Philosophy of Mind - arguments against naturalism

I said I would make a positive argument for dualism/against naturalism, and wished to start a proper thread of philosophy. I will start by making one argument (and several versions of the same argument) against naturalist accounts of the mind. This argument is known as the argument from reason, and aims to show that naturalist accounts of the mind cannot account for our ability for rational inference. To quote J.B.S. Haldane on pure materialism and the mind:

'If my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain, I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true . . . and hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms.’

I thought I'd just start the thread by posting a semi-formal statement of the two versions, and fill in the details in response to queries (hopefully there will be mature and interesting discussion), rather than start by giving all the details and support for each premise. These forumalations are taken from Victor Reppert's excellent C. S. Lewis' Dangerous Idea: In Defence of the Argument from Reason.

Here is the main argument from reason:

1. No belief is rationally inferred if it can be fully explained in terms of nonrational causes.

2. If materialism is true, then all beliefs can be fully explained in terms of nonrational causes.

3. Therefore, if materialism is true, then no belief is rationally inferred.

4. If any thesis entails the conclusion that no belief is rationally inferred, then it should be rejected and its denial accepted.

5. Therefore materialism should be rejected and its denial affirmed.

If anyone wants some extra background on this argument, C. S. Lewis chapter The Cardinal Difficulty of Naturalism, from his Miracles, is well worth reading (as usual for Lewis):

C.S. Lewis: The Cardinal Difficulty of Naturalism

A variation above is an argument Reppert calls the argument from mental causation:

1. If naturalism is true, then no event can cause another in virtue of its propositional content.

2. But some events do cause other events in virtue of their propositional content. (Implied by the existence of rational inference)

3. Therefore naturalism is false.

Here are some bonus versions of the argument - the argument from truth:


1. If naturalism is true, then no states of the person can either be true or false.

2. Some states of the person can be either true or false. (Implied by the existence of rational inference)

3. Therefore naturalism is false.


The argument from unity of consciousness:


1. If naturalism is true, then there is no single metaphysically unified entity that accepts the premises, perceives the logical connection between them, and draws the conclusion.

2. But there is a single metaphysically unified entity that accepts the premises, perceives the logical connection between them, and draws the conclusion. (Implied by the existence of rational inference)

3. Therefore naturalism is false.


The argument from intentionality:


1. If naturalism is true, then there is no fact of the matter as to what someone's thought or statement is about.

2. But there are facts of the matter as to what someone's thought or statement is about. (Implied by the existence of rational inference)

3. Therefore naturalism is false.

Here is a final version adapted from Plantinga. It, unlike the other version, is an inductive, or probable, rather than deductive, or certain (if the premises are true and reasoning valid), argument. It is sometimes known as the EAAN or evolutionary argument against naturalism:


1. If naturalism is true, then we should expect our faculties not to be reliable indicators of the nonapparent character of the world.

2. But our faculties do reliably indicate the nonapparent character of the world. (A presupposition of rational inference)

3. Therefore naturalism is false.

Wessexman said:

Here are some bonus versions of the argument - the argument from truth:


1. If naturalism is true, then no states of the person can either be true or false.

2. Some states of the person can be either true or false. (Implied by the existence of rational inference)

3. Therefore naturalism is false.


The argument from unity of consciousness:


1. If naturalism is true, then there is no single metaphysically unified entity that accepts the premises, perceives the logical connection between them, and draws the conclusion.

2. But there is a single metaphysically unified entity that accepts the premises, perceives the logical connection between them, and draws the conclusion. (Implied by the existence of rational inference)

3. Therefore naturalism is false.


The argument from intentionality:


1. If naturalism is true, then there is no fact of the matter as to what someone's thought or statement is about.

2. But there are facts of the matter as to what someone's thought or statement is about. (Implied by the existence of rational inference)

3. Therefore naturalism is false.

Here is a final version adapted from Plantinga. It, unlike the other version, is an inductive, or probable, rather than deductive, or certain (if the premises are true and reasoning valid), argument. It is sometimes known as the EAAN or evolutionary argument against naturalism:


1. If naturalism is true, then we should expect our faculties not to be reliable indicators of the nonapparent character of the world.

