Drivel. This is a verbiage bubble built on the absence of a definition of "the right kind of evidence". Define that term, and the question of the rationality of belief in God (by whatever definition) is answered. Neglect to define that term, and you grant yourself a bogus license to wax eloquent on what any number of other people have said about a question that has not been properly asked.
Cary, are you aware of Feyerabend's attacks on there being a single, well-definable 'scientific method'—which is probably what you'd use to identify "the right kind of evidence"? We find his criticisms well-accepted by naturalist Penelope Maddy in her Second Philosophy: A Naturalistic Method:
> A deeper difficulty springs from the lesson won through decades of study in the philosophy of science: there is no hard and fast specification of what 'science' must be, no determinate criterion of the form 'x is science iff …'. It follows that there can be no straightforward definition of Second Philosophy along the lines 'trust only the methods of science'. Thus Second Philosophy, as I understand it, isn't a set of beliefs, a set of propositions to be affirmed; it has no theory. Since its contours can't be drawn by outright definition, I resort to the device of introducing a character, a particular sort of idealized inquirer called the Second Philosopher, and proceed by describing her thoughts and practices in a range of contexts; Second Philosophy is then to be understood as the product of her inquiries. (1)
So it's not clear that "the right kind of evidence" can be defined in the way you intimate. Indeed, I wonder if you're headed toward some kind of philosophical foundationalism.
2 comments:
Drivel. This is a verbiage bubble built on the absence of a definition of "the right kind of evidence". Define that term, and the question of the rationality of belief in God (by whatever definition) is answered. Neglect to define that term, and you grant yourself a bogus license to wax eloquent on what any number of other people have said about a question that has not been properly asked.
Cary, are you aware of Feyerabend's attacks on there being a single, well-definable 'scientific method'—which is probably what you'd use to identify "the right kind of evidence"? We find his criticisms well-accepted by naturalist Penelope Maddy in her Second Philosophy: A Naturalistic Method:
> A deeper difficulty springs from the lesson won through decades of study in the philosophy of science: there is no hard and fast specification of what 'science' must be, no determinate criterion of the form 'x is science iff …'. It follows that there can be no straightforward definition of Second Philosophy along the lines 'trust only the methods of science'. Thus Second Philosophy, as I understand it, isn't a set of beliefs, a set of propositions to be affirmed; it has no theory. Since its contours can't be drawn by outright definition, I resort to the device of introducing a character, a particular sort of idealized inquirer called the Second Philosopher, and proceed by describing her thoughts and practices in a range of contexts; Second Philosophy is then to be understood as the product of her inquiries. (1)
So it's not clear that "the right kind of evidence" can be defined in the way you intimate. Indeed, I wonder if you're headed toward some kind of philosophical foundationalism.
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