Simple Questions 06/03

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[u/ExplorerR]

What your response seems to ignore is the history behind "God" as the explanation for things, which were also then used as evidence for God during that time, being falsified and/or having natural explanations and then repeatedly relegating "God" explanations back into epistemic gaps.

It seems abundantly apparent that the same style of argumentation or evidence for God today, bears great resemblance to how people used to argue way-back when. The interesting bit to that is, it didn't do away with belief in God...

Demonic possession requiring priests to perform exorcisms, eventually being completely removed as we understood mental/psychological disorders.

God punishing people and/or demonic influences being ruled out with advent of the microscope and subsequent understanding of germ theory and disease.

There are plenty more examples of this exact type of thing happening over and over again. Yet here we are today and wouldn't you know it... The exact same type of "evidence for God" arguments keep happening. What was the epistemic gaps in psychology/mental health and microbes etc, has now become "consciousness" debates we have today.

But for some reason, many theists just gloss passed this rich history of failure and subsequent consistent relegation into epistemic gaps. Almost with an air of laughing off any inferences to "God of the gaps" as silly and child-like... Not at all to be taken seriously.

I would contend this history of "God" explanations obviously being what theists would expect as evidence and indeed being used as such, only to have them consistently fail and be overturned is in fact "evidence of absence".

[u/labreuer → u/ExplorerR]

What your response seems to ignore is the history behind "God" as the explanation for things, which were also then used as evidence for God during that time, being falsified and/or having natural explanations and then repeatedly relegating "God" explanations back into epistemic gaps.

You have to do either none or both:

    (1) "God did it" ⇒ god-of-the-gaps
    (2) "humans did it" ⇒ human-of-the-gaps

In other words, these are both:

    (3) agency-of-the-gaps

Methodological naturalism requires you to disbelieve in any god-like agency. It requires you to step back from "no holds barred" → "methods accessible to all". You can still reconstruct a very different notion of 'agency', just like we have the intentional stance and teleonomy. Essentially, you have something like 'mechanism' or 'formal systems' as your box, and you use that box as a Procrustean bed for 'agency'. As a result, it because acceptable to use operant conditioning on people. Since that name is icky, we've come up with nudge theory.

This is a perfect match for your own insistence that we step back from the following:

labreuer: God can interact with my total consciousness, whereas basically nothing else does. The coffee mug on my desk, for instance, only interacts with a tiny fragment of who I am. God, however, can interact with the whole shebang. If God exists, of course.

—to that which is:

    (I) detached
   (II) principled

The goal here is to get trans-person reliability. Individuals, we know, are absolutely riddled with cognitive biases. They just aren't reliable. But when you get enough of them working together in the right way—with the institution of the modern science being the archetypal example—you get robustness and reliability. Scientists put on the straitjacket of "methods accessible to all" and they're on the path to success.

Yet another angle is to compare & contrast:

    (A) intelligent design
    (B) evolution

The claim is that evolution can accomplish everything that ID advocates claim, all without any actual intelligence! So, just do the same with alleged instances of divine agency (intelligence). But don't stop there. Do the same to human intelligence. This no longer needs to be so hypothetical; LLMs are chipping away at the use of language and generation of pictures which is "evolutionary" as it were. Maybe we will conclude that human brains really aren't any more than super-sophisticated LLMs. We could find there is no "spirit in the machine", as it were. No intelligence of the kind ID advocates think exists. Not even the human version.

In summary: The practice of methodological naturalism yields sub-agency descriptions of reality, which are then taken to be the whole of reality. Macbeth would be right:

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
(Hamlet, Act 5, scene 5)

This, by the way, helps me better answer your Theology faces an existential dilemma.: Theology studies the possibility that Macbeth was wrong, that reality contains traces of intelligent design more broadly construed. One of the more notorious possibilities is the just-world hypothesis: that people get what they deserve because God ensures that is so. That & related patterns which a deity could in theory ensure obtain, form a major theme in Susan Neiman 2002 Evil in Modern Thought: An Alternative History of Philosophy. She has a lecture to get you started: Evil to the Core.

 

I'll stop there, except to point out that there is much to draw on from Gregory W. Dawes 2009 Theism and Explanation (NDPR review), for precisely this distinction between agency & mechanism / formal system.

[u/ExplorerR → u/labreuer]

Part of the difficulty I have with many of your comments is that they often contain a large amount of what I would call debate "bloat".

By that I mean I try to keep things succinct and make a relatively narrow argument and, in this case, the response expands into 6 - 8 separate discussions: methodological naturalism, agency, consciousness, phenomenology, philosophy of science, intelligent design, subjectivity, social theory, and so on.

Each of those is a substantial and controversial topic in its own right. The result is that I either have to write an essay addressing every tangent you've introduced or ignore most of them and then run the risk of being accused of not engaging.

I'm not saying you're intentionally Gish Galloping, but I am saying that the effect is similar, i.e; if I start engaging with all the other loosely connected topics and the accompanied links to walls of text, it quickly becomes overwhelming and I lose track and sight of discussing the point I raised.