2. But our faculties do reliably indicate the nonapparent character of the world. (A presupposition of rational inference)

3. Therefore naturalism is false.

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THis is what is known as 'Begging the question'. None of the premises can be shown to be true, but are merely constructed to come to a foregone conclusion. As such, it's nothing but fluff and nonsense.

For example the premise

2. If materialism is true, then all beliefs can be fully explained in terms of nonrational causes. can not shown to be true, but it merely is showing the bias of the person stating the premise.

In addition, it also is suffering from vagueness of terms.. such as 'rational'. Not everyone will agree that something is 'rational' or not, so without a precise and objective methodology defined in determining if something is 'rational', any argument based on that term is suspect.

In other words, the entire argument suffers enough that the argument itself can not be shown to be sound, it can't even be shown to be valid.

All of C.S. Lewis so called 'arguments' suffer from similar flaws.

RAMOSS said:

THis is what is known as 'Begging the question'. None of the premises can be shown to be true, but are merely constructed to come to a foregone conclusion. As such, it's nothing but fluff and nonsense.

For example the premise

2. If materialism is true, then all beliefs can be fully explained in terms of nonrational causes. can not shown to be true, but it merely is showing the bias of the person stating the premise.

In addition, it also is suffering from vagueness of terms.. such as 'rational'. Not everyone will agree that something is 'rational' or not, so without a precise and objective methodology defined in determining if something is 'rational', any argument based on that term is suspect.

In other words, the entire argument suffers enough that the argument itself can not be shown to be sound, it can't even be shown to be valid.

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It isn't begging the question. You have just taken my comments out of context. I specifically said this:

I thought I'd just start the thread by posting a semi-formal statement of the two versions, and fill in the details in response to queries (hopefully there will be mature and interesting discussion), rather than start by giving all the details and support for each premise.

I frankly acknowledged the premises need background and support, but I said that the best way to do this, I thought (mostly because I'm being lazy) , is to do so as part of discussion, rather than from the start. I'm willing to support the premises and therefore am not begging the question. I specifically said this. Good to see the discussion has started on such high point.

As for the premise you quote, the point if materialism is true, then our beliefs are caused only by material causes - the beliefs are, in the end, reducible to material things (neurons firing in the brain and the like). Do material things cause each other according to propositional content, logical relations, and the like? Do these things figure in scientific explanations in physics or chemistry? Or is it rather things like chemical reactions, physical forces, and the like that are seen as causes in the physical world?

Wessexman said:

It isn't begging the question. You have just taken my comments out of context. I specifically said this:

I thought I'd just start the thread by posting a semi-formal statement of the two versions, and fill in the details in response to queries (hopefully there will be mature and interesting discussion), rather than start by giving all the details and support for each premise.

I frankly acknowledged the premises need background and support, but I said that the best way to do this, I thought (mostly because I'm being lazy) , is to do so as part of discussion, rather than from the start. I'm willing to support the premises and therefore am not begging the question. I specifically said this. Good to see the discussion has started on such high point.

As for the premise you quote, the point if materialism is true, then our beliefs are caused only by material causes - the beliefs are, in the end, reducible to material things (neurons firing in the brain and the like). Do material things cause each other according to propositional content, logical relations, and the like? Do these things figure in scientific explanations in physics or chemistry? Or is it rather things like chemical reactions, physical forces, and the like that are seen as causes in the physical world?

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That, of course, not quite what materialism says.. so that is 'building a straw man'.

In what sense? Be specific. Are you are saying materialism doesn't only allow physical causation? Or that physical causation can take into account things like propositional content, logical relations, etc?

Discard beliefs and you have no argument. There is a thing called knowledge.

devildavid said:

Discard beliefs and you have no argument. There is a thing called knowledge.

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Discard belief and you have no knowledge.

Angel said:

Discard belief and you have no knowledge.

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Knowledge is not dependent upon belief. Belief does not need knowledge.

