(October 22, 2013 at 9:47 pm)FallentoReason Wrote: @MFM
Naturalists don't believe anything: how do brain states represent the proposition "naturalism is true"? You would be assuming that said brain states are *about* the proposition "naturalism is true", but that would be assigning meaning to something physical. Thus, a naturalist having *any* belief begs the question.
Firstly, your point essentially brings up Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism. Hence, I can easily falsify your objection there by adopting the coherence theory of truth. Since your objection rests upon the assumption that truth is 'out there' (i.e a correspondence between an assertion and a given state of affairs), it becomes inapplicable once I adopt the coherence theory, which does not see truth as such.
As for how I would resolve that *apparent* problem if the correspondence theory was in fact 'true', I don't think such is too hard. Firstly, I don't see the problem in a brain state being about the proposition 'naturalism is true' voids it. Is the correspondence theory of truth's assertion that 'truth is that which corresponds to a given state of affairs of reality' true, or is it circular? That's what your question seems equivalent to, to me, and just as misguided. On naturalism and acceptance of the correspondence theory of truth, all such a proposition would mean that it is in fact the case that the proposition 'Naturalism is true' contains neither a contradiction and accurately represents the brain's perceived reality and experience that naturalism is true.