Not overly familiar with it, Might have at the formal argument later.
Have read the argument in "Warrant and Proper function" and watched Plantinga's lecture - It's neither sound nor valid. I'm not entirely sure where to begin with all the apparent problems....
It's essentially a two-tier that starts with propositions E and N.
E: Human cognitive faculties arose by the mechanism of natural selection
N: Metaphysical naturalism is the view that there are no supernatural entities like the traditional god of theism
The argument that E and N joined becomes 'self defeating'.
Firstly, he makes the argument that E&N is unlikely because our cognitive abilities, so far as forming beliefs about the world are concerned, are generally reliable (R ). Essentially, Given R, it is unlikely that E&N.
He starts this by saying that the probability of R should be assigned a value near 1 because our sensory mechanism produce generally reliable beliefs.
I would content this premise as perhaps the most fundamental facts about existence are not intuitive - General relativity, Quantum Mechanics, Biological evolution etc are not beliefs arrived at through sensory mechanism. If most of the facts about our existence are derived from these 3 fields of inquiry and belief in these three things not arise through sensory mechanism but rather evidence and reason, then not only can we say that the most fundamental of our beliefs are not caused by R, we can also say that the most fundamental of our beliefs are caused by Evidence and reason and not R.
The reliability of our senses is only an actuality under conditions where the beliefs gathered by these senses are easily verified. Every usual case of sensory perception leading up to Plantinga's establishing that R = 1 are beliefs about mundane and easily confirmed situations. Whenever presented with an unusual and previously unknown phenomenon the reliability of our senses is much lower than 1.
He then goes on using the Bayesian probability to say that the prior probability of E&N is comparable to the probability of traditional theism (which he names TT). Big problem here, he hasn't provided any probability for E&N, he just asserts they are comparable. This is a red flag for more reasons that I initially suspected... "This last claim should raise eyebrows [...] among critics of Bayesianism, who doubt that there is an objective basis for such probability assignments [...] Bayesians have never been able to make sense of the idea that prior probabilities have an objective basis"[1]. - Off to a good start Planty
He also does not address the obvious objection that reliable cognitive functions for determining beliefs about reality are something that would lead to an advantage in surviving selection pressures and thus be selected for, there is no account of this at all. His evaluation that R is more akin to comparing R to the priori probability of a sensory system being unreliable - There are obviously more ways to make defective senses than reliable ones and he sorta just runs with this.
*Out of time, I will pick this up later*
1. http://fitelson.org/plant.pdf
Have read the argument in "Warrant and Proper function" and watched Plantinga's lecture - It's neither sound nor valid. I'm not entirely sure where to begin with all the apparent problems....
It's essentially a two-tier that starts with propositions E and N.
E: Human cognitive faculties arose by the mechanism of natural selection
N: Metaphysical naturalism is the view that there are no supernatural entities like the traditional god of theism
The argument that E and N joined becomes 'self defeating'.
Firstly, he makes the argument that E&N is unlikely because our cognitive abilities, so far as forming beliefs about the world are concerned, are generally reliable (R ). Essentially, Given R, it is unlikely that E&N.
He starts this by saying that the probability of R should be assigned a value near 1 because our sensory mechanism produce generally reliable beliefs.
I would content this premise as perhaps the most fundamental facts about existence are not intuitive - General relativity, Quantum Mechanics, Biological evolution etc are not beliefs arrived at through sensory mechanism. If most of the facts about our existence are derived from these 3 fields of inquiry and belief in these three things not arise through sensory mechanism but rather evidence and reason, then not only can we say that the most fundamental of our beliefs are not caused by R, we can also say that the most fundamental of our beliefs are caused by Evidence and reason and not R.
The reliability of our senses is only an actuality under conditions where the beliefs gathered by these senses are easily verified. Every usual case of sensory perception leading up to Plantinga's establishing that R = 1 are beliefs about mundane and easily confirmed situations. Whenever presented with an unusual and previously unknown phenomenon the reliability of our senses is much lower than 1.
He then goes on using the Bayesian probability to say that the prior probability of E&N is comparable to the probability of traditional theism (which he names TT). Big problem here, he hasn't provided any probability for E&N, he just asserts they are comparable. This is a red flag for more reasons that I initially suspected... "This last claim should raise eyebrows [...] among critics of Bayesianism, who doubt that there is an objective basis for such probability assignments [...] Bayesians have never been able to make sense of the idea that prior probabilities have an objective basis"[1]. - Off to a good start Planty
He also does not address the obvious objection that reliable cognitive functions for determining beliefs about reality are something that would lead to an advantage in surviving selection pressures and thus be selected for, there is no account of this at all. His evaluation that R is more akin to comparing R to the priori probability of a sensory system being unreliable - There are obviously more ways to make defective senses than reliable ones and he sorta just runs with this.
*Out of time, I will pick this up later*
1. http://fitelson.org/plant.pdf
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