The Epistemological Skyhook

Throughout philosophical history, there has been a recurring argument to the effect that determinism, naturalism, or both are self-referentially incoherent. By accepting determinism or naturalism, one allegedly acquires a reason to reject determinism or naturalism. The Epistemological Skyhook brings together, for the first time, the principal expressions of this argument, focusing primarily on the last 150 years. This book addresses the versions of this argument as presented by Arthur Lovejoy, A. E. Taylor, Kurt Gödel, C. S. Lewis, Norman Malcolm, Karl Popper, J. R. Lucas, William Hasker, Thomas Nagel, Alvin Plantinga, and others, along with the objections presented by their many detractors. It concludes by presenting a new version of the argument that synthesizes the best aspects of the others while also rendering the argument immune to some of the most significant objections made to it.

Jim Slagle is Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Portland and George Fox University in Oregon. He has published articles in several jour- nals, including Philosophia and Logique et Analyse.

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82 The Epistemological Skyhook Determinism, Naturalism, and Self-Defeat Jim Slagle The Epistemological Skyhook Determinism, Naturalism, and Self-Defeat

Jim Slagle

First published 2016 by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2016 Taylor & Francis The right of Jim Slagle to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Slagle, Jim, author. Title: The epistemological skyhook : determinism, naturalism, and self-defeat / by Jim Slagle. Description: 1 [edition]. | New York : Routledge, 2016. | Series: Routledge studies in contemporary philosophy ; 82 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016003267 | ISBN 9781138651425 (alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Determinism (Philosophy) | Naturalism. Classification: LCC B105.D47 S53 2016 | DDC 146—dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016003267 ISBN: 978-1-138-65142-5 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-62480-8 (ebk)

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For Krista Jean Slagle my own personal theistic argument This page intentionally left blank Contents

Preface ix

1 Introduction to the Skyhook 1 2 Defining Terms 23 3 Paradox Lost 46 4 Eliminationist Rhetoric (or, Truth Takes the Hindmost) 63 5 Mental Problems 78 6 Knowledge and Normativity 95 7 Language Games 110 8 Popper Function 124

9 Being Thomas Nagel 136 10 Epistemology Supernaturalized 149 11 Leftovers 164 12 Object Lessons 186

13 An a Priori Teleological Argument 205

Conclusions 225 Bibliography 237 Index 251 This page intentionally left blank Preface

