Thursday, May 08, 2008
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Reading the Bible
I now have a new officially favorite translation or interpretation of the Christian Bible. It starts here and just gets better.
Resurrecting Reason
Resurrecting Reason
Equivocation
"Faith" can mean belief without (or contrary to) evidence or argument; it can also mean rationally justifiable trust or confidence. "Doubt" can mean skeptical, evidentiary inquiry, or it can mean an emotional state of indecision and angst. "Rational" can mean holding a belief on the basis of evidence or argument, or it can mean objective, unbiased, or unemotional; likewise "irrational" can mean holding a belief without sufficient evidence, or it can mean biased, or emotional, or it can just indicate a motivation one disapproves of. Some words, such as "cleave" or "temper", actually have contradictory meanings.
In informal conversation, the various meanings of these words can usually be disambiguated by context: only one variant "fits" the context sensibly. In any kind of formal sense, though, the equivocal meanings of natural language words creates confusion, usually confusion fatal to understanding reality.
Even the very best philosophers have been sucked into equivocation fallacies. The meanings of words overlap so much that you can prove anything by adjusting meanings little by little over the course of an argument until you've proven black is white, night is day, freedom is slavery, or Republicans are truly concerned with the well-being of the poor. It really is not just possible but easy to erase any distinction by employing the equivocations inherent in natural language, with the defense, "It's in the dictionary!" valid at every step.
(For this reason, I think the project of pure analytic philosophy — using the meanings of words as one's metaphysical foundation — is hopelessly doomed.)
Computer programmers such as myself are, I think, especially aware of equivocations. Everything has to be very precisely and univocally defined; if it's not, the program crashes. If some term in computer programming has more than one meaning, it's useless. "Integer" is meaningless: I have to know precisely which kind of integer — signed? unsigned? 8-bit? 16-bit? 32-bit? two's complement? big- or little-endian? — your function requires as a parameter. So every concept, however it trivially differs from another concept, requires either a new word or a modifier attached to both meanings. It's no surprise that in just a half-century, computer programmers has generated more esoteric jargon than the medical and legal professions have generated in millennia. We have to think precisely, the computer doesn't cut us one bit (pun intended) of slack.
The equivocation fallacy underlies many specious arguments about similarity. Skeptics and theists both have faith, so they're both more similar than they're different. Well, not really. The concepts that "faith" labels are substantively different. Yes, the dictionary definition of "faith" covers both concepts, and in informal speech the the correct concept is implied by the context. But in a philosophical or intellectual argument, that disambiguating context is completely lost. That the same word is used to refer to two different concepts creates the illusion of deep similarity where only a superficial similarity exists. Both skeptics and atheists actually believe what they believe, they are in some sense committed to their beliefs; hence both have "faith" at this superficial level. But "faith" denotes also a specific underlying basis of that commitment: commitment without our in spite of evidence and arguments, a basis not generally employed by skeptics.
Silly you say? How could anyone make such an elementary mistake? It's easy. Google "atheism takes more faith than theism" (without the quotation marks) and you'll get a half-million hits.
Equivocate the dictionary and informal meanings of "irrational" as (1) unsupported by evidence or (2) emotional or (3) deprecated or (4) regrettable, and you can prove that religious faith — or by extension any false and unsupportable beliefs about race, sex, sexual orientation, history, nation, culture or ideology — is just another expression of the ordinary human condition, which we erase at the peril of becoming automata.
I understand, for instance, that Greta Christina is making a plea for tolerance. We skeptics aren't perfect, she seems to argue, so we shouldn't be too hard on the religious. It's all the same sort of ineluctable human irrationality, isn't it?
Well, yes and no. On the one hand, I agree we should be tolerant to some degree on general principles. We're all imperfect human beings, and we do need to cut each other some slack.
On the other hand, skeptical "irrationality" is different from religious irrationality. Really, fundamentally, substantively different. Just as with "faith" there are some superficial similarities, but the differences are far deeper and more profound. To use the same word just begs for the reader to ignore this substantive difference.
On the gripping hand, people under the spell of truly irrational ideas — and yes, not all of them are theists — all too often tend to kill other people... in large numbers: by the train-load, by the millions and tens of millions. They torture, imprison, exploit and oppress others in an orgy of human suffering that makes any sensitive person weep and despair for the future of humanity. And they do so for what they sincerely and deeply believe are not just good but heroically good reasons.
People who exhibit only the skeptical faux "irrationalty" (mistake, errors of judgment) just don't do that. Ever. They argue, they say mean things, but they don't pick up guns and start blasting abortion doctors, they don't fill concentration camps or gulags, they don't starve out peasants by the millions. They don't have Inquisitions, Crusades or Jihads, pogroms, auto da fes or Cultural Revolutions.
Voltaire said, "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." The belief in absurdity is not sufficient to commit atrocity, but it is necessary. And skeptical thinking, a deep and sincere commitment to rationality, is the only protection against absurdity.
An equivocation fallacy that obscures and trivializes a difference — i.e. between rational people and irrational people — that is profoundly and deeply morally relevant is not just weak philosophy, it can have murderous consequences. You'll pardon me, I hope, if my liberal tolerance has some boundary.
In informal conversation, the various meanings of these words can usually be disambiguated by context: only one variant "fits" the context sensibly. In any kind of formal sense, though, the equivocal meanings of natural language words creates confusion, usually confusion fatal to understanding reality.
Even the very best philosophers have been sucked into equivocation fallacies. The meanings of words overlap so much that you can prove anything by adjusting meanings little by little over the course of an argument until you've proven black is white, night is day, freedom is slavery, or Republicans are truly concerned with the well-being of the poor. It really is not just possible but easy to erase any distinction by employing the equivocations inherent in natural language, with the defense, "It's in the dictionary!" valid at every step.
