Possible Worlds

A great quote from Alston, (71): "I will be ...

2012-05-16T22:17:51.619-04:00

A great quote from Alston, (71):

"I will be working with the concept of a subject S's being justified in believing that p, rather than with the concept of S's justifying a belief. That is, I will be concerned with the state or condition of being justified in holding a certain belief, rather than with the activity of justifying a belief. . . . Unless I am justified in many beliefs without arguing for them, there is precious little I justifiably believe."

Hi Dr. Mike! :) I see where you're coming fro...

2012-05-16T21:52:48.888-04:00

Hi Dr. Mike! :)

I see where you're coming from. I wouldn't think we would need to know all of some concept in order to know that concept enough to say we know the concept in a real sense. After all, that would result in an infinite regress. Perhaps you were not saying that, but merely that whatever our knowledge, it is insufficient to discuss the concept. But I'm not so sure that's the case.

I think I'd give the same response I give to theological noncognitivists when they say they don't know what is meant by "God," and then proceed to say all sorts of stuff about him. What, exactly, are we talking about that we can't know? ;) If we can know enough about it to make some propositions about it, then it means something, and hence can be conceptualized. Now I could see anything held with less than certainty as tentative (since I will be the first to admit I don't know every last property that must be held, and perhaps it will turn out to be the case that two properties that must be held are incompatible), but I don't think it must be so tentative as to say we cannot even conceive of it!

Randy, Here is an issue I've been mulling ove...

2012-05-14T12:32:25.255-04:00

Randy,

Here is an issue I've been mulling over lately. I'm not sure we really have the capacity to conceive of a maximally great being or a metaphysically necessary being. This at least presents a prima facie problem because how do we accurately evaluate the truth content of our propositions unless we truly understand the terms they contain. I can evaluate the truth of Aristotle is mortal because I know what everything there means or points to in the actual world. That picture becomes murky in teh case of God (and, to be fair, probably in several cases of complicated things). It seems to me that we shouldn't do anything more than make tentative conclusions about propositions containing such a poorly understood concept.

I don't know that it strikes a crucial blow to either side, but I think we should be cautious in what propositions we say entails something like metaphysical necessity or what propositions entail existence on a possible world when the subject in question is something like a maximally great being or the perfect solvent, etc.

Probably a copy/paste issue. I, too, often have tr...

2012-05-12T05:33:29.178-04:00

Probably a copy/paste issue. I, too, often have trouble with the formatting on blogger, though.

Sorry about the format here; I'm still not sur...

2012-05-08T21:58:58.755-04:00

Sorry about the format here; I'm still not sure what happened.

Well I am glad to have had the discussion! If or w...

2012-05-03T07:17:19.295-04:00

Well I am glad to have had the discussion! If or when you would want to come by and comment on anything, including this subject again, feel free. :)

No, I'm still not convinced by it as a whole, ...

2012-05-03T00:26:02.244-04:00

No, I'm still not convinced by it as a whole, but that third premise was a point of confusion that you clarified well. I do still think there may be some problems with the first premise, however these I my ideas are not clear enough to present at the moment.

I apologize for the informality of my questions and thoughts--I am by no means well-versed in philosophy, I merely have an interest in the subject.

Hi Quinn. I guess I do not understand what you wer...

2012-05-02T21:55:49.446-04:00

Hi Quinn. I guess I do not understand what you were getting at, unless you mean that the argument entails God's necessary existence, in which case I wholeheartedly agree.

That's what I was getting at. Thanks.

2012-05-02T12:03:45.109-04:00

That's what I was getting at. Thanks.

Not upon reflection of what it means to be maximal...

2012-05-01T19:54:09.512-04:00

Not upon reflection of what it means to be maximally great (maximal greatness means having great-making properties taken in a maximal way; necessary existence is considered great-making; nothing can both necessarily exist and contingently exist).

So, is it possible to conceive of a maximally-grea...

2012-05-01T09:07:44.566-04:00

So, is it possible to conceive of a maximally-great being whose existence is contingent?

Hi Quinn. With respect to "greatness," w...

2012-05-01T07:46:22.943-04:00

Hi Quinn. With respect to "greatness," what we mean here is what constitutes a great-making property. This is helpful because it's not as though we think properties themselves have properties. Rather, it is simply a matter of definition. With respect to "greater," we mean metaphysical greatness. Now existence is not regarded (in general) to be a property (although some contemporary philosophers are now questioning what, exactly, Kant uses to get to that conclusion). But let's grant it for now.