Lending considerable support to arguments in this vein is the apparent failure (or at least, lack of success so far) of programs to naturalize meaning. Here's a summary of where the best attempt to do so, at least so far, stands:

We must first take a detour through what are called "Frege cases." Consider the following argument:

Commissioner Gordon knows that Bruce Wayne is Bruce Wayne.

Bruce Wayne is Batman.

Therefore, Commissioner Gordon knows that Bruce Wayne is Batman.

The premises of the argument are true, and the form of the argument is valid. So the argument should be sound. But in fact, there is something wrong with it--within the fictional world of Batman the conclusion is false, and the premises both true. We encounter similar situations all the time in the actual world--people didn't realize, for a very long time, that the morning star and the evening star are in fact the same thing (the planet Venus). As it turns out, these cases present a serious problem for attempts to naturalize meaning.

To naturalize meaning in a normal case, it is necessary to suppose that objects in the world have the kinds of causal powers to produce utterances of the words associated with them. I see a tree and say "tree." I see a cloud and say "cloud," and so on. It need not be the case that an utterance follows on every case of presentation of an object, nor that every utterance is caused by an immediate presentation, provided that some utterance is caused by some presentation. Presumably, the details of how this is supposed to work inside human beings can be worked out--the key is to suppose that trees are the sorts of things that have the right causal powers to cause utterances of "tree" in some cases. It seems likely that one step along the path from object presentation to utterance is a mental representation--when I see a cow and say "cow," I have in my mind an image, or an idea, of a cow.

But with all of this, the problem presented by Frege cases comes into view. On this account of naturalized meaning, Bruce Wayne is the kind of thing that has the right causal powers to cause utterances of "Bruce Wayne." But he must also be the kind of thing that has the right causal powers to cause utterances of "Batman." (And, of course, vice versa--Batman should cause utterances of "Bruce Wayne"). To understand why this is so, notice that the kinds of causal powers in question are utterly devoid of any concept or content of meaning--the whole point is to reduce those concepts to the kinds of interactions physics tells us about. So the electromagnetic energy reflected from Bruce Wayne enters the sensorium of human beings, is converted to axial potentials within the brain, and those cause utterances of "Bruce Wayne." Since meanings are irrelevant those things (electromagnetic waves and axial potentials are reliably calculated without ever once invoking "meanings"), those causal powers had better be able to cause all the utterances associated with Bruce Wayne or Batman. Obviously, they don't.

But the attempt at naturalization isn't dead yet. Notice that, in the above case, the content of mental representations (i.e. the concepts or images of Bruce Wayne and Batman) are assumed to coincide with the causal powers of the objects to which those representations refer. But perhaps these do not always coincide, such that mental representations of Batman have different causal powers than mental representations of Bruce Wayne.

The problem with taking this route is that it solves one problem by producing another. If the causal powers of Batman and Bruce Wayne differ whether or not the content of their mental representations do, then someone who is aware that Batman is Bruce Wayne will nevertheless sincerely assent to propositions that deny their identity. That is, such a person can know that Bruce Wayne is Batman, but deny (for instance) the proposition "Batman is in the room, but Bruce Wayne is not," because the causal powers in question in the naturalized account flow through to the utterances themselves. That is, to know that Bruce Wayne and Batman are identical is to attribute the identity relation to mental representations of each (and take a moment to recognize how broadly this point can be construed without losing any force). But those mental representations can only have meaning in virtue of the causal powers of the objects to which they refer, and if those causal powers differ, the identity relation between the mental representations is inconsequential.

This problem is difficult to understand, but once you get it, it's also obviously a huge issue. I don't want to claim that meanings can never be naturalized, but so far, it's not looking good. The way to bet is that meanings cannot be naturalized, and if so, naturalism is false.

The problem is that philosophy makes everything into an "ism" and thus into a belief. Then it shows the flaws in the belief. All beliefs are false by the very nature of belief itself. Eliminate belief, you eliminate the problem. People know physical reality, they don't merely believe in it. They are it and they live it. Living life is not taking a philosophical position.

devildavid said:

The problem is that philosophy makes everything into an "ism" and thus into a belief. Then it shows the flaws in the belief. All beliefs are false by the very nature of belief itself. Eliminate belief, you eliminate the problem. People know physical reality, they don't merely believe in it. They are it and they live it. Living life is not taking a philosophical position.