(For this reason, I think the project of pure analytic philosophy — using the meanings of words as one's metaphysical foundation — is hopelessly doomed.)
Computer programmers such as myself are, I think, especially aware of equivocations. Everything has to be very precisely and univocally defined; if it's not, the program crashes. If some term in computer programming has more than one meaning, it's useless. "Integer" is meaningless: I have to know precisely which kind of integer — signed? unsigned? 8-bit? 16-bit? 32-bit? two's complement? big- or little-endian? — your function requires as a parameter. So every concept, however it trivially differs from another concept, requires either a new word or a modifier attached to both meanings. It's no surprise that in just a half-century, computer programmers has generated more esoteric jargon than the medical and legal professions have generated in millennia. We have to think precisely, the computer doesn't cut us one bit (pun intended) of slack.
The equivocation fallacy underlies many specious arguments about similarity. Skeptics and theists both have faith, so they're both more similar than they're different. Well, not really. The concepts that "faith" labels are substantively different. Yes, the dictionary definition of "faith" covers both concepts, and in informal speech the the correct concept is implied by the context. But in a philosophical or intellectual argument, that disambiguating context is completely lost. That the same word is used to refer to two different concepts creates the illusion of deep similarity where only a superficial similarity exists. Both skeptics and atheists actually believe what they believe, they are in some sense committed to their beliefs; hence both have "faith" at this superficial level. But "faith" denotes also a specific underlying basis of that commitment: commitment without our in spite of evidence and arguments, a basis not generally employed by skeptics.
Silly you say? How could anyone make such an elementary mistake? It's easy. Google "atheism takes more faith than theism" (without the quotation marks) and you'll get a half-million hits.
Equivocate the dictionary and informal meanings of "irrational" as (1) unsupported by evidence or (2) emotional or (3) deprecated or (4) regrettable, and you can prove that religious faith — or by extension any false and unsupportable beliefs about race, sex, sexual orientation, history, nation, culture or ideology — is just another expression of the ordinary human condition, which we erase at the peril of becoming automata.
I understand, for instance, that Greta Christina is making a plea for tolerance. We skeptics aren't perfect, she seems to argue, so we shouldn't be too hard on the religious. It's all the same sort of ineluctable human irrationality, isn't it?
Well, yes and no. On the one hand, I agree we should be tolerant to some degree on general principles. We're all imperfect human beings, and we do need to cut each other some slack.
On the other hand, skeptical "irrationality" is different from religious irrationality. Really, fundamentally, substantively different. Just as with "faith" there are some superficial similarities, but the differences are far deeper and more profound. To use the same word just begs for the reader to ignore this substantive difference.
On the gripping hand, people under the spell of truly irrational ideas — and yes, not all of them are theists — all too often tend to kill other people... in large numbers: by the train-load, by the millions and tens of millions. They torture, imprison, exploit and oppress others in an orgy of human suffering that makes any sensitive person weep and despair for the future of humanity. And they do so for what they sincerely and deeply believe are not just good but heroically good reasons.
People who exhibit only the skeptical faux "irrationalty" (mistake, errors of judgment) just don't do that. Ever. They argue, they say mean things, but they don't pick up guns and start blasting abortion doctors, they don't fill concentration camps or gulags, they don't starve out peasants by the millions. They don't have Inquisitions, Crusades or Jihads, pogroms, auto da fes or Cultural Revolutions.
Voltaire said, "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." The belief in absurdity is not sufficient to commit atrocity, but it is necessary. And skeptical thinking, a deep and sincere commitment to rationality, is the only protection against absurdity.
An equivocation fallacy that obscures and trivializes a difference — i.e. between rational people and irrational people — that is profoundly and deeply morally relevant is not just weak philosophy, it can have murderous consequences. You'll pardon me, I hope, if my liberal tolerance has some boundary.
This is not a love-in
The debate about atheism, secularism and religion, skepticism and faith, sense and nonsense, truth, bullshit and lies is not a happy touchy-feely love-in, it's not a mutual admiration society. It's hard ball, real life, a lives-are-hanging-in-the-balance discussion about the future of humanity. If you think my work is rancorous and venomous, then get over yourself. This is not a rarefied abstract discussion at the highest level of ivory-tower academia. (And if you think even that sort discussion is without rancor and venom, you don't know how to read between the lines.)
Yes, I call people — even some atheists — dumb, stupid, retards, fucktards, theistards, cretinists, morons, fools and idiots. Awww, po' babies. Sticks and stones, eh?
Let's talk about what I don't do. I don't torture and kill gay people. I don't throw acid in women's faces. I don't torture prisoners of war. I don't suspend habeus corpus or imprison American citizens without trial. I don't call for riots in Denver. I don't sanction, suborn or advocate assassination, terrorism or the murder of my ideological opponents. I don't believe in eternal damnation, predestination, or the moral justice of natural disasters. I don't blame civil libertians, feminists, homosexuals and abortion rights supporters for terrorist attacks. I don't picket veterans' funerals. I don't advocate genocide, incest, rape, slavery, the death penalty for breaking the sabbath, jihad, hijab, hand- and head-chopping, or uterine servitude.
Yeah, compared to a lot of atheists and lets-hold-hands-and-sing-Kumbaya why-can't-we-all-just-get-along liberals, I'm a gigantic asshole. But compared to an enormous portion of the religious, I'm the model of grandfatherly kindness. Thank your lucky stars that at the end of the day I'm on your side.
Yes, I call people — even some atheists — dumb, stupid, retards, fucktards, theistards, cretinists, morons, fools and idiots. Awww, po' babies. Sticks and stones, eh?
