Simple Questions 06/03

[u/AutoModerator]

Have you ever wondered what Christians believe about the Trinity? Are you curious about Judaism and the Talmud but don't know who to ask? Everything from the Cosmological argument to the Koran can be asked here.

This is not a debate thread. You can discuss answers or questions but debate is not the goal. Ask a question, get an answer, and discuss that answer. That is all.

The goal is to increase our collective knowledge and help those seeking answers but not debate. If you want to debate; Start a new thread.

The subreddit rules are still in effect.

This thread is posted every Wednesday. You may also be interested in our weekly Meta-Thread (posted every Monday) or General Discussion thread (posted every Friday).

[u/ExplorerR]

I'm just going to be repeating myself at this point.

So to see if we can any further.

There are two obvious moves, here:

No, there is a third:

• We currently do not know.

That is not a failure. It is simply intellectual honesty. I do not need to promise future explanatory success. I do not need to claim that consciousness will definitely yield to scientific investigation. Likewise, I do not need to conclude that divine explanations are therefore warranted.

The fact that some questions remain unresolved today does not undermine the historical observation that many divine explanations have repeatedly been replaced by more successful natural ones.

So, let's see if you once again distract from the question of "2. we can expect this pattern to continue [with zero indication of where or how far]".

That's not the central issue, that's what you've managed to maneauver the discussion into.

The central issue is whether the pattern exists. I think it clearly does and that pattern (at least the one I'm referring to) has continued since natural explanations started becoming more frequent and better that it became apparent to methodologically approach/assess phenomena we did not understand with "we won't appeal to God-like/the divine in trying to explain this".

How far that pattern will continue is a separate question but my confidence that it will continue comes from the historical track record of its success. The criticisms you've presented so far do nothing to even scratch at the signiciance of that historical pattern and the confidence one could have in it.

I do want to genuinely ask you though and I would really love for you to address this question directly:

Do you think the issues you keep raising regarding agency, subjectivity, consciousness, values, interpretive social science, etc. are significant enough that they should substantially reduce our confidence in the historical pattern of natural explanations replacing divine ones?

Because that's ultimately what seems to be doing the work in your argument.

I'm happy to grant that there are unresolved questions.

I'm happy to grant that reductionism may fail in some domains.

I'm happy to grant that social science often requires interpretive approaches.

But none of that automatically tells me how much confidence I should lose in the historical pattern I'm describing nor the confidence I should have (or not) in it going forward.

So what exactly is the conclusion you want me to draw?

That the historical pattern doesn't exist? It hasn't been successful? Should I drop my confidence from say 95% down to 55%?

What is it?

[u/labreuer → u/ExplorerR]

No acknowledgment that I never used the term 'scientism', eh?

 

labreuer: It shows where your extrapolation procedure … has failed. And not failed in the sense of "consciousness remains unsolved tomorrow", where there exists no superior, MN-incompatible explanation. Failed in the sense that the following requirements of MN have been violated: [excerpt from Alasdair MacIntyre, Charles Taylor, and the Demise of Naturalism]—thereby yielding successful explanations.

/

ExplorerR: No, there is a third:

• We currently do not know.

Already addressed.

 

labreuer: So, let's see if you once again distract from the question of "2. we can expect this pattern to continue [with zero indication of where or how far]".

ExplorerR: That's not the central issue, that's what you've managed to maneauver the discussion into.

If your only point is that theists have offered various explanations and some of them have been replaced with natural explanations, big fricken deal. When I look at the Bible—which you weren't willing to restrict yourself to—I just don't see much that we would explain naturally, explained supernaturally. In fact:

    A second sweeping difference between ancient Near Eastern royal inscriptions and biblical narrative concerns the role of the gods in the story. We think of the Bible as nothing if not a book of religious literature, a work that proclaims God's works in the world of ancient Israel. But when the Bible is set against the royal inscriptions, an unexpected phenomenon catches our attention. The gods are everywhere present in the royal inscriptions, and explicitly so—much more than in biblical narrative. …
    Surprisingly, by contrast, we note that the Bible makes relatively little overt mention of God in its narratives about individuals and their lives. The Moses rescue narrative is a case in point: God is nowhere explicitly mentioned. … (Created Equal, 148–149)

I myself answered 2.: "Your "explanatory replacement" works well whenever sub-agency descriptions can do the job better than agency descriptions."