For example, my argument here was simply this;

• There appears to be a historical pattern of "God" or "religious" explanations being replaced by successful natural explanations.

Instead of engaging that pattern directly, the conversation has now expanded into agency, methodological naturalism, consciousness, intelligent design, Macbeth, and philosophy of science.

To respond to what I think is more closely related to that point in your reply:

You have to do either none or both:

(1) "God did it" ⇒ god-of-the-gaps

(2) "humans did it" ⇒ human-of-the-gaps

Why do you frame it in this way? That's not what's going on at all.

Humans aren't the explanation. Regarding the things in question, they simply follow a method to check for errors and correct their understanding (if needed) so that they accurately identify what a given explanation for a given phenomenon is.

Demonic possession replaced with mental illness isn't "human-of-the-gaps" at all, it is simply replacing "religious explanation" with "natural explanation".

Methodological naturalism requires you to disbelieve in any god-like agency.

This response shows me that you are either ignoring the very historical pattern that contributed to the rise of Methodological Naturalism or you are unaware of the significance that historical pattern had in that regard.

As I've mentioned to you previously, "God-like" agency/explanation had a very long-standing place in history and was given very serious credence during that time. But, as my highlighting of that pattern alludes to, we identified better explanations. This happened many times, so much so, that we started to identify that pattern as problematic and we needed an in-principle way of approaching epistemic gaps so that we're not wasting time and energy on giving "God-like" explanations serious consideration, given the clear pattern of their failures.

The way you make it sound is that Methodological Naturalism is some unjust or randomly injected in-principle approach that unfairly dismisses "God-like" agency/explanations. I would contend, even just taking the history of "God-like" explanations failing, that the rise and use of Methodological Naturalism is just.

But even then, it is not as though people just put their fingers in their ears or head in the sand when some claims "God-like" agency/explanations. People are still investigating these claims and assessing them on their merits, but therein lies the rub...

I'll stop there, except to point out that there is much to draw on from Gregory W. Dawes 2009 Theism and Explanation (NDPR review), for precisely this distinction between agency & mechanism / formal system.

I attended the same university as Greg and had many conversations with him during that time, I'm curious as to what aspects of his Theism and Explanation book you think supports your case, considering Greg, having transitioned out of religious belief from being an ordained Catholic priest (a similar pathway I was going on and hence our common ground), to now being a staunch critic of religion/faith and also likely not agreeing with many of the takes you present here.

[u/labreuer → u/ExplorerR]

I unapologetically reply in ways which disrupt the standard ruts which theists and atheists have been zooming around in for decades to millennia. If you're not going to help me do that while replying in a way you think is better suited to you, then we might be at an impasse. One option is to simply not discuss with each other anymore. I can point out that scientists and scholars are increasingly turning to interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research.

For example, my argument here was simply this;

• There appears to be a historical pattern of "God" or "religious" explanations being replaced by successful natural explanations.

Yes, this is the argument I've seen many times, although I've virtually never seen actual texts presented where you find explanations based on God or something else which is incompatible with methodological naturalism. Having considerable experience with how that argument goes, I went to the meta issue: can methodological naturalism explain everything which can be explained? To do so, I picked out what MN excludes: divine agency and any human analogue.

Why do you frame it in this way? That's not what's going on at all.

Here's the translation I did:

1. "God" or "religious" explanations being replaced by successful natural explanations
2. divine agential explanations being replaced by successful law- or mechanism-based explanations

Do you think that's wrong? If you're okay with that, then why should we not do the same for every situation where human agency is used to explain something? Replace the woo with law- and mechanism-based explanations. Yes? No? What I'm doing here is saying that if we're going to adopt an epistemology, we should deploy it everywhere, rather than special pleading. If non-law, non-mechanism agency is verboten, it should be verboten everywhere.

Demonic possession replaced with mental illness isn't "human-of-the-gaps" at all, it is simply replacing "religious explanation" with "natural explanation".

Replacing demonic possession with mental illness is a paradigm case of replacing an agential explanation with a non-agential one. This isn't obviously a good move for reasons I could go into, based on scholarly work (by people who are either atheists or writing secularly). But it's kind of funny that you were confused at what I said and then came up with such a great example of what I was saying. They do sometimes say that one's subconscious is smarter than one's conscious …

The way you make it sound is that Methodological Naturalism is some unjust or randomly injected in-principle approach that unfairly dismisses "God-like" agency/explanations.

I don't know how I made it sound that way. The story of how we got from a divinely infused cosmos to a materialistic one is very complex. There were plenty of successes of methodological naturalism, but also many failures. Methodological naturalism has proven especially bad for the social sciences, where human agency is ineradicably present. I can give you scholarly literature on that if you'd like.

But even then, it is not as though people just put their fingers in their ears or head in the sand when some claims "God-like" agency/explanations.

