHow are the scenarios I mention (chemical element that gives unlimited heat, cloning coin) prima facie metaphysically problematic?
I would like to know the reasons why you think so, since I can't think of any.
Also, even if my proposed metaphysical scenarios are prima facie metaphysically problematic, do you think they are, at the end of the day, strictly impossible, or is there room left for my scenarios to be a legitimate metaphysical possibility?
"When I spoke of "non-conservative" forces, and used the term "dissipative" as a synonym, I was using it as explained here for example."
DeleteIt seems the link did not go through. Here it is without html quotes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservative_force
"saying that a more detailed analysis reveals fiction"
Serendipitous mistake, but obviously fiction -> friction.
@JoeD:
"I would like to know the reasons why you think so, since I can't think of any."
I was simply expressing what I thought you took them to be, but it seems I was mistaken. At first they do seem problematic because they seem to entail creation out of nothing.
@Philip Rand:
Shush, go read a book.
@grogrigues
DeleteYou admitted that you are not an expert in physics... I am an expert in physics.
@JoeD
DeleteIf you insist on examining physical weirdness, then look into:
1/ Pioneer anomaly (gravitation anomaly)
2/ Okla natural reactor (fine constant anomaly)
@Philip Rand:
Delete"I am an expert in physics."
Thanks for this bit of farcical comedy. It genuinely put a smile on my otherwise gloomy face.
Incorrect grodrigues…
DeleteI am an expert in physics. is NOT an improbable statement NOR is it a satirical statement.
Therefore, as you state that your face is always gloomy; the probability of a smile resulting on your visage is highly unlikely...
grodrigues
DeleteWhat is interesting with regards to interacting with you is that each exchange is a game; you are playing a zero-sum game, since any comment you make reflects a total gain of zero information...
Now, I know the payoff table of such a game... and you do not...
So, the question you must ask yourself is: What is your optimum move?
No response is zero information...giving a response will be noise... interesting isn't it?
In either case... zero information gain.
@grodrigues,
DeleteWould there be a way to avoid the implication of creation out of nothing by way of formal causality?
For example, we would say that the element's ability to give off an unlimited amount of heat in spite of having a finite amount of heat in itself is something that follows from it's nature. It's ex subjecti causation, not ex nihilo.
The same would go for the cloning coin example.
JoeD,
DeleteThe statement
"give off an unlimited amount of heat in spite of having a finite amount of heat "
in unreasonable physics-wise.
Substances do not have heat.Physics terminology is energy. The term "heat" is used in thermodynamics to refer to energy transferred between substances.
The use of term "element" in place of of "body" or "substance" is also unreasonable.
No physics book will say-element has finite amount of heat. Elements have no heat or energy. Bodies have various forms of energy.
Next, it is unreasonable to speak of "a body having finite amount of energy". In physics, we talk of amounts of energy of a specified type contained (or associated) with a body.
For example, chemical energy associated with chemical bonds in a body, nuclear energy in nuclear bonds, vibrational energy of molecules, and kinetic energy of molecules etc.
@JoeD:
Delete"Would there be a way to avoid the implication of creation out of nothing by way of formal causality?"
What I would say is that formal causality is not a magical bullet; creation -- and creation is, and can only be, creation ex nihilo -- is a power that belongs to God and God alone and is strictly beyond the natural order. So if your proposed scenarios seem, at least at first blush, to imply it or to imply a violation of the principle of proportionate causality then they are metaphysical impossibilities.
Joe D, any possible universe that can be described with some sort of laws of physics will have some quantities that will be conserved (especially since the quantities may not refer to any actual thing, but some abstraction — for example, "Does anything exist at all or is this universe completely empty")... and some quantities that are not (for example, when two H's plus an O become a molecule of water, then the number of substances is not conserved). Which quantities are useful or interesting or elegant is another story.
DeleteBut there is no connection between lack of conservation and actual creation — when three atoms become one molecule, this is not creation (since obviously water from atoms is not water from nothing), but simply one kind of causation (generation and corruption).
Whether a finite object can cause an infinite effect is yet something else. It's often held that that would not be metaphysically possible (since the object is, well, finite); though I am more inclined to allow for that possibility. (What would "infinite heat" even mean? Does an object that acquires perpetual momentum have "infinite energy", or a lasting finite amount that is applied and retained at each moment? Is an infinity at any moment a "completed" infinite, or will it work to spread it across indefinite time? Etc.) But if you can come up with a consistent mathematical description and a coherent physical meaning for what substances the mathematics could describe, then I reckon that God could create it.
Hi Mr Green
DeleteWhether a finite object can cause an infinite effect is yet something else.
This can be scientifically formalised into a coherent mathematical & physical relation.
@Mr. Green,
DeleteQuote: "Whether a finite object can cause an infinite effect is yet something else."
Actually, it's not really an infinite effect I'm talking about, but rather an unlimited effect.
The chemical element I propose will give off an unlimited amount of heat even though it itself has a finite amount of heat, so in that case it's more like giving more than you have, though formal causality might say that the element in question actually does have more heat than it was heated up, though virtually and in certain circumstances (when heated up).
It's a matter of giving off never-ending and inexhaustible heat, not of a completed infinity of some sort or another. Furthermore, the chemical element wouldn't actually be hotter than the temperature at which it was heated, only giving off more heat than it was heated up to.
