Philosophy

From the Guardian: Ideas of social evolution pass over the exercise of power – if it is mentioned at all, it’s only as an inconsequential detail in a vast process of evolutionary change. But what is it that supposedly drives evolution in society? The observation that “things do not stay the same” is scarcely a theory. Darwinian natural selection identified a mechanism and – once genes had been discovered, unknown to Darwin, by a Moravian monk called Gregor Mendel – a unit of selection. Theorists of social evolution in the past have never succeeded in specifying either of these. Despite a great deal of waffle about mutational and combinatorial processes and the like, neither does Ridley. There is no general Read More ›

From Aeon: Curiosity about trivial things might have evolved. Not because it’s likely to be adaptive, but maybe as a necessary by-product of a drive to understand the world, which is itself useful. … But even if the truth is valuable in itself, that doesn’t mean it’s always better to know. There might still be situations where we should choose ignorance. Indeed, it’s important to distinguish here between intrinsic value and overriding value. Saying that truth has intrinsic value means that something being true is a reason in favour of believing it, and that it might sometimes be good to pursue the truth even when it’s not useful for anything else. It doesn’t mean that the truth is so valuable Read More ›

A series of articles by philosopher of biology James Barham on key new thinkers, collected together on his blog: Part I: The Machine Metaphor Part II: James A. Shapiro Part III: Mary Jane West-Eberhard Part IV: Some Experiments Part V: Life and Emergence Part VI: F.E. Yates’s Homeodynamics Seeing Past Darwin VII: Some Physical Properties of Life Dr. Barham is glad to hear from commenters. So are we. Follow UD News at Twitter!

From the Christian Scientific Society: Philosopher J. P. Moreland says no: “The irrelevance of neuroscience for formulating and addressing the fundamental problems in philosophy/theology of mind.” In the first part of my talk, I will lay out the autonomy and authority theses in philosophy and identify the central questions in the four key areas of the mind/body problem. In the second section, I will show why neuroscience cannot even formulate, much less address these central questions. I will also clarify what it means to say that two or more theories are empirically equivalent and go on to argue that when it comes to the neuroscience of mirror neurons, (1) strict physicalism (2) mere property dualism and (3) substance dualism are Read More ›

Says Janet Cameron here: Science owes a great deal to philosophy from its very beginning, and continues to do so to this day. As Cools continues: “At every step of the way, from the application of the rules of logic, to the justification of why we should value or emphasize one set of facts over another in any specific application, the formulation of scientific theories relies heavily on philosophy. In fact, science was originally a branch of philosophy – natural philosophy – until that branch of inquiry became so large it specialized and branched off, then branched again into physics, biology, chemistry and so forth: we could say that science was grafted out of philosophy.” Philosophy is the love of Read More ›

A great, simple way to see why philosophy is still important in an age of science.
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Regular readers will of course be familiar with Vincent Torley’s insightful posts. It is a pleasure to report that he has made three lists of his 380 articles: one ordered by date, one indexed by subject, and one indexed by subject’s name. Make your writing assignments fun! Okay, okay, can we settle for better and faster?

SB is one of UD’s treasures, who often puts up gems as comments. Accordingly, I headline his current response to Mung on laws of (human) nature: _______________ >>Mung SB, Can you explain why the natural moral law requires a lawgiver? ETA: I don’t believe in natural laws, I believe in natures/essences. So keep that in mind. [SB, reply:] Very interesting comment. Let me try to say something that might bring us together. I assume that we agree that a physical “law,” is really just a human paradigm that describes a “law-like” regularity that is observed in nature. So, ontologically, we are referring to an event that happens over and over again, trying to make sense of it and giving it Read More ›