This book addresses an argument purporting to show that determinism, naturalism, or both are self-defeating. It is one of the arguments that got me interested in philosophy in the first place, as it has radical repercussions that reverberate throughout the field: from epistemology and philosophy of mind to logic, metaphysics, philosophy of science, philosophy of religion, and beyond. Indeed, in many ways, my philosophical pilgrimage has been my attempt to refute this argument. I have failed. Here I make the case that the argument, at least in some of its guises, is successful. The present work began life as part of my doctoral dissertation, and whereas a few chapters are relatively unchanged, there is a significant amount of new material, as well as extensions, alterations, and abridgements. It addresses the argument as presented by Epicurus, Immanuel Kant, Arthur Lovejoy, A. E. Taylor, Kurt Gödel, C. S. Lewis, Karl Popper, J. R. Lucas, Norman Mal- colm, William Hasker, Thomas Nagel, Alvin Plantinga, and others, as well as its many detractors. The value of the present work is threefold: first, it demonstrates that this argument has a unified history, one that has not hitherto been expounded. Second, it points the way forward to further avenues of research by a) sum- marizing the main versions of the argument and the objections they have received, and b) providing a substantial bibliography. Third, it presents a new version of the argument that attempts to synthesize the best features of the others, while also suggesting its relevance for and repercussions in several philosophical areas. Chapter 1 presents the argument and gives an initial statement of it, before going over two historical versions of it from Epicurus and Kant. Chapter 2 defines the terms I will be using, which also make up the book’s subtitle: determinism, naturalism, and self-defeat. Chapter 3 addresses whether the self-reference employed by the argument is even possible, concluding by presenting J. R. Lucas’s Gödelian argument against physical determinism (also known as the Lucas-Penrose argument). Chapters 4 and 5 apply the argument to the particular targets of eliminative materialism and physical determinism (or mechanism) respectively, the latter chapter focusing on Norman Malcolm’s version of the argument, and the responses made to it x Preface by Alvin Goldman, Jaegwon Kim, and William Hasker. Chapter 6 addresses epistemic norms and the problem they present for determinism, building up to a normativity-based argument. Chapters 7 through 10 go over the argument as it has been defended by C. S. Lewis, Karl Popper, Thomas Nagel, and Alvin Plantinga, as well as the responses they have received (notably G.E.M. Anscombe in Lewis’s case). Chapters 11 and 12 focus on other authors that have gone unmentioned, and several broad objections that have been raised against the argument. Chapter 13 concludes by presenting my own version of the argument, which integrates the best features of the others, while neu- tralizing many of the objections. The bibliography includes all of the academic references I have been able to find on the argument, excluding a few particular traditions that have developed their own literatures so that including them would extend the bibliography beyond reason. I am certain, however, that I have missed plenty of references and even entire traditions, including influential and well-known ones, as the argument is ubiquitous. If the reader knows of any academic references I have unwittingly excluded, she is invited to contact me so I can continue compiling as exhaustive a bibliography on the argument as possible. Also, I limit myself in the present volume to references in English, and I am equally certain that there are plenty of academic references on the argument in other languages. The number of people who have helped in writing this book is too large to list, so I will limit myself to a few. First, I thank God for sustaining and guiding me throughout this process. Second—and given the eminence of the first, it is amazing how close a second she is—I thank my wife, Krista. She has been my champion and biggest fan, and has supported me in every possible way during this entire process. Without her I don’t think I would even be alive, much less writing philosophy. I can never thank her enough. This, and everything else I write, is for her. Third, I thank my wonderful son Joah and my beautiful daughter Kira, two of the greatest people I have ever known. “Children complicate life, but so sweetly that they should serve to give the worker fresh courage rather than to lessen his resources. . . . [T]hey give you a love-lit reflection of nature and of man and thus defend you against the abstract; they bring you back to the real, about which their questioning eyes are waiting for an exact commentary from you.” (Sertillanges 1998, 45) Fourth, I thank teachers and professors who have helped me in my philosophical studies, including, but not limited to Gerry Breshears, Arnold Burms, Paul Cortois (my promoter for the dissertation on which the present work is based), William Desmond, Russell Friedman, and Jerome Wernow. Fifth, I thank those who proofread rough drafts of this book. Those who read it in dissertation form include Matko Gjurašin, James Hannam, and Jacob Longshore. Those who read it in monograph form include Paul Her- rick and Terry Mazurak. If there are any glaring problems that remain, the fault is obviously my own (nonglaring problems are another matter). Preface xi Sixth, I thank those who gave me emotional and spiritual support throughout the writing process. To list them all would nearly constitute its own book, so I will just briefly mention Aunt Suni, DDR and the Robinson clan, John Johnson, Tom Grey, and move along. Finally, since he is the First and the Last, the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, I want to thank God again. He carried me through it all, and I hope and pray he will continue to do so. This page intentionally left blank 1 Introduction to the Skyhook

Set your minds on things above. Colossians 3:2

1 Overview of the Argument There is an interesting argument hovering in the margins of philosophy that has rarely been given systematic treatment, often being advanced and critiqued with little or no awareness of its expression and development by others. In this book I will explore this argument’s secret history, presenting a compendium that focuses primarily on the last 150 years, as well as examining some of the objections raised against it. According to this argument, two common philosophical positions are self-referentially incoherent: that is, by believing, arguing for, asserting, or just considering these positions as possibilities, one acquires a reason to withhold belief in them, a reason that can neither be rebutted nor counter- acted by other considerations. These two positions are purportedly reached via rational thought but render rational thought impossible, and therefore they are ultimately self-defeating. The two positions are determinism and naturalism.

