During our discussion of Husserl's critique of naturalism, I mentioned a recent debate about naturalism in the New York Times:
Timothy Williamson, "What is Naturalism?"
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/04/what-is-naturalism/
Alex Rosenberg, "Why I am a Naturalist"
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/17/why-i-am-a-naturalist/
William Egginton, "'Quixote', Colbert and the Reality of Fiction"
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/25/quixote-colbert-and-the-reality-of-fiction/
Timothy Williamson, "On Ducking Challenges to Naturalism"
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/28/on-ducking-challenges-to-naturalism/
Alex Rosenberg and William Egginton, "Bodies in Motion: An Exchange"
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/06/bodies-in-motion-an-exchange/
Timothy Williamson, "What is Naturalism?"
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/04/what-is-naturalism/
Alex Rosenberg, "Why I am a Naturalist"
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/17/why-i-am-a-naturalist/
William Egginton, "'Quixote', Colbert and the Reality of Fiction"
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/25/quixote-colbert-and-the-reality-of-fiction/
Timothy Williamson, "On Ducking Challenges to Naturalism"
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/28/on-ducking-challenges-to-naturalism/
Alex Rosenberg and William Egginton, "Bodies in Motion: An Exchange"
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/06/bodies-in-motion-an-exchange/
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ReplyDeleteWhat I removed was the post that follows, I wanted to revise the redundancy of stating that the blog would not allow me to post my "entire article in its entirety".
DeleteFor some reason, this blog is not allowing me to post my comment in its entirety. Its claiming that the limit is 4,096 characters, whereas mine is only 3,800. So that is why I am posting it piecemeal.
ReplyDeleteUpon reading the debate, as a quasi-materialist I was inclined to make a case for naturalism and why it ought to be considered the ultimate standard for explaining reality. I also considered at first glance that Eggington’s inclusion in the fray seemed a bit out of place. After all, how can someone who deals in the fictional and emotional aspect of existence have something to say on a subject that requires rigor and objective analysis? However, it occurred to me that at the heart of this whole debate was an important need for each side to make himself understood, and for that you need interpretation.
ReplyDeleteI think that the need for understanding and its dependence on the power to interpret has been, and continues to be, mistakenly underestimated every time someone summarily dismisses the value of fiction and prose as mere “fun”. It seems to me that the first step of any rigorous philosophical criticism is to determine the presuppositions of the point being scrutinized. At the heart of this debate over naturalism, both its perceived strengths and shortcomings, there is the presupposition of interpretation and understanding. It seems wrong to dismiss a discipline centered primarily on interpretation and making sense of obscurity. Whether or not the subject of analysis is itself a work of fiction is not particularly relevant to the spirit of this debate. Unless I am way off base here, the spirit of the exchange seems to be about making sense of the world, and how best to go about it, which includes remaining vigilant of any shortcomings of the methods used in attaining the knowledge being sought. I suppose if the ultimate goal is actually to establish the primacy of naturalism as the ultimate standard for all of reality, then a tirade about the value of prose in virtually every culture’s evolution may seem a bit out of place.
As a foreign language major myself, I do spend an inordinate amount of time immersed in universes that aren’t real, and as a philosophy enthusiast I tend to prefer the works of Nietzsche and Dostoyevsky, and the interpretations of Kierkegaard and Camus. And I am particularly sensitive to the very real impact that fiction and poetry have on a culture’s cognitive evolution, particularly on how members of a culture view the world. However, I do advocate, if my understanding of the scientific method is correct, for a method of analysis appropriate to the subject under scrutiny. That is to say, whether I am to analyze a work of prose or The Origin of Species, I think it’s important to read it according to its own terms, not according to the way I want it to seem. Even if I analyze my own emotional reaction to a dramatic scene in Macbeth, it ought to be an analysis of the reaction and all of the factors relevant to that instant. My analysis of the scene out of Macbeth itself, ought not to be analyzed based on how it affected me, or how it relates to me. It ought to be analyzed according to how it fits with the rest of the play, the perceived temperament of the characters involved, etc.