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https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Glossary_of_philosophical_isms

Angel said:

Discard belief and you have no knowledge.

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devildavid said:

Knowledge is not dependent upon belief. Belief does not need knowledge.

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All knowledge is belief, but only some belief is knowledge. Or can you explain how S can be said to know something and not believe that he knows it. Belief is a necessary condition for knowledge.

devildavid said:

The problem is that philosophy makes everything into an "ism" and thus into a belief. Then it shows the flaws in the belief. All beliefs are false by the very nature of belief itself. Eliminate belief, you eliminate the problem. People know physical reality, they don't merely believe in it. They are it and they live it. Living life is not taking a philosophical position.

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Yeah, to add on to what Angel wrote: the problem with this kind of distinction between belief and knowledge can be indicated with assertions like the following:

"I went to the movies yesterday, but I don't believe I went to the movies yesterday."

This is an example of a Moorean assertion, after the philosopher G.E. Moore, who first analyzed them. Notice that the assertion entails no logical contradiction--I can do something but not believe I did it. On the other hand, someone who actually said something like this would be considered to be saying something very bizarre. The first part of the assertion (i.e. "I went to the movies yesterday") seems to say that I know I went to the movies yesterday. And indeed, the related assertion:

"I know I went to the movies yesterday, but I believe I did not go to the movies yesterday,"

seems outright contradictory. The reason it does, according to the usual analysis, is that knowledge entails belief. If S knows that P, S believes that P.

Now, I'm not sure I entirely agree. I think there may be rare cases where knowledge does not entail belief. Just considering these two on their own (i.e. knowledge on its own and belief on its own), it seems as if the former is purely cognitive, while the latter has some emotional content. One cannot "halfway" know something, but one can halfway believe something. I halfway believe that Trump and Putin are in cahoots to profit from America going down the tubes. I don't know any such thing, of course, and am far from certain something this sinister is indeed the case. Similarly, on 9/11, I knew that planes had crashed into the towers and those very towers collapsed with many people still inside them. But I'm not sure I believed it until a few days later, when the shock and horror had died down. So I'm not completely convinced that the standard analysis is correct, here, and so with that, I'm at least sympathetic to your view.

But, if you're going to insist that knowledge does not entail belief, it seems you ought to do so with the standard analysis in the background somewhere, or else you're basically ignoring the relevant expertise in favor of your own account.

Angel said:

All knowledge is belief, but only some belief is knowledge. Or can you explain how S can be said to know something and not believe that he knows it. Belief is a necessary condition for knowledge.

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I don't know how you are using the word belief, but belief, by itself, is never knowledge. And all knowledge is not belief.

Angel said:

All knowledge is belief, but only some belief is knowledge. Or can you explain how S can be said to know something and not believe that he knows it. Belief is a necessary condition for knowledge.

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All knowledge is belief at some level. It is the level and the low bar that some expect for their assertions that is the problem.

devildavid said:

I don't know how you are using the word belief, but belief, by itself, is never knowledge. And all knowledge is not belief.

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Tentative.

ashurbanipal said:

Yeah, to add on to what Angel wrote: the problem with this kind of distinction between belief and knowledge can be indicated with assertions like the following:

"I went to the movies yesterday, but I don't believe I went to the movies yesterday."

This is an example of a Moorean assertion, after the philosopher G.E. Moore, who first analyzed them. Notice that the assertion entails no logical contradiction--I can do something but not believe I did it. On the other hand, someone who actually said something like this would be considered to be saying something very bizarre. The first part of the assertion (i.e. "I went to the movies yesterday") seems to say that I know I went to the movies yesterday. And indeed, the related assertion:

"I know I went to the movies yesterday, but I believe I did not go to the movies yesterday,"

seems outright contradictory. The reason it does, according to the usual analysis, is that knowledge entails belief. If S knows that P, S believes that P.