1.1 Initial Statement of the Argument The most basic form of the argument is used against those who try to explain away beliefs or arguments—particularly those with which they disagree—as motivated by some force(s) other than rationality. Freudianism and Marx- ism, at least in their more naïve expressions, are common targets. Freudians believe (allegedly) that all beliefs are the products of nonrational psychological dysfunctions, or at least functions that do not reliably produce true beliefs.1 And Marx himself wrote of his critics, “Your very ideas are but the outgrowth of the conditions of your bourgeois production and bourgeois property, just as your jurisprudence is but the will of your class made into a law for all, a will whose essential character and direction are determined by the economical conditions of existence of your class.” 2 Thus, his critics’ 2 Introduction to the Skyhook beliefs are brought about by social conditioning and their economic position in society and, as such, can be dismissed.3 The obvious response to such claims is to apply it to the Freudian and the Marxist themselves, not to mention Freud and Marx: if all beliefs are the product of nonrational forces, and thus nonveracious in some way, then belief in Freudianism and Marxism is similarly produced and so just as nonveracious as any other. If all reasoning is hopelessly tainted, then the Freudian and the Marxist arrive at their doctrines by tainted processes too, and if this condition allows their critics to be discounted, as Marx seems to suggest, it allows Freudianism and Marxism to be discounted by the same token. More broadly, if all beliefs are produced by nonrational forces and are thus nonveracious, then the belief that “all beliefs are produced by nonrational forces and are thus nonveracious” is itself produced by nonrational forces and is thus nonveracious. This belief, and any position that leads to it, is therefore self-defeating: if it is true, we no longer have any reason for believing it to be true. It is hoist with its own petard. To put this another way, those who claim that all beliefs, acts of reasoning, etc., are nonveracious are positing a closed circle in which no beliefs are produced by the proper methods by which beliefs can be said to be veracious or rational. Yet at the same time, they are arrogating to themselves a position outside of this circle by which they can judge the beliefs of others, a move they deny to their opponents. Since the raison d’être of their thesis is that there is no outside of the circle, they do not have the epistemic right to assume a position independent of it, and so their beliefs about the nonveracity of beliefs or reasoning are just as nonveracious as those they criticize. If all of the beliefs inside the circle are suspect, we cannot judge between truth and falsity, since any such judgment would be just as suspect as what it seeks to adjudicate. We would have to seek another argument, another chain of reasoning, another set of beliefs, by which we can judge the judgment—and a third set to judge the judgment of the judgment, ad infinitum . At no point can they step out of the circle to a transcendent standpoint that would allow them to reject some beliefs as tainted while remaining untainted themselves. What this entails is that, returning to our twin scapegoats, belief in Freud- ianism and Marxism must be claimed to be exceptions to this general rule of nonveracious beliefs. Yet in order to avail themselves of this option, they must be willing to provide some justification for it: to simply exclude their own beliefs and no others from their thesis would be completely ad hoc and question-begging. So in order to limit the application of their charge of irrationality, they must explain how some beliefs can escape being produced by nonrational forces or escape the subsequent nonveracity. This is problematic for them, because it means that their opponents’ beliefs may meet these criteria as well. In other words, if their condemnation of reasoning or argumentation is universal, then it applies to their condemnation also, and so is self-defeating. If it is only partial, thereby allowing them to escape the Introduction to the Skyhook 3 problem, then it may not apply to their interlocutors either. Nor can they assume that arguments are guilty until proven innocent, since, again, this would have to be applied to their own beliefs in Freudianism or Marxism. In this case, no analysis could ever get started, since such an analysis would also be guilty until proven innocent, and so must first be established by another analysis, which would itself be guilty until proven innocent, and so on. So, perhaps inconveniently, their opponents’ arguments and beliefs must be shown to be false rather than assumed to be false. We can ask further what principles they will use to determine a belief’s potential veracity. The obvious answer is the canons of rational thought: thus, any attempt to justify their beliefs as not subject to their criticism of other beliefs must presuppose the general validity and veracity of reasoning, thought, and argument. Unless reasoning is veracious, they cannot give any reason why their beliefs are veracious while those of their opponents are not. Insofar as their claims of nonveracity are universal in scope, they apply to all reasoning, including the reasoning employed in reaching their own doctrines, which are thus self-defeating. This book will address the claim that determinism and naturalism fall victim to the same argument as Freudianism and Marxism, although more subtly. If determinism and naturalism are true, then their advocates have arrived at their beliefs, including their beliefs in determinism and naturalism, by nonrational processes, thus taking away any epistemic motive they may have had for accepting determinism and naturalism in the first place. I say “more subtly” because determinists and naturalists do not usually assume that their opponents are inherently irrational, and so will not find it dis- comfiting to have to provide explanations by which one can judge beliefs true or not. The argument, however, seeks to show that in employing such explanations, the determinist or naturalist is unwittingly presupposing their position(s) to be false. The most concise statement of this argument as it applies to both determinism and naturalism is that given by the atheist scientist J.B.S. Haldane: “For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms.”4 He refers to determinism when he writes of one’s mental processes being “determined wholly” by something other than rational processes, and he refers to naturalism when he writes that the processes in question are the physical, chemical, neurological processes of brain activity. Taking this statement as our starting point, the argument is roughly as follows:

1. If determinism or naturalism is true, then beliefs are not produced by logical processes. 2. Beliefs that are not produced by logical processes are not logically sound. 4 Introduction to the Skyhook 3. Determinism and naturalism are beliefs. 4. Therefore, if determinism or naturalism is true, belief in determinism and naturalism is not produced by logical processes. (from 1 and 3) 5. Therefore, if determinism or naturalism is true, belief in determinism and naturalism is not logically sound. (from 2 and 4)

As stated, this argument plainly fails. The first premise is manifestly contestable, and the second is simply false. Nevertheless it suffices as a first pass at the argument. The above puts it in terms of beliefs, but it may also be expressed in terms of knowledge, rationality, argumentation, contemplation, or assertion. This argument has sometimes been promoted on the popular level, and this has led some to dismiss it as being outside the province of professional philosophers.5 This is unfortunate; as Ernest Gellner writes, “This argument has a distinguished history,” and thus is worthy of being taken seriously.6 In the 20th century, versions of the argument have been defended by some of the most renowned philosophers, and of course it has had its share of detractors as well.

1.2 Branding Strategies This argument is known by several names, but none has been applied to all versions of it. 7 I have chosen to name it after a passage by Daniel Den- nett, which may have been inspired by similar passages by Richard Rorty.8 Dennett writes of two types of explanations, those built from the ground up based on what has already been scientifically established and those that depend on something intentional reaching down from some transcendent viewpoint to fix or establish something. He calls the bottom-up explanations “cranes,” and the top-down explanations, “perhaps a descendant of the deus ex machina of ancient Greek dramaturgy,”9 he calls “skyhooks.”

Cranes can do the lifting work our imaginary skyhooks might do, and they do it in an honest, non-question-begging fashion. They are expen- sive, however. They have to be designed and built, from everyday parts already on hand, and they have to be located on a firm base of existing ground. Skyhooks are miraculous lifters, unsupported and insupport- able. Cranes are no less excellent as lifters, and they have the decided advantage of being real.10