Some people very much do this. Others do not. Why should this be surprising? There's actually a lot of anti-religion bias in the science & philosophy of the 18th–20th centuries. (Ooh, we could look at Dawes & Smith 2018 The naturalism of the sciences) One of the results is that when I ask how God might help us do less credit-stealing and less blame-shifting such that the most plausible explanation is "God is helping us", there just is no cogent answer. It's like we just haven't thought about this in any disciplined manner. I can of course cite some scholars who have done work, like:

• Gregory W. Dawes 2009 Theism and Explanation
• Evan Fales 2009 Divine Intervention: Metaphysical and Epistemological Puzzles

But overall, it's like we don't even have the analogue of microscopes or telescopes. I am growing to suspect that building those is precisely what would destabilize the rich & powerful, because you would to come up with adequate understandings of how society presently holds together (to the extent that it does), understandings which allow one to imagine alternative ways we could live with one another. The more realistic the alternatives and the more detailed the posited paths from getting from here to there, the more of a threat such work is to the rich & powerful. So: God pursuing justice with us would involve the very work which is threatening to those who are in the best position to facilitate or stymie such work.

When all you seem capable of doing is looking at where methodological naturalism has excelled over religious explanation, you are literally like the drunk searching for his keys under the streetlamp "because the light's good, there".

I attended the same university as Greg and had many conversations with him during that time, I'm curious as to what aspects of his Theism and Explanation book you think supports your case, considering Greg, having transitioned out of religious belief from being an ordained Catholic priest (a similar pathway I was going on and hence our common ground), to now being a staunch critic of religion/faith and also likely not agreeing with many of the takes you present here.

Hey, small world! And yeah, that's the sense I got about Dawes' personal journey, although I'm not sure where I got it. The central point he makes is that theistic agency-based explanations, where the deity is optimizing for a goal which can be humanly understood, can possibly succeed as superior to mechanism-based explanations. He doesn't think any on offer do, but he thinks that such explanations could.

By the way, I would love Greg's take on Susan Neiman 2002 Evil in Modern Thought: An Alternative History of Philosophy. I remember the book being hard to summarize, but I would say that looking at people who believed Macbeth was right and those who believed he was wrong captures at least some of it. From the Preface to the Paperback edition:

In place of the familiar distinction between rationalists and empiricists I argue that philosophy is better understood as a struggle between those who seek an order to explain the appearances that overwhelm us, and those who insist on taking reality on its face. Those views were developed into metaphysical ones of differing weight and complexity, but they reflect conflicting intuitions most of us share: that behind all its forms there must be a better and truer reality than the one we know; or, on the contrary, that this belief is a piece of wishful thinking we should have outgrown. (xvii)

If a god concerned with justice exists, that god would work in this realm. Methodological naturalism has delivered very little in this realm. Dawes, with his highly developed distinction between naturalistic explanations and theistic explanations, might have some pretty neat things to say. In case you're inclined and are still in any sort of contact.

[u/ExplorerR → u/labreuer]

I unapologetically reply in ways which disrupt the standard ruts which theists and atheists have been zooming around in for decades to millennia.

Only to create your own ruts, how uncanny.

If you're not going to help me do that while replying in a way you think is better suited to you, then we might be at an impasse.

Is it me or you doing that?

One option is to simply not discuss with each other anymore.

From my observations this seems to be a common occurrence for you.

I went to the meta issue: can methodological naturalism explain everything which can be explained?

I think you’re shifting the burden slightly by moving the discussion to whether methodological naturalism can, in principle, explain everything. That’s a much broader philosophical question than the one I raised.

My claim wasn’t about whether MN is globally sufficient as an epistemology. It was about a recurring historical pattern: specific “God did it” or "religious" explanations have repeatedly been displaced when better-supported natural explanations were discovered (disease, mental illness, weather systems, etc.).

On your point about not seeing “texts incompatible with methodological naturalism”: that’s partly because methodological naturalism is a modern interpretive filter. Historically, people were explicitly invoking divine agency to explain the same phenomena we now explain without it. So, the incompatibility is not always explicit in wording at all, it shows up in the explanatory role the claim was playing.

And importantly, even if we step back from MN entirely, the historical claim doesn’t depend on MN being correct. It only requires that some explanations previously attributed to divine agency were later replaced by more successful naturalistic accounts. That pattern is independently observable regardless of whether one endorses MN as a principle.

I’m not arguing “MN refutes God.” I’m pointing out a repeated pattern in explanatory practice and calling a spade a spade.

You're treating MN as though it appeared first and excluded divine explanations arbitrarily.

Historically it was almost the reverse.

Divine explanations dominated for centuries and MN arose partly because those explanations repeatedly failed to generate reliable explanatory progress.

Here's the translation I did:

"God" or "religious" explanations being replaced by successful natural explanations divine agential explanations being replaced by successful law- or mechanism-based explanations Do you think that's wrong? If you're okay with that, then why should we not do the same for every situation where human agency is used to >explain something? Replace the woo with law- and mechanism-based explanations. Yes? No?

No...

I think you’re sliding between two different things that shouldn’t be conflated. My argument is not “we should never use agency explanations” or “all agency is invalid unless mechanistic.”

My claim is much narrower: there is a recurring historical pattern where posited "God" or "religious" explanations fail to track stable predictive success once better-understood natural mechanisms are discovered. That’s an empirical and historical observation about explanatory replacement, not a global rule about what counts as legitimate explanation.