Now in one sense you are correct: something either exists or it does not. But in another sense you would be incorrect if you mean there are not different modalities of existence. After all, somethings (like you and I) exist contingently. However, necessary existence is quite different. It means it exists across all possible worlds, and could not fail to exist (its existence is impossible to be false). It seems obvious that necessary existence is certainly metaphysically greater than contingent existence, for if we compare two hypothetical beings that both contain all great-making properties (properties it is better to have than to lack, metaphysically) in a maximal way, yet one is contingent and one is necessary, the necessary one displays his maximally great making properties in more and varying possible worlds than the contingent one. This means the necessary one "outshines" the contingent one in this respect.

Moreover, any claim of greatness to anything will simply be asserting a fact of an actual state of affairs, so I'm not sure how the criticism follows. Would things only be considered great if what was being described was possible but not actual?

So, existence is not what we consider to be a great-making property, but necessary existence is.

Randy, I'm having trouble understanding premi...

2012-05-01T01:32:03.252-04:00

Randy,

I'm having trouble understanding premise 3--namely, how can the property of 'greatness' be attributed to the property of 'existence'? Either something exists or it does not. There are not varying degrees of existence or non-existence. Rather, to say something exists is to assert a fact about the actual state of affairs, so it seems silly to attach 'greatness' to 'existence'.

Hi Aaron, I'm afraid I don't understand wh...

2012-04-25T18:01:14.933-04:00

Hi Aaron, I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean. Abductive arguments of the sort being advocated just say thigns like "based on the evidences, this is what we would expect," black hole arguments work this way. If you would attempt to say that some Muslim argument or alternative account will work, it just about always fails in scope (btw, scope has nothign to do with probability--it is over the entire range of facts, or how many of the facts the explanation covers), or explanatory power (or sometimes both). I don't see any reason we can't assign probability judgments to the relevant factors, and even if we cannot it only follows we remain agnostic about it (that is, we think it is just as likely as not if we cannot assign any probability to it). I also see no reason why we must know *all* relevant data in order to assess a certain probability; then we could never know whether our assessment of *any* particular data is correct, or likely to be correct, for we would need to know all other relevant data, which we would not.

I just don't take you seriously when you say things like what appears in your third to last paragraph. I have taken a somewhat "hard-liner" stance; if someone claims to know better, but repeats the kinds of things found above, either it is the case that he has not investigate the evidence, he doesn't understand it, or he has but is being disingenuous. If the second, I would understand, but I doubt it.

Re: Physical laws Physical laws are on much surer...

2012-04-25T17:25:32.017-04:00

Re: Physical laws

Physical laws are on much surer epistemic grounds than the god hypothesis or the historical evidence in favor of the resurrection is or could ever hope to be. The physical laws, amongst other things, allow us to infer the plausibility of various claims, e.g., whether Jesus could walk through walls. This is not to say that said claims cannot not be made plausible-- they can--, but in order for them to be made plausible, the evidence must be of an extraordinary quality. So, if you elect to suspend physical laws as your religious needs see fit, you are (again) walking down a primrose path to irrelevancy.

That said, if you want, we can discuss the merits of the particular (so-called) historical evidence. We can discuss why the gospel accounts are probably not independent eyewitness reports. We can discuss the inconsistencies and historical inaccuracies of the gospels. We can discuss the mythical elements of the gospel accounts. Granting that there is some eyewitness reports, we can discuss the poverty of the eyewitness accounts in particular and eyewitness testimony in general. We can discuss 1 Corinthians 15. We can do all of that, but what we cannot do is become emotional and make statements like this: “At this point, it comes off more like trying desperately to avoid the conclusion than anything else!”

I could make similar statements regarding your credulity, but because I respect you as an epistemic agent I do not.

If the evidence were such that the only rational stance was to believe that Jesus rose from the dead, I would believe it, and I assume likewise for you. I simply hold to the maxim that it is wrong everywhere and at all times for anyone to believe anything upon insufficient evidence. The resurrection does not have sufficient evidence. Thus, it is wrong to believe it occurred.

Randy, The issues raised here are many and my com...

2012-04-25T17:23:07.409-04:00

Randy,

The issues raised here are many and my comments concentrated on merely a portion of them, namely, that even if the historical evidence were of the quality you think that it is, it would not permit the inference that the Christian god (magically / mysteriously / supernaturally) resurrected Jesus.

In addition, you did not adequately reply to (1) - (3). You attempted to address (2) in saying that what you are doing is some form of abduction, but this raises two issues.

First, if you were not aware, you should know that inference to the best explanation is largely viewed as meaningless when not cast in probabilistic terms. That is to say, utterances such as "explanatory power", "explanatory scope", and "simplicity" are not well-defined-- indeed, not definable-- in non-probabilistic terms. Ergo, my comment about deriving probability assignments, which, I should add, in no way implies that I hold probabilities must be quantifiably precise (whatever that means) in order to assess hypotheses. (For what it is worth, I don't think probabilities [with the possible exception being in quantum mechanics and thermodynamics] can ever be 'precise'.) Rather, I asserted that probability assignments must be made in light of empirical regularities and all relevant empirical data, otherwise they are incoherent and thus cannot be used to assess hypotheses.