The top, in Dennett’s reasoning, is mind, whereas the bottom is the material, physical, mechanistic entities and processes that science studies. Thus, any attempt to explain anything by starting with mind or intent is a skyhook, and such explanations are unscientific and disallowed. More precisely, they are nonexistent: skyhook explanations cannot trace their existence back to the mindless, mechanistic processes of nature (if they could then Introduction to the Skyhook 5 they would be cranes), and so are essentially appeals to miracles. Mind must be explained in naturalistic, deterministic terms, and any attempt to deny this is to appeal to a skyhook. “Let us understand that a skyhook is a ‘mind- first’ force or power or process, an exception to the principle that all design, and apparent design, is ultimately the result of mindless, motiveless mechanicity.”11 Dennett, of course, is using these concepts to argue for Darwinism (understood naturalistically) and accuses many of his fellow Darwinians of preferring skyhook explanations when it comes to explaining the mind and its operations—and thus of being covert creationists. 12 Naturalism and determinism are universal crane explanations; that is, they take cranes to be the only valid form of explanation, such that everything must be explained without recourse to anything else. If we allow an undetermined or non-naturalistic explanation into court, then we are no longer upholding determinism or naturalism. But whereas the affirmations of determinism and naturalism are universal, their denials are not. Critics do not deny that some things are determined or naturalistic; they merely deny that everything is. So the determinist and naturalist must claim that all things are determined or naturalistic, whereas the critic need claim only that there may be one thing that is not. The argument under consideration is that to take crane explanations universally is ultimately self-defeating: we have to posit a skyhook, by necessity, to avoid this self-defeat. To extend Dennett’s analogy, a crane built from the ground up will eventually collapse under its own weight.13 Thus our argument is essentially a skyhook. Indeed, the appeal of the argument, its bite (or, perhaps, its hook ), is the self-defeating nature of its targets. Therefore, I hereby christen this argument, in all its manifestations, the Epistemological Skyhook, or more succinctly, the Skyhook.14 Of course, a more straightforward imagery is available. A Skyhook argument, as I am conceiving it, would apply to any position that posits a closed system, but which can be defined, defended, believed, or known only from a standpoint transcending that system. The transcendent viewpoint is thus the “sky” relative to the system, and the point of contact it must have with the system in order for the system to be defined or defended is the “hook.” Dennett’s criticism lodges two objections against (small-s) skyhook explanations. First, he claims that cranes work “in an honest, non-question-begging fashion,” implying that skyhooks are question-begging. His point is that we are trying to explain mind and its properties, and so any appeal to mind is to use the very concept that we are trying to explain. A non-question-begging explanation would not appeal to the explanandum as explanans . However, it is only given naturalism that mind is the explanandum . Other positions, such as idealism or theism, claim that mind comes first (logically, at least, if not temporally) and is the explanation of matter. Since mind is primal, either there can be no explanation of it (as the naturalist claims of nature) or its explanation is internal to it, not rooted in something other than itself (as the naturalist cannot claim of nature given that nature is contingent). 15 6 Introduction to the Skyhook Of course, there can be an explanation of a particular mind, especially of a mind that is composed of matter, just so long as it is not the primal mind that explains everything else. Perhaps these positions are wrong, but Den- nett has not given us any reason to think so. Rather, he assumes that mind logically follows matter and so is what must be explained. He assumes that naturalism is true in order to argue that naturalism is true. In other words, his account is question-begging —exactly what he is accusing his opponents’ accounts of being. The Epistemological Skyhook is not question-begging because, as we will see, it works from premises that the naturalist or determinist must presuppose in presenting their theses, and argues that these presuppositions are incompatible with the theses themselves. The naturalist and the determinist must actually presuppose the falsity of naturalism and determinism in order to present, define, or defend naturalism and determinism. Dennett’s second objection is that skyhooks are “a descendant of the deus ex machina” solutions in which a drama concludes by having a god swoop in from on-high to solve all of the problems with a wave of his (or