It would be akin to a coffee cup that was heated up and, after giving off the amount of heat it was given it in the beginning, continues being hot and thus gives off more heat than it should have under conservation of energy laws and thermodynamics
Also of note is the cloning coin; that too wouldn't be an infinite effect since it splits into a finite amount of coins (2). Though that might seem a little too close to creatio ex nihilo and thus impossible, perhaps there is a way in which such an effect could happen.
Perhaps by transforming it's prime matter and adding more quantity to itself (since quantity is a type of actuality and prime matter is pure potential).
What do you think?
JoeD
DeleteYou propose:
The chemical element I propose will give off an unlimited amount of heat even though it itself has a finite amount of heat, so in that case it's more like giving more than you have, though formal causality might say that the element in question actually does have more heat than it was heated up, though virtually and in certain circumstances (when heated up).
I can quote (sort of) Spock... "It's causality Jim, but not causality as we know it."
What scuppers your thought experiment is mechanical effects, i.e. production of heat by friction or compression.
JoeB
DeleteConsider your heated cup of coffee and apply friction to it, i.e. boundary between liquid and cup (in the first instance)...say it is resting on your kitchen table... now, what is going to happen to the entire universe?
JoeD
DeleteAre you perhaps analogising your idea with zero-point energy?
Is this your thrust?
I read Blackburn’s article, but I didn’t see any review. I’ve read more substantial YouTube comments by atheist trolls than that “review”. He basically said, “Dr. Feser uses abstract concepts that aren’t studied by empirical science, therefore his entire book is invalid and in reality is just an attempt to control the masses! *puff* *puff* *cough* *cough*”. Between his apparent love for the Enlightenment and not even addressing a single argument or raising a single objection apart from saying that the arguments are philosophical, his review would have been more concisely stated by saying, “BAS LES ARISTOS! VIVE LE REVOLUTION!”
ReplyDeleteBlackburn's writing reminds me a lot of Christopher Hitchen's oratory abilities, they have an amazing ability to communicate a lot without communicating anything
ReplyDeleteRe: Blackburn's pitting of science against philosophy. (And this applies to New Atheists in general)
ReplyDeleteDr. Feser, have you argued somewhere that philosophy is necessary for science to be a rational enterprise, such that any affirmation of the rational nature of science is immediately to affirm philosophy?
I remember vaguely some post from a while back talking about how physical reality must be structured in accordance with the Act-Potency framework in order for any sort of science to get off the ground, but I'm not sure if I'm good on the details.
(I think this can be a very powerful rhetorical tool in oral and written debates, as it would imply that any affirmation of any scientific result is an affirmation of God's existence as Pure Actuality)
Michael Huemer also noticed that there is no such thing as empirical reasoning without metaphysical assumptions. he wrote about that a long time ago and then recently published a more detailed article and put it on his site showing this fact.
DeleteBlackburn is just pathetic. First he invokes every adolescent's favorite philosophers, Hume and Nietzsche, to deny that we can say anything about God, so religion is illusory. Then he fails to engage even one of Feser's five arguments and mounts an ad hominem attack on him.
ReplyDeleteThis guy is a Cambridge professor ?
Steven Dutch has a long article on his site refuting David Hume in very great detail. But I doubt if anyone can access his site anymore --unless people saved his articles on their own computers or in hard copies.
DeleteNietzsche is much more trouble for atheists than he ever was for the religious. The religious merely say "well we don't live in an atheist cosmos, so your point about its moral implications is moot". Atheists say we do live in that cosmos, and then they stick their fingers in their ears and sing very loudly when the subject of its moral implications comes up.
DeleteI wonder how many rank and file atheists are aware, especially those who never tire of the Dawkinsian mantra religion = irrationality, or the amateurish blog posts and YouTube videos easily refuting theistic proofs, that their better-informed co-anti-religionists respond to the same proofs with, not refutations, but cautions against overconfidence in reason?
ReplyDelete"He says that there's this thing. But ackchyually there's also this other thing. Therefore the thing he said exists doesn't doesn't exist. Checkmate theists."
ReplyDeleteDoes anybody have anything on how B-theory of time interacts with act/potency?
ReplyDeleteFeser's article "Actuality, Potentiality, and Relativity's Block Universe" in William M. R. Simpson, Robert C. Koons, and Nicholas J. Teh, eds., Neo-Aristotelian Perspectives on Contemporary Science is the only writing I've seen on this.
Delete@MOhammed ABuuusteit:
DeleteFeser's forthcoming book will apparently extensively address the B-theory of time.
Blackburn:
ReplyDelete"Gone, evidently, are the days when religions could be left quietly to sink, fatally holed beneath the waterline by philosophical scepticism, evidence of historical unreliability, and a liberal distaste for authoritarian yet apparently arbitrary commands and prohibitions."
Hilarious! Do fantasists such as Simon Blackburn really be expected to be taken seriously?
Get this: "Gone, evidently, are the days [of]... a liberal distaste for authoritarian yet apparently arbitrary commands and prohibitions"
Whenever that idyllic time was, it must have been very short ... some time one guesses, between the publication of On Liberty, and the emergence of a utilitarianism which is incapable of ultimately justifying its own lisping principles ... But then, that would be history in reverse, since the latter chronologically preceded the former.
I guess you just have to trust that the modern "Religion of Humanity" is not ultimately arbitrary minus teleology, and its mincing hierophants are somehow respectable organisms, despite their spindly arms and socially dependent natures. Because, the greatest good for the greatest ... whatever.
