{"id":67020,"date":"2018-11-04T15:17:51","date_gmt":"2018-11-04T22:17:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=67020"},"modified":"2018-11-04T15:19:25","modified_gmt":"2018-11-04T22:19:25","slug":"can-reason-survive-naturalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2018\/11\/can-reason-survive-naturalism.html","title":{"rendered":"Can reason survive naturalism?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Lewis's<\/a>
The first court at Magdalene College, Cambridge, where C. S. Lewis finished his teaching career
(Wikimedia Commons)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yawn. \u00a0More notes from another incomplete manuscript. \u00a0I wrote this up several years ago. \u00a0Eventually, in sha\u2019a Allah<\/em>, it will be incorporated (probably in substantially modified form) into a more finished text and submitted for publication:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

It is not obvious that reason as reason<\/em> can survive on a naturalistic view of the universe.\u00a0 Let us suppose, for example, that the universe did indeed commence with the Big Bang\u2014as, to this point, the evidence overwhelmingly suggests that it did\u2014and that various kinds of material substance were produced by that inconceivable explosion.\u00a0 These material substances fly away from each other according to the laws of physics, but for no purpose.\u00a0 Just as rocks fall down a mountainside in an avalanche according to the law of gravity\u2014neither stopping because of a desire to avoid hitting and killing people in their path nor speeding up to swerving to hit them\u2014so do the material products of the Big Bang hurtle on their way, blindly and unconsciously.\u00a0 Somehow, though, in the naturalistic world view, these material particles can organize themselves into complicated systems that we call \u201cliving,\u201d systems or organisms that can work together to further their own individual survival and that of their class or \u201cspecies.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The human eye, for example, has, through vast eons of random evolutionary change, come together in such a way that it permits individual human organisms to see.\u00a0 But the particles of which the eye is composed are, in the naturalistic or mechanistic view, just as mechanistically determined as are the particles of a rock hurtling down a mountainside during an avalanche.\u00a0 Therefore, if what we call \u201cdrawing an inference\u201d is, fundamentally, a matter merely of material particles in action, it, too, is mechanistic, and akin to the particles of that tumbling rock.<\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps our brains are structured in such a way that the activity that we call \u201crational inference\u201d will be performed, and that this capacity contributes to our survival individually and collectively.\u00a0 But the description of this activity as a rational inference is not the description of this activity on the most basic level of analysis.\u00a0 The most basic level of analysis is that of physics, which makes no reference to purposes or logic whatsoever.\u00a0 At that point we\u2019ve broken things down as far as possible, and we have reached the \u201cbasic stuff\u201d of the universe.<\/strong>[1]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

The brain is a material object in essentially the same way the heart is.\u00a0 One might say that the purpose of the heart is to pump blood throughout the body.\u00a0 But, of course, the heart itself doesn\u2019t really have a \u201cpurpose\u201d in the same way we say of a mountain climber who is systematically working his way up the face of a cliff that his purpose is to reach the summit of the mountain.\u00a0 The purpose or function of the heart is simply a byproduct of evolution.\u00a0 So, too, for the brain.\u00a0 Just as \u201cpumping\u201d doesn\u2019t have a purpose in the sense that the heart knows what it is doing, \u201cmeaning\u201d and \u201creasoning\u201d seem to be (on a naturalistic view) physical processes that are, in a very important and fundamental way, simply evolutionary byproducts.\u00a0 In the final analysis, a naturalistic explanation for \u201cmeaning\u201d and \u201creasoning\u201d cannot be essentially different from the naturalistic explanation given for the pumping of the heart.\u00a0 It must be mechanical, and its apparent purposes must, in the end, be explained in terms of non-purposive processes.<\/span><\/p>\n

Philosopher Victor Reppert makes the point clearly:<\/span><\/p>\n

Any genuinely naturalistic position requires that all instances of explanation in terms of reasons be further explained in terms of a nonpurposive substratum.\u00a0 For if some purposive or intentional explanation can be given and no further analysis can be given in non-purposive and nonrational terms, then reason must be viewed as a fundamental cause in the universe, and this strikes me as a huge concession to positions such as theism, idealism and pantheism, which maintain that reasons are fundamental to the universe.<\/strong>[2]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Victor Reppert, C. S. Lewis\u2019s Dangerous Idea: In Defense of the Argument from Reason<\/em> (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2003), 48.<\/span><\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Reppert, C. S. Lewis\u2019s Dangerous Idea<\/em>, 51.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been long enough since I typed the words above that I can\u2019t recall how closely, or whether, they\u2019re paraphrased from whatever I was reading at the time. \u00a0Fortunately, I have some dedicated critics out there who plainly have lots of disposable time and who have given themselves over to me as unpaid research assistants, and they\u2019ll be delighted should they find the paraphrase (if it is a paraphrase) too close. \u00a0They\u2019ll make an indignant fuss on their message board, and that will alert me to the need to rewrite what I\u2019ve shared above before it goes into the final pre-publication manuscript. \u00a0I thank them in advance! \u00a0If they\u2019re willing \u2014 and they certainly seem<\/em> to be \u2014 I\u2019ll probably use them for this purpose in the future, as well.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 Yawn. \u00a0More notes from another incomplete manuscript. \u00a0I wrote this up several years ago. \u00a0Eventually, in sha\u2019a Allah, it will be incorporated (probably in substantially modified form) into a more finished text and submitted for publication: \u00a0 It is not obvious that reason as reason can survive on a naturalistic view of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nCan reason survive naturalism?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"    Yawn. \u00a0More notes from another incomplete manuscript. \u00a0I wrote this up several years ago. \u00a0Eventually, in sha\u2019a Allah, it will be\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, 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