Now, I'm not sure I entirely agree. I think there may be rare cases where knowledge does not entail belief. Just considering these two on their own (i.e. knowledge on its own and belief on its own), it seems as if the former is purely cognitive, while the latter has some emotional content. One cannot "halfway" know something, but one can halfway believe something. I halfway believe that Trump and Putin are in cahoots to profit from America going down the tubes. I don't know any such thing, of course, and am far from certain something this sinister is indeed the case. Similarly, on 9/11, I knew that planes had crashed into the towers and those very towers collapsed with many people still inside them. But I'm not sure I believed it until a few days later, when the shock and horror had died down. So I'm not completely convinced that the standard analysis is correct, here, and so with that, I'm at least sympathetic to your view.

But, if you're going to insist that knowledge does not entail belief, it seems you ought to do so with the standard analysis in the background somewhere, or else you're basically ignoring the relevant expertise in favor of your own account.

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The problem here is with the use of the word belief/believe. If someone did something but doesn't believe they did it, this is far different from the word belief as thinking something is true without evidence. When a child believes in Santa Claus they really believe Santa exists. They are using pure belief to think that something is real.

If you forgot you did something, that is not the same sort of belief. That is using the word in an entirely different way.

Angel said:

All knowledge is belief, but only some belief is knowledge. Or can you explain how S can be said to know something and not believe that he knows it. Belief is a necessary condition for knowledge.

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True...essentially, knowledge means familiarity with facts acquired by personal experience, observation, or study...if you think something to be true, then it is a belief...

devildavid said:

The problem here is with the use of the word belief/believe. If someone did something but doesn't believe they did it, this is far different from the word belief as thinking something is true without evidence. When a child believes in Santa Claus they really believe Santa exists. They are using pure belief to think that something is real.

If you forgot you did something, that is not the same sort of belief. That is using the word in an entirely different way.

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The philosopher Timothy Williams thinks that knowledge cannot be analyzed into any further components, and so he might agree with you. That is to say, your position is at least not totally crazy.

But I don't agree with it. When epistemologists say that knowledge entails belief, they're pointing out merely that someone who knows that P, and someone who believes that P, share a certain property--namely, they both believe that P. It's pretty hard to disagree in most cases--that's what Moorean assertions show. Imagine someone telling you:

"Two plus two equals four, but I do not believe that two plus two equals four." If you're like most people, you'd do a double-take. Why would someone assert that two plus two equals four, and then in the very same breath say they don't believe that two plus two equals four? Their assertion seems to entail that they believe what they're saying--namely, that two plus two equals four.

It gets even worse if someone says "I know that two plus two equals four, but I do not believe that two plus two equals four." If someone said that to me, I'd be forced to conclude either that they do not really know that two plus two equals four, or alternately, that they do, in fact, believe that two plus two equals four. It doesn't seem that both can be true at the same time, which has the consequence that either knowledge entails belief, or belief entails knowledge.

Now, this is not to say that mere belief is the same as knowledge. It takes more than mere belief to have knowledge, and so we can scratch off the notion that belief might entail knowledge. What's left is that knowledge entails belief. Can we get around this point? Yes, probably. But first it should be acknowledged, and any account of the relation between knowledge and belief should say something about this standard analysis. Enough very smart folks have believed it that it deserves some respect, even if, ultimately, you think it's wrong-headed.

ashurbanipal said:

...
"Two plus two equals four, but I do not believe that two plus two equals four." If you're like most people, you'd do a double-take. Why would someone assert that two plus two equals four, and then in the very same breath say they don't believe that two plus two equals four? Their assertion seems to entail that they believe what they're saying--namely, that two plus two equals four.

It gets even worse if someone says "I know that two plus two equals four, but I do not believe that two plus two equals four." If someone said that to me, I'd be forced to conclude either that they do not really know that two plus two equals four, or alternately, that they do, in fact, believe that two plus two equals four. It doesn't seem that both can be true at the same time, which has the consequence that either knowledge entails belief, or belief entails knowledge.
...