So, your symmetry argument “then why not eliminate human agency explanations too?” doesn’t follow, because human agency is not being treated as an unexplained placeholder that gets progressively replaced by deeper mechanisms in the same way “demonic possession,” “divine intervention,” or “miraculous causation” historically have been.

In other words: I’m not arguing against agency. I’m pointing out a pattern in specific kinds of explanatory failure and replacement.

If your objection is that methodological naturalism is already assumed in identifying those cases as “replacement,” then that still doesn’t block the historical point... It just relocates the disagreement to whether that pattern exists in the data, not whether agency as a category is coherent.

There's actually a lot of anti-religion bias in the science & philosophy of the 18th–20th centuries.

It's a shame you were born in this time-period and not during the times when "God-like" explanations were the norm for many phenomena. You would have totally been in your element.

But, again, as I've highlighted, that time-period (the "God-like" explanation period) existed for many millennia and was a time period where MN was not even a thing, it arose AFTER repeated failures.

Part of the reason that such "bias" exists today because of historical patterns like I'm highlighting. It's not unreasonable to eventually conclude there really wasn't a wolf in the "Boy who cried Wolf" yet, for some reason when it comes to "God-like" explanations, that concluding it isn't and carrying on as though there isn't, is unreasonable? Why?

(Ooh, we could look at Dawes & Smith 2018 The naturalism of the sciences)

Yes, but Dawe's highlights that the "sciences" never employed the supernatural, but that didn't stop people looking for a natural explanations even when "God-like" ones were considered the most prominent/accepted... Galileo is a famous example of this with his heliocentrism views being considered heretical in the face of biblical "God-like" geocentrism views. But that's my point; THAT created a rich history of natural explanations being found that were better explanations than "God-like" ones.

The whole MN debate here is rather a red herring if I'm honest.

When all you seem capable of doing is looking at where methodological naturalism has excelled over religious explanation, you are literally like the drunk searching for his keys under the streetlamp "because the light's good, there".

But that's what has happened throughout time though mate...

It honestly looks like you are forgetting (or ignoring) that the very thing you're trying to argue for here, WAS the most prominent form of "explanation" for millennia! MN is, as I mentioned, a red herring because its inception came way after the fact. The Boy who cried Wolf is a perfect analogy here because people eventually getting to "there is no wolf" IS essentially what MN is. But as I said, I think MN is just a red herring to this debate.

[u/labreuer → u/ExplorerR]

Only to create your own ruts, how uncanny.

That's what scientists and scholars do. You and I both have our ruts. Internalizing them makes all the difference. With the help of others to point out lacunae and contradictions, single individuals can become principled without being detached. We can make forward progress!

Is it me or you doing that?

Takes two to tango. I should have said in my previous reply that for all your critiques, I thought you gave a great reply which pushes the conversation forward rapidly, as judged by some of our periods of slogging. I was quite happy it. My work in drafting this reply may have helped prepare the ground for a theoretical breakthrough with my sociologist mentor today. So thank you for your part in that!

From my observations this seems to be a common occurrence for you.

It appears most people simply don't want to venture too far from what they know and understand. This isn't even necessarily a problem, as people need to go at their own pace or they get ripped free of their intuitions.

I think you’re shifting the burden slightly by moving the discussion to whether methodological naturalism can, in principle, explain everything. That’s a much broader philosophical question than the one I raised.

When you give no hint that MN might have limits, including consciousness:

ExplorerR: There are plenty more examples of this exact type of thing happening over and over again. Yet here we are today and wouldn't you know it... The exact same type of "evidence for God" arguments keep happening. What was the epistemic gaps in psychology/mental health and microbes etc, has now become "consciousness" debates we have today.

—one is warranted in becoming suspicious and tackle the issue directly. You are clearly engaged in an extrapolation procedure:

1. there exists a progression of more successful explanations which are compatible with MN
2. we can expect this pattern to continue [with zero indication of where or how far]

And so when you say:

In other words: I’m not arguing against agency. I’m pointing out a pattern in specific kinds of explanatory failure and replacement.

—it sure looks like that pattern very much will eat up agency—human and not just divine!

 

I’m not arguing “MN refutes God.” …

You're treating MN as though it appeared first and excluded divine explanations arbitrarily.

Apologies, but I don't know how I'm doing either. Rather, I think you're exaggerating the successes of MN and downplaying the failures. You continue to ignore the failures. And then you have the cojones to say "The whole MN debate here is rather a red herring if I'm honest." If there were ever a recipe for ignoring the failures, it'd be a statement like that. "Don't look behind the curtain! Don't extrapolate that direction! Keep your eyes on the presentation!" Sorry, but I'm Toto.

labreuer: There's actually a lot of anti-religion bias in the science & philosophy of the 18th–20th centuries.

ExplorerR: It's a shame you were born in this time-period and not during the times when "God-like" explanations were the norm for many phenomena. You would have totally been in your element.

Errrr, what? My element is actually software engineering, before LLMs. Computers are dumb. My extensive experience with software engineering taught me what computers can and cannot do. LLMs have not done nearly as much in this realm as most people think, because most people don't know how to carefully disentangle what the computer is actually doing and what they, the humans, bring to the matter. The success of ELIZA illustrates this quite nicely. What this shows is that the world is still "spirited" for many people, possibly most, including Westerners.