ReplyDeleteFor example, Nietzsche famously stated, “God is dead”. Are we to believe that Nietzsche believed that there was once a God and he in fact passed away? I think it would make more sense to hypothesize that he was referring to the belief in God, which did have a beginning and can potentially have an end, and is ontologically real. Although it is possible that in his pre neurosyphylitic mind he believed that a God once did exist, but met some mortal end at some point in time. And perhaps if we took our own biological/biographical baggage to the party, someone among us would take that sort of understanding away from it. However, a more objective approach, with an understanding that what Nietzsche meant, he meant for everyone, would, I think, lead to a more accurate understanding. My only point is that for a true and coherent understanding to take place we need sound interpretation.
As already mentioned I am a foreign language major which does keep me in constant contact with literary works, most of which are works of fiction. I am equally as often exposed to people who lack a sound notion of reason when they attempt to make sense of the works being analyzed; this often sloppy thinking is all too often applied to the real world. For this reason I believe that a sound notion of real world phenomena is needed to make sense of all facets of the real world. Even works of fiction which although very unreal in content, do have an ontological reality, and emanate from an equally real point of inspiration, wherever that point of origin may be.
I was just reading an article; A Philosopher Defends Religion, in the current issue of The New York Review of Books, the article was written by Thomas Nagel who is both an atheist and a skeptic vis-à-vis naturalism. Although he is an opponent of intelligent design, he has argued for a possible teleology behind evolution which obviously does not concord with the traditional view most naturalists hold for the origin of life. Although, as previously stated, the reviewer is an opponent of ID, the review is basically positive, acknowledging the upcoming book, Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism by Alvin Plantinga, as an important contribution to the ongoing debate between naturalism and theism.
ReplyDeleteMy point for this post is to elicit some feedback on two specific points made in the review, which I think are worth discussion.
1. Nagel states that naturalism cannot satisfactorily account for the development of conscious features that are not specifically beneficial to our ancestors’ survival. That is, looking behind the patterns that we perceive or learning the laws of nature as opposed to just nature. It would seem to be, as Searle would say, “quite an expensive feature, to just be along for the ride”. If maximizing efficiency in energy conservation is the name of the game, as in the reason that we walk on two rather than all fours. Why consciousness and all of its nifty features? Naturalists like Dawkins seem to effectively explain away things like an adoptive parent’s love as a genetic misfiring, which does seem to fit with the underlying notion of beneficial mistakes when it comes to why we change and adapt. But the theistic position of God image seems like a much more elegant account.
2. The second point I will quote right out of the article, “Plantinga holds that miracles are not incompatible with the laws of physics, because those laws determine only what happens in closed systems, without external intervention, and the proposition that the physical universe is a closed system is itself a law of physics, but a naturalist assumption.” This point is particularly interesting to me because I hold the opinion that we live exclusively in this “closed system” where miracles are believed to occur, and any external intervention would add randomness to and thus nullify the principle by which the laws are believed to operate. If laws work, it is due to the fact that they are consistent and predictions can be made by them. If we were to believe that biblical stories of resurrection literally occurred, then we would necessarily have to abandon our current knowledge of biology. Platinga believes that faith and reason are distinct but not in competition, which seems incoherent.
Soren Kierkegaard was born in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1813 and he died in 1855. He never married, although he was presumably in love once with a woman with whom he broke off their engagement. He was not only a philosopher and considered by many to be the father of existentialism, but he was also a theologian. In fact, some of his best works, in my opinion, are those that deal with prominent biblical figures.