Let's talk about what I don't do. I don't torture and kill gay people. I don't throw acid in women's faces. I don't torture prisoners of war. I don't suspend habeus corpus or imprison American citizens without trial. I don't call for riots in Denver. I don't sanction, suborn or advocate assassination, terrorism or the murder of my ideological opponents. I don't believe in eternal damnation, predestination, or the moral justice of natural disasters. I don't blame civil libertians, feminists, homosexuals and abortion rights supporters for terrorist attacks. I don't picket veterans' funerals. I don't advocate genocide, incest, rape, slavery, the death penalty for breaking the sabbath, jihad, hijab, hand- and head-chopping, or uterine servitude.
Yeah, compared to a lot of atheists and lets-hold-hands-and-sing-Kumbaya why-can't-we-all-just-get-along liberals, I'm a gigantic asshole. But compared to an enormous portion of the religious, I'm the model of grandfatherly kindness. Thank your lucky stars that at the end of the day I'm on your side.
Quotation of the day
It is all too easy to confuse fundamentalism with passion. I may well appear passionate when I defend evolution against a fundamentalist creationist, but this is not because of a rival fundamentalism of my own. It is because the evidence for evolution is overwhelmingly strong and I am passionately distressed that my opponent can't see it — or, more usually, refuses to look at it because it contradicts his holy book. My passion is increased when I think about how much the poor fundamentalists, and those whom they influence, are missing. The truths of evolution, along with many other scientific truths, are so engrossingly fascinating and beautiful; how truly tragic to die having missed out on all that! Of course that makes me passionate. How could it not? But my belief in evolution is not fundamentalism, and it is not faith, because I know what it would take to change my mind, and I would gladly do so if the necessary evidence were forthcoming.
It does happen. I have previously told the story of a respected elder statesman of the Zoology Department at Oxford when I was an undergraduate. For years he had passionately believed, and taught, that the Golgi Apparatus (a microscopic feature of the interior of cells) was not real: an artefact, an illusion. Every Monday afternoon it was the custom for the whole department to listen to a research talk by a visiting lecturer. One Monday, the visitor was an American cell biologist who presented completely convincing evidence that the Golgi Apparatus was real. At the end of the lecture, the old man strode to the front of the hall, shook the American by the hand and said — with passion — ‘My dear fellow, I wish to thank you. I have been wrong these fifteen years.’ We clapped our hands red. No fundamentalist would ever say that. In practice, not all scientists would. But all scientists pay lip service to it as an ideal — unlike, say, politicians who would probably condemn it as flip-flopping. The memory of the incident I have described still brings a lump to my throat.
-- Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion
(h/t to You Call This Culture?)
It does happen. I have previously told the story of a respected elder statesman of the Zoology Department at Oxford when I was an undergraduate. For years he had passionately believed, and taught, that the Golgi Apparatus (a microscopic feature of the interior of cells) was not real: an artefact, an illusion. Every Monday afternoon it was the custom for the whole department to listen to a research talk by a visiting lecturer. One Monday, the visitor was an American cell biologist who presented completely convincing evidence that the Golgi Apparatus was real. At the end of the lecture, the old man strode to the front of the hall, shook the American by the hand and said — with passion — ‘My dear fellow, I wish to thank you. I have been wrong these fifteen years.’ We clapped our hands red. No fundamentalist would ever say that. In practice, not all scientists would. But all scientists pay lip service to it as an ideal — unlike, say, politicians who would probably condemn it as flip-flopping. The memory of the incident I have described still brings a lump to my throat.
-- Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion
(h/t to You Call This Culture?)
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Greta Christina loses my respect
I like Greta Christina. I found her popular angry atheist post [link fixed] and I've been reading her ever since. A lot of her stuff is very good, and there's no doubt she's an excellent writer. But the last few days her idiotic opinions have been finally succeeded in pushing me away, in destroying any respect I might have for her intellectual honesty and character.
First, she can't be bothered to put in a couple of words and turn a specious generalization into specifically targeted advice. When I took the San Francisco Sex Information training, lo, these many years ago, the first words out of my instructor's mouth were, "'Norm' is the name of a guy from Brooklyn." Outside of adult informed consent, there are no justifiable generalizations about sex: it's too complex a phenomenon with too many variables. Expressing any kind of generalization, however well-intentioned, establishes a norm and marginalizes those who fall outside that norm. Not a particularly gigantic issue, but it establishes a pattern that Christina is prone to the logical fallacy of hasty generalization from her own personal experience.
Second, she irritatingly uses "faith" to denote both skeptical and religious thought processes. I charitably presumed this usage was merely lazy, but today I see it was intentional.
Today she goes off the rails [link fixed].
She asserts
I'm really fucking tired of implicitly or explicitly being labeled as a freak, a soulless, unspiritual computerized automaton, a emotionless Spock, simply because I do indeed rationally consider all my beliefs. And there are a lot of people like me who are sensible, rational people, who do apply rational thought to all their beliefs. Greta Christina might find it difficult, but for some of us it's just routine.
Believing some proposition without certainty is not irrational; indeed being actually mistaken is not evidence of irrationality. A rational person has to make actual decisions about what to do and what to believe based on information that is not just finite, but usually extremely limited. It is not irrational, for example, to believe "that you can argue people out of their religious beliefs, if you just make your arguments good enough." It's almost always (but not always) mistaken, but not irrational per se. It would be irrational to believe you can argue religious people out of their beliefs after you have been proven wrong for the zillionth time. It's not even irrational per se to believe the Earth is fixed and unmoving: it definitely feels fixed and unmoving. The belief becomes irrational only when it's held after apprehending the evidence to the contrary, in spite of evidence to the contrary.
It's not irrational to feel emotions, to have opinions and preferences. It's not irrational to do something just because you want to do it. It's not irrational to make moral judgments on the basis of emotions, opinions and preferences. It's not even necessarily irrational (although I argue it's mistaken) to believe that there are good objective reasons for one's moral judgments.
Christina is advocating appeasement.
This argument is frankly stupid. We can draw a distinction: "[S]ecular faith... isn't irrational by its very nature. I think religious faith is," but we can't draw a distinction: "[R]eligious believers [just] hold one irrational belief that atheists don't hold," i.e. religious belief isn't substantively or essentially different, it's just superficially different.
