Why Agnostic?

[Purple Rabbit]

The reason there are so many homonyms is because people have been mis-using the word. The word in a philosophical sense (as defined by Huxley) is someone who does not claim absolute knowledge on certain matters; they hold that concepts such as God are unknowable. Your dutch dictionary is correct with the definition (although it seems a bit short, what was the full definition?).

It reads: "Agnosticisme: de leer dat de mens van de eerste oorzaak der dingen (God, het absolute) en in het algemeen van het bovenzinnelijke niets kan weten" (Kramer's Groot Woordenboek Nederlands, 1981)
For the few non-dutch among us:
"Agnosticism: the doctrine that man can have no knowledge of first cause (God, the absolute) and of the transcedental in general"

Imo there is a difference between fundamental agnosticism (we not only do not know now, but we will never know in the furure) and technical agnosticism. Fundamental agnosticism is absolute in nature. Isn't it strange to claim the absolute with a word that expresses doubt?

You seem to give priority to original defintion (Huxley) above common use of the word. I see no specific reason for that. The waterfall of homonyms after Huxley is not an indication of clarity of his definition.

"Am I being agnostic when I doubt if it is me typing this?" You could be if you did not claim absolute knowledge that you were typing it. An agnostic would hold that all their experiences could not be real, and that there is no way to either confirm or deny this, given the subjectivity of their position.

That's not the reading of my example that I intended. My emphasis should be:
"Am I being agnostic when I doubt if it is me typing this?" Meaning: would I use the word agnostic when the word 'doubtful' or 'not absolute certain' says it all.

[fr0d0]

http://www.atheismtest.com/

Problem solved.

Hehe, thanks for that one leo. Nice example of the actual definition being used properly.

No it isn't. No one can 'know' so it doesn't work. AA's descriptions are the only accurate ones.

You are all gnostic atheists and I'm a gnostic theist. We have conclusively established existence or non existence.

[Tiberius]

Imo there is a difference between fundamental agnosticism (we not only do not know now, but we will never know in the furure) and technical agnosticism. Fundamental agnosticism is absolute in nature. Isn't it strange to claim the absolute with a word that expresses doubt?

I don't quite understand your last question. How does agnosticism use a word of "doubt" to express a absolute concept? Unless you are combining definitions perhaps?

You seem to give priority to original defintion (Huxley) above common use of the word. I see no specific reason for that. The waterfall of homonyms after Huxley is not an indication of clarity of his definition.

I think priority should always fall on the original meaning unless a good reason can be made to change it. In the case of agnosticism, I don't see what that reason could be. It is a good word, based off "gnosticism" (which stated that certain spiritual truths are known), and added the "a" as a negating letter, leaving you with "certain spiritual truths are not known". Huxley further explained that agnosticism should also be a position that certain truths can never be known, due to the nature of these truths (i.e. because non-omniscient people cannot test the omniscience of so called "gods"). Perhaps it is just a lifetime of people getting misconceptions and sharing them, who knows? I suspect it was people taking the definitive "Do you know if God exists?" question of agnosticism and replacing it with "Do you know if you believe?" which tends to be the most popular misdefinition of the word.

That's not the reading of my example that I intended. My emphasis should be:
"Am I being agnostic when I doubt if it is me typing this?" Meaning: would I use the word agnostic when the word 'doubtful' or 'not absolute certain' says it all.

No, you wouldn't. Agnosticism has nothing to do with doubt or certainty. It is a question of knowledge rather than a question of how strongly you believe or trust something.

No it isn't. No one can 'know' so it doesn't work. AA's descriptions are the only accurate ones.

Some people claim they can, through spiritual experience etc. Some Christians argue that the word "Christian" means one who "knows" God, which is bullshit, but reveals them as gnostics.

You are all gnostic atheists and I'm a gnostic theist. We have conclusively established existence or non existence.

I have not conclusively established god's non-existence. I have concluded that there is not enough evidence to make me believe, but that is completely different.

[Ryft]

Fair point. I then suggest that we add an additional note explaining that when we use the word "theist" we are not talking about the belief that god is a ruler of the universe, but about belief in god generally. This, I think, would convince the deists of their position on the scale.

The note on the word "gods" already addresses this point. What you are describing here is the belief in a personal God, and the note is supposed to assert that the scale is not limited to belief in a personal God (whether sovereign ruler or not). If the note is not clear enough, let's re-work its clarity:

The word "gods" in the following scale includes: belief in god (singular), gods (plural), God (personal), and goddess (feminine); and beliefs that "gods" are either involved or uninvolved in the world and its affairs (e.g., monotheism, pantheism, deism, etc.).