her) hand. But the problem with such solutions is that the insertion of some higher order that solves the problem in these contexts is ad hoc or contrived. With the Epistemological Skyhook, however, the claim is that insisting on only crane explanations is ultimately self-defeating. We must affirm a higher order by necessity . As such, it is not ad hoc . With this, we can see why our historical précis will focus on the last 150 years. The Epistemological Skyhook is sometimes used against the more extreme forms of Darwinism, which seek to explain the mind and its functions entirely as byproducts of the struggle for survival. This emphatically does not mean that the Skyhook can be used as an argument against evolution itself; it applies only to the claim that evolution can explain, with no remainder, all functions of the mind. It is (at least in some of its expressions) an argument against interpreting evolution naturalistically or deterministically, but not against evolution itself. This is a hard pill for some to swallow, given that evolution is often seen as the primary reason to accept naturalism. Indeed, many would argue that “the naturalistic interpretation of evolution” is redundant: evolution just is naturalistic evolution. To deny naturalism is to deny evolution itself. The Skyhook, however, argues that there is a tension between the two views. According to naturalism, our cognitive faculties evolved to promote our survival and propagation, not to pursue truth. Even if the beliefs produced by those faculties happen to be true, their truth would be only an accidental byproduct, a side effect, of the struggle for survival; and accidentally true beliefs do not qualify as knowledge. This would apply to our belief in evolution itself, so, ironically, naturalism excludes the possibility of knowing that evolution is true. We can know evolution is true only by rejecting naturalism. Introduction to the Skyhook 7 1.3 Similar Arguments and Influences It should be noted that there are other arguments to the effect that some aspect of human experience is irreducible to deterministic, naturalistic terms. Morality, for example, seems to presuppose free will (and thus to deny determinism) and is often appealed to as pointing to something beyond the physical, natural realm to function as its metaphysical ground. Of course, determinism and naturalism may be able to explain why we make certain moral judgments, but it is difficult to see how they could explain why we are right in making them; determinism and naturalism don’t explain our judgments and beliefs so much as they explain them away . However, because these arguments do not charge their targets with self-defeat, they do not amount to Skyhooks. When the same strategy is attempted with the Episte- mological Skyhook, the difference is clear: if you explain away rationality, you explain away explanations—including the explanation by which you explained away rationality in the first place. There are also other arguments to the effect that some aspects of mind are incommensurate with determinism or naturalism. For example, the Simplicity Argument claims that mind is indivisible and unified in a way that a physical entity is not. 16 The Qualia Argument claims that qualia, the first-person “what it’s like” experiences, cannot be explained in naturalistic terms.17 These arguments could potentially be made into Skyhooks if it were shown that in the affirmation, belief, knowledge (etc.) of naturalism, one must presuppose that the mind is simple or that there are qualia. If one could deny simplicity or qualia only by presupposing simplicity or qualia, then the denial of either would be self-defeating.18 Transcendental arguments, 19 which were championed by Kant, are a third type of argument similar to the Skyhook. I have seen two ways such arguments are framed. The first way is to point to a belief that one’s interlocutor accepts and then show that this belief ultimately presupposes some other proposition that the interlocutor rejects. This shows that the interlocutor’s system of beliefs is internally inconsistent, that there is some sort of incoherence within it. To take a recent example, Michael Rea has argued that naturalism requires a sort of mereological nihilism, an antirealist position according to which there are no discrete objects, something the naturalist probably would not want to accept. 