No good piece of hasty invective goes unpunished, and phone calls and typing obviously don't mix.
DeleteIt 'shouldabe' ...
"Do fantasists such as Simon Blackburn really expect to be taken seriously?"
Hey, there's a lot of ideologues like Carrier trying to disprove God like Aron Ra and Raphael Lataster. Can you address their claims?
ReplyDeleteFeser responds to Carrier here.
Deletehttps://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2018/03/carrier-carries-on.html
@Unknown:
DeleteAt the top of this page there is a search bar. Plug in "Carrier," and you'll see quite a bit of material.
@Unknown
DeleteFeser and others on this site have analyzed practically every atheist argument there is. They do their dead-level best to address every legitimate objection.
I suggest you use the search bar to locate the topics you believe these other atheists address. If you cannot find anything here or in any of Feser's books (if you're really interested in the topic, you'll have no problem investing a small amount of money for his excellent works), then by all means please post a question related to what they say. This community likes to interact with people who argue in good faith (no pun intended).
Just be certain your questions are either in an open thread or are on topic with the thread you're posting under. Feser does not take kindly to thread hijacking.
Blackburn has a history of defending implausible and frankly silly positions in other subjects e.g. ethics, epistemology and modal theory. If he keeps on that route he’ll end in the Philip Kitcher slightly more gentile New Atheist category. It’s characteristic that he should fixate on the supposed result of the arguments than the ontology behind, as any remotely literate naturalist would recognise similarities in some of the background assumptions with theories put forward by the Australian realists (all of whom were naturalists of course).
ReplyDeleteHis appeals to Nietzsche should be accepted and thrown back in his face whenever he tries to moralise. ‘Your liberal value system is just a deceitful trick by which the weak seek to muzzle the strong!’. ‘God is dead and we have killed Him, so now let’s go out and dress as SS officers and torture small woodland animals’.
I have a response to Blackburn forthcoming in TLS
??? Either I'm misreading this Ed or you've dramatically altered your views on backwards causation.
TLS = Times Literary Supplement, where Blackburn originally published his review.
DeleteFrom what I know, there has been interesting new defenses of Evil-God challenge published this year, they aren't available online at this point I think.
ReplyDeleteAnd about cosmological arguments, the area which needs most attention is modal epistemology. It seems puzzling how we know whether anything that exists is contingent or whether everything natural and material is contingent.
"It seems puzzling how we know whether anything that exists is contingent or whether everything natural and material is contingent."
DeleteIt isn't puzzling at all. Anything that is composed of parts, which is everything in the world (which includes material things), can, in principle, be separated. Therefore, the existence of anything composed of parts is contingent upon those parts being combined.
The only other option is if parts are necessarily combined by something that is also necessary. Eventually that necessity must come from God.
Thats an interesting take , but does the fact that it can be separated entails it is contingent?
DeleteIt seems to me that it is assumed here that if something doesn't exist all the time then it is contingent ( a thing might come into existence then go out of it but this could all still happen necessarily).
And even if the existence of those things is explained by what combines those parts it still doesn't seem to make those thing contingent.
Here note, by contingent I mean simply what might not have existed. How do we know whether anything has this property?
(of course for those of us who believe in Free will and non-revisionary concept of moral responsibility, this seems obvious but is there another way?)
Poe, surely the real challenge is understanding why anyone would take the evil god argument seriously.
Delete"a thing might come into existence then go out of it but this could all still happen necessarily"
DeleteThe answer comes from analysing that necessity which also must be explained.
Necessity can only ever be either inherent to the nature of a thing or derived from another. If it is inherent, then it must(for reasons i won't explain here) be the one and only inherently necessary being, namely God. If it is derived, then it must be contingent by its own nature, as the necessity is being imposed upon it from the outside. Contingent just means that existence is not part of the nature of a thing.
How do you know if some particular material thing is contingent? Because there can only be one inherently necessary being, namely God and by having parts indicates that it is not God.
That certain states-of-affairs are possibly not the case is something we presume every day through our pre-theoretical use of counter-factual reasons. That does not de facto prove contingency or excuse us from giving accounts of modal epistemology but it does suggest that contingency is innocent til proven guilty so to speak. I am both interested and sympathetic to non-God necessary being responses to the cosmological argument though, they have the potential to present far more of a challenge than the dull modal collapse and Hume-Edwards criticisms.
Delete@Billy,
I would strongly contest that an argument from part composition will give one an account of modality or suffice to prove theism. The argument about complexity and simplicity might hold for physical parts as a sub-set of the general PSR but it is different for metaphysical parts e.g. properties.
https://ontologicalinvestigations.blogspot.com/2018/09/two-arguments-for-divine-simplicity.html
@Billy
DeleteBut are we saying anything different by saying existence is not part of the nature of a thing. then simply saying it might not have existed.
Like how can I tell whether a particular cup in front of me has existence as part of its nature or not, which ultimately seems to amount to asking whether its a kind of thing that had to have existed or not.
And I have a hard time grasping what imposing necessity on a contingent (by its own nature) thing really means. It seems we only have two options , either a thing must exist(necessary) or it might not have existed (contingent), is this wrong way to think about it?
@OAP
I don't know why you find Hume-Edwards objection dull, I find it very challenging. of course its less powerful against five ways but it seems very good against certain arguments from contingency.