Christina seems to rely on some bullshit postmodernist notion of universal humanism:
Well, this is bullshit. Universal humanism does not entail that we shouldn't judge each other. It entails only that we are all equally privileged to judge, and we are subject or not subject to others' judgment all in the same way. Universal humanism is not the idea that there should be no laws, it's that all are equal before the law. The idea that one should be "perfect" to make moral judgments is a Christian idea. This idea doesn't argue against judgment per se, it argues only that God alone is privileged to judge... via His self-appointed Earthly representatives, of course.
Christina's position here is hopelessly confused. Taken to its logical conclusion (and Christian presuppositional metaphysics does indeed take this argument to its extreme) one could justly conclude that rationality itself was just another arbitrary belief. To be fair, Christina explicit disclaims such an interpretation, but a disclaimer of the logical conclusion of an argument is itself irrational.
I must admit, I don't have much empathy for people who struggle with irrational beliefs. I've of course had mistaken beliefs and I've had lazily constructed beliefs, but I've never had an irrational belief. Not one. I've modified or rejected every belief I've ever had for which I've been presented with sufficient contrary evidence. I've never felt the slightest bit of angst or discomfort in conforming my beliefs to the evidence available. And I've met a lot of people just like me.
First, she can't be bothered to put in a couple of words and turn a specious generalization into specifically targeted advice. When I took the San Francisco Sex Information training, lo, these many years ago, the first words out of my instructor's mouth were, "'Norm' is the name of a guy from Brooklyn." Outside of adult informed consent, there are no justifiable generalizations about sex: it's too complex a phenomenon with too many variables. Expressing any kind of generalization, however well-intentioned, establishes a norm and marginalizes those who fall outside that norm. Not a particularly gigantic issue, but it establishes a pattern that Christina is prone to the logical fallacy of hasty generalization from her own personal experience.
Second, she irritatingly uses "faith" to denote both skeptical and religious thought processes. I charitably presumed this usage was merely lazy, but today I see it was intentional.
Today she goes off the rails [link fixed].
It is entirely possible to be an overall sane, rational, functional person, and nevertheless have one particular area of irrational belief. Or even more than one.This is simply false. Christina enumerates a long list of irrational beliefs (or beliefs she considers irrational) and simply presumes that because the list is so long, the probability that someone will hold at least one of those beliefs is very high, indeed almost certain (from which she concludes that irrationality is "damn near universal"). The problem is that the beliefs she lists are not independent: The truly irrational beliefs (the rest are simply common mistakes) derive from a core of attachment to irrational, unrealistic thinking. Eliminate that core and all of the beliefs are simply ludicrous; lacking that core of irrationality, I wouldn't hold any of them.
In fact, it's not just possible. It's damn near universal. To atheists, as well as to believers.
We've all held irrational beliefs, and held on to them irrationally for longer than we should have.
She asserts
Do any of these [irrational ideas] sound familiar? From your life, or from the lives of anyone you know? If not, I'm sure you can come up with some of your own, from your past, or maybe even from your present.No, I can't, regardless of your surety. Sorry, I'm not a hyper-self-critical neurotic woo-woo refugee.
I'm really fucking tired of implicitly or explicitly being labeled as a freak, a soulless, unspiritual computerized automaton, a emotionless Spock, simply because I do indeed rationally consider all my beliefs. And there are a lot of people like me who are sensible, rational people, who do apply rational thought to all their beliefs. Greta Christina might find it difficult, but for some of us it's just routine.
Believing some proposition without certainty is not irrational; indeed being actually mistaken is not evidence of irrationality. A rational person has to make actual decisions about what to do and what to believe based on information that is not just finite, but usually extremely limited. It is not irrational, for example, to believe "that you can argue people out of their religious beliefs, if you just make your arguments good enough." It's almost always (but not always) mistaken, but not irrational per se. It would be irrational to believe you can argue religious people out of their beliefs after you have been proven wrong for the zillionth time. It's not even irrational per se to believe the Earth is fixed and unmoving: it definitely feels fixed and unmoving. The belief becomes irrational only when it's held after apprehending the evidence to the contrary, in spite of evidence to the contrary.
It's not irrational to feel emotions, to have opinions and preferences. It's not irrational to do something just because you want to do it. It's not irrational to make moral judgments on the basis of emotions, opinions and preferences. It's not even necessarily irrational (although I argue it's mistaken) to believe that there are good objective reasons for one's moral judgments.
Christina is advocating appeasement.
Again, while secular faith has instances of irrationality -- many of them, even -- it isn't irrational by its very nature. I think religious faith is.There's a prima facie contradiction here: Religious believers are not irrational "by nature" because everyone (except the insignificant, marginalized, freakish Spocks such as myself) has irrational beliefs. The contradiction is obvious: By this argument, it's not that the religious aren't irrational, it's that everyone is irrational.
But --
and this is very important --
I don't think religious believers are.
Not all of them, at any rate. Not by definition.
Here's the thing I think atheists need to remember. It is entirely possible to be an overall sane, rational, functional person, and nevertheless have one particular area of irrational belief. Or even more than one.
This argument is frankly stupid. We can draw a distinction: "[S]ecular faith... isn't irrational by its very nature. I think religious faith is," but we can't draw a distinction: "[R]eligious believers [just] hold one irrational belief that atheists don't hold," i.e. religious belief isn't substantively or essentially different, it's just superficially different.
Christina seems to rely on some bullshit postmodernist notion of universal humanism:
But the fact that religious believers hold one irrational belief that atheists don't hold doesn't make them fundamentally less-rational human beings than us. And we shouldn't pretend that it does.We're all human beings, right? Who's in a privileged position to judge?