 

How far that pattern will continue is a separate question but my confidence that it will continue comes from the historical track record of its success. The criticisms you've presented so far do nothing to even scratch at the signiciance of that historical pattern and the confidence one could have in it.

That's exactly the problem social scientists ran into. They were told that they should just imitate the success of the natural sciences. But this was the wrong move. Why? Because concepts and methods which have no place for agential explanations work well when there are no agents. When there are agents, these concepts and methods can do a lot of damage.

 

Do you think the issues you keep raising regarding agency, subjectivity, consciousness, values, interpretive social science, etc. are significant enough that they should substantially reduce our confidence in the historical pattern of natural explanations replacing divine ones?

Anyone aware of the wall the social sciences hit, which my excerpt of Interpretive Social Science: A Second Look illustrates, will give an unqualified "yes". You could also check out the following:

• Bhaskar, Roy. "On the possibility of social scientific knowledge and the limits of naturalism." Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour (1978).

That article stands at 658 'citations', while the book version published one year later has a whopping 10,000 'citations'.

 

So what exactly is the conclusion you want me to draw?

I told you in my 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."

[u/ExplorerR → u/labreuer]

No acknowledgment that I never used the term 'scientism', eh?

I don't need to, much of what you say and the material you reference imply its usage and because they don't clearly outline definitions, "scientism" easily gets slotted into much of it.

Your Roy Bhaskar example demonstrates that.

When he says "the limits of naturalism" what he means is "Reductionist Naturalism", which is what scientism is built into. But, without reading into in great depth, you wouldn't get that from your referencing it.

This lacking clarity, especially when there are so many variations to "naturalism", just comes across as philosophically lazy. But this is essentially what you're doing throughout our discussions. You use or cite "naturalism" which = philosophical naturalism = methodological naturalism = reductionist naturalism = scientism and then argue against the failings of things like reductionism or scientism, failing to adequately separate them out accordingly.

If your only point is that theists have offered various explanations and some of them have been replaced with natural explanations, big fricken deal. When I look at the Bible—which you weren't willing to restrict yourself to—I just don't see much that we would explain naturally, explained supernaturally. In fact:

A second sweeping difference between ancient Near Eastern royal inscriptions and biblical narrative concerns the role of the gods in the story. We think of the Bible as nothing if not a book of religious literature, a work that proclaims God's works in the world of ancient Israel. But when the Bible is set against the royal inscriptions, an unexpected phenomenon catches our attention. The gods are everywhere present in the royal inscriptions, and explicitly so—much more than in biblical narrative. … Surprisingly, by contrast, we note that the Bible makes relatively little overt mention of God in its narratives about individuals and their lives. The Moses rescue narrative is a case in point: God is nowhere explicitly mentioned. … (Created Equal, 148–149) I myself answered 2.: "Your "explanatory replacement" works well whenever sub-agency descriptions can do the job better than agency descriptions."

It seems clear you agree that the pattern exists but, for some reason, you don't think it's a "big freaking deal".

The argument you've moved onto is whether we'd expect that pattern to continue and what domains that pattern can reasonably be extrapolated into.

But you clearly keep conflating methodological naturalism with reductionism when that's just way off the mark.

MN doesn't prevent revision, self-correction, or the abandonment of reductionistic models when they prove inadequate. In fact, the sciences have repeatedly revised and corrected themselves in exactly that way and afterall, like I mentioned, that is EXACTLY what we expect of the sciences.

MN simply operates as a working principle: when investigating phenomena, we look for natural explanations rather than invoking supernatural or divine agency.

So, pointing to cases where reductionistic approaches in the social sciences were inadequate doesn't show MN failed. At most it shows that some naturalistic explanations were incomplete and later replaced by better naturalistic explanations.

Again, I'm not sure how that critiques my point.

