Recently in Philosophy Category
I knew what I was doing when I signed up to teach History and Systems in Psychology, a required course for GMU Psychology majors. I'm the only tenure-line faculty member to teach a section of History and Systems this semester. Most faculty avoid it. I find the history of psychology interesting, mostly because of the development of the study of mind/brain into a science. However, one of the perks for me is living out my fantasy of being a Philosophy professor, if only for a few weeks. The history of Psychology begins with ancient philosophical explorations of epistemology, the mind-body problem, and early hints of naturalism. The Roman Period and Middle Ages were largely void of significant contributions to philosophy, but things quickly picked up with the Renaissance (pronounced re-NAE-sense by one of my undergrad professors, much to the chagrin of my roommate of the time). I'll be covering the Rationalists (Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, etc.) and the Empiricists (Locke, Hume, Berkeley, etc.) in the coming week.
I'm reading a Philosophy of Science book by Abraham Kaplan called The Conduct of Inquiry: Methodology for Behavioral Science with some colleagues at school. Kaplan borrowed from John Dewey when he stated the autonomy of inquiry principle as a declaration of scientific independence in his opening paragraph.
It is the principle that the pursuit of truth is accountable to nothing and to no one not a part of that pursuit itself.
This is an idealistic position because scientists are held accountable by many sources whether regardless of legitimacy. My question is whether the same principle applies to religious truth-seekers? Are we only accountable to others on "the quest"? Even if the answer is yes, it's rarely a satisfying response to critics.
What would it take for you to be convinced that Floyd Landis is not guilty of using performance enhancing drugs (or other cheating techniques)? Would you have been convinced if the sample B test had come out normal? What about now that his sample B confirmed the results from sample A? This current controversy brings up an important consideration when talking about matters of science and faith (or anything, really). What is your standard of evidence for believing or disbelieving something, or even abandoning belief?
Naturally, we have different standards for different beliefs. Sometimes it doesn't take much, and other times a mound of evidence may be required. For example, it would require a tremendous volume of evidence for my friend Jeff to believe that Barry Bonds didn't cheat. Meanwhile, it doesn't take much to believe that someone is a cheater. How many times do you need to observe someone cheat to know he or she is a cheater? Once.
The above examples are behavioral, but consider deeper belief systems that people hold. I have to ask myself, what would it take for me to abandon my Christian faith? Is there anything that could do it? Such a standard of evidence tends to be exceptionally high for people of dedicated religious conviction, be it Christian or otherwise. Likewise, the standard can be equally high, if not higher, for non-believers to be convinced.
For example, naturalists typically have an exceptionally high standard of evidence for accepting non-natural explanations of phenomena. I suspect that even directly witnessing a miraculous or supernatural event would leave the dedicated naturalist in search of a natural explanation, unwilling to accept a supernatural one. As scientists like to say, exceptional claims require exceptional evidence. (By the way, this heuristic generally applies in science across the board, and rightfully so.)
In terms of the intersection between science and faith, standards of evidence become critical when discussing the evolution/creation/ID debate, miracles, the resurrection, etc. I wrote about this issue to set the stage for later posts. In the meantime, think about what beliefs you hold that you would be hard pressed to abandon, and those that you would easily abandon. Is there anything that would require enormous evidence for you to believe? (see Barry Bonds example above.)