Well, this is bullshit. Universal humanism does not entail that we shouldn't judge each other. It entails only that we are all equally privileged to judge, and we are subject or not subject to others' judgment all in the same way. Universal humanism is not the idea that there should be no laws, it's that all are equal before the law. The idea that one should be "perfect" to make moral judgments is a Christian idea. This idea doesn't argue against judgment per se, it argues only that God alone is privileged to judge... via His self-appointed Earthly representatives, of course.
Christina's position here is hopelessly confused. Taken to its logical conclusion (and Christian presuppositional metaphysics does indeed take this argument to its extreme) one could justly conclude that rationality itself was just another arbitrary belief. To be fair, Christina explicit disclaims such an interpretation, but a disclaimer of the logical conclusion of an argument is itself irrational.
I must admit, I don't have much empathy for people who struggle with irrational beliefs. I've of course had mistaken beliefs and I've had lazily constructed beliefs, but I've never had an irrational belief. Not one. I've modified or rejected every belief I've ever had for which I've been presented with sufficient contrary evidence. I've never felt the slightest bit of angst or discomfort in conforming my beliefs to the evidence available. And I've met a lot of people just like me.
Fitna, Islam and racism
Is criticism of Islam necessarily racist? No. Islam is a religion, which must be adopted. It's not an ineluctable characteristic of any person, much less a biological characteristic used to denote "race". Those who label all criticism of Islam as racist "Islamophobia" go wrong on this point.
Can criticism of Islam be racist? Per se, no; much depends, however, on the intention of the criticism, which can be inferred from the context and framing, and from what's not being criticized. A criticism of Islam can be used with racist intentions. This is where Hallquist and the Christianist neoconservatives go wrong.
If you criticize Islam, but not Christianity, I have to ask, "Why?" The hypothesis that you're engaging in differential criticism on the basis of race is at least live and deserves investigation.
In Fitna, Geert Wilders criticizes Islam as a politician explicitly endorsing restricting immigration, especially non-Western immigration. Again, the criticism per se is not racist, but the framing and context of the criticism can definitely be racist.
(I don't know that Wilders really is a racist, or that Fitna really is in a racist context. I really don't care much about Dutch politics, and I'm already convinced that Islam is as monumentally stupid and hateful as is Christianity. But raising the issue is not, as Hallquist asserts, prima facie an "Orwellian lie" by virtue of Islam being a religion, not a race.)
Consider the analogy: Suppose I were to talk about crime, or tyrannical dictatorships, or ridiculous superstitions. In my talk about the topic, I show only examples of black people: black criminals, black dictators, superstitions held in African countries, ignoring white criminals, white dictators, white superstitions. And suppose, for instance, that I were using the discussion to justify differentially affecting the rights and privileges of black people. Even though all of my facts were 100% accurate, even though I'm not explicitly talking about race, even if I never actually mention the race of the people I'm talking about, I could still be justly accused of the most egregious racism.
There are ways of framing the exact same facts, of putting those facts in context, that are not racist. It would for example be a non-racist framing and context for a black person to discuss black crime, with the intention of trying to help members of her own community live better lives (and to criticize the egregious racism of defining specific crimes and punishments that differentially and intentionally affect black people).
We are in that awkward stage regarding racism where explicit racism is almost universally deplored, at least in public, but racism itself is obviously (a few obtuse neocon fuckwits excepted) still around, still strong. Thus racists have to put a veneer of non-racism around their racist propaganda; they have to resort to implications, context, framing, dog-whistles and other forms of obfuscatory bullshit, while explicitly saying, "Racism? I don't see any racism. Nope, no racism here, by golly! wink wink"
Can criticism of Islam be racist? Per se, no; much depends, however, on the intention of the criticism, which can be inferred from the context and framing, and from what's not being criticized. A criticism of Islam can be used with racist intentions. This is where Hallquist and the Christianist neoconservatives go wrong.
If you criticize Islam, but not Christianity, I have to ask, "Why?" The hypothesis that you're engaging in differential criticism on the basis of race is at least live and deserves investigation.
In Fitna, Geert Wilders criticizes Islam as a politician explicitly endorsing restricting immigration, especially non-Western immigration. Again, the criticism per se is not racist, but the framing and context of the criticism can definitely be racist.
(I don't know that Wilders really is a racist, or that Fitna really is in a racist context. I really don't care much about Dutch politics, and I'm already convinced that Islam is as monumentally stupid and hateful as is Christianity. But raising the issue is not, as Hallquist asserts, prima facie an "Orwellian lie" by virtue of Islam being a religion, not a race.)
Consider the analogy: Suppose I were to talk about crime, or tyrannical dictatorships, or ridiculous superstitions. In my talk about the topic, I show only examples of black people: black criminals, black dictators, superstitions held in African countries, ignoring white criminals, white dictators, white superstitions. And suppose, for instance, that I were using the discussion to justify differentially affecting the rights and privileges of black people. Even though all of my facts were 100% accurate, even though I'm not explicitly talking about race, even if I never actually mention the race of the people I'm talking about, I could still be justly accused of the most egregious racism.
There are ways of framing the exact same facts, of putting those facts in context, that are not racist. It would for example be a non-racist framing and context for a black person to discuss black crime, with the intention of trying to help members of her own community live better lives (and to criticize the egregious racism of defining specific crimes and punishments that differentially and intentionally affect black people).
We are in that awkward stage regarding racism where explicit racism is almost universally deplored, at least in public, but racism itself is obviously (a few obtuse neocon fuckwits excepted) still around, still strong. Thus racists have to put a veneer of non-racism around their racist propaganda; they have to resort to implications, context, framing, dog-whistles and other forms of obfuscatory bullshit, while explicitly saying, "Racism? I don't see any racism. Nope, no racism here, by golly! wink wink"
Monday, May 05, 2008
The right word
"The difference between the almost right word & the right word is really a large matter--it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning." -- Mark Twain
Greta Christina has an excellent post on the difference between religious faith and skeptical faith. But she indulges in what I see as a form of sloppiness and imprecision unacceptably pervasive in atheist and skeptical writing: using the same word in formal expository writing to denote two fundamentally and substantively different concepts.