20 However, one’s interlocutor could simply bite the bullet and reject one of the inconsistent beliefs. Here, the naturalist could reject the existence of discrete objects, thereby accepting mereological nihilism, the antirealism that goes with it, while remaining rational. The second, more technical (and more Kantian) version of a transcendental argument is to argue that a belief is incompatible with thought and rationality.21 As such, the believer’s claim to rationally believe the belief is inconsistent. If Rea were to argue that rationality requires belief in discrete objects, 22 then this would constitute an example of this second type of transcendental argument. This is much closer to a Skyhook, 23 but the interlocutor could 8 Introduction to the Skyhook still potentially avoid it by rejecting traditional views regarding belief and rationality. Often, someone who presents a transcendental argument seems to be arguing from an internalist conception of rationality and knowledge. If this is the case, then one’s interlocutor could simply embrace externalism and go on her merry way. If we reform the argument so that it also applies to externalist epistemologies, then our interlocutor could embrace eliminative materialism and deny that there are any such things as beliefs. Or she could embrace Quine’s original proposal regarding naturalized epistemology and simply claim that she is studying the relationship between the input of sensory impressions and the output of scientific theories without raising questions of rationality. The point is that there are still escape routes available. However, such views have problems.24 The claim of the Epistemological Skyhook is that naturalism and determinism are incompatible with rationality. The naturalist or determinist cannot accept her own irrationality and remain rational. In fact, she cannot accept her own irrationality at all: even in positing one’s own irrationality, even in merely considering it as a bare possibility, she must presuppose that she is rational. The claim here is not that she must consider herself perfectly or even generally rational; rather, it is that any attempt to deny that she is ever rational could get off the ground only if that attempt were rational, which entails that she is, at least sometimes, rational. There is no alternative: our own rationality is our starting point. It is the presupposition with which we must begin any inquiry, including an inquiry into whether we are rational. Regardless, in order to avoid the eliminativist and naturalized escape routes, we can formulate our argument so that it applies specifically to whatever claim our interlocutors are making. By presenting, arguing for, or defending their claim—be it naturalism, determinism, eliminativism, or whatever—the person is ultimately presupposing that the claim is false. This is an Epistemological Skyhook as I have defined it. Additionally, there is a strong tradition throughout philosophical history of arguing that relativism, perspectivalism, and subjectivism inevitably lead to skepticism, and that skepticism—at least some forms of it—is self-defeating. Therefore relativism, perspectivalism, and subjectivism are all self-defeating as well. If subjectivism is true, for example, then my belief in subjectivism is just a subjective fact about me, not an objective statement of how things actually are. “But then it does not call for a reply, since it is just a report of what the subjectivist finds it agreeable to say.”25 As Roger Scruton puts it, “A writer who says that there are no truths, or that all truth is ‘merely relative’, is asking you not to believe him. So don’t.”26 The Epistemological Skyhook essentially argues that either naturalism or determinism (or both) lead to skepticism. This can be done directly, or it can be done indirectly by arguing that naturalism and determinism entail relativism, perspectivalism, or subjectivism. As such, the Skyhook fits into the larger skeptical tradition and should have a place at the table in the study of skepticism. Introduction to the Skyhook 9 Whether one focuses on the Skyhook as it is expressed against determinism or against naturalism leads one to significantly different conclusions. If determinism is rejected, it does not follow that naturalism should be, and vice versa. A theistic determinist (such as a Calvinist) could accept the anti- naturalistic form of the argument, and an atheistic libertarian (such as a Sartrean) could accept the antideterministic form. Eventually, I will assess how the two forms of the argument relate to each other, and whether one is preferable to the other, whether one form assumes the other, or whether they can be held in isolation. Of course, one could deny both naturalism and determinism; indeed, many statements of the argument seem to be arguing against naturalism precisely because it is allegedly deterministic (that is, naturalism entails physical determinism). As noted above, our focus on the Epistemological Skyhook will be on the last 150 years or so, as the argument has been used during this period to argue against naturalistic forms of Darwinism that explain rationality as a byproduct of evolutionary forces. It seeks to preclude a complete reduction of the mind to evolutionary terms, and so limits how far evolutionary explanations (at least when understood naturalistically) can go. Nevertheless, the Skyhook was certainly expressed before this. Below we will present two of the most frequently cited pre-Darwinian examples in order to show that the issues the Skyhook raises are not exclusive to contemporary thought.

