Comments on: Philosophy of Religion 15: Enough already!

By: legodesi

legodesi — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 03:26:00 +0000

You may have wanted to use this opportunity to actually criticize their arguments for dualism, rather than defend your silence by appearing to be offended by their remarks.

By: legodesi

legodesi — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 03:24:00 +0000

To see a criticism of Dan Dennett’s argument against Dualism, see Plantinga’s audio lecture Against Immaterialism. He gives it a good tidbit.

By: Peter Smith

Peter Smith — Mon, 05 May 2008 21:05:00 +0000

Good policy: write textbooks to be transparently clear to not very bright undergrads (and not very bright logicians too).

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 05 May 2008 20:30:00 +0000

Suppose someone said “Atheism is commonly mocked nowadays, rather than argued against.” Would you read this as saying that there are no philosophically interesting arguments against atheism in the literature? Hardly. (Or, if you would, you’re not reading it in a sensible way.) The natural reading is the face value one: by and large, theists think (rightly or wrongly) that their arguments have succeeded and are now complacent about the truth of their view. Likewise, if someone said “The existence of evil is utterly baffling on theism,” would you think that she was saying that theists haven’t bothered to try to answer the problem of evil? No (or, if you would, you’re not reading the claim sensibly). The natural thing to infer from a claim like that is that the person saying it doesn’t think that the existing responses to the problem of evil succeed in dispelling the mystery. So, sure, maybe some undergrads will read Murray & Rea the way you do. But they wouldn’t be very bright undergrads.

By: Peter Smith

Peter Smith — Mon, 05 May 2008 19:29:00 +0000

Murray and Rea wrote, to repeat, “Dualism is commonly mocked rather than argued against”. In the context, this is likely to convey to a student reader a quite erroneous impression of the state of play in debates in the philosophy of mind. Likewise their earlier (if anything worse) remark “Consciousness is utterly baffling on materialism” will convey a totally misleading impression of the state of play of work on consciousness in the last fifteen or twenty years. But there it is. Others can now read the relevant pages and make up their own minds as to whether their remarks on the philosophy of mind pass muster.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 05 May 2008 18:17:00 +0000

What’s wrong with being “dismissive” toward those arguments? They don’t find the usual anti-Cartesian arguments (yours included) persuasive…so they’re ingorant and ought to be berated? That’s a pretty bizarre standard of ‘ignorance’.

By: Peter Smith

Peter Smith — Mon, 05 May 2008 11:46:00 +0000

Well, let’s not argue the toss about the word “serious” (in my idiolect, I wouldn’t at all call the Ontological Argument “serious” — though you might learn serious stuff from disentangling it). If Murray and Rea didn’t mean to be dismissive about the arguments contra Cartesian dualism, again so be it. But their comment will be read as dismissive by their student audience.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 05 May 2008 11:14:00 +0000

Yes, but that’s not what they implied. There might be lots of “serious” arguments but no very persuasive ones. (No one would doubt that the Ontological Argument is a “serious” argument; but pretty much everyone agrees that it’s “not very persuasive”.) And they did acknowledge that “there is a lot to be said for materialism”…though nothing “compelling”. Honestly, I’m not a dualist myself; but the objection you’re pushing against them here (like a lot of the others you’ve raised, actually) seems to be based on a sloppy and uncharitable reading of their text.

By: Peter Smith

Peter Smith — Mon, 05 May 2008 07:44:00 +0000

Thanks for the Lycan link! Not that it really changes my reaction to Murray and Rea, for context is all — and it is one thing to invite beginning students (or anyone else come to that) to reconsider the usual arguments against Cartesian dualism, and it is another thing to imply in context that there are no serious arguments to be reconsidered. And as for Lycan’s discussion, it is fun: but the points he makes don’t make dualism any the less a degenerating research program.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 05 May 2008 00:46:00 +0000

Hi Peter,

Maybe you haven’t seen this paper by Lycan…

http://www.unc.edu/~ujanel/Du.htm

The paper argues for pretty much the same conclusion that Murray and Rea assert.