The Reason for Reason

[ukelelemasta]

I've read up alot recently on the topic of God and his existence or non-existence. I selected "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins and "The Reason for God" by Timothy Keller in the hope that I'd get both sides of the debate. I must say I've been much more convinced by Mr. Dawkins' argument but Mr. Keller did bring up one very interesting point that I haven't been able to refute. A major aspect of his book is how there are objective truths and the only way for them to exist is through a higher being. This isn't what I want to address, though. What he later brings up is the fact that atheists, presumably believing in evolution, believe that reason, knowldege, etc. are all created through natural selection (essentially they are changing and variable rather than universal). I'll directly quote the book so I don't bastardize his argument:

" 'Dennet (an atheist author) protrays reason in service to natural selection, and as a product of natural selection. But if reason is a product of natural selection, then how much confidence can we have in a rational argument for natural selection? The power of reason is owed to the independence of reason, and to nothing else. Evolutionary biology cannot invoke the power of reason even as it destorys it.' It comes down to this: If, as the evolutionary scientists say, what our brains tell us about morality, love, and beauty is not real -- if it is merely a set of chemical reactions designed to pass on our genetic code -- then so is what their brains tell them about the world. The why should they trust them?"

Any thoughts on this?

[softwareNerd]

Any thoughts on this?

So this guy is using reason to prove that reason is unreliable? Hmm! Maybe his argument is therefore unreliable and therefore reason is more than what he claims. No, that does not make sense, but no more than what he writes.

[brian0918]

Paraphrasing to highlight his contradiction:

Dennet portrays reason as a product of natural selection. But if reason is a product of natural selection, then [what reason is there to believe] in a rational argument for natural selection?

In other words, by what reason is the faculty of reason rational.

The power of reason is owed to the independence of reason, and to nothing else.

Hrmm? The power of reason to do what? To understand the world? Independence from what? The mind's rational abilities depend entirely on the physical structure of the brain. The mind's reason is the result of the physical brain's actions.

If, as the evolutionary scientists say, what our brains tell us about morality, love, and beauty is not real -- if it is merely a set of chemical reactions designed to pass on our genetic code -- then so is what their brains tell them about the world. The why should they trust them?"

They shouldn't, if that truly was the case. But his strawman of the evolutionary scientists' views is not correct.

Edited June 4, 2010 by brian0918

[ctrl y]

This seems to be a form of what is called the evolutionary argument against naturalism, which originated with Plantinga. You probably will not get many good critiques from an Objectivist audience, as they will tend to interpret it in terms of skepticism or determinism and attack it by means of the retortive arguments that they have been taught to use against those doctrines. In fact, of course, these tactics fail. No Christian is a determinist, and most Christians are not skeptics (certainly Plantinga is not). The people who use the evolutionary argument against naturalism are not advocating these doctrines, they are saying that naturalism implies these doctrines. Against that sort of argument, pointing out that skepticism and determinism lead to contradiction will just lead the theist to say "yes, and so therefore naturalism leads to contradiction as well."

So, the Standard Objectivist Responses to determinism and skepticism do not work against this argument.

If you want good criticism of the argument, there is, of course, all sorts on the internet.

Google

http://www.google.com/search?q=evolutionar...;rlz=1I7ADRA_en

Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_...inst_naturalism

Book on the argument

http://www.amazon.com/Naturalism-Defeated-...t/dp/0801487633

etc.

Edited June 4, 2010 by ctrl y

[Grames]

The power of reason is owed to the independence of reason, and to nothing else.

This is intrinsicism. Reason is definitely related to reality or it could have no power at all. It is not even co-equal in status (see Descartes and metaphysical dualism), but a derivative and subordinate product of that reality. The power of reason is the necessity of accepting certain conclusions because there no contradictions in existence.

Contrary to 'ctrl y's expectations, I identify this as a variety of mysticism. This is a mysticism that cannot even imagine any other way of mental functioning, and so explains what reason is in mystical terms.

[Thomas M. Miovas Jr.]

Maybe the original quote is too short for me to grasp it, but I don't understand why an argument for the evolutionary development of man's mind is and mark against man's mind. All life and all aspects of life come from evolution, and we can see that even things like the consciousness or the mind also comes about through natural selection if we take a look at other animals that have the power of consciousness. From mice to dogs and cats, it is obvious that these living beings are aware of existence; one can even say that of lizards and snakes; one might even be able to say that about certain insects. So, it is not as if consciousness only arose in man, no it existed long before man. If insects have consciousness, they arose many hundreds of millions of years ago (maybe 500 million years ago), so it is nothing new in terms of evolution. According to the evidence, reptiles appeared, then mammals, and then the apes and man, and all of these creatures have consciousness or are consciously aware of existence. What makes man special is that his ancestors developed the ability to be aware that they are aware, and to be able to direct not only their bodies, but their minds -- and developed the ability to think, which requires a selective focus on the content of consciousness, which only man seems to have that capability. In short, there is no contradiction between saying man evolved and that he has a human mind -- it all came from evolution, the gradual adding of abilities as this relates to consciousness. It doesn't make man a slave of his evolution, because man has free will -- the ability to direct his consciousness -- and he can even demonstrate that this is an ability few people try to master, showing that the existence of the brain is insufficient to the development of thought. Yes, one has to have a human brain in order to have a human -- conceptual -- mind, but many people have shown that this does not function automatically. Without that individual effort to direct one's own consciousness, it becomes a confusing mess. And I think both religionists and a lot of professional atheists alike haven't thought through the issue. That we came from evolution is not a mark against man's mind; because by our ancestors taking more and more control of their consciousness as they could to their capacity, man became self-made by passing on the genes of those who were able to do this. In other words, instead of evolution acting "blindly" on man and his mind, those men and women who took control of their own minds early on made man what he is today in terms of biological capacity. This took many millions of years, at least five to ten million years, so it is not as if man just suddenly sprung up with his modern capacity -- it developed over deep evolutionary time.