All is Physical and Physics is All Physicalists say that all facts are fixed by physical facts. Whatever physics tells us there is – that’s it. And physics tells us that there are no non-physical things. This creates two questions: What are qualities and what are mental properties? If physicalism, of the strongest kind, is true, then qualities are identical to quantities and mental properties are identical to physical properties. On physicalism of this stripe, all effects are physical and all causes are physical. If all the effects that we can observe are physical then all the causes are physical. Empirical evidence renders non-physical causes for physical effects implausible. The measurable…
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What is Metaphysical Grounding?
“Ground… stands to philosophy as cause stands to science.” (Kit Fine) A metaphysical grounding claim explains, or accounts for, an apparent fact. If one is confronted with a fact, for example, that human beings can think in a unified way about the world, then one looks for a metaphysical ground that accounts for that fact. Consider this statement by Kevin Corcoran: “I think it is correct that it is in virtue of some natural property of brains that organisms are conscious.”[1] The “in virtue of” idea is reflected in many statements about mental properties and physical properties. Organisms are said to be conscious in virtue of some fact about brains…
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Some Notes on Moreland’s “Consciousness and the Existence of God”
J.P Moreland argues that irreducible human consciousness provides compelling evidence for the existence of God. Moreland argues that naturalists ignore much of the background evidence for theism. Philosophical argument is favorable to theism, but these kinds of arguments are not forcing naturalists to raise the background probability of theism. Given the high probability of theism, the probability of consciousness being a mental property or substance is much higher (a theistic ontology admits mental substances/properties). On the other hand, given naturalism, the probability of mental properties is greatly diminished. To postulate mental properties on a physicalist ontology appears ad hoc and implausible. Moreland notes the most common objection to the argument…
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Communitarian Epistemology: Why Humans Need Each Other to Think.
Two men “triangulating” Knowledge acquisition is the process of extracting and organizing knowledge from a given source. Some naturalistically inclined philosophers have argued that community—minimally speaking, more than one functioning person who shares a common language with another person—is a necessary condition for knowledge acquisition. I will argue in favor of this view but will suggest that, given naturalism, the view is flawed. However, the view is compatible with theism and theism holds a solution to the problem facing the naturalist. I will argue that human higher-level thought is a minimal requirement for knowledge, but that thought and language are not possible without one another. Furthermore, since it is not…
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Notes on Newbigin’s “Proper Confidence”
Newbigin argues that underlying the conflict between fundamentalism and liberalism is a common assumption. The assumption is derived from a distinctly modern perspective on the theory of knowledge and involves a species of Cartesian foundationalism that Newbigin believes should be challenged. Knowledge, according to Newbigin, is tradition/community constituted, grounded in personal commitment (faith). This is adequate grounds for Christian belief and is the same grounds for any kind of knowledge. Furthermore it is the best assumption for making sense of human experience. Faith is an act of obedience to a person (95). Belief, therefore, is grounded in a personal commitment to a person in his command to believe. Newbigin suggests…
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Notes on J.P. Moreland’s The Recalcitrant Imago Dei
J.P. Moreland argues that certain features that we take to be part of what it means to be human are incompatible with naturalism but are every bit accounted for by Biblical Theism. Naturalistic views usually have three components – a commitment to an empirical epistemology, a historical account (“Grand Story”) reliant upon causal theory and emergenitism, and a constitutive account restricted to an ideal physics explainable with reference to causal theory. Moreland argues that consciousness, free will, rationality, an enduring soul, objective morality and human intrinsic value are all incompatible with naturalism. Moreland concludes by suggesting that the best the naturalist can offer is a dismissive strategy that takes human…
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Notes on Olson’s What Are We?
Eric Olson’s main contention is that when we refer to “I” we should be referring to one thing or perhaps no thing, but not multiple things. For any theory of identity one must avoid the thinking animal problem – positing more than one entity answering to the reference “I.” Olsen’s suggestion is that we are animals. Animalism is the view that each human being is numerically identical with an animal. An animal is a biological organism that lives by virtue of being a self-organizing “biological event” that maintains a complex internal structure. According to Olson, common theories fail to avoid falling fowl of the problem. Constitution, brain, part, bundle, soul…
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Some Gappy Notes on Michael Rea’s World Without Design
According to Michael Rea, naturalism is a combination of a method and an assumption. Methodologically, naturalism is the attempt to understand the world through the natural sciences. The assumption, which, theoretically at least, can be overturned at any moment, is that everything that exists is material. The assumption can, in principle, be overturned at any moment because natural sciences don’t claim to have all data at their fingertips. Fairies could be found at the bottom of an English garden and God might appear from behind a far off planet, but neither of these events seems plausible given only the data that the natural sciences have produced so far. Rea defines…