Lexicographers must explain all the meanings of any word, including the imprecise context-dependent uses employed in informal speech and writing. Since the the meanings of words such as "faith", "trust" and "confidence" show considerable overlap in informal use, the dictionary must enumerate all the various meanings. The informal overlap is trivially granted. But expository writing, where the writer makes a specific intellectual point, is not so informal. The writer has the time to choose his or her words carefully, and pick not just a good enough word but the best word for the job.
There's simply no excuse for using the word "faith" in writing to describe any sort of skeptical thinking. We have two perfectly good words, short words, words with commonly understood meanings, to describe skepticism: trust and confidence. If one needs to be even more precise, we can employ philosophical jargon: justification and warrant. When we want to talk about ideas that don't require rational justification, we can talk about our opinions and preferences.
The religious own the word "faith", it's their word, and they define its meaning. To even use the word to describe skeptical thinking is to equivocate, to concede too much, to concede to the religious the framing of the question, "How shall we best think?" as "What sort of arbitrary, unprovable beliefs should we adopt without regard to — or in spite of — the evidence?"
To describe skeptical thinking as a particular kind of faith is to put skepticism and atheism on the same menu, with equal status, as Christianity, Islam, Mormonism, Hinduism, New Age crystal woo-woo: just another arbitrary belief that deserves equal status. Throw all the provisos and differentiation you want, to call skepticism any kind of faith is call it just a different religion, separate but equal.
But skepticism isn't equal, it isn't just a different kind of religion. Skepticism is not a religion. It's not a faith. It's a way of thinking about the world that actually works; religion is a way of not thinking about the world.
Greta Christina has an excellent post on the difference between religious faith and skeptical faith. But she indulges in what I see as a form of sloppiness and imprecision unacceptably pervasive in atheist and skeptical writing: using the same word in formal expository writing to denote two fundamentally and substantively different concepts.
Lexicographers must explain all the meanings of any word, including the imprecise context-dependent uses employed in informal speech and writing. Since the the meanings of words such as "faith", "trust" and "confidence" show considerable overlap in informal use, the dictionary must enumerate all the various meanings. The informal overlap is trivially granted. But expository writing, where the writer makes a specific intellectual point, is not so informal. The writer has the time to choose his or her words carefully, and pick not just a good enough word but the best word for the job.
There's simply no excuse for using the word "faith" in writing to describe any sort of skeptical thinking. We have two perfectly good words, short words, words with commonly understood meanings, to describe skepticism: trust and confidence. If one needs to be even more precise, we can employ philosophical jargon: justification and warrant. When we want to talk about ideas that don't require rational justification, we can talk about our opinions and preferences.
The religious own the word "faith", it's their word, and they define its meaning. To even use the word to describe skeptical thinking is to equivocate, to concede too much, to concede to the religious the framing of the question, "How shall we best think?" as "What sort of arbitrary, unprovable beliefs should we adopt without regard to — or in spite of — the evidence?"
To describe skeptical thinking as a particular kind of faith is to put skepticism and atheism on the same menu, with equal status, as Christianity, Islam, Mormonism, Hinduism, New Age crystal woo-woo: just another arbitrary belief that deserves equal status. Throw all the provisos and differentiation you want, to call skepticism any kind of faith is call it just a different religion, separate but equal.
But skepticism isn't equal, it isn't just a different kind of religion. Skepticism is not a religion. It's not a faith. It's a way of thinking about the world that actually works; religion is a way of not thinking about the world.
Sunday, May 04, 2008
Atheism and reasoning
Atheism is, of course, minimally defined as lacking belief in gods, i.e. supernatural beings. However, the logical and metaphysical underpinnings of that lack of belief is an important component of atheism. Atheism is — to a considerable fraction of actual atheists — not simply an arbitrary choice on a menu of superstitious, unfalsifiable beliefs but rather a position about truth and rationality. It's not simply that atheism is just as legitimate as any particular religious belief, it's that atheism is true and theism false... or, worse, simply vacuous and not even wrong.
This position on truth is to some degree inherent to atheism; the religious, however, have not exactly been passive about making their own truth-claims about religion. Religion is rationally indefensible, thus those who attempt to "rationally" defend religion have to rely on some characteristic logical fallacies. These fallacies have been so often used in religious apologetics that they have become tropes*. It's useful, I think, to explore the use of these tropes in a non-theistic context.
*Were I a better scholar, I would document the use of these tropes in religious apologetics. But I'm an indifferent scholar, and anyone who's done his time on the Internet Infidels Discussion Board will immediately recognize them.
Planet Atheism member Evanescent and one of his commenters give us a clear example of a few of these tropic religious fallacies in a non-theistic context in his post Ultimate Value and Morality.
Poisoning the Well
This fallacy is well-represented in theistic discourse. I've lost count of the number of times a new theistic member will start off his or her first post on IIDB asserting that atheists are closed-minded, dogmatic or just plain stupid. This might or might not be a valid conclusion, but to adopt such a position at the onset is clearly a defensive measure: when one's arguments are rebutted, the theist can say, "See! I told you atheists were closed-minded." Also, a pejorative introduction tends to annoy people, which allows the theist to express shock, dismay and contempt at the hostility of his or her response.
We see the exact same fallacy in Evanescent's original post:
Handwaving Fallacy
The handwaving fallacy (similar to the Courtier's Reply) is the confident assertion that the substantiation or proof of some assertion can be found in an unspecified place in some large body of work. Theists often employ this fallacy with reference to scripture or commentary. When faced with a criticism that some particular interpretation of scripture is not justified by the immediate text, theists will often simply assert that the justification for the interpretation can be found "in other scripture".