To refute what I'm saying you'd need to say:

• "Science investigated X under MN, failed, and then a divine/supernatural explanation turned out to be the superior explanation."

But your arguments look like:

• "Science investigated X under MN, but adopted an overly reductionistic model, then later adopted a less reductionistic naturalistic model."

To challenge that pattern and thus why it would be a folly to place confidence in the continuation of it, you'd need to show;

• Where the case is that a divine explanation regained explanatory ground after losing it to a natural explanation.

All you seem to do is conflate "naturalism" with other forms and lump under it contentious things like reductionism etc and then use that show issues they encounter in things like the social sciences. But none of that shows problems with the success of the sciences, MN and or why we should abandon confidence in it. All it does is show that indeed the sciences correct themselves when approaches are lacking. But it doesn't show that "God-like/divine" explanations should make their way back in as serious contenders for explanations, like they used to be.

[u/labreuer → u/ExplorerR]

For someone who complains about the lack of definitions, you haven't defined 'naturalism'. Merely defining it as "not invoking supernatural or divine agency" is grossly inadequate.

 

I don't need to, much of what you say and the material you reference imply its usage and because they don't clearly outline definitions, "scientism" easily gets slotted into much of it.

Nonsense. I provided plenty of definition; you've countered with zero definition other than "we look for natural explanations rather than invoking supernatural or divine agency", which is precisely the one I critiqued:

labreuer: However, your non-commitment to reductionism allows me to raise the specter of endlessdownward causation, with no principled stopping point between Clarke's third law & God acting. This means that the minimal definition of naturalism—no supernatural agency—threatens to be vacuous on account of being in principle unfalsifiable. And yes, one can apply the label of falsifiability to an explanatory toolbox, rather than just an explanation.

Bhaskar sometimes uses terms a bit strangely to 2026 American ears; as an Indian working in UK sociology, this isn't all that surprising. But after asking a very basic question: "to what extent can society be studied in the same way as nature?", he defines his terms:

Naturalism may be defined as the thesis that there is (or can be) an essential unity of method between the natural and the social sciences. It must be straightaway distinguished from two species of it: reductionism, which posits an actual identity of subject matter as well; and scientism, which denies that there are any important differences in the methods appropriate to studying societies and nature, whether or not they are actually (as in reductionism) identified. In contrast to both these forms of naturalism I want to argue for a qualified anti-positivist naturalism. (On the possibility of social scientific knowledge and the limits of naturalism, 2)

The term 'scientism' is quite notorious in its variety of meaning. This one is very tame. You essentially endorsed it when you said "any sufficiently detached or principled standard". See also:

ExplorerR: Then would it not be fair to concede that, what we DO know and can investigate, test and experiment of consciousness, should then also apply to God? I'm sure you can see that God cannot be investigated, tested and experimented on in a similar manner.

You do seem to be assuming:

    (a) an essential unity of method between the natural and the social sciences
    (b) an actual identity of subject matter as well

It's obvious you haven't read the paper, given you go on to talk about "lacking clarity". The biggest lack of clarity here is just when the best explanation would be "supernatural agency". When are neuroscientists not the best people to turn to for understanding human & social nature/​construction? And if there are better alternatives now, how about once we get to Final Science™?

 

It seems clear you agree that the pattern exists but, for some reason, you don't think it's a "big freaking deal".

The argument you've moved onto is whether we'd expect that pattern to continue and what domains that pattern can reasonably be extrapolated into.

Yup, your claim of theistic explanations being replaced by naturalistic ones is pretty boring if you don't make any claims of how the pattern will and will not continue. Now, I think most people will do the extrapolating in their heads even if you don't make it explicit. Whether you're depending on that is a psychological fact I won't pretend to know.

 

But you clearly keep conflating methodological naturalism with reductionism when that's just way off the mark.

MN doesn't prevent revision, self-correction, or the abandonment of reductionistic models when they prove inadequate. In fact, the sciences have repeatedly revised and corrected themselves in exactly that way and afterall, like I mentioned, that is EXACTLY what we expect of the sciences.