Truth? That’s only if you assume that your brain is shaped for truth, not mere fitness. A friend kindly writes to say that Nancy Pearcey … has done two excellent podcasts with ID the Future about her new book Finding Truth:Five Principles for Unmasking Atheism, Secularism, and Other God Substitutes: Is Human Reason Reliable? Interview with Nancy Pearcey Is Human Reason Reliable?, pt. 2 Interview with Nancy Pearcey, pt. 2 We are advised to await more podcasts. Meanwhile, there may not be a huge amount of religion news. The new atheists have apparently persisted with their relationship counsellors. We are not hearing so much cease and desist stuff against fellow atheists or (or non-theists or theists). You know, it’s so Read More ›

That guy who was almost lynched by Darwin’s “punks, bullies, and hangers-on” for (… well, did he like some book by Steve Meyer or was he maybe just behind in his protection money? Honestly, even we can’t keep up any more.) Apparently, it wasn’t career suicide. Which could testify either to his durability or the waning of the power of the punks, bullies, and hangers on, or both. Anyway, This from The Hedgehog: The philosopher Thomas Nagel drew popular attention to the Hard Problem four decades ago in an influential essay titled “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” Frustrated with the “recent wave of reductionist euphoria,”1 Nagel challenged the reductive conception of mind—the idea that consciousness resides as Read More ›

A friend can’t make sense of this, from philosopher Keith Frankish in Aeon: Consciousness is a life-transforming illusion So, again, what is consciousness for? In his 2011 book Soul Dust, Humphrey proposes a novel idea. He argues that consciousness enriches life. It doesn’t add information; it adds interests and goals. Qualia are wonderful, magical things, and conscious creatures enjoy having them. They relish their sensations, and this relish gives them a deeper interest in their own existence. They also project qualia onto their surroundings and take a deeper interest in them too; and they come to think of themselves as having a self, which is of great importance to them. These developments, Humphrey argues, have great survival value and explain Read More ›

Further to churches getting sucked into the politicized climate change controversy, chewed up, and spit out: English science journalist Matt Ridley assesses the damage done to science by the frankly political climate science wars here at Quadrant: For much of my life I have been a science writer. That means I eavesdrop on what’s going on in laboratories so I can tell interesting stories. It’s analogous to the way art critics write about art, but with a difference: we “science critics” rarely criticise. If we think a scientific paper is dumb, we just ignore it. There’s too much good stuff coming out of science to waste time knocking the bad stuff. Sure, we occasionally take a swipe at pseudoscience—homeopathy, astrology, claims Read More ›

Closing off our religion coverage for the week: Further to Pope Francis’ adviser is a science pantheist? (And this in an age when the human mind is widely regarded among the intelligentsia as an illusion, shaped for fitness, not for truth), The Guardian asks, Is science policy a theological matter? The Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’ released by Pope Francis last week has generated a wide range of reactions ranging from enthusiastic praise to uneasy criticism. For some, the Pope’s key message was about climate change, for others about the downsides of economic growth, and some saw in it a reconciliation of science and religion. But the Encyclical also lays bare a debate much larger than each of these perspectives, one Read More ›

Readers may remember philosopher of mind and proponent of direct realism John Searle (John Searle on the two big mistakes philosophers make). Here’s Los Angeles Review of Books on his new book, Seeing Things As They Are There is an external world, and it is full of things: tables, crocodiles, textures, etc. These things and this world exist whether I like it or not: their existence is independent of my beliefs, opinions, or preferences, and hence we say that such an existence — or, to use the technical term, such an ontology — is objective. There is also a subjective world, and it consists of internal states of mind. Such states are not ontologically objective, but subjective: they depend for Read More ›

With a lot of help from Christians for Darwin (This story should have run yesterday, but Father’s Day took priority.) A reader writes to remind us of a recent book, doubtless forgotten in the current silly season of new atheist claims, a Pulitzer-winning history of America during the period 1815-1848 by Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America,1815-1848: The quotation proved the perfect choice, capturing the inventor’s own passionate Christian faith and conception of himself as an instrument of providence. As Morse later commented, the message “baptized the American Telegraph with the name of its author”: God. [footnote omitted] The American public appreciated the significance of the message, for biblical religion then permeated the culture in Read More ›