ReplyDeleteAlthough Kierkegaard seems somewhat out of place being categorized with atheists like Nietzsche and Sartre, and certainly with a Catholic like Miguel de Unamuno, he nonetheless earned his place as their precursor in being one of the earliest thinkers to contemplate the nature of the individual and her place in the world. Before there was psychology, or the study of the individual psyche there was existentialism. The existentialists were the first philosophers to take the method of deep objective analysis from the abstract and apply it to the human condition in focusing on the individual existent. Although I cannot personally claim to have any knowledge of Kierkegaard overtly protesting the academic establishment like Nietzsche, and although he did not disavow religion, he did distinguish himself as an individualist in not following the proverbial herd when he spoke on subjects of religion like condoning, if not outright, advocating doubt as an essential part of faith. He also spoke against the notion of “Original Sin” in pointing out that the Biblical Adam could not have known that he was doing wrong in eating the forbidden fruit, since eating the forbidden fruit was supposed to be the source of knowledge of good and evil. So, as Kierkegaard pointed out before eating of the tree of knowledge Adam could not have had the knowledge, that eating from the tree was supposed to give. To assert that he did wrong or evil by eating of the tree presupposes that he already knew something that he could not know yet. I can only surmise that this and other rational analysis of church dogma could not have endeared him to the religious establishment.
His philosophical works always focused on the concrete existence of the individual, making him the first existentialist. In the Seducer’s Diary he focused primarily on the inner thinking of a fictional character that plans and carries out an elaborate plan to steal a woman’s heart, detailing a more complete seduction than one of pure lust, in Fear and Trembling he deals with the existentialist implication of Abraham and his almost sacrifice of his own son.
ReplyDeleteA reoccurring theme throughout much of his work is that of dread. Kierkegaard mentions dread as that feature in the spirit, that is, the union of the body and the soul, becoming aware of itself as a free entity. Themes of dread and anxiety in the individual’s recognition and use of her freedom is central to Kierkegaard’s narrations. The concept of dread as utilized by Kierkegaard is not something I am fully competent to speak of, however, an example that clarifies it to some extent for me, is that of Adam in the garden of eden. Kierkegaard uses this story to illustrate what Adam felt as he proceeded in ignorance of his misdeed, towards knowledge in the face of his freedom.
Although I have no direct knowledge of Kierkegaard ever speaking on issues of authenticity and absurdity, at least not as Sartre and Camus did, he certainly did not shy away from the question of an absurdity of sorts with respect to religion. For Kierkegaard, a figure like Abraham who heard a voice telling him to go kill his son, and for Abraham to obey and attempt to carry out that order, in this world Kierkegaard agrees would make the person a lunatic, however in the case of the biblical Abraham he is considered the father of monotheism, being equally revered in Christianity and Islam as well as Judaism. Kierkegaard did concede, at least implicitly, if not explicitly in some material I am unfamiliar with, that religious faith was irrational. However, like Pascal’s wager, and Unamuno’s assertion that philosophy offers no comfort from the certain knowledge that we are going to die, he famously stated that we ought to take a leap of faith. I compare his “leap of faith” with the admonishments to faith by both Pascal and Unamuno, because in each case, the case for faith does not have the same level of depth and rigor, that each of the thinkers is known for. It’s like a justification for carrying a rabbit’s foot, it seems to come down to the less harmful wrong. The point here is that Kierkegaard like most, if not all, of the existentialists readily acknowledged and even embraced the notion that reason and logic had their limitations, especially with regards to the human condition.
As I have understood them, existentialists have always been iconoclasts of sorts, breaking from traditional mores be they religious in practice, philosophical in focus, so it is difficult to set them apart in any distinct way because what brings them together is their opposition. Most if not all of the existentialists seem to make their mark by their shared hostility to academic or institutional philosophy, particularly the sort focused on the abstract, and their shared interest in the human condition vis-à-vis the individual. Seeing as the thread that holds this group together is so tenuous, I find it difficult to set them apart from each other in any systematically coherent way. Religiously they could not be more diverse, some are catholic, Kierkegaard is often referred to as a “Protestant’s protestant”, and some are atheist or antitheist. So any differences with respect to their existentialism would be minimal considering the fact that the essential details that link them together are the only thing that they share in common to begin with.