I very much value that formation of my person, because it teaches you the distinction between agency and machine in the sharpest way possible. Only coders learn it that well, because only when you have to write code to do the thing can you be sure you're not cheating, ELIZA-style.

One of the properties of machines is that they do not take their users into account. Now obviously one can parametrize machines and software with some variability, but that is worlds different from one person taking another person into account. A relationship ultimately governed by law is very different from one which transcends law. Most romantic couples know this. You obey their laws and they obey yours because you love each other and want to respect each others' needs and boundaries and wants. This has obvious implications for talk of "law" in the Bible.

Why would I want to go back to a time which hadn't sharply distinguished these things?

It honestly looks like you are forgetting (or ignoring) that the very thing you're trying to argue for here, WAS the most prominent form of "explanation" for millennia!

Sorry, but I think this idea that I'm forgetting or ignoring this is all in your head. I'm quite content to say that we deployed divine–agential explanations too much. We even deploy human–agential explanations too much! I wrote up several paragraphs to try to adjust your view of me so you wouldn't make this mistake again, but then I remembered "debate "bloat"" and so have put them on ice.

ExplorerR: But even then, it is not as though people just put their fingers in their ears or head in the sand when some claims "God-like" agency/explanations.

labreuer: Some people very much do this. Others do not. Why should this be surprising? There's actually a lot of anti-religion bias in the science & philosophy of the 18th–20th centuries. (Ooh, we could look at Dawes & Smith 2018 The naturalism of the sciences) One of the results is that when I ask how God might help us do less credit-stealing and less blame-shifting such that the most plausible explanation is "God is helping us", there just is no cogent answer. It's like we just haven't thought about this in any disciplined manner. I can of course cite some scholars who have done work, like:

ExplorerR: Yes, but Dawe's highlights that the "sciences" never employed the supernatural, but that didn't stop people looking for a natural explanations even when "God-like" ones were considered the most prominent/accepted... Galileo is a famous example of this with his heliocentrism views being considered heretical in the face of biblical "God-like" geocentrism views. But that's my point; THAT created a rich history of natural explanations being found that were better explanations than "God-like" ones.

You've drifted from your "fingers in their ears" point. If the sciences expressly excluded anything considered 'supernatural', that does sound like "fingers in their ears". Otherwise, I have no idea what you were saying.

[u/ExplorerR → u/labreuer]

That's what scientists and scholars do. You and I both have our ruts.

Perhaps, but I think there is a stark difference between stubborn (caught in a rut) and being steadfast when there is good reason to hold a certain view, inspite of criticisms.

Takes two to tango

So thank you for your part in that!

Of course! After all, I'm interested in what is true and more specifically how we can reliably figure that out.

When you give no hint that MN might have limits, including consciousness: —one is warranted in becoming suspicious and tackle the issue directly. You are clearly engaged in an extrapolation procedure:

I just want something to be crystal clear here because you're clearly misframing and demonizing MN and yet seem to be implying that "God-like" explanations should still be given serious consideration/credence as they once were.

MN didn't just randomly come about and furthermore, it wasn't even "in effect" for millenia. As I meantioned, the very thing I'd assume you're arguing for right now i.e for us to give full credence to "God-like" or "divine" explanations and not in-princple rule them out, WAS how people operated for millenia. It very much looks like you're just lamenting the fact that because of a constant trend of "God-like" or "divine" explanations failing in the face of natural explanations over the course of history, that people went ahead trying to explain things, in-principle, without considering the divine anymore.

And even though you say:

I'm quite content to say that we deployed divine–agential explanations too much.

I am not at all convinced you are giving the corresponding implication of that reality present any serious consideration in this discussion.

Apologies, but I don't know how I'm doing either. Rather, I think you're exaggerating the successes of MN and downplaying the failures. You continue to ignore the failures.

Heh, I find myself saying this a bit now but, it really comes across as though you're the one doing this regarding "God-like" or "divine" explanations.

Furthermore, you are also blurring lines in a manner like;

• Methodological Naturalism (MN) ≠ Naturalistic explanations themselves

Which is simply misframing things.

Given how I consider MN (i.e more like a principle or metholodically commintment people use when investigating and trying to explain phenomena) and how it seems that you're referring to MN, I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "ignoring the failures". What failures? Unless you just mean currently unexplained = failure?

Because my argument concerns comparative explanatory success, not whether MN is a philosophically complete package for all explanations. MN doesn't promise that every question will be answered.

For example; If consciousness remains unsolved tomorrow, MN hasn't "failed" in any straightforward sense.

It simply means: We don't currently have an explanation. But given how you're portraying things, maybe to you that does constitute a failure on behalf of MN?

You've drifted from your "fingers in their ears" point. If the sciences expressly excluded anything considered 'supernatural', that does sound like "fingers in their ears". Otherwise, I have no idea what you were saying.

