Recent Examples on the Web: Noun The research firm Gartner recently defined two different high-level categories of AIOps: domain-centric and domain- agnostic. Domain-Centric Vs. First Known Use of agnostic Noun , in the meaning defined at sense 1 Adjective , in the meaning defined at sense 1. Learn More About agnostic. Time Traveler for agnostic The first known use of agnostic was in See more words from the same year. From the Editors at Merriam-Webster.
Trending: Agnostic Trending: Agnostic Yes, it's different from 'atheist'. Style: MLA. Get Word of the Day daily email! Test Your Vocabulary. Test your visual vocabulary with our question challenge! Love words? Need even more definitions? Just between us: it's complicated.
Ask the Editors 'Everyday' vs. What Is 'Semantic Bleaching'? How 'literally' can mean "figuratively". This last alleged implication is examined in section 7. The low priors argument implicitly addresses this important issue in a much more sophisticated and promising way.
Unlike ontological physicalism, source physicalism is a claim about the source of mental entities, not about their nature. Source physicalists, whether they are ontological physicalists or ontological dualists, believe that the physical world existed before the mental world and caused the mental world to come into existence, which implies that all mental entities are causally dependent on physical entities.
Further, even if they are ontological dualists, source physicalists need not claim that mental entities never cause physical entities or other mental entities, but they must claim that there would be no mental entities were it not for the prior existence and causal powers of one or more physical entities. The argument proceeds as follows:.
The other steps in the argument all clearly follow from previous steps. A thorough examination of the arguments for and against premise 1 is obviously impossible here, but it is worth mentioning that a defense of this premise need not claim that the known facts typically thought by natural theologians to favor omni-theism over competing hypotheses like source physicalism have no force.
Instead, it could be claimed that whatever force they have is offset at least to some significant degree by more specific facts favoring source physicalism over omni-theism. More precisely, the point is this. Even when natural theologians successfully identify some general fact about a topic that is more probable given omni-theism than given source physicalism, they ignore other more specific facts about that same topic, facts that, given the general fact , appear to be significantly more probable given source physicalism than given omni-theism.
For example, even if omni-theism is supported by the general fact that the universe is complex, one should not ignore the more specific fact, discovered by scientists, that underlying this complexity at the level at which we experience the universe, is a much simpler early universe from which this complexity arose, and also a much simpler contemporary universe at the micro-level, one consisting of a relatively small number of different kinds of particles all of which exist in one of a relatively small number of different states.
In short, it is important to take into account, not just the general fact that the universe that we directly experience with our senses is extremely complex, but also the more specific fact that two sorts of hidden simplicity within the universe can explain that complexity. Given that a complex universe exists, this more specific fact is exactly what one would expect on source physicalism, because, as the best natural theologians e.
There is, however, no reason at all to expect this more specific fact on omni-theism since, if those same natural theologians are correct, then a simple God provides a simple explanation for the observed complexity of the universe whether or not that complexity is also explained by any simpler mediate physical causes.
Another example concerns consciousness. Its existence really does seem to be more likely given omni-theism than given source physicalism and thus to raise the ratio of the probability of omni-theism to the probability of source physicalism.
But we know a lot more about consciousness than just that it exists. We also know, thanks in part to the relatively new discipline of neuroscience, that conscious states in general and even the very integrity of our personalities, not to mention the apparent unity of the self, are dependent to a very high degree on physical events occurring in the brain.
Given the general fact that consciousness exists, we have reason on source physicalism that we do not have on theism to expect these more specific facts. Given theism, it would not be surprising at all if our minds were more independent of the brain than they in fact are.
Thus, when the available evidence about consciousness is fully stated, it is far from clear that it significantly favors omni-theism. Arguably, given that fine-tuning is required for intelligent life and that an omni-God has reason to create intelligent life, we have more reason to expect fine-tuning on omni-theism than on source physicalism.
Given such fine-tuning, however, it is far more surprising on omni-theism than on source physicalism that our universe is not teeming with intelligent life and that the most impressive intelligent organisms we know to exist are merely human: self-centered and aggressive primates who far too often kill, rape, and torture each other. In fairness to omni-theism, however, most of those humans are moral agents and many have religious experiences apparently of God.