Only good replies to it seems to be showing why we should accept necessary being in-directly, like through causal theory of metaphysical possibility.
"The argument about complexity and simplicity might hold for physical parts"
DeleteThat is what I was responding to, which I think my response suffices to explain.
"but it is different for metaphysical parts"
I wouldn't say so. From your post:
"In the case of our triangle the fact that these properties occur together as part of a composite requires no external explanation...it is a necessary truth that all triangular objects will be trilateral"
Necessary truths exist in God. They exist in contingent things, like triangles or our intellects contingent upon the existence of these contingent things.
I would not deny that necessary truths are grounded in the divine mind. If that is required as a premise in the argument from unity though said argument turns out to presuppose theism and cannot be used to establish it (specifically it presupposes the success of the argument from eternal truths).
DeleteI would also take issue with the claim that God can be the only necessary being, or at least whether there is any strong case to be made for that which does presuppose theism. Aside from Thomistic concerns about the real distinction the only viable alternative to Augustinian divine exemplar realism about entities such as propositions, numbers and properties is straight-up Platonic realism (not a dichotomy which will provide much comfort for the naturalist) which treats said objects as necessary beings.
Red,
Delete"But are we saying anything different by saying existence is not part of the nature of a thing. then simply saying it might not have existed."
Not exactly the same, but the latter implies the former. The former also is implied when saying the opposite, that something that never existed might have.
OA,
"If that is required as a premise in the argument from unity though said argument turns out to presuppose theism"
I didn't think we were discussing theism at this point. I thought we were discussing the contingency of composite objects. I was merely pointing out that there can be necessary truths in and about contingent things, because the truth being necessary does not rely on the instantiation of things. We don't have to posit God, but the one positing necessary truths needs to explain how that raises concerns about the contingency of composite objects.
"I would also take issue with the claim that God can be the only necessary being"
If there were two of them, say A and B, then there would need to be something about them that distinguishes them. Thus, one of them will need to be composite, and if it is composite, then it will be contingent.
"it is a necessary fact about the property trilaterality that it is co-exemplified alongside triangularity."
DeleteTrilaterality is entailed in triangularity, not co-exemplified. We can talk about trilaterality without triangularity, such as in an open plane figure. We can't talk about triangularity without trilaterality, which confirmed that one is entailed in the other, but not the other way around. The instantiation of triangularity is dependent upon the instantiation of trilaterality, but not the other way. Dependency confirms contingency.
Under the block universe, Future events and beings already exist and in this sense, beings-in-potency already exist and are already actualized. One way to resolve this is that Act/Potency are relevant to the specific event but then would this not harm the defence given for the causal principle. The usual defence is that a potency does not exist (yet) and so can not cause anything. But under the block universe, future already exists and so the potencies would be already actualized making a part of the defense "does not exist (yet)" not true.
ReplyDeleteI know Feser has an article on Actuality, Potentiality and the Block universe but he does not address this objection.
Does anybody have anything?
Future events and things (will) exist in future.
DeleteThere is no meaning to the sentence:
", Future events and beings already exist"
even "under the block universe" or any kind of universe.
I read Simon Blackburn's review and it seems to me that the entire review is an exercise in avoiding the actual arguments - the details of which he does not address at any point in his review. The closest he comes to a substantive objection is when he insists that Feser's book concludes to a 'something-we-know-not-what', which in a sense is true, as in classical theism God is beyond understanding. However, Blackburn fails to see that 'something-we-know-not-what' is still 'something', not 'the-absence-of-something' that atheism requires.
ReplyDeleteEven if Feser's book proves nothing more than that 'something' exists that is not physical, not temporal, not finite, not caused, etc., that would be a reality completely at odds with Blackburn's own atheism. Also, at no point does Blackburn attempt to critique Feser's argument that 'pure actuality' must be omniscient. It seems to me that that is a crucial point of contention between Western theism and Eastern 'something-we-know-not-what' philosophies.
Blackburn also attempts to delegitamize Feser's argument by suggesting that it has no moral significance: "...it throws us into Hume’s arms since we cannot infer a single point of politics or morality from the whole exercise". Firstly, even if true, that would be irrelevant to Feser's argument, as Feser isn't attempting to prove the whole of religious theism in his book. More importantly, though, Feser has already shown that teleology (or 'final causality') is necessary for any kind of objective morality - and we cannot understand teleology in nature apart from God (as Aquinas argued in the Fifth Way). So, while explicit appeals to God are not necessary for natural law ethics, a teleological conception of reality is - and Blackburn's mechanistic conception of reality is incompatible with such intrinsic teleology.
The rest of Blackburn's critique is simply either winking towards scientism (e.g., Feser's arguments 'work in abstract terms that have little or no place in physical science') or mockery of religious devotion (e.g., 'Light a candle and kneel in silent contemplation by all means...') and the suggestion that Feser's intentions are nefarious (e.g., Feser's 'ancient exercises in logic are more than just intellectual amusements. They are preludes to the will to power'). This last comment is particularly ironic, considering that the radical enlightenment thinkers' (and their intellectual descendants') attacks on religion were motivated by a desire to use force to completely remake society - actions that have led to the deaths of tens of millions. In my own study of modern atheism I have seen that (from Hobbes, to Hume, to Hitchens) atheists are masters of mockery. However, among these same atheists, deep analytical reasoning is an extreme rarity. Similarly, atheists insist that all religious people be upbraided for that actions of Islamic terrorists (or other expamples of religious violence or oppression), but are completely unwilling to consider the horrific consequences of atheistic ideologies.