Second, the particulr (so-called) abductive argument you are attempting to pass is circular, and primarily for reasons stated in (1). The Muslim and Jew are both at liberty to assume their deity and its intentions and then say: “Well, you see then, if we assume (Allah / Yahweh), the historical evidence all makes so much sense!” The Christian posits the miracle at the resurrection. The Muslim posits the miracle at the cross (or shortly before). The Jew posits the miracle afterwards. Your story is mere postulations all the way down. Bertrand Russell sums up my view on this:

The method of 'postulating' what we want has many advantages; they are the same as the advantages of theft over honest toil. Let us leave them to others and proceed with our honest toil.

Hi Robby. Yeah, I made a mistake on that one! The ...

2012-04-25T14:50:25.114-04:00

Hi Robby. Yeah, I made a mistake on that one! The first should read "explanatory scope" and the second "explanatory power." I'll correct that by the end of the day! :)

Hey Randy, I was trying to understand the first pa...

2012-04-25T13:47:54.431-04:00

Hey Randy, I was trying to understand the first part of the post, but I was a little confused because of a possible typo:

"'Evil god raised Jesus from the dead.'[1] It has the same explanatory power, after all. It explains the empty tomb, the post-mortem experiences, and the disciples’ belief in the Resurrection. It also holds the same explanatory power: given the evidences, it makes just as much sense as RH because ERH has an actual bodily resurrection done by a supernatural means!"

Is the first similarity that they have the same explanatory scope given that you list what the ERH explains? You have "explanatory power" in there twice.

Hi Aaron--but it just doesn't matter that it&#...

2012-04-25T07:20:30.908-04:00

Hi Aaron--but it just doesn't matter that it's only improbable, because if it's even possible, then so much the worse for using the three laws!

As to prior probabilities, we don't need to know exact numbers with scientific precision in order to make some close judgment about said probability. Even if you think it is very low, for instance.

Next, you don't offer any reason why the said historical evidences are "very poor"--especially considering they are widely accepted. You don't offer any reason to say this is irrational. The abductive argument doesn't beg the question any more than any other abductive argument does--unless you have a bias against abduction altogether. Finally, there's just no reason offered against non-natural explanations. I hate to say it but these are all just intellectual handwaving attempts, interacting with none of the evidence. At this point, it comes off more like trying desperately to avoid the conclusion than anything else!

Randy, Re: Muslims on the resurrection. From m...

2012-04-24T23:31:18.693-04:00

Randy,

Re: Muslims on the resurrection.

From my (albeit limited) knowledge of Islam, it is considered blasphemy to insist that Allah would permit Jesus to be crucified. They either say he survived through some miracle of Allah or that Allah switched Jesus on the cross with some docetic version.

Randy, Some event which is purported to contraven...

2012-04-24T23:21:16.770-04:00

Randy,

Some event which is purported to contravene a physical law (e.g. resurrected bodies) is not considered impossible but merely ridiculously improbable-- you seem to fail to make this distinction regularly.

That aside, "explanatory power" is in and of itself incoherent. Rather by "explanatory power" we should talk of likelihoods, that is, the likelihood of the evidence on the hypothesis (explanation). If the evidence is extremely likely under an hypothesis with a very low, non-zero probability, and extremely unlikely under its competitors, it is true that the low priors can be overcome. However, concerning the particular case at hand, (1) determining the likelihood of the (qualitatively very poor) evidence on the Christian god hypothesis (i.e. it exists and wants to raise Jesus from the dead) is extremely difficult (if not impossible), and (2) even if the likelihood of the evidence on the Christian god hypothesis were very high in this case, I would argue that they are insufficient to overcome the extremely low priors.

In addition, re (1), I would argue that there is no scientific or historical basis upon which to base any calculable probabilities whatsoever, and thus when one does assigns likelihoods, one assigns, in numerical form, one's prejudices and biases. That is to say, probability assignments made independently of intersubjectively determinable relative frequencies, proportions, and other empirical data are utter bosh.

That said, you mention something curious: When one advocates RH, no one means "God raised Jesus naturally from the dead." Whatever that may mean, RH is not it!

In response to this, three brief points.

(1) If you are willing to interject a Christian miracle into your account in order to accommodate the impoverished historical evidence, you are pretty much excusing yourself from rational discourse. E.g., a Muslim may interject a miracle to explain Jesus' surviving his execution-- in fact, they do--, and a Jew can interject a miracle to explain the so-called post-mortem 'sightnings' (e.g., they could claim Yahweh sent a spirit of delusion, something he is prone to do, no?). In fact, one is at liberty to interject any number of miracles in order to bolster one's preferred mythology.