We see the same sort of fallacy in Ergo's comment:
Hopping from leg to leg
Alan Sokal said, “When one analyzes [post-modernist and deconstruction] writings, one often finds radical-sounding assertions whose meaning is ambiguous and that can be given two alternative readings: one as interesting, radical, and grossly false; the other as boring and trivially true.”
DagoodS coined the phrase "hopping from leg to leg"* to characterize this sort of fallacy, a subset of the equivocation fallacy. If an assertion has an ambiguous meaning, the fallacious tactic is to defend the trivially true meaning and equivocate that defense as substantiation of the radical meaning.
*Dagood, I distinctly remember reading this phrase on your blog, but I can't find the post; it was probably in one of your comments (where you shamefully bury some of your best work). Can you help me out?
In comment 22 Evanescent defends the trivially true interpretation that (good?) values enhance one's life, which trivially follows from the definition of "value" as that which enhances one's life.
*The similarity to the common label for anti-abortion politics is presumably unintentional.
Framing Perseveration
Framing perseveration is the repeated insistence on a frame or context to a question or assertion after the frame itself has been questioned or controverted. The use in theistic apologetics is rampant, usually in the form of, "Who created the universe, then?" even after explanation that the question itself presupposes the answer.
We see frame perseveration in Evanescent's repetition of demand to name an alternative ultimate value in comments 15 and 19. Admittedly, only two instances is thin evidence for actual perseveration. Comment 15, however, re-establishes the frame specifically in response to my own comment and clarification questioning the frame, and furthermore does so by substantively misrepresenting my own position.
Enthymeme obtusity
An enthymeme is an unspoken premise in a logical argument. The identification of enthymemes in arguments is one of the most basic skills in philosophy and logical argumentation in general. Enthymemes per se are not very objectionable; all philosophers, even mathematicians, take some premises for granted that they consider too obvious to mention. Any logical argument that explicated all of its premises, however trivial, would be too long and too boring to read. No one is perfect, though, and sometimes a controversial enthymeme is required to make a logical argument work. In such cases, the enthymeme has to be explicitly stated so it can be discussed.
Enthymeme obtusity, however, is the objection that one did not actually explicitly state the premise in question. For example, I observe that the dichotomy between ultimate and infinite regress requires the enthymeme (presupposition) of a strict hierarchy. Commenter Ergo responds with enthymeme obtusity: "*YOU* have added to her words the phrase 'strict heirarchy.' It appears nowhere in her argument."
(A particularly amusing example of enthymeme obtusity can be found in Evanescent's outrage at my use of "singular".)
There are, of course, any number of logical fallacies (appeals to authority, assertions treated as arguments) in this thread but the interesting thing is the similarity to the specifically bad-faith logical fallacies found so often in theistic attempts at logical reasoning. Indeed the study of Randian defenses of Rand's philosophy might prove every bit as useful to develop a philosophical education as is the study of religious apologetics.
This position on truth is to some degree inherent to atheism; the religious, however, have not exactly been passive about making their own truth-claims about religion. Religion is rationally indefensible, thus those who attempt to "rationally" defend religion have to rely on some characteristic logical fallacies. These fallacies have been so often used in religious apologetics that they have become tropes*. It's useful, I think, to explore the use of these tropes in a non-theistic context.
*Were I a better scholar, I would document the use of these tropes in religious apologetics. But I'm an indifferent scholar, and anyone who's done his time on the Internet Infidels Discussion Board will immediately recognize them.
Planet Atheism member Evanescent and one of his commenters give us a clear example of a few of these tropic religious fallacies in a non-theistic context in his post Ultimate Value and Morality.
Poisoning the Well
This fallacy is well-represented in theistic discourse. I've lost count of the number of times a new theistic member will start off his or her first post on IIDB asserting that atheists are closed-minded, dogmatic or just plain stupid. This might or might not be a valid conclusion, but to adopt such a position at the onset is clearly a defensive measure: when one's arguments are rebutted, the theist can say, "See! I told you atheists were closed-minded." Also, a pejorative introduction tends to annoy people, which allows the theist to express shock, dismay and contempt at the hostility of his or her response.
We see the exact same fallacy in Evanescent's original post:
I had a discussion briefly with several atheists on other blog [sic] that [sic] fancied themselves critics of Ayn Rand and Objectivism. ...Note that this exposition precedes the actual argument and does not cite or identify particular instances of clueless or ignorant behavior; its status as a Poisoning the Well fallacy is unambiguous.
[E]very other New Age Atheist feels themselves qualified to attack Ayn Rand on philosophical grounds when they haven’t the slightest clue what they’re talking about. It’s pretty embarrassing.
One point that was raised again and again was: why is life the ultimate value? One commenter even asked me for empirical proof to justify this statement, a question that belies gross philosophical ignorance. ... [W]hat I criticise is those who pretend to know what they’re talking about and cover it in all the usual postmodern philosophical rubbish to make it seem like they do. (If you want an example of this nonsense, wait until one of these philosophy students says something like “but how do you even KNOW you exist??”)
Handwaving Fallacy
The handwaving fallacy (similar to the Courtier's Reply) is the confident assertion that the substantiation or proof of some assertion can be found in an unspecified place in some large body of work. Theists often employ this fallacy with reference to scripture or commentary. When faced with a criticism that some particular interpretation of scripture is not justified by the immediate text, theists will often simply assert that the justification for the interpretation can be found "in other scripture".
We see the same sort of fallacy in Ergo's comment:
For example, life is not only the ultimate value (thus being at the apex of the value-hierarchy) but also the standard for all values (thus synergestically reinforcing the valuation of all other values). ...Since the issue directly at hand is whether or not life is indeed the "ultimate value", the appeal to the "works of Objectivist philosophers" is clearly a handwaving fallacy.