There is a meanness to Blackburn's 'critique' that shows from the first line: "Gone, evidently, are the days when religions could be left quietly to sink, fatally holed beneath the waterline by philosophical scepticism..." Apparently, Blackburn is angered that the fact that religious people are not behaving according to the path set out for them in the 'secularization prophecy' (sorry, I mean 'thesis') preached to him and many other young students decades ago, and believed with fervor by them. I would say that the disappointment seeping from the opening paragraph is a good indicator of how out of touch with reality academic atheists have been for the past fifty years - and more.
Incidentally, congrats on your book being reviewed in the Times Literary Supplement, Dr. Feser! It's a pity that it couldn't have been reviewed by a more competent reviewer. It seems as though atheist 'intellectuals' don't think they need to actually refute theistic arguments any more - but they still want to consider themselves 'rationalists'.
ReplyDeleteProfessor Feser,
ReplyDeleteThere seems to be a key argument in your book that is under-argued. You say:
But if PSR is false, we could have no reason for thinking that any of this is really the case. For all we know, what moves or causes us to assent to a claim might have absolutely nothing to do with the deliverances of our cognitive faculties, ...
But what is the argument for this claim? It mostly seems to be motivated by intuition, and I'm not sure what it is about assuming PSR to be false that would commit us to skepticism any more than other standard skeptical threat arguments.
If not everything has an explanation for why it exists, then our perceptual experiences just might be one of those things that exists with no explanation . *If* the PSR is false, and at least some things can exist with no explanation, then we cannot whether the seeming veridicality of our perceptual experiences or the seeming reliability of our cognitive faculties is one of those things that just exists with no explanation.
DeleteI discuss this a bit in episode 4 of my podcast:
www.classicaltheism.com/core4
Feser also hits the point in a recent talk at Fermilab:
http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2018/07/laws-of-nature-at-fermilab.html
Say that you reason that all men a mortal, Socrates is a man, therefore, you conclude that Socrates is mortal. How do you know you reasoned to that conclusion if its entirely possible that you just think you reasoned your way there but really its just a brute fact that you made that you assented to it?
DeleteYou can't rely on your memory of reasoning to it, since your experience of remembering might also have no explanation either.
If it is possible that there is no explanation for anything, then everything is susceptible to that possibility, and everything becomes mysterious, even any reasoned conclusion we assent to. You couldn't even trust reasoning your way to denying the PSR. You couldn't even think that you deny it based on intuition either because to appeal to intuition would also to appeal to an explanation, but its entirely possible that your assent has no explanation at all.
Everything becomes mysterious.
Why would the fact that there is possibily no explanation for X mean that there is possibly no explanation for Y?
DeleteThe claim that X may have no explanation is typically made for X's that have no obvious explanation and it is not made for Y's that do have an obvious explanation.
If we can observe say, a chain of causes leading to Y, then we can reasonably infer that Y has a least a partial cause. If we don't observe any such cause (or chain) for X, we can either conclude that X possibly has no explanation or that X has an explanantion that we haven't found yet.
This difference in approach is interesting for X, but it is not really relevant for Y.
There is another danger in a too strict application of the PSR. If everything has an explanation, then God choosing to do A instead of B also has an explanation, and because God is necessary, this explanation is necessary too. This means that God cannot choose B and that the whole of creation is necessary.
John DeRosa
DeleteI watched the Feser Fermilab lecture.
The key insight is the Grue thought experiment. This in fact is telling you something vital concerning Laws of Nature.
In the Grue scenario it is telling you this:
The initiation of a measurement, (i.e. What colour is this object?) creates the physics of the phenomenon.
So, in the grue example it is the observation of the object that either determines whether the object is green or blue.
This can be formalised.
This insight has interesting ramifications in the sense that it suggests that asking a qualitative question leads to physical phenomenon.
Walter,
DeleteRe: "Why would the fact that there is possibly no explanation for X mean that there is possibly no explanation for Y?"
The concern is not that there is possibly no explanation for X. The concern is that if the PSR is false, then not everything has an explanation. If we allow that some things exist with no explanation (i.e. they are completely unintelligible and inexplicable in terms of causes and so forth), then we immediately lose grounds for knowing that anything has an explanation. Why is that? Well, the number of things that have no explanation would be completely unknown, and we would have no way of detecting them. We have no way of understanding such supposedly unintelligible realities, since any attempt to understand them would presuppose their intelligibility.
For example, consider that many thing the human body evolved from an ape-like ancestor. Maybe the evidence points in that direction. But if the PSR is false, maybe a reptile just walked into a lake one day and emerged as a human being, with no explanation !
Surely, you will protest, "But that makes no sense!" And that is precisely the point. If we allow events with no explanation (which entails they are completely unintelligible), then there's no stopping crazy possibilities like the one I just described.
You might at this point say, "Ok, but those types of events are very improbable." But that won't do either. As Feser points out, probabilities are based on the objective tendencies of things, yet if the PSR is false, then some events might occur in a way that has nothing to do with the objective tendency of things. So, it turns out, on analysis, that denying the PSR opens a floodgate of skepticism which undermines perceptual experience, science, and even the grounds for rationally denying the PSR.
Re: "The claim that X may have no explanation is typically made for X's that have no obvious explanation and it is not made for Y's that do have an obvious explanation."