(2) You use the resurrection of Jesus as evidence for your flavor of theism, but we see that you must first posit your flavor of theism in order to make the resurrection plausible. This is known as petitio principii, and it is not permitted.

(3) Saying some event is occurred via unnatural means is not explanatory. To the contrary, in fact, it is explaining the obscure with the more obscure: “How did the particles, molecules, nerves, neurons, etc., regenerate?” “Oh, not by way of any known force of nature! It was supernatural!” “What does 'supernatural' mean? That seems be like saying something mysterious happened in a way more mysterious.”

Hi Aaron, nice to see ya! I don't think, on t...

2012-04-24T07:25:19.358-04:00

Hi Aaron, nice to see ya!

I don't think, on the face of it, it is more probable that RH than that he lived. But that is only one part of the probability calculus, covering only one part of the evidence ("evidences" has become a sort of shorthand in apologetics, for "pieces of evidences" or whatnot, so yes :) ). What tends to tip the scales is whether or not the absence test works and explanatory power as well. The Swoon theory doesn't come very close at all.

Next, RH doesn't require that the three laws are false; it would only require the view that they cannot ever be broken by anything to be false. i.e., it requires supernaturalism to be at least possible. When one advocates RH, no one means "God raised Jesus naturally from the dead." Whatever that may mean, RH is not it!

As to Muslims, I had heard this, but in my limited interactions I've never heard it directly (no doubt it's been written on in the past). Muslims today sometimes even acknowledge the crucifixion and death, but dismiss the Resurrection. I've also seen the substitute theory by Muslims a lot (it wasn't Jesus, but a look alike; whether they intend this as a supernatural switch or not I am not sure).

P.S. Many Muslims advocate the Swoon theory (of on...

2012-04-24T01:10:22.260-04:00

P.S. Many Muslims advocate the Swoon theory (of one sort or another).

Randy, Re: The problem is that the proffered h...

2012-04-24T01:07:32.698-04:00
Randy,

Re: The problem is that the proffered hypotheses just did not make any sense. Virtually no one (in fact, no one I have ever heard of who lives today) advocates the Swoon theory as such an alternative, because it is medically certain that Jesus died.

Right, ok, so it is more likely that he died and was resurrected than that he survived the crucifixion? That is, it is more likely that the trillions of micro-physical particles which constituted Jesus arranged themselves in such a way so as to reanimate Jesus' body such that he could eat food, shake hands, and walk through walls than that he survived the crucifixion?

That aside, the so-called 'evidences' ('evidences' is a terminus technicus of apologetics, no?) are themselves so poor (inconsistent and tenuous) that nobody should consider them sufficient to oblige Caltech and Fermilab scientists revise their views on the conservation of momentum and energy and the other three laws of thermodynamics, which is essentially what you are saying they should do in light of your 'evidences'.

Hey man good to see ya and thanks for commenting! ...

2012-04-23T22:13:00.529-04:00
Hey man good to see ya and thanks for commenting!

Of course I can support this premise, if by "support" one means to show "evidence." Evidence for some proposition means that the proposition is more probable on some given fact or facts than it would be in the absence of that fact or those facts.

Take Ezekiel 18. The entire chapter is about personal moral responsibility, irrespective of what one's father has done. Consider Deuteronomy 24:16, which states that the son will not be put to death for the father. Every man would receive punishment for his own sin. So we see, at least in the Old Testament, people were held responsible for the sins. Now one may think this is an improper interpretation of the text, but it nonetheless follows it is evidence of the proposition, for the proposition is more probable given these passages than if they were not present.

Moreover, consider the New Testament. Rom. 3:23 details individual responsibility: "for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." It was their acts of sin that were held as morally responsible. Even those who hold to original sin typically will add that a) we were in Adam, so that we did perform such a sin, and b) we are held responsible for our own actions.

Finally, consider it doesn't make any sense to speak of "responsibility" for something in which one was not involved. I had no part in the 9/11 attacks; I am not morally responsible for them. Even supposing there were some acts that contributed in some way so that I could bear a partial guilt, consider: it only makes sense to speak of me bearing moral responsibility in the sense that there is some reason for it (i.e., "Randy you influenced the moral perversion of America, the attacks were done because of moral perversion, ergo you had a part"). But then it follows I did in fact sin, which is ex hypothesi false! Given the arbitrariness with which moral responsibility would be applied (so as to make the term itself vacuous), the biblical evidence, the commonsense moral intuition which God gave us, and the inability to formulate a coherent account from everyday life, I think it is pretty well-established. I can't think of any moral epistemology that relies on truly objective moral values that could think (2) is false.