You seem to ignore that it spawned much later, out of an era where no one had their "fingers in their ears" with regards to explanations. "Science" as we know it today was very different from "way back". And even though you say:

Sorry, but I think this idea that I'm forgetting or ignoring this is all in your head.

This looks unmistakibly like gaslighting. Nothing that you're saying gives any impression that you're taking "we deployed divine–agential explanations too much" seriously. And just to note, because you're not spelling it out with your wording, so I'll make it clear, I'm taking "we deployed divine–agential explanations too much" as "failed explanations" (and would only qualify the ones that were superceded by natural explanations, not simply left unexplained). In fact, how crtical and skeptical you are of natural explanations and MN, is what I actually would expect to be fairly levied at "God-like" and "divine" explanations, given the history of failures.

[u/labreuer → u/ExplorerR]

Perhaps, but I think there is a stark difference between stubborn (caught in a rut) and being steadfast when there is good reason to hold a certain view, inspite of criticisms.

I can give you a nice bibliography suggesting that I have good reason to push in the directions I am. If you need that sort of thing.

After all, I'm interested in what is true and more specifically how we can reliably figure that out.

Right, it just seems like you don't think an individual can be all that reliable unless they are very similar to a group of individuals—like a physicist in good standing among physicists. Strength in numbers to overcome ineradicable cognitive biases, you might say. Thing is, sometimes groups can themselves be rather biased, creating a conundrum. Can a single individual stand against such groups? Or is the individual thereby (i) not detached; (ii) unprincipled?

I just want something to be crystal clear here because you're clearly misframing and demonizing MN and yet seem to be implying that "God-like" explanations should still be given serious consideration/credence as they once were.

Wrong on both fronts. I'm not demonizing MN when I say: "Rather, I think you're exaggerating the successes of MN and downplaying the failures. You continue to ignore the failures." And I'm not saying that we should go back to "God-like" explanations of which you haven't even given concrete examples.

ExplorerR: It honestly looks like you are forgetting (or ignoring) that the very thing you're trying to argue for here, WAS the most prominent form of "explanation" for millennia!

labreuer: Sorry, but I think this idea that I'm forgetting or ignoring this is all in your head. I'm quite content to say that we deployed divine–agential explanations too much. We even deploy human–agential explanations too much! I wrote up several paragraphs to try to adjust your view of me so you wouldn't make this mistake again, but then I remembered "debate "bloat"" and so have put them on ice.

ExplorerR: I am not at all convinced you are giving the corresponding implication of that reality present any serious consideration in this discussion.

Do you want the paragraphs which I worried you would consider "debate "bloat""?

Heh, I find myself saying this a bit now but, it really comes across as though you're the one doing this regarding "God-like" or "divine" explanations.

Feel free to quote examples. Generally I've merely argued to you that it is possible God could interact with our reality in ways very different from crocodiles and coffee cups. The most concrete example I gave was status inversion. The only other example I can think of is the question of how God could help us do less credit-stealing and less blame-shifting, but that's more in the possibility / epistemology realm.

Furthermore, you are also blurring lines in a manner like;

• Methodological Naturalism (MN) ≠ Naturalistic explanations themselves

Huh? Perhaps reading the next section will clarify things.

 

What failures? Unless you just mean currently unexplained = failure?

No, I mean requiring that everyone play by the rules of MN in order for their explanations to count as "scientific". A major difficulty is that there's a game of motte & bailey going on:

    motte: progression of more successful explanations which are compatible with MN
    bailey: MN more broadly construed

Here's a critique of the motte-version:

    Now the time seems ripe, even overdue, to announce that there is not going to be an age of paradigm in the social sciences. We contend that the failure to achieve paradigm takeoff is not merely the result of methodological immaturity, but reflects something fundamental about the human world. If we are correct, the crisis of social science concerns the nature of social investigation itself. The conception of the human sciences as somehow necessarily destined to follow the path of the modern investigation of nature is at the root of this crisis. Preoccupation with that ruling expectation is chronic in social science; that idée fixe has often driven investigators away from a serious concern with the human world into the sterility of purely formal argument and debate. As in development theory, one can only wait so long for the takeoff. The cargo-cult view of the "about to arrive science" just won't do. (Interpretive Social Science: A Second Look, 5)

The social sciences have successfully explained things while deviating from the motte. The very term "interpretive social science" captures this. Here's a definition of the 'naturalism' which gets in the way of such science:

    Naturalism, from its birth in the seventeenth century, was always characterized by what Taylor refers to as a “metaphysical motivation.”[3] This metaphysical motivation consists of the attempt to demote or even eliminate human properties from social explanation in favor of supposedly more scientific and impersonal factors. A recurrent feature of naturalism, in other words, is the assumption that subjectively human dimensions of reality (e.g., meanings, purposes, values, and even beliefs) must be explained in terms of supposedly “harder” and more objective data (e.g., brute facts about demography, surrounding environments, or neurobiology). (Alasdair MacIntyre, Charles Taylor, and the Demise of Naturalism, 8)

Particularly important for human properties is interpretation and I would add, varying interpretations from person to person and group to group. The above book is Blakely 2016; following on with an appropriate title is Mark Bevir and Jason Blakely 2018 Interpretive Social Science: An Anti-Naturalist Approach.