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I could say 2+2=4 , and I can prove it. Mathematically. So it's knowledge.

Which gets to Materialism. I had to look it up.

It states that everything in the universe is matter, without any true spiritual or intellectual existence.

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Doesn't math count as an intellectual thing?
Obviously I'm ignorant of the topic of the OP, willing to learn.

edited to add that math is a special case, different than science.
It's virtually impossible to account for all the variables in a science experiment.

On Naturalism

They urged that reality is exhausted by nature, containing nothing “supernatural”, and that the scientific method should be used to investigate all areas of reality, including the “human spirit”

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sounds reasonable to me.

...
Different contemporary philosophers interpret “naturalism” differently. This disagreement about usage is no accident. For better or worse, “naturalism” is widely viewed as a positive term in philosophical circles—few active philosophers nowadays are happy to announce themselves as “non-naturalists”.
...

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So what is the interpretation is the OP using?
I didn't understand the post, looks like many who have posted here are in the same boat.

CletusWilbury said:

I could say 2+2=4 , and I can prove it. Mathematically. So it's knowledge.

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Is that all it takes to be knowledge--that something be provable? Seems obviously incorrect. I know it's raining where I am right now. But I cannot prove it...so I must not know it's raining. Indeed, I could never prove that it's raining, so I could never know it's raining in any circumstance, by that standard. And so for a great many other things. I could never prove I like apple pie, or that I woke up this morning at 5:35, or that I own fifteen different ties, or that I have a daughter whom I love, and so on. Suddenly I realize I can know very little indeed, since very little is provable. And that seems like an absurd result. Of course I know those things.

On the other hand, suppose someone asks me the square root of 215,296 and I say, merely guessing, that it's 464. Now, that happens to be right, and it's provable. But do I actually know that 464 is the square root of 215,296? It doesn't seem so--I was merely guessing.

The upshot is that provability is not a criterion for knowledge--I can know what is not provable, and not know what is provable.

In any case, this kind kinda misses the point a bit. The idea is to wonder why it would sound so weird for someone to say "2+2=4, but I do not believe that 2+2=4," since the following propositions:

2+2=4

and

I do not believe that 2+2=4

are logically consistent. The reason it would sound so weird is because (says Moore) knowledge entails belief, and assertion at least suggests knowledge. So when I assert that 2+2=4, I'm saying that I know that 2+2=4. So the contradiction comes about only if knowledge entails belief.

CletusWilbury said:

Doesn't math count as an intellectual thing?
Obviously I'm ignorant of the topic of the OP, willing to learn.

edited to add that math is a special case, different than science.
It's virtually impossible to account for all the variables in a science experiment.

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Materialism is indeed the view that only material stuff exists, though of course within that view a great deal needs to be unpacked. (what is "material stuff"? What counts as "existence"?). Math is often cited as evidence against materialism by non-materialists. The usual response is to claim that mathematics is merely a kind of formalism that describes material circumstances.

Naturalism is usually thought to entail materialism, though it need not. And therein is one problem with naturalism--what it says isn't very clear. One could say that God and souls exist, they're just natural phenomena. It's more an historical development than a coherent position.

I am not a materialist (or a naturalist, for that matter...er, no pun intended), and I think the materialist view of mathematics is untenable...though I also think there are better arguments against materialism.

ashurbanipal said:

...
The upshot is that provability is not a criterion for knowledge--I can know what is not provable, and not know what is provable.
...

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Agreed. I meant to address that in my edit.

Materialism is indeed the view that only material stuff exists, though of course within that view a great deal needs to be unpacked. (what is "material stuff"? What counts as "existence"?). Math is often cited as evidence against materialism by non-materialists. The usual response is to claim that mathematics is merely a kind of formalism that describes material circumstances.

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I got a different response on another thread, that even the ability to think about philosophy required the physical.

CletusWilbury said:

I got a different response on another thread, that even the ability to think about philosophy required the physical.

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Welcome to philosophy...

That reply (that the physical is required to even think about philosophy, and so by implication materialism is correct) strikes me as pretty inadequate, but I suppose I'd have to read the argument.