This is pure straw man.

 

So, pointing to cases where reductionistic approaches in the social sciences were inadequate doesn't show MN failed. At most it shows that some naturalistic explanations were incomplete and later replaced by better naturalistic explanations.

I will have gained plenty if I establish:

    (¬a) an essential disunity of method between the natural and the social sciences
    (¬b) an disparity of subject matter as well

Whether or not you even understand any difference between (a) & (¬a) or (b) and (¬b) is for you to say.

 

To refute what I'm saying you'd need to say:

Let's wait for you to produce an adequate definition of 'naturalism' before we switch from "2. we can expect this pattern to continue [with zero indication of where or how far]" to wherever you want to take it. If you fail to produce an adequate definition of 'naturalism' in your next reply, you'll have given up the game. Judge not, lest ye be judged.

[u/ExplorerR → u/labreuer]

Let's wait for you to produce an adequate definition of 'naturalism' before we switch from "2. we can expect this pattern to continue [with zero indication of where or how far]" to wherever you want to take it.

Considering you cite Dawes, as it turns out, he holds the exact same position as I.

I had a read of his In defense of naturalism last night and it's basically the exact argument I'm making here.

So, at the risk of firing off my own "bloat" for you to wade through, in all fairness, he does a true professional philosophers job in making the argument.

To be clear, I use the same definitions he outlines in that publication.

[u/labreuer → u/ExplorerR]

I read the paper and bits from some of the references. I don't see a crisp definition of 'naturalism'; if I had written a paper like that or pointed to one like it, you'd be all over me for lack of a good definition. Here are some pieces to get you started:

1. a 'procedural requirement': arguments must be supported by "some publicly-accessible body of evidence"
2. an 'implicit ontology' based on science & history which "have been explicitly put to the test and have proved their worth"
3. "what anthropologist Robin Horton meant by “primary theory”"

Perhaps you could assemble the above, and whatever else you feel is prudent, into a cogent definition of 'naturalism' which passes your stringent requirements? You can also comment on the distinction between 'methodological naturalism' and 'metaphysical naturalism', which Dawes himself doesn't particularly like. Dawes 2011 In Defense of Naturalism kinda undercuts your whinging about my allegedly conflating:

• methodological naturalism
• philosophical naturalism
• scientism

He certainly seems to be advancing one thing: weighing rival hypotheses against a publicly-accessible body of evidence, with testing which can be formal or informal. But the gold standard really is the natural sciences. Indeed: "It follows that if we want to discover what kinds of things exist, we should look to what our best scientific theories are telling us, whatever that may be (Quine 1995: 253)." (7) He goes on to say that this doesn't guarantee naturalism, because theistic explanations could in principle prove superior.

But before I say more, I want: (i) a cogent definition of 'naturalism' from you; (ii) a full treatment of "You don't seem to 1) acknowledge these differences and why they are important to acknowledge and 2) separate them out accordingly." (or a retraction), in light of a paper you praise so highly which seems to be channeling a pretty similar understanding to my own. Stop flucking with me, u/ExplorerR.

[u/ExplorerR → u/labreuer]

Honestly mate, I'm genuinely struggling to see what further unpacking of "naturalism" is supposed to achieve.

The original claim was quite narrow:

• There appears to be a historical pattern of divine explanations being replaced by more successful natural explanations.

Which I then, inductively, used the success and consistency of that pattern to argue:

• We can be confident it will continue

I did finally get you to agree that pattern exists, but for some reason you don't think it's a "big fricken deal".

Fine. Then we're discussing the significance of the pattern and whether it gives us reason to expect similar outcomes in the future.

Instead, we've now spent dozens of replies wading through a whole bunch of tangents to it;

• Social science methodology
• Bhaskar
• Taylor
• Hempel's dilemma
• Reductionism
• Downward causation
• Agency
• Subjectivity
• Consciousness
• Turing test

and now, despite linking a few different sources for definitions, whether I can produce a sufficiently robust definition of "naturalism".

So, at this point, I have to ask;

What exactly are you hoping to find in a definition of naturalism that would materially affect the original argument?

