tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8707018296242829612.post7503386003055534038..comments2023-08-29T04:37:40.942-07:00Comments on Reason & Society: Naturalism & MaterialismRalph Dumainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15886304779683587087noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8707018296242829612.post-85803772645978664422019-01-22T13:23:09.330-08:002019-01-22T13:23:09.330-08:00My original post mentions a post on my blog on the...My original post mentions a post on my blog on the now-defunct Freethought Forum. I assume after all these years that all essentials including essential comments have been reproduced here. My postings on Freethought Forum as of a particular date are recoverable via archive.org's Wayback Machine, but not the comments. Here is my ur-blog <b><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20070429154630/http://www.freethoughtforum.org:80/members/ralphellectual" rel="nofollow">Reason & Society</a></b> as of Apr 29, 2007.Ralph Dumainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15886304779683587087noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8707018296242829612.post-65927660699985370432007-04-17T09:12:00.000-07:002007-04-17T09:12:00.000-07:00My response of 26 March 2007:Please note on my new...My response of 26 March 2007:<BR/><BR/>Please note on my newly reconstituted <B>Emergence Blog</B> the following entry:<BR/><BR/>Emergence: Theology or Materialism?<BR/>http://autodidactproject.org/blog/emergence/index.php/2007/03/emergence-theology-or-materialism/<BR/><BR/><B>Roy Wood Sellars</B> was in fact the author of the first <I>Humanist Manifesto</I>, as well as one of the important but sometimes neglected figures in classic American Philosophy. <BR/><BR/>Here I warn of the malignant influence of the <B>John Templeton Foundation</B>, which has millions of dollars at its disposal with which to inject theology into scientific research, as well as promote religious intellectualism in general.<BR/><BR/><B>Victor Stenger</B>, in his new book <I>God, the Failed Hypothesis</I>, briefly calls attention to the obscurantist menace of holism, teleology, and the theological view of nonreductive physicalism.Ralph Dumainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15886304779683587087noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8707018296242829612.post-54232290276720278012007-04-17T09:03:00.000-07:002007-04-17T09:03:00.000-07:00On 2 March 2007, a commentator recommended this es...On 2 March 2007, a commentator recommended this essay:<BR/><BR/>David Papineau on "naturalism" at Stanford Encyclopedia, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/naturalism/Ralph Dumainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15886304779683587087noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8707018296242829612.post-39475638259064177622007-04-17T09:00:00.000-07:002007-04-17T09:00:00.000-07:00My comment of 18 February 2007:For further perspec...My comment of 18 February 2007:<BR/><BR/>For further perspective on this general topic, and on the ideological background of T. H. Huxley's agnosticism, see my web page: <BR/><BR/>Engels on the British Ideology: Empiricism, Agnosticism, & “Shamefaced Materialism”<BR/>http://www.autodidactproject.org/quote/engels-UK1.html<BR/><BR/>A related article by Engels written about the same time, addresses the flip side of positivism, the Romantic reaction. See:<BR/><BR/>Engels (& Borges) on Carlyle<BR/>http://www.autodidactproject.org/quote/engels-carlyle.html<BR/><BR/>Here you can see Engels’ criticism of the proto-fascist right-wing anti-capitalism of the 19th century, which will receive its highest exponent in Nietzsche.Ralph Dumainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15886304779683587087noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8707018296242829612.post-7220418186688789202007-04-17T08:57:00.000-07:002007-04-17T08:57:00.000-07:00More on T.H. Huxley, 16 February 2007:Huxley's his...More on T.H. Huxley, 16 February 2007:<BR/><BR/>Huxley's historical purview is limited to the history of Christendom. (I'm guessing it would have been much harder to come by the history of non-European civilizations.) He beings with a review of the relation of Catholicism and then Protestantism to the progress of the sciences. He also discusses the tug of war between Biblical literalism and Church authority. He makes some interesting observations, but then he reveals himself to be a typical English bourgeois philistine with respect to the French Enlightenment. He is more perspicacious in his remarks on the practical displacement of supernaturalism by naturalism. <BR/><BR/>In the previous essay, “ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE”, Huxley wrestles with the nature