I think mention should be made about the modern (wrong) interpretation of agnosticism as some kind of cop-out, or an "I don't know what I believe" kind of answer. Agnosticism is all about knowability though; its general idea is that, given our limited status in the universe, we cannot really know anything in an absolute sense.

Fair point. How do you feel about this modification?

The word "agnostic" does not refer to either the knowability of "gods" or to epistemic apathy, but rather to ...

So yes, you are right in saying that it is about the subjective nature of arguments for god, but this is in itself a knowability issue (therefore a contradiction with what you said about it not referring to the knowability of gods).

I disagree; cf. Deism, which can present arguments, with questionable strength, for god's existence but denies we can know anything about him. It's a difference between what one believes (that god exists) and what one knows (what god is like). However, I do agree that the wording is inherently problematic, so here are my modifications (combining all suggestions thus far):

i. The word "gods" in the following scale stands in for the singular (god), plural (gods), personal (God), and feminine (goddess).
i. The word "gods" in the following scale includes: belief in god (singular), gods (plural), God (personal), and goddess (feminine); and beliefs that "gods" are either involved or uninvolved in the world and its affairs (e.g., monotheism, pantheism, deism, etc.).

ii. The word "gnostic" does not refer to the syncretistic religious movements of Gnosticism, but to the objective nature of the arguments for the existence of "gods."
ii. The word "gnostic" does not refer to the syncretistic religious movements of Gnosticism, but rather to the cogent strength of the arguments for the existence or non-existence of "gods" (i.e., the premises enjoy greater probability than their denials).

iii. The word "agnostic" does not refer to the modern interpretation of being "unsure" about what one believes, but refers instead to the subjective nature of the arguments for the existence of "gods."
iii. The word "agnostic" does not refer to either the knowability of "gods" or to epistemic apathy, but rather to the questionable strength of the arguments for the existence or non-existence of "gods" (i.e., the premises and their denials are equally probable).

To clarify this, consider in which setting the establishing of truth statements can take place.

Those who fall under the Gnostic Theist category would hold that a group of two or more people, when they are personally and actively involved in a discussion that examines the arguments for the existence of God, could be intellectually persuaded that the arguments conclusively establish his existence. That is to say, despite the background beliefs that another brings to the table, they hold that the parties involved can be brought into agreement that (i) the premises are more probable than their denials, and (ii) given the premises the conclusion does follow. Equally important to consider, there is no reason for anyone to think that this is done in a singular argument; i.e., it almost necessarily implies a series of arguments covering relevant areas. One does not build the roof without first building the walls.

So there is no way to account for someone who only passively observes the argument and is not personally involved (e.g., in the audience at a formal debate). Such a person could sustain objections that are given no voice—i.e., they are not heard and cannot be corrected—which therefore allows them to reject certain premises, and consequently the conclusion.

This is in contrast to Agnostic Theists, who feel that objections can be sustained even when given voice, that is, that certain premises are equally as probable as their denials and therefore the arguments are not conclusive.

There's just too many [variants] of the word agnostic.

True, but that does not provide us with any reason to accept all the variants as legitimate or valid. We can identify misconceptions and correct them, educating others on what the word is supposed to mean. Either they know what the word is supposed to mean and have reasons for their variant, which can be examined and critically evaluated, an exchange that can further both our understanding and enlightenment, or they didn't know what the word is supposed to mean and by informing them we have furthered their understanding. Either way, defending the meaning of agnosticism sounds more virtuous than the alternative.

I hold that it is possible to believe in a certain god as the creator of the universe but at the same time to deny his moral supremacy. Is this atheism?

There is a difference between whether or not you think it's possible to believe on the one hand, and whether or not you happen to believe on the other. An atheist can think it is possible to believe given compelling enough reasons, while not himself believing because he is not aware of any compelling reasons.

To me the god concept is [inseparable] from the moral question.

Whether or not X exists would seem to be a separate matter from whether or not X is a moral entity. If there is sufficient reason to affirm that X exists (by whatever criteria you hold), should you not do so? I cannot rationally deny that Charles Manson exists on the gounds that he is a morally reprehensible entity.

Your new scale would make me an agnostic atheist I suppose but, quite apart from it being a wishy-washy title, I honestly can't see the point because I'm about as hard atheist as you can get inasmuch as I absolutely believe there is and can be no god.

On this scale, the question is whether or not you think the arguments you have for the non-existence of gods are conclusive (i.e., the premises are more probable than their denials) or debatable (i.e., the premises and their denials are equally probable).

[fr0d0]

No it isn't. No one can 'know' so it doesn't work. AA's descriptions are the only accurate ones.