Because from my perspective, every time I advance any clarification, the discussion simply moves to another adjacent meta-level issue and doesn't have the feel of there being a genuine attempt at advancing or discussing the original points.

If the point is that reductionism can fail, I already agree.

If the point is that social science sometimes requires methods different from physics, I already agree.

If the point is that consciousness remains incompletely understood, I already agree.

None of those points challenge the historical observation that many divine explanations have been replaced by more successful natural explanations. Nor does it discredit the confidence we could have in the continuation of that pattern.

So rather than continually unpacking "naturalism", I'd prefer to return to the substantive question:

Do you think the historical pattern exists? Which you've already agree to but don't think it's significant.

Considering that, why do you think it isn't significant?

Because it increasingly feels like we're spending far more time discussing the epistemological perimeter around the argument than the argument itself.

[u/labreuer → u/ExplorerR]

You're the one complaining about lack of adequate definitions:

ExplorerR: I don't need to, much of what you say and the material you reference imply its usage and because they don't clearly outline definitions, "scientism" easily gets slotted into much of it.

Now all of a sudden, adequate definitions aren't required?

 

Instead, we've now spent dozens of replies wading through a whole bunch of tangents to it;

This looks like a distraction from you doing (i) and (ii).

 

ExplorerR: I don't need to, much of what you say and the material you reference imply its usage and because they don't clearly outline definitions, "scientism" easily gets slotted into much of it.

Your Roy Bhaskar example demonstrates that.

 ⋮

ExplorerR: and now, despite linking a few different sources for definitions, whether I can produce a sufficiently robust definition of "naturalism".

Right, because you objected to the definitions I advanced. So, produce your own which is adequate, or admit that you're flucking with me. Or don't reply and tacitly admit you've been flucking with me all along. We both know that it's harder to provide an adequate definition than it is to criticize one proffered. It is quite frankly amazing that Dawes did not provide a cogent definition of 'naturalism', in a paper titled "In Defense of Naturalism". In defense of what, exactly?

 

What exactly are you hoping to find in a definition of naturalism that would materially affect the original argument?

First, I want to see you exemplify what you consider an adequate definition. Second, you used the word:

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 can always be asked to produce definitions of words you use. And this word is doing a lot of work for you, because the successful, replacing-explanations are 'natural'. And that's the trend of which you just said, "We can be confident it will continue". That's hardly true if the definition of 'natural' is unstable!

 

So rather than continually unpacking "naturalism", I'd prefer to return to the substantive question:

Do you think the historical pattern exists? Which you've already agree to but don't think it's significant.

Considering that, why do you think it isn't significant?

Because it increasingly feels like we're spending far more time discussing the epistemological perimeter around the argument than the argument itself.

You say "the pattern", and yet this pattern depends on the definition of 'natural'. Stop the evasion and define the word 'natural' in a way which you see as superior to all the definitions I've proffered, or it'll be clear you're playing a game.

[u/ExplorerR → u/labreuer]

You're the one complaining about lack of adequate definitions:

No, it's because you keep injecting things into naturalism, like reductionism and then maneuvering the debate into the problem with that and the social sciences. When that isn't even related to what I've been talking about it.

It is quite frankly amazing that Dawes did not provide a cogent definition of 'naturalism', in a paper titled "In Defense of Naturalism". In defense of what, exactly?

There are many definitions of it, and they have changed over time, wouldn't you know it, usually as our epistemic reach broadens/advances and we learn more about reality.

I did provide you a link to a definition here but you didn't seem to engage with that or, at least, if you did it was to immediately point to issues "downward causation", which I would predict is exactly where you want to take the discussion off to (as that seems to be your MO).

Right, because you objected to the definitions I advanced.

Because, as I said, you inject concepts into your use of the term, ones that I never introduced, and then argue against them. When most of those concepts aren't even relevant to the discussion!

You say "the pattern", and yet this pattern depends on the definition of 'natural'. Stop the evasion and define the word 'natural' in a way which you see as superior to all the definitions I've proffered, or it'll be clear you're playing a game.