of living matter, ultimately eschewing the vagaries of vitalism. (It looks like he’s struggling with the concept of emergent properties.) <BR/><BR/>Then, Huxley, though admitting he sounds like a materialist, declares himself in opposition to materialism, and curiously, to Comte’s positivism, which he dismisses as “Catholicism without Christianity”. Comte is just a johnny-come-lately who dresses up principles already put forward by Hume decades earlier. So what the is the difference between positivism and Humeanism? Not clear. Huxley then seems to gravitate back toward materialism, but then:<BR/><BR/>“For, after all, what do we know of this terrible “matter,” except as a name for the unknown and hypothetical cause of states of our own consciousness? And what do we know of that “spirit” over whose<BR/>threatened extinction by matter a great lamentation is arising, like<BR/>that which was heard at the death of Pan, except that it is also a name for an unknown and hypothetical cause, or condition, of states of consciousness? In other words, matter and spirit are but names for the imaginary substrata of groups of natural phænomena.”<BR/><BR/>And:<BR/><BR/>“But, if it is certain that we can have no knowledge of the nature of<BR/>either matter or spirit, and that the notion of necessity is something illegitimately thrust into the perfectly legitimate conception of law, the materialistic position that there is nothing in the world but matter, force, and necessity, is as utterly devoid of justification as the most baseless of theological dogmas. The fundamental doctrines of materialism, like those of spiritualism, and most other “isms,” lie outside “the limits of philosophical inquiry,” and David Hume’s great service to humanity is his irrefragable demonstration of what these limits are. Hume called himself a sceptic and therefore others cannot be blamed if they apply the same title to him; but that does not alter the fact that the name, with its existing implications, does him gross injustice.”<BR/><BR/>And:<BR/><BR/>“If we find that the ascertainment of the order of nature is facilitated by using one terminology, or one set of symbols, rather than another, it is<BR/>our clear duty to use the former; and no harm can accrue, so long as we bear in mind, that we are dealing merely with terms and symbols.”<BR/><BR/>And finally:<BR/><BR/>“In itself it is of little moment whether we express the phænomena of<BR/>matter in terms of spirit; or the phænomena of spirit in terms of<BR/>matter: matter may be regarded as a form of thought, thought may be<BR/>regarded as a property of matter—each statement has a certain relative truth. But with a view to the progress of science, the materialistic terminology is in every way to be preferred. For it connects thought with the other phænomena of the universe, and suggests inquiry into the nature of those physical conditions, or concomitants of thought, which<BR/>are more or less accessible to us, and a knowledge of which may, in future, help us to exercise the same kind of control over the world of thought, as we already possess in respect of the material world; whereas, the alternative, or spiritualistic, terminology is utterly barren, and leads to nothing but obscurity and confusion of ideas.<BR/><BR/>“Thus there can be little doubt, that the further science advances, the more extensively and consistently will all the phænomena of Nature be represented by materialistic formulæ and symbols.<BR/><BR/>“But the man of science, who, forgetting the limits of philosophical inquiry, slides from these formulæ and symbols into what is commonly understood by materialism, seems to me to place himself on a level with the mathematician, who should mistake the <I>x</I>’s and <I>y</I>’s with which he works his problems, for real entities—and with this further<BR/>disadvantage, as compared with the mathematician, that the blunders of<BR/>the latter are of no practical consequence, while the errors of<BR/>systematic materialism may paralyse the energies and destroy the beauty of a life.”<BR/><BR/>Philistine British empiricism down to the toenails! Just atrocious. No wonder Engels named this entire British tradition “shamefaced materialism”. It’s not only shamefaced, it’s shameful.Ralph Dumainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15886304779683587087noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8707018296242829612.post-64209500872986646282007-04-17T08:48:00.000-07:002007-04-17T08:48:00.000-07:00My response to query about T.H. Huxley's "Naturali...My response to query about T.H. Huxley's "Naturalism and Supernaturalism" and Michael Shermer; 16 February 2007:<BR/><BR/>No. I’m not familiar with Huxley’s essay, but I’ll be interested in seeing how much historical knowledge he has on the subject, whether he knew of the relevant literature from India and China, etc.