Some people claim they can, through spiritual experience etc. Some Christians argue that the word "Christian" means one who "knows" God, which is bullshit, but reveals them as gnostics.

Those Christians are, as you know, arguing a logical fallacy. I am not an agnostic christian and neither are all the other Christians I know. But we 'know' there is a God in the sense that in your words, we are 'certain'. You're equally certain in your atheism.
Hence Arcanus's corrections are correct. The words 'certain' and 'know' are inaccurate.

You are all gnostic atheists and I'm a gnostic theist. We have conclusively established existence or non existence.

I have not conclusively established god's non-existence. I have concluded that there is not enough evidence to make me believe, but that is completely different.

I think it's the same thing. Explain to me how it's any different.

[Tsuyoiko]

Just a thought, but do we really need a label? I'll call myself an atheist for brevity, but if anyone asks for an explanation I'll tell them that given what we know about the universe, there's no reason to believe in god. If they ask whether I'm a strong atheist or a gnostic atheist or a surrealist atheist I'll tell them it's not that simple.

But we 'know' there is a God in the sense that in your words, we are 'certain'. You're equally certain in your atheism.

The kind of certainty you're talking about there is faith. That's fine for theists, but I don't think faith has any place in atheism, at least not in my atheism. I base my worldview on logic and empiricism; my gut feelings are irrelevant.

[Ryft]

Just a thought, but do we really need a label?

Yes, in the sense that 'labels' can provoke a person to reflect upon what his beliefs and views are to see where he does or doesn't fit within a given spectrum, and I think anything that encourages self-evaluation is always a good thing.

And no, in the sense that 'labels' can never be precise enough to encapsulate exactly what we believe. (But surely a general understanding is better than nothing.)

The kind of certainty you're talking about there is faith. That's fine for theists, but I don't think faith has any place in atheism—at least not in my atheism. I base my worldview on logic and empiricism; my gut feelings are irrelevant.

No, absolutely not. There is an extraordinarily sharp and significant difference between belief and faith, and what he is talking about is belief. What you have alluded to in your post here is a colloquialism that's every bit as erroneous as it is common. He is referring to belief, whereas faith includes, but is different from, "belief that" (Lt. assensus); it also includes the properties notitia ("knowledge of") and fiducia ("trust in"). As Gregory Koukl puts the matter, "This is a critical distinction in what we're talking about ... You can watch a guy push a wheelbarrow across a tightrope across Niagra Falls a hundred times. You have knowledge that he's capable of doing it. You assent to the fact that he can do that. But you don't exercise faith in his capability until you get into the wheelbarrow." This is a horribly loose analogy of faith but it works to underscore the difference between belief and faith.

Belief and faith are two very different things, and fr0d0 was referring to belief only. And he was promoting the idea—if I have understood him rightly—that the presuppositions which undergird theistic beliefs are no less 'certain' than the presuppositions which undergird atheistic beliefs.

[Tsuyoiko]

Belief and faith are two very different things, and fr0d0 was referring to belief only. And he was promoting the idea—if I have understood him rightly—that the presuppositions which undergird theistic beliefs are no less 'certain' than the presuppositions which undergird atheistic beliefs.

What are those presuppositions, and how are they "certain"?

[Purple Rabbit]

Imo there is a difference between fundamental agnosticism (we not only do not know now, but we will never know in the furure) and technical agnosticism. Fundamental agnosticism is absolute in nature. Isn't it strange to claim the absolute with a word that expresses doubt?

I don't quite understand your last question. How does agnosticism use a word of "doubt" to express a absolute concept? Unless you are combining definitions perhaps?

You seem to give priority to original defintion (Huxley) above common use of the word. I see no specific reason for that. The waterfall of homonyms after Huxley is not an indication of clarity of his definition.

I think priority should always fall on the original meaning unless a good reason can be made to change it. In the case of agnosticism, I don't see what that reason could be. It is a good word, based off "gnosticism" (which stated that certain spiritual truths are known), and added the "a" as a negating letter, leaving you with "certain spiritual truths are not known". Huxley further explained that agnosticism should also be a position that certain truths can never be known, due to the nature of these truths (i.e. because non-omniscient people cannot test the omniscience of so called "gods"). Perhaps it is just a lifetime of people getting misconceptions and sharing them, who knows? I suspect it was people taking the definitive "Do you know if God exists?" question of agnosticism and replacing it with "Do you know if you believe?" which tends to be the most popular misdefinition of the word.