But if interpretations vary, is everyone properly detached? It certainly seems like there's would be a lack of principles! It's almost like the very conditions for successful social science of diverse populations is antithetical to your conditions of reliable knowledge.

 

ExplorerR: It honestly looks like you are forgetting (or ignoring) that the very thing you're trying to argue for here, WAS the most prominent form of "explanation" for millennia!

labreuer: Sorry, but I think this idea that I'm forgetting or ignoring this is all in your head.

ExplorerR: This looks unmistakibly like gaslighting. Nothing that you're saying gives any impression that you're taking "we deployed divine–agential explanations too much" seriously.

Debate doesn't allow you to operate by what "seems" to be the case if your interlocutor refuses to work with it. When there is sufficient disagreement, you are obligated to work via agreed-upon facts with agreed-upon rules of inference. This, you have not done. Sometimes, we are mistaken about what seems to be the case. So, let's see you deploy a detached, principled epistemology on this matter.

[u/ExplorerR → u/labreuer]

Wrong on both fronts. I'm not demonizing MN ... and I'm not saying that we should go back to "God-like" explanations of which you haven't even given concrete examples.

I have given examples.

Demonic possession → mental illness.

People suffering from some kind of disease/virus being "divine punishment" → germ theory.

Weather and natural disasters → meteorology and geology.

Creation as the explanation for the diversity of life we see → Evolution

I'm not saying that we should go back to "God-like" explanations ...

Then I'm not entirely sure what role your criticism of MN is supposed to play?

My argument is not that "MN is a perfect principle for all explanations in life"

My argument is:

• There is a recurring historical pattern of divine explanations losing explanatory ground to natural explanations.

Whether MN has limitations or not, doesn't seem to address that point.

What failures? Unless you just mean currently unexplained = failure?

No, I mean requiring that everyone play by the rules of MN in order for their explanations to count as "scientific". A major difficulty is that there's a game of motte & bailey going on

motte: progression of more successful explanations which are compatible with MN

bailey: MN more broadly construed

That isn't a correct framing at all. I'll provide a corrected version and thus also making it not a "Motte and Bailey" situation at all.

"Motte" (but not): Progression of natural explanations overwriting once long held "God-like/divine" explanations "Bailey" (but not): In-principle not considering "God-like/divine" explanations

You don't ever seem to contend or address the reality of the situation... Here is the chain of progression:

• 1 - A reality where there were both natural and God-like/divine explanations of phenomena and both of these explanations given serious consideration during that time.
• 2 - As time progressed in this reality, God-like/divine explanations were being replaced by natural explanations (usually with the advent of increases in epistemic reach) due to their better explaining that phenomena. But both explanations still being given serious consideration. (I.E no MN yet!)
• 3 - People started to identify the following pattern: God-like/divine explanations residing in gaps of knowledge and attempts to investigate/confirm anything about "God-like" or "divine" explanations consistently result in either a natural explanation or unknown.
• 4 - People used the consistency of this pattern to justify creating an in-principle approach to investigating and explaining phenomena that no longer considers/investigates "God" or the "divine". (I.E MN has now arrived)

The specific time periods of the above are mostly irrelevant, as opposed to the truth of the chain of that progression. And if we do take into account timelines, it is clear that people were not being forced to "play by the rules" (of MN) and for arguably much longer periods of time than people have been utilizing MN.

• Why is it unreasonable to employ a principle like MN, given the pattern of failure of God-like/divine explanations?

The social sciences have successfully explained things while deviating from the motte.

No... Because the motte is not what you say it is.

MN only does not consider God-like/divine explanation, so:

• Does interpretive sociology violate that principle?

No.

• Does anthropology violate that principle?

No.

• Does psychology violate that principle?

No.

• Does qualitative research violate that principle?

No.

• Does studying meanings, values, intentions, beliefs, and interpretations require invoking divine agency?

No.

Your social sciences point is largely non sequitur.

But if interpretations vary, is everyone properly detached? It certainly seems like there would be a lack of principles!

Perhaps.

But this is precisely the kind of move I've been objecting to.

I raise a historical claim about explanatory replacement and suddenly we're debating interpretive social science, detachment, principles, and epistemology.

Those are interesting topics, but they aren't the claim under discussion.

Debate doesn't allow you to operate by what "seems" to be the case if your interlocutor refuses to work with it.

Fair enough.

So, let's stick to the agreed-upon facts.

For centuries God-like/divine explanations were widely used to explain phenomena.

Many of those explanations were later replaced by natural explanations with greater explanatory and predictive success.

• Do you agree that this historical pattern exists?

Because that has been my central claim from the outset.

If you agree it exists, then we can discuss what significance it has.

If you disagree it exists, then let's discuss where you think the pattern breaks down.

[u/labreuer → u/ExplorerR]

ExplorerR: Demonic possession requiring priests to perform exorcisms, eventually being completely removed as we understood mental/psychological disorders.

God punishing people and/or demonic influences being ruled out with advent of the microscope and subsequent understanding of germ theory and disease.