<BR/><BR/>One of my many unfinished projects is to tear Shermer a new asshole, but I’ve only barely got started on him: [see my post] "Michael Shermer, Ayn Rand & other dreck." <BR/><BR/>But I was really incensed by Shermer’s editorial on Michael Richards, and wrote about it in [Freethought Forum] on 8 January:<BR/><BR/>————————<BR/><BR/>“We’re all racists, unconsciously: Kramer just blurted out what unfortunately comes naturally to all of us.” By Michael Shermer, <I>L.A. Times</I>, November 24, 2006. <BR/><BR/>http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-oe-shermer24nov24,1,5226012.story?ctrack=1&cset=true<BR/><BR/>I’ve criticized Shermer as “philosopher” and political/social thinker in my blog. Stumbling on this old article, I find myself amazed that Shermer has the cheek to pronounce himself a scientific expert on matters such as these. He makes some remarkable extrapolations from these little experiments and declares, based on his expert knowledge of evolutionary theory, that the biases he lists are simply natural in-group out-group programming instilled in us by evolution. And that’s his explanation <I>in toto</I>.<BR/><BR/>This, from an alleged skeptic.<BR/><BR/>With friends like Shermer, Harris, and Dawkins to explain sociopolitical realities to the world in the name of science as childishly as they do, who needs enemies? <BR/><BR/>———————<BR/><BR/>I’ve only got started on Shermer. He’s an ignorant asshole peddling pseudoscience to the public, and he’s symptomatic of just how small and narrow the secular humanist subculture in the USA tends to be.Ralph Dumainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15886304779683587087noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8707018296242829612.post-60169698646300193232007-04-17T02:16:00.000-07:002007-04-17T02:16:00.000-07:00Following a lead from one respondent, I located:Le...Following a lead from one respondent, I located:<BR/><BR/><I>Lectures and Essays</I> by Thomas Henry Huxley<BR/>http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/16474<BR/><BR/>You can download the whole volume or read whatever you want online.<BR/><BR/>I read two essays:<BR/><BR/>ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE (pp.45-57)<BR/><BR/>NATURALISM AND SUPERNATURALISM (pp.57-70)<BR/>http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?pageno=57&fk_files=194408<BR/><BR/>Comments to follow.Ralph Dumainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15886304779683587087noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8707018296242829612.post-69017728311974128022007-04-17T00:30:00.000-07:002007-04-17T00:30:00.000-07:00Response to a commentator, 16 February 2007:I’ve a...Response to a commentator, 16 February 2007:<BR/><BR/>I’ve added three more references to the bibliography:<BR/><BR/>(1) “Agnosticism” entry in Wikipedia,<BR/><BR/>(2) “Agnosticism entry by Kai Kielsen in <I>Dictionary of the History of Ideas</I>, <BR/><BR/>(3) <I>The Possibility of Naturalism</I> by Roy Bhaskar.<BR/><BR/>A couple of notes:<BR/><BR/>I am aware of a broader philosophical meaning of “agnosticism” not related to religion or deity, which can be found in Marxist literature opposing materialism to agnosticism (related to skepticism and the denial of the objective knowability of reality). The only non-religious meaning given in the Wikipedia entry is “model agnosticism”—a term I’ve never seen before. Kai Nielsen taught me something I didn’t know before about the origin of the concept. This broader meaning of agnosticism was already built into the doctrine of (a)theistic agnosticism by Huxley, who adopted the standard Humean conception of knowledge. It is one more reason to reject “agnosticism” as a coherent position, unless the specific belief or conception about which one is agnostic can be plausibly, meaningfully, and coherently identified. Nielsen also reviews charges that agnosticism is an incoherent position.<BR/><BR/>Bhaskar’s book (from the early days, before he turned into a New Age BS artist) opens out into a broader area—the nature and methods of scientific knowledge and the relation between the natural and social sciences. Bhaskar repudiates both the positivistic and hermeneutic (irrationalist) traditions concerning the nature of the natural and social sciences. (You hint at this topic in your remark about explanatory levels and physicalism.) This is relevant to our concerns because of the reprehensible malpractice within our ranks by the likes of Michael Shermer and other “skeptics” and secular humanists, whose scientism is lousy with intellectual ineptitude and obscurantism.Ralph Dumainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15886304779683587087noreply@blogger.com