And while religious experiences apparently of God are no doubt more to be expected if an omni-God exists than if human beings are the product of blind physical forces, it is also true that, given that such experiences do occur, various facts about their distribution that should be surprising to theists are exactly what one would expect on source physicalism, such as the fact that many people never have them and the fact that those who do have them almost always have either a prior belief in God or extensive exposure to a theistic religion.
It seems, then, that when it comes to evidence favoring omni-theism over source physicalism, the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Further, when combined with the fact that what we know about the level of well-being of sentient beings and the extent of their suffering is arguably vastly more probable on source physicalism than on theism, a very strong though admittedly controversial case for premise 1 can be made.
What about premise 2? Again, a serious case can be made for its truth. Such a case first compares source physicalism, not to omni-theism, but to its opposite, source idealism.
Source idealists believe that the mental world existed before the physical world and caused the physical world to come into existence. This view is consistent with both ontological idealism and ontological dualism, and also with physical entities having both physical and mental effects. It entails, however, that all physical entities are, ultimately, causally dependent on one or more mental entities, and so is not consistent with ontological physicalism.
The symmetry of source physicalism and source idealism is a good pro tanto reason to believe they are equally probable intrinsically. They are equally specific, they have the same ontological commitments, neither can be formulated more elegantly than the other, and each appears to be equally coherent and equally intelligible. For example, it adds the claim that a single mind created the physical universe and that this mind is not just powerful but specifically omnipotent and not just knowledgeable but specifically omniscient.
In addition, it presupposes a number of controversial metaphysical and meta-ethical claims by asserting in addition that this being is both eternal and objectively morally perfect. If any of these specific claims and presuppositions is false, then omni-theism is false. Thus, omni-theism is a very specific and thus intrinsically very risky form of source idealism, and thus is many times less probable intrinsically than source idealism.
Therefore, if, as argued above, source physicalism and source idealism are equally probable intrinsically, then it follows that premise 2 is true: source physicalism is many times more probable intrinsically than omni-theism. Notice that the general strategy of the particular version of the low priors argument discussed above is to find an alternative to omni-theism that is much less specific than omni-theism and partly for that reason much more probable intrinsically , while at the same time having enough content of the right sort to fit the totality of the relevant data at least as well as theism does.
In other words, the goal is to find a runner like source physicalism that begins the race with a large head start and thus wins by a large margin because it runs the race for supporting evidence and thus for probability at roughly the same speed as omni-theism does. An alternative strategy is to find a runner that begins the race tied with omni-theism, but runs the race for evidential support much faster than omni-theism does, thus once again winning the race by a margin that is sufficiently large for the rest of the argument to go through.
The choice of alternative hypothesis is crucial here just as it was in the low priors argument. Another would be a more detailed version of source physicalism that, unlike source physicalism in general, makes the relevant data antecedently much more probable than theism does. Thus, it may be stipulated that, like omni-theism, aesthetic deism implies that an eternal, non-physical, omnipotent, and omniscient being created the physical world.
The only difference, then, between the God of omni-theism and the deity of aesthetic deism is what motivates them. An omni-theistic God would be morally perfect and so strongly motivated by considerations of the well-being of sentient creatures. An aesthetic deistic God, on the other hand, would prioritize aesthetic goods over moral ones. While such a being would want a beautiful universe, perhaps the best metaphor here is not that of a cosmic artist, but instead that of a cosmic playwright: an author of nature who wants above all to write an interesting story.
Further, containing such a line is hardly necessary for a story to be good. After all, what makes a good story good is often some intense struggle between good and evil, and all good stories contain some mixture of benefit and harm. This suggests that the observed mixture of good and evil in our world decisively favors aesthetic deism over omni-theism. This makes no difference as far as the inference from step 4 to step 5 is concerned. That inference, like the inferences from steps 1 — 3 to step 4 and from step 5 to step 6 , is clearly correct.
The key question, then, is whether premises 1 , 2 , and 3 are all true. In spite of the nearly complete overlap between omni-theism and aesthetic deism, Richard Swinburne 96— would challenge premise 1 on the grounds that aesthetic deism, unlike omni-theism, must posit a bad desire to account for why the deity does not do what is morally best. Omni-theism need not do this, according to Swinburne, because what is morally best just is what is overall best, and thus an omniscient being will of necessity do what is morally best so long as it has no desires other than the desires it has simply by virtue of knowing what the best thing to do is in any given situation.