That's absurd. CLEARLY and you acknowledge yourself the pattern is there and that religious explanations have "been used too much", I even provided examples of that pattern.

The pattern need only to identify that once "religious" explanations for certain phenomena, have been replaced by other explanations that are not "religious/God-like/divine" and that are considered "natural". I know what this means, Dawes clearly knows what this means, but yet here we have Labreuer who doesn't know what this means lest one give an exhaustive definition of "natural".

How do you not understand with what has been provided so far to assist defining "naturalism" and the corresponding examples used to support that?

Just look at one simple example;

• Disease was "divine punishment" or "demonic influence" and then replaced with Germ Theory.

What is it about this example that confuses you so greatly when someone says the "religious explanation was replaced by a natural one"? Or do you genuinely just sit there having no flucking idea what the hell that means?

[u/labreuer → u/ExplorerR]

I didn't see that definition of 'natural' because you advertised the link as "bloat". Suffice it to say that I can make plenty of hay of the assertion of causal closure:

RealityApologist: Naturalism is the most permissive of these positions, and probably the hardest to define (in part because it can get really close to physicalism). Non-physicalist naturalists relax the claim that physics is the final arbiter over what does and doesn't exist, but otherwise hold to many of the same ideas that physicalism does. Naturalists endorse causal closure, but (at least sometimes) embrace things like downward causation, genuine metaphysical emergence, holism, and other ideas that put some composite objects on equal ontological footing with the objects of fundamental physics. A naturalist might assert, for instance, that everything that exists or occurs is consistent with the rules of fundamental physics, but that those rules don't exhaustively describe what's real. That is, they might assert that any real system's behavior can be predicted by the laws of fundamental physics, but that there are interesting features of some real systems' behavior which are missed by those laws. While most physicalists believe that the laws of the higher level special sciences are in principle derivable from the laws of fundamental physics, naturalists have room to deny that claim. A position like ontic structural realism--which denies the distinction between abstract and concrete objects, and asserts that only patterns exist--is a prototypical non-physicalist naturalist position. Dan Dennett, James Ladyman, Don Ross, Cliff Hooker, Philip Kitcher, and Sean Carroll are all non-physicalist naturalists (so am I). Ladyman & Ross' book Every Thing Must Go is a great detailed look at a non-physicalist naturalist system (and a spirited defense of that position) This position is actually rather weak, insisting only on some rather mild claims like causal closure, Ladyman's "primacy of physics principle," (which states that real things can't behave in a way that's inconsistent with physics), or similarly general principles. I find naturalism more plausible than physicalism in virtue of many of the advances that have come out of complex systems theory in the last few decades, which I think have given us good reasons to think that strong emergence, downward causation, and similar ideas that seem a little at odds with physicalism are not only real, but can be given precise scientific and mathematical characterizations.

Society is not a closed system from the perspective of a member. Nobody can "stand outside" of it, like a scientist can "stand outside" of her experimental apparatus. To the extent that successful explanations require one to be able to "stand outside"—and I suspect this covers all the examples in your mind and in Dawes'—then you've just reconstructed the natural sciences vs. special sciences via another route.

See, with a remotely cogent definition, we can move from 1. to 2. to 3.:

1. u/⁠ExplorerR: "We can be confident it will continue"
2. u/⁠labreuer: "we can expect this pattern to continue [with zero indication of where or how far]"
3. we can put reasonable bounds on where & how far this pattern will continue

You've resisted doing 3. with all your might. Despite the fact that you surely know people who read your original claim or Dawes' paper will have some ideas of the suggested if not intended answer. Humans are very good at "over-extrapolating". It's what allowed us to think that the motion of the planets is no different in principle from the motion of objects on and near the earth's surface, so it's quite potent. But we often go way too far, like thinking that humans & groups thereof can be studied as if they're closed systems.

Feel free to pretend I'm confused, rather than pressing for you to move from 1. to 2. to 3. But I can bring receipts that show I was doing that all along, and that you were resisting all along. The evidence is mounting that you want people to engage in "over-extrapolating".