For a full exploration of this view, read the works of Objectivist philosophers.
Hopping from leg to leg
Alan Sokal said, “When one analyzes [post-modernist and deconstruction] writings, one often finds radical-sounding assertions whose meaning is ambiguous and that can be given two alternative readings: one as interesting, radical, and grossly false; the other as boring and trivially true.”
DagoodS coined the phrase "hopping from leg to leg"* to characterize this sort of fallacy, a subset of the equivocation fallacy. If an assertion has an ambiguous meaning, the fallacious tactic is to defend the trivially true meaning and equivocate that defense as substantiation of the radical meaning.
*Dagood, I distinctly remember reading this phrase on your blog, but I can't find the post; it was probably in one of your comments (where you shamefully bury some of your best work). Can you help me out?
In comment 22 Evanescent defends the trivially true interpretation that (good?) values enhance one's life, which trivially follows from the definition of "value" as that which enhances one's life.
Because [the absence of pain] make[s] life enjoyable to live. Pleasure is the physical/emotional reward for achieving one’s goals.However, he hops to the other leg immediately afterwards:
But to what are these goals directed? [Life!]Anyone even passingly familiar with Rand's work understands the other leg. The core of her moral philosophy is a supposedly rational evaluation of whether some value is pro-life* or anti-life. The banal and trivially true observation that values by definition are what enhances one's own life is substantively different from the idea that values can be differentiated on the basis of whether they do or do not enhance one's life.
*The similarity to the common label for anti-abortion politics is presumably unintentional.
Framing Perseveration
Framing perseveration is the repeated insistence on a frame or context to a question or assertion after the frame itself has been questioned or controverted. The use in theistic apologetics is rampant, usually in the form of, "Who created the universe, then?" even after explanation that the question itself presupposes the answer.
We see frame perseveration in Evanescent's repetition of demand to name an alternative ultimate value in comments 15 and 19. Admittedly, only two instances is thin evidence for actual perseveration. Comment 15, however, re-establishes the frame specifically in response to my own comment and clarification questioning the frame, and furthermore does so by substantively misrepresenting my own position.
Enthymeme obtusity
An enthymeme is an unspoken premise in a logical argument. The identification of enthymemes in arguments is one of the most basic skills in philosophy and logical argumentation in general. Enthymemes per se are not very objectionable; all philosophers, even mathematicians, take some premises for granted that they consider too obvious to mention. Any logical argument that explicated all of its premises, however trivial, would be too long and too boring to read. No one is perfect, though, and sometimes a controversial enthymeme is required to make a logical argument work. In such cases, the enthymeme has to be explicitly stated so it can be discussed.
Enthymeme obtusity, however, is the objection that one did not actually explicitly state the premise in question. For example, I observe that the dichotomy between ultimate and infinite regress requires the enthymeme (presupposition) of a strict hierarchy. Commenter Ergo responds with enthymeme obtusity: "*YOU* have added to her words the phrase 'strict heirarchy.' It appears nowhere in her argument."
(A particularly amusing example of enthymeme obtusity can be found in Evanescent's outrage at my use of "singular".)
There are, of course, any number of logical fallacies (appeals to authority, assertions treated as arguments) in this thread but the interesting thing is the similarity to the specifically bad-faith logical fallacies found so often in theistic attempts at logical reasoning. Indeed the study of Randian defenses of Rand's philosophy might prove every bit as useful to develop a philosophical education as is the study of religious apologetics.
Saturday, May 03, 2008
Plagarism or paraphrase?
I'm curious... is this so close as to be considered plagarism? Or is it legitimate paraphrase?
Wikipedia:
The List Universe:
Wikipedia:
The List Universe:
Note that The List Universe does not credit Wikipedia.
Wikipedia:
The Man in the Iron Mask (French: L'Homme au Masque de Fer) (died November 1703) was a prisoner who was held in a number of jails, including the Bastille and the Chateau d'If, during the reign of Louis XIV of France. The identity of this man has been thoroughly discussed, mainly because no one ever saw his face which was hidden by a mask of black velvet cloth. Later retellings of the story have claimed that it was an iron mask. ...
The first surviving records of the masked prisoner are from July 1, 1669, when Louis XIV's minister the Marquis de Louvois sent a prisoner to the care of Bénigne Dauvergne de Saint-Mars, governor of the prison of Pignerol, then part of France.
The List Universe:
The Man in the Iron Mask (died November 1703) was a prisoner held in a number of Jails (including the Bastille) during the reign of King Louis XIV of France. The true identity of the man is unknown because no one ever saw his face which was hidden by a black velvet mask. Fictional retellings of the story refer to the mask as an “Iron” mask. The first records that mention the prisoner are from 1669 when Louis XIV’s minister placed the prisoner in the care of the governor of the prison of Pignerol.
Wikipedia:
According to Louvois' letter, the man's name was Eustache Dauger. Louvois instructed Saint-Mars to prepare a cell with multiple doors which were to prevent anyone from the outside listening in. Dauger was also to be told that if he spoke of anything other than his immediate needs he would be killed. Saint-Mars was to see Dauger only once a day in order to provide food and whatever else he needed. But, according to Louvois, the prisoner should not require much since he was "only a valet". ...
The prisoner died on November 19, 1703, and was buried the next day under the name of Marchioly. All his furniture and clothing were reportedly destroyed afterwards.
The List Universe:
According to the letter that accompanied him, the man’s name was Eustache Dauger. The letter instructed the governor to prepare a cell with multiple doors - to prevent anyone outside from listening in. The prisoner was told that if he spoke to anyone of anything other than his immediate needs, he would be killed. The Governor was the only person who was to see the prisoner, and he provided him with his daily food. When the prisoner died, all of his belongings were destroyed. To this day, no one knows who he was.
Note that The List Universe does not credit Wikipedia.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)