The problem is that if the PSR is false, it doesn't matter what is typically done.
Re: If we can observe say, a chain of causes leading to Y, then we can reasonably infer that Y has a least a partial cause.
Unless the PSR is false. In that case, your "reasonable inference" may just be occurring with no explanation. The fact that it seems that your are rationally inferring something from the facts on the ground (i.e. that seeming) may *also* just exist with no explanation.
John
DeleteOf course if the PSR is false it cannot be ruled out that everything just exists with no explanantion, but all that means is that in that case, we cannot have absolute certainty about anything.
But that is true with or without the PSR.
Let's say for the sake of the argument that the PSR is true and that God is the ultimate explanation. Now perhaps, for some mysterious reason, God created the world last Thursday and what we perceive as history is really just an illusion planted into our minds by God.
This is not a denial of the PSR, but it nevertheless opens a floodgate of skepticism which undermines perceptual experience, science, and even the grounds for rationally denying the PSR.
The point is that doubting that the PSR is true in every case does not lead to radical skepticism, becasue for radical skepticism we need doubt that the PSR is true in any case.
And most people do not doubt that, just as that don't doubt that they are not brains in a vat, although that isn't provable.
It is related to the problem of induction. Induction cannot give us certainty about something, but that doesn't mean induction is useless.
Yes, it seems to me you guys are just saying something like "well, we can have no reason for trusting our cognitive faculties because it always could be the case that they have no legitimate explanation." And yes, that's certainly true if PSR is false. No argument there. But why does that commit us to skepticism? We can rarely (if ever) be completely certain that our beliefs were formed via some reliable cognitive process. What, exactly, is the epistemic problem relative to analogous skeptical threat arguments?
DeleteWalter,
DeleteIt seems those two cases aren't exactly parallel. In case of deception it seems reasonable to assume that our cognitive faculties aren't possibly reliable but they actually are, but same can't be said of ~PSR case because PSR isn't the sort of principle that could be only actually true but possibly false. Because then the principle itself would be included in class of contingent facts requiring explanation, What could explain PSR then?
So it seems the sceptical threat posed by denying PSR is much bigger than other cases you mention.
Red
Deletei agree that the two cases are not exactly parallel, but the point is that not being certain about one or more things does not entail radical skepticism because, except far God, nobody can be certain about everything. Yet, we all assume certain things are true.
@Billy,
DeleteActually, brute facts aren't really that mysterious.
In a system of knowledge including brute facts, all that you need to know is that a thing happened. Say a cup in front of you started floating into the air for no reason - all that there is to know is that it is happening.
There is no agent or explanation above or behind the event, it is only the event that one has to contend with.
The very fact we would find such brute facts mysterious evinces not the idea that they really are mysterious in and of themselves, but rather the human intuition that there must be something behind such things - meaning that everybody in reality accepts the PSR, whether they are aware of it or not. They just haven't fleshed it out yet.
@Walter,
DeleteIf PSR is false, then induction about brute facts is incoherent.
Imagine if a cup floated in the air for no reason. All that matters is that the cup is floating in the air right now. Imagine if the cup stood in the air for days, even weeks. It would be tempting to think it will continue to be in the air, but that belief is groundless since brute facts don't have any probability or likelihood attached to them. It just so happens that the cup stays in the air for no reason for any length of time.
One would be thinking wrongly if one were to think the cup would somehow continue to be in the air; and the same would be true if one were to think the cup would likely stop being in the air.
Such likelihood judgements don't apply in any coherent way to brute facts.
But your explanation and illustration for why PSR is included in among those principles we can reasonably doubt seems to require both cases to be parallel, How else do we go from our ability to maintain reliability in case of deception to doing the same in the case of ~PSR?
DeleteSomethings can't be reasonable to hold , like saying that agents like us are necessarily deceived, it seems ~PSR is one of them. Again PSR is either necessarily true or false.
Of course this also ties into whether if PSR is necessarily false then how likely is it that we would encounter brute facts in our own experience, to which it seems either it makes no sense to talk of any objective probabilities in case of brute facts or they infact seem very likely given such a large number of them which could possibly materialize this very moment.
Joe
DeleteOf course induction about brute facts is incoherent but the possibility that there are brute facts does not mean that everything is a brute fact. If the cup floating in the air is a brute fact, then belief it will stay there (or fall) is indeed groundless.
But virtually nobody believes that everything is a brute fact. Just like nobody believes that an omnipotent being is constantly feeding us with illusions. And that is, indeed, a parallel, but that doesn't mean the two cases are exactly parallel. There may be reasons to doubt that an omnipotent being would deceive us, e.g., but the point is that not everybody shres those reasons.
Red, the PSR is indeed either necessary true or necessary false.
DeleteBut we cannot know with absolute certainty which is true, and we cannot know with abvsolute certainty that an omnipotent mind isn't feeding us with illusions (which does not mean this omnipotent mind is deliberately deceiving us, BTW). So, in this respect, I would say both cases are parallel, but maybe they're not parallel with respect to probability.
I make no claim as to how probable it is that we are fed with illusions, just i i don't amke any claim as to how probable it is that not everything has an explanation.
Right, but the disparity that there is between these two cases does give us enough reason to think that belief in necessary truth of PSR is
Deletereasonable while doubt is not, even if same can't be said about illusion.
The point of bringing probability here is exactly that one view has much more costly implications than the other.And that cost appears significant.Falsity of psr would affect our experience in much more significant way, which doesn't seem to be case in our actual experience.
