Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Thoughtful atheist philosopher on why he thinks ID valuable but ultimately incorrect

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Hard on the heels of “Retired Pope Benedict on issues of interest to the ID communityBradley Monton assesses ID for a special issue of :

Why do you think some scientists refuse to take intelligent design seriously?

That’s a hard question to answer because it’s almost an issue of human psychology and sociology. But I would say that some atheists exhibit a fundamentalism that prevents them from even imagining that someone reasonable, rational, and intelligent could hold views different from their own. Others believe that science is the end-all and be-all—that it can answer all of the important questions about reality. There are even scientists out there, such as the theoretical physicist Steven Weinberg, who proclaim that neither religion nor philosophy can tell us anything important about the world. I totally disagree. Philosophy is actually an important field of inquiry. It can figure out the nature of ethical truths and what specific truths might be. Philosophy can also be used to investigate the existence of God in a way that science cannot. More.

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KN, just for my own edification, what can you tell me about where the idea that philosophy only investigates a priori truths originated and who are some if it's modern philosophical practitioners. To me the very idea seems anathema to the entire philosophical enterprise.Mung
September 24, 2013
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Maybe I've been doing this stuff for so long that the hair-splitting doesn't seem so fine to me as it does to others. On that account -- where philosophy only investigates a priori truths -- science would tell us about a posteriori or contingent truths -- how things actually are but could be otherwise.Kantian Naturalist
September 24, 2013
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One could hold that philosophy only investigates a priori truths, which aren’t about the actual world per se, since they are true (or false) in all possible worlds [including, obviously, all actual worlds].
Now that is some fine philosophical hair-splitting! :)Mung
September 24, 2013
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Thus Weinberg makes a philosophical statement that philosophical statements can tell us nothing about the world and within the space of one sentence contradicts himself. Is this only obvious to “us?”
Firstly, this is Monton's interpretation of Weinberg; it's not a statement that can be directly attributed to Weinberg himself. Secondly, there's nothing incoherent about holding, as a philosophical view, that philosophical views are not about about the world. One could hold that philosophy only investigates a priori truths, which aren't about the actual world per se, since they are true (or false) in all possible worlds. Or one could hold that philosophy consists only of the analysis of concepts, which again would mean that philosophy isn't about the world, in the way that science is. Thirdly, if one does think that philosophy can and does investigate important truths about the world -- and I think it does, or can -- then one needs to offer an account of the methodological difference between a philosophical investigation of empirical truth and a scientific inquiry of empirical truth. For example, one might hold that philosophical investigation necessarily has a self-reflective element to it, because one's self is part of what it included in the investigation. That makes philosophy dialectical and interpretative in a way that physics, for example, isn't and shouldn't be.Kantian Naturalist
September 24, 2013
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Steven Weinberg claims that "neither philosophy nor religion" can tell us anything important about the world. Neither can theoretical physics because it's, you know, theoretical . There's little to no evidence to prove anything about it.Barb
September 24, 2013
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"There are even scientists out there, such as the theoretical physicist Steven Weinberg, who proclaim that neither religion nor philosophy can tell us anything important about the world." Thus Weinberg makes a philosophical statement that philosophical statements can tell us nothing about the world and within the space of one sentence contradicts himself. Is this only obvious to "us?"tgpeeler
September 24, 2013
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Perhaps he should have stuck to physics. Everyone isn't good at everything.News
September 24, 2013
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Steven Weinberg managed to waste his career leading Physics down a dead end street, String Theory. Even at this late date, he is still flogging the same dead horse. Steven Weinberg "proclaims that neither religion nor philosophy can tell us anything blah blah blah" What rational person would care what Steven Weinberg proclaims about anything?chris haynes
September 24, 2013
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