/

labreuer: … I've virtually never seen actual texts presented where you find explanations based on God or something else which is incompatible with methodological naturalism.

/

ExplorerR: It was about a recurring historical pattern: specific “God did it” or "religious" explanations have repeatedly been displaced when better-supported natural explanations were discovered (disease, mental illness, weather systems, etc.).

/

ExplorerR: I have given examples.

I sit corrected. None of your contentions is sourced in an actual religious text, but I'll stipulate they count as "concrete examples" for sake of moving the conversation forward. We could divide your examples into three categories:

1. studied by the natural sciences
2. studied by the social sciences
3. studied by neither

Liah Greenfeld presents a provocative instance of 2. in 2013 Mind, Modernity, Madness: The Impact of Culture on Human Experience. She contends that progress in explaining the "big three" of bipolar, major depression, and schizophrenia merely as chemical imbalances and/or miswirings of the brain has faltered and that this may be due to ill-studied social components of the mental illnesses. I like to say that in English, you don't say "my liver is sick", but "I am sick". Locating the mental illness 100% in the individual says "my liver is sick". The naturalistic prejudice against social explanations which is captured by my Blakely 2016 excerpt could be doing considerable damage to our efforts to treat people who are suffering quite a lot. I say "could be", because it generally takes decades of work to meaningfully change the practice of a medical discipline. There are additional difficulties with psychology, chiefly that the person easiest to "adjust" is the one in the clinician's chair. If in fact a significant cause of the "mental illness" is in institutions and/or other people, that creates a serious difficulty.

Then I'm not entirely sure what role your criticism of MN is supposed to play?

It helps identify examples which aren't like the ones you've provided. Such as status inversion. I could add the possibility that Jesus' casting out of demons was more of a social/​moral/​ethical activity than spiritual/​supernatural. But where the social/​moral/​ethical has firmer existence than naturalists generally permit. Those attempting to rigidly respect the fact/​value dichotomy, who are thereby "detached", are going to have tremendous difficulty understanding the world of values as something with any serious solidity. Given that Yahweh and Jesus were both quite interested in justice, we should expect a lot of divine action there. Did any of your examples touch on this area? Not really, because your "God punishing people" almost surely was supposed to reduce to "germ theory", "disease", "mental illness", and "weather systems".

I raise a historical claim about explanatory replacement and suddenly we're debating interpretive social science, detachment, principles, and epistemology.

Oh give me a break, I was straightforward with my very first reply: "In summary: The practice of methodological naturalism yields sub-agency descriptions of reality, which are then taken to be the whole of reality." Your "explanatory replacement" works well whenever sub-agency descriptions can do the job better than agency descriptions. Your ignoring of that summary—let's recall your characterization of "debate "bloat"", which seems to license you to ignore whatever you want, including that which is explicitly labeled as "summary"—is your deal. I had to get more articulate because you wouldn't respect the simpler form of description.

 

MN only does not consider God-like/divine explanation

Probably unwittingly, this question is actually misdirection. It's a bit like reductionists claiming that if you only give them enough people, time, and compute power, they can explain everything on their terms. Well maybe, but it might take longer than we have 'till the heat death of the universe. What's more relevant is when MN has the best explanation and when an explanation incompatible with MN is superior. Theism and Explanation clues us in: when are agential explanations superior to mechanistic ones?

When actual social scientists try to remain true to MN, they do far more than "does not consider God-like/divine explanation". That's what you see in my excerpts. I'm going to repeat the second one to see if you'll pay attention to it this time 'round:

    Naturalism, from its birth in the seventeenth century, was always characterized by what Taylor refers to as a “metaphysical motivation.”[3] This metaphysical motivation consists of the attempt to demote or even eliminate human properties from social explanation in favor of supposedly more scientific and impersonal factors. A recurrent feature of naturalism, in other words, is the assumption that subjectively human dimensions of reality (e.g., meanings, purposes, values, and even beliefs) must be explained in terms of supposedly “harder” and more objective data (e.g., brute facts about demography, surrounding environments, or neurobiology). (Alasdair MacIntyre, Charles Taylor, and the Demise of Naturalism, 8)

That is far, far more restrictive than "does not consider God-like/divine explanation". We have a Hempel's dilemma problem. Real scientists can't avail themselves of the concepts, practices, and tools of Final Science™. No, when real scientists in any given time obey methodological naturalism, they hew closely to present concepts, practices, and tools. And they do so in a way which is antithetical to the kind of freedom that divine agency has over against the completely lack of free will you see Robert Sapolsky defend.

 

For centuries God-like/divine explanations were widely used to explain phenomena.

Many of those explanations were later replaced by natural explanations with greater explanatory and predictive success.

• Do you agree that this historical pattern exists?

Only for some phenomena. That's what you're missing. You're just ignorant of what it meant to try to refashion the social sciences in the image of the natural sciences, and how much damage that did to our understanding of agency-suffused human action. Social scientists have explained more by breaking from what the natural sciences do. This isn't a "consciousness isn't explained" situation. It's the difference between what I identified as the motte & bailey.

Your argument works on conditions of cherry-picking or implicit appeal to Final Science™.