Red
DeleteBelief in the necessary truth of PSR may be reasonable (depending on how the PSR is defined), but that doesn't mean that doubting the truth of the PSR is unreasonable.
Falsity of the PSR does not affect out experience because hardly anyone doubts that the vast majority of things do have reasons (or more correctly: causes) Doubting the PSR only means that we doubt that everything has a reason. "God freely chose to create a world in which x cause y but He could have freely chosen to create a world in wich x causes z instead" seems to have more costly implications. Anyway, if the full PSR is true, God did not have a free choice at all, so everybody who believes in liberatrian free will rejecst the full blown PSR in favout of a weakened variety.
So what is wrong about "There may be a reason for why X or Y happened but there is no reason for why X happened instead of Y"?
I have already explained why it is unreasonable and why it would affect our experience significantly, Like I said we are very likely if PSR is false to encounter encounter brute facts in our own experience, we expect that things would routinely have no explanations in our surrounding.
DeleteHardly anyone doubts it precisely because our experience has no such content disconfirming PSR, which again we would expect not to be the case if PSR was false.
That is if we could assign objective probabilities to events without explanation at all because such probabilities can't be in some sense prior to their existence and it can't be about nothing. Probabilities are very much connected to causes.
So it seems we have enough reason to consider doubt on PSR unreasonable.
And I don't know why you bring modal collapse objection here if the costs can be reduced by weak PSR, the weakened versions have much the same justification and we are discussing justifications of PSR here.
Red
DeleteThe existence of one initial brute fact that caused other things does not imply that we are very likely to encounter brute facts in our own experience.
A brute fact does not necessarily mean that some X pops into existence from nothing, it can also mean that X is eternal but not logically or metaphysically necessary.
If X has the capability to "cause" other things (or to evolve into other things) then it is not unlikely that there will be no brute facts in our experience unless our experience extends to the initial stages of the universe.
The reason why I bring in modal collapse objections is becasue, if we reject that everything has an explanation in favour of a weaker version we are left with brute facts anyway. It is now a brute fact that God decided to create X instead of Y, but all the rest is the result of God's initial brute choice. Now if I weaken the PSR to "it is a brute fact that X exist (and not Y) and all the rest is a result of the initial X" what we "encounter" would be very similar in both cases.
So, the two weakened versions would lead to very similar experiences. The choice between the two seems to me only a matter of (subjective) preference.
The existence of one initial brute fact that caused other things does not imply that we are very likely to encounter brute facts in our own experience.
DeleteA brute fact does not necessarily mean that some X pops into existence from nothing, it can also mean that X is eternal but not logically or metaphysically necessary.
But this seems false or at least it needs further justification.Because other facts being just similarly contingent would always have some non-zero probability to lack explanation for existence. This would further require PSR critic to accept that it is impossible for such initial fact to be a non-eternal one.
If X has the capability to "cause" other things (or to evolve into other things) then it is not unlikely that there will be no brute facts in our experience unless our experience extends to the initial stages of the universe.
This seems wrong because brute facts aren't dependent on anything, whether or not they exist would have no relevance to powers and capabilities of X.
The reason why I bring in modal collapse objections is becasue, if we reject that everything has an explanation in favour of a weaker version we are left with brute facts anyway. It is now a brute fact that God decided to create X instead of Y, but all the rest is the result of God's initial brute choice.
But this looks confused, weakening here doesn't imply rejection of PSR, only that things don't always have certain kinds of explanation, like some sort of contrastive explanation. This isn't acceptance of brute facts, unless one argues that only acceptable kinds explanation can be the one that is rejected.
So the rest of what you say here doesn't follow.
Red
DeleteI don't believe that things can pop into existence, because I do hold that ex nihilo nihil fit (which is why i also reject creatio ex nihilo, BTW, but that is another matter.
Nevertheless, I can see no contradiction in something (X)existing without an explanation. And if X can somehow cause (or evolve into) A, B, C etc..., it means that A, B, C etc do do have an explanation (namely X).
Sure, there maybe other unexplained contigencies, but there are plenty of things we haven't discovered yet, including a necessary eternal being, so why should that bother us?
Brute facts are indeed not dependent on anything, and they have no relevance to powers of X, but that is not the point.
The point is that, if X has powers, we are likely to see the results of these powers, but this doesn't mean we are likely to see other brute facts. Brute facts can only be initial stages and not end products of a process, and we have very little experience with initial stages of anything.
Now I don't agree that weakening dosn't mean a rejection of the PSR, because the weakened version has God as a necessary reason for X, but God is not a sufficient reason for X. Hence this is a rejection of the Principle of sufficient reason. There is a "kind" of explanation, but it is not a sufficient explanation.
@Walter,
DeleteIf PSR is false, then something can certainly start to exist for no reason.
And creatio ex nihilo is not something coming from nothing, but rather God diffusing His essence which creates the world due to it's active power. It simply means that God creates without any pre-existing material substance.
Furthermore, everything that exists right now is logically possible, and more specifically is a possibility that has been realised as well.
It is therefore perfectly possible for something that didn't exist previously to start existing. It would simply be the case that a possibility with regards to existence has been actualised.
I don't believe that things can pop into existence, because I do hold that ex nihilo nihil fit. I can see no contradiction in something (X)existing without an explanation. And if X can somehow cause (or evolve into) A, B, C etc..., it means that A, B, C etc do do have an explanation (namely X).