The problem with the term ‘agnosticism’ which imo has been the primary factor for much confusion about Huxley’s definition through the years is that his definition is not clear about the distinction between effective lack of knowledge and fundamental unknowability:

1) Effective lack of knowledge regarding statement X ~ statement X is not proven
2) Fundamental unknowability regarding statement X ~ statement X is unprovable

Please note that (2) is a much stronger claim than (1). Claim (2) itself is absolute, for it asserts in absolute terms that absolute knowledge of reality is impossible. It is easy to see that this is self-contradictory. If the nature of reality cannot be known in any absolute sense, then also it cannot be known absolutely that the nature of reality is fundamentally unknowable. The implications of this distinction on clear use of Huxley’s definition are great.

So the first question is what Huxley really meant. Did he mean fundamental unknowability or just effective lack of knowledge. His definitions are notoriously vague. Huxley’s most clear definition of agnosticism often is quoted as follows: “… it is wrong for a man to say he is certain of the objective truth of a proposition unless he can provide evidence which logically justifies that certainty. This is what agnosticism asserts and in my opinion, is all that is essential to agnosticism.” As you can see, more than anything it is a moral appeal for building claims on evidence. This is one of the reasons that others have stated that agnosticism is not on the same dimension made up of claims about the existence of god (ranging from theism to atheism) at all but constitutes a separate dimension concerning provability. There’s a moral dimension in it too and crucial for him is that knowledge (‘gnosis’) entails that evidence is provided to logically justify the claim. This exposes another weakness in his definition: he makes knowledge dependent on being able to proof it to others. His claim is provability rather than knowability. But someone that is claiming some stance on the existence of god(s) does not care about provability per se. Even the one that does not know whether god exists or not could that on quite other arguments than provability. Claiming does not necessarily imply that proving plays any role in it. Also it shows that when we take this ‘definition’ of Huxley as his most accurate definition, the word ‘agnostic’ is interchangeable with ‘logically provable’.

The emphasis on provability also is apparent in another quote of Huxley:
“Agnosticism, in fact, is not a creed, but a method, the essence of which lies in the rigorous application of a single principle. That principle is of great antiquity; it is as old as Socrates; as old as the writer who said, 'Try all things, hold fast by that which is good'; it is the foundation of the Reformation, which simply illustrated the axiom that every man should be able to give a reason for the faith that is in him, it is the great principle of Descartes; it is the fundamental axiom of modern science. Positively the principle may be expressed: In matters of the intellect, follow your reason as far as it will take you, without regard to any other consideration. And negatively: In matters of the intellect, do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable. That I take to be the agnostic faith, which if a man keep whole and undefiled, he shall not be ashamed to look the universe in the face, whatever the future may have in store for him.”

You seem to assert that it is fundamental unknowability or unprovability what he claimed. But he himself is not clear about it and has shown different takes on it through the years. Later he accomodated his definition to incorporate new findings in understanding or in science. He said, “That which is unproved today may be proved, by the help of new discoveries, tomorrow.” So this would seem to mean that he is not claiming fundamental unknowability/unprovability at all.
All this shows that Huxley’s definition of agnosticism is not clear at all, that it is laden with his own personal moral, that its interpretation as funadamental unknowability is self contradictory, that there is no need to invent a new word for provability and last but not least that it unneccessarily mixes provability with what I would call claimability (if that's a word at all). Use of the word agnosticism imo, to clarify stances taken on the existence of god(s), therefore is ill advised.

Do we need classification of stances on the existence of god(s)? Although I acknowledge that it can be insightfull to investigate the spectrum of stances that can be taken or as an introduction to these different takes, I see no reason for the urge to label each others claims. After years of debating the subject I feel no longer the need to classify myself or others in these categories. The reason for this is that these categories only suggest accuracy but never really satisfyingly supply it. Also this kind of categorizing is trying to answer a question about all god concepts on a meta level meanwhile moving away from the specifics of a god concept itself. In my experience however there's hardly anything more volatile than god concepts. This always ends in discussions on the semantics of the ranking system while the specifics of the god concept, where the debating fun is, are left out. Furthermore they do not address the claim that I find at least as interesting, the claim of moral supremacy.

To identify claims on the existence of god I only use a few simple questions as a guideline: What god concept are we evaluating? Is any evidence for the claims presented? Is the claim internally consistent? What are the moral consequences of the claim?

@ leo-rcc: you’re not the first to invent the fallacy of argumentum ad internettiam (“something is true if there is a website that says so”), but I reckon this was your tongue in cheek mode.

[leo-rcc]

@ leo-rcc: you’re not the first to invent the fallacy of argumentum ad internettiam (“something is true if there is a website that says so”), but I reckon this was your tongue in cheek mode.

What gave it away? The smiley at the end of "Problem solved" perhaps?