This challenge depends, however, on a highly questionable motivational intellectualism: it succeeds only if merely believing that an action is good entails a desire to do it. On most theories of motivation, there is a logical gap between the intellect and desire. If such a gap exists, then it would seem that omni-theism is no more probable intrinsically than aesthetic deism.
For example, a deity interested in good narrative would want a world that is complex and yet ordered, that contains beauty, consciousness, intelligence, and moral agency.
Perhaps there is more reason to expect the existence of libertarian free will on omni-theism than on aesthetic deism; but unless one starts from the truth of omni-theism, there seems to be little reason to believe that we have such freedom. For example, if open theists are right that not even an omniscient being can know with certainty what libertarian free choices will be made in the future, then aesthetic deism could account for libertarian free will and other sorts of indeterminacy by claiming that a story with genuine surprises is better than one that is completely predictable.
Alternatively, what might be important for the story is only that the characters think they have free will, not that they really have it. Finally, there is premise 3 , which asserts that the data of good and evil decisively favors aesthetic deism over theism.
A full discussion of this premise is not possible here, but recognition of its plausibility appears to be as old as the problem of evil itself. Consider, for example, the Book of Job, whose protagonist, a righteous man who suffers horrifically, accuses God of lacking sufficient commitment to the moral value of justice.
Instead, speaking out of the whirlwind, He describes His design of the cosmos and of the animal kingdom in a way clearly intended to emphasize His power and the grandeur of His creation. On this interpretation, the creator that confronts Job is not the God he expected and definitely not the God of omni-theism, but rather a being much more like the deity of aesthetic deism.
Those who claim that a God might allow evil because it is the inevitable result of the universe being governed by laws of nature also lend support, though unintentionally, to the idea that, if there is an author of nature, then that being is more likely motivated by aesthetic concerns than moral ones.
For example, it may be that producing a universe governed by a few laws expressible as elegant mathematical equations is an impressive accomplishment, not just because of the wisdom and power required for such a task, but also because of the aesthetic value of such a universe. Much of the aesthetic value of the animal kingdom may also depend on its being the result of a long evolutionary process driven by mechanisms like natural selection.
There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and wonderful have been, and are being evolved.
Unfortunately, such a process, if it is to produce sentient life, may also entail much suffering and countless early deaths. It is arguably far more plausible that in such a scenario the value of preventing horrendous suffering would, from a moral point of view, far outweigh the value of regularity, sublimity, and narrative.
If so, then a morally perfect God would not trade the former for the latter though a deity motivated primarily by aesthetic reasons no doubt would. To summarize, nearly everyone agrees that the world contains both goods and evils. Pleasure and pain, love and hate, achievement and failure, flourishing and languishing, and virtue and vice all exist in great abundance. In spite of that, some see signs of cosmic teleology.
Those who defend the version of the decisive evidence argument stated above need not deny the teleology. Mulgan and Murphy and in particular when it is interpreted as directed towards aesthetic ends instead of towards moral ends. In this section, an argument for the falsity of a more ambitious form of agnosticism will be examined.
Because the sort of agnosticism addressed in this section is more ambitious than the sort defended by Le Poidevin, it is conceivable that both arguments succeed in establishing their conclusions. This form of agnosticism is more ambitious because knowledge is stronger in the logical sense than rational permissibility: it can be rationally permissible to believe propositions that are not known to be true, but a proposition cannot be known to be true by someone who is not rationally permitted to believe it.
Another difference concerns the object of the two forms of agnosticism. In this section, the target is omni-theism versus the local atheistic position that omni-theism is false. Is there a real difference between someone who thinks that the question of God's existence is undecideable in priciple and one who supposes merely that the evidence to settle the question has not finally come in?
Or is the whole distinction between agnostics and true believers, or true unbelievers, really one of temperament? Perhaps some people just don't like feeling certain, and others feel uncomfortable any other way.
Jonathan West: The debate over who should call themselves 'agnostic' is muddled by imprecise and conflicting uses of the word itself. Nick Spencer: Agnosticism is a stand against certainty in the face of the big questions — and we could all do with a dash of it.
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