DeleteBut whats relevant and significant in this scenario is that the thing exists without explanation, the popping out is already somewhat misleading because nothing isn't some thing out of which stuff can be said to really pop out of. It mostly denotes that there is already some passage of time before such a thing exists and it does so inexplicably.
So it doesn't seem really different and plausible to suppose things that things can't pop out of existence but they can nevertheless exist without explanations.
Further if certain brute facts seems plausible based on your seeing no contradiction in it being brute then you should similarly find creatio ex nihilo and ex nihlo nihil fit being false plausible. because there isn't any contradiction in that too.
Brute facts are indeed not dependent on anything, and they have no relevance to powers of X, but that is not the point.
The point is that, if X has powers, we are likely to see the results of these powers, but this doesn't mean we are likely to see other brute facts. Brute facts can only be initial stages and not end products of a process, and we have very little experience with initial stages of anything.
But unless X has some way of preventing the brute facts from happening after the initial state,this can't be true , which can't be since you note too that they have no relevance to powers of X , they always remain very likely because they are always possible and in large numbers.
Now I don't agree that weakening dosn't mean a rejection of the PSR, because the weakened version has God as a necessary reason for X, but God is not a sufficient reason for X. Hence this is a rejection of the Principle of sufficient reason. There is a "kind" of explanation, but it is not a sufficient explanation.
But sufficient need not necessarily mean sufficient condition that must entail some particular fact. and this isn't acceptance of brute facts because it still doesn't lack explanation proper.
Joe and Red
DeleteThis will be my last post on this subject, because I fear we are not going to reach any sort of agreement.
Allow me to further clarify my position here.
Firstly "If PSR is false, then something can certainly start to exist for no reason" is, IMO false, because it may very well be logically impossible for things to start ex nihilo. "Nothing" has no possibilities, and neither did something that didn't exist have possibilities to exist before existing.
So, to answer Red, it is really different to suppose that things can't pop out of existence but they can nevertheless exist without explanations.
So, for this reason, brute facts cannot happen after the initial state becasue brute facts cannot begin to exist.
What does seem possible is that there is a very large number of initial states, but initial states are difficult to experience.
As to your last point, Red, a sufficient reason means that if the reason exists, the "effect" of the reason also exists. So, a sufficient reason for X entails X. We can argue about calling something a brute fact or not (there are brute fcats in the weakened version IMO, but let's put that aside), but the weakened version does entail a rejection of the principle of sufficient reason in favour of a principle of a kind of reason.
Now, if you wnat to jave the last word on this, you are welcome to do so, but I am going to bow out of this discussion.
It was very interesting, thank you for that.
Ok, some of your point here are important and merit engagement on my part.
DeleteFirstly "If PSR is false, then something can certainly start to exist for no reason" is, IMO false, because it may very well be logically impossible for things to start ex nihilo. "Nothing" has no possibilities, and neither did something that didn't exist have possibilities to exist before existing.
Right, but you should then similarly find any brute facts logically impossible because only difference like I said is about manner of speaking where some time has passed.
But even before this, your are using logical impossibility in wrong way, logical impossibility is about deriving contradiction like you mentioned before but like I already noted there is no contradiction in this case, which was all your reason was in that other case you were arguing for.
And this strike me as simply absurd..
"....... neither did something that didn't exist have possibilities to exist before existing."
If it didn't even have possibility to exist then its impossible and can't ever start existing. but of course many things that don't exist now have possibility to exist. So possibilities are prior to existence.
So, for this reason, brute facts cannot happen after the initial state becasue brute facts cannot begin to exist.
What does seem possible is that there is a very large number of initial states, but initial states are difficult to experience.
As I tried explaining till now justification for this seems very inadequate, as noted such initial fact has no control of sort on brute facts, further difficulty here is if you accept that a very large number of these initial states are possible then its extremely likely that such a large number would contain experiencers and their experience so it won't be difficult to experience then.
On that last point , I don't know why you choose to put aside talk of brute facts, that is whats important here in the first place, because otherwise we have a principle adequate enough to run cosmological argument, whatever we want to call it. and it would require same justification. But even then I would say that word sufficient need not mean sufficient condition as you mention, it could mean that reason is in some sense adequate and explanatory. consider , X exists because its a brute fact is also an instance of giving reason but it isn't adequate in any way.
And I would thank you too, your input here is always interesting.
@AnonymousSeptember 9, 2018 at 5:54 PM
ReplyDeleteA good part of modern science is really just naturalism. In the 1800s they were already traching a relatively old earth even though, of course, they had way of proving it. Even modern radiocarbon dating requires undemonstrable assumptions be made. Science is abused by secularists and naturalists to make it more certain or authoritative than it is for political and propaganda reasons, while equally suppressed even when it is authoritative and certain - like on sexual health, say. It's a sad situation we are living in and frankly some old monopolies need to be broken up before we can hope to see change.
@Isaac SmithSeptember 11, 2018 at 9:34 PM
ReplyDeleteI don't think immaterial form can be coherently denied anymore than final causes can be (human activity obviously includes goal seeking as part of its explanation). Accidental forms like the shape or figure of a body is obviously real but not itself matter but in matter. Atomic particles are the matter of chemical elements but there is also a specific determining configuration that comes into play. It's substantial form that is more difficult to demonstrate in my opinion.
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