2 Epicurus

2.1 From Leucippus to Lucretius Perhaps the earliest statement that determinism is self-defeating comes from Epicurus,27 leading some to name such arguments provenancially as Epi- curean arguments. 28 Epicurus was an atomist, following in the footsteps of Leucippus and Democritus. The latter two maintained that atomism leads to a hard determinist metaphysic and, as such, entails (and was seen to entail) fatalism. 29 This does not merely refer to logical determinism, but any view in which everything is “beyond our power to affect.” 30 Yet they apparently did not see any conflict between this scenario and the personal responsibility that moral praise and blame—which they accepted—seem to presuppose.31 Aristotle, however, did. While he raised several objections to determinism, 32 here we will focus on the point that determinism ultimately places our actions outside of our control. If my choosing Y over Z were determined by preceding cause X, it would be all right as long as I am in control of X. If X were determined by W, the same conclusion applies. But according to determinism we can trace this line of causality to causes that are outside our control, external to the agent, predating the decision process, one’s own existence, and even the beginning of the human race. This makes moral praise or blame pointless, as the individual has no control over his actions and should no more be held responsible for them than an inanimate object 10 Introduction to the Skyhook should be blamed for being moved. In order to avoid this, Aristotle argues that the source of an action must ultimately be internal to the agent. 33 This may be compatible with some forms of determinism, but it is not compatible with the atomistic determinism of Leucippus and Democritus. Epicurus sought to revitalize atomism in light of Aristotle’s objections, 34 while upholding some sort of freedom. To this end, he proposed the swerve, a causeless (or at least accidental)35 event in which the atoms shift incre- mentally from their path. The swerve indicates a degree of indeterminism in the universe’s makeup and so allows one to accept atomism while rejecting determinism. More than that, it was meant to safeguard freedom by positing a break in the causal sequence of events, allowing the source of an action to originate internally as Aristotle demanded. The backward chain of causality would terminate within the individual and so avoid the fatalism that places our actions outside of our control. How a random motion like the swerve could safeguard freedom is not clear and has fueled much speculation ever since. Curiously, the swerve is not mentioned in any of Epicurus’s surviving texts, including those where it should be in a place of prominence. 36 Never- theless, it is almost universally ascribed to him afterwards by critics (such as Cicero) and advocates (such as Lucretius).37 Epicurus, and the school named after him, held very prominent views on ethics, according to which the individual is personally responsible for devel- oping his character—and personal responsibility, Epicurus thought (agreeing with Aristotle), requires free will. So while he sought to reduce everything to materialist, atomistic terms, Epicurus “wished at the same time to afford some explanation of human freedom (which the School maintained).” 38 We are able to overcome and control the development of our characters via reason, which is what sets us apart from animals.39 The Skyhook fits into this by being Epicurus’s argument against the determinism promulgated by Leucippus and Democritus. As Karl Popper states, “This may well have been Epicurus’s central argument against determinism, and for his theory of the ‘swerve’ of the atoms.” 40

2.2 Epicurus’s Skyhook Epicurus presents his Skyhook in two surviving texts, and while it focuses on argumentation, it has repercussions for rationality in general. The shortest text is a fragment from the Vatican Sayings: “The man who says that all things come to pass by necessity cannot criticize one who denies that all things come to pass by necessity: for he admits that this too happens of necessity.” 41 “Necessity” here can refer to causal or logical determinism, given that Epi- curus and the Epicureans (and others, such as the Stoics) thought that these were mutually entailing. 42 His point is not that determinism is logically contradictory, but that it takes away the possibility of rationally affirming itself.43 The determinist cannot censure the antideterminist because the only criterion in the determinist’s basket is causality, and that condition is met Introduction to the Skyhook 11 by the antideterminist: false and irrational beliefs (and insane beliefs for that matter) are caused just as much as true and rational (and sane) beliefs are. This puts the determinist’s affirmation of determinism in the same boat with the antideterminist’s rejection of determinism: we cannot approve one and disapprove the other because they both meet the only standard available in a deterministic world. Philosophers defending or rebutting contemporary versions of the Sky- hook, and who note its apparent origin in Epicurus, focus on the Vatican Sayings fragment. In contrast, ancient philosophers concentrating on Epi- curus’s version of the argument tend to ignore this fragment in favor of a more extensive statement in On Nature (∏ερι φύσεως), which survives only in a corrupted form.

For if someone were to attribute to the very processes of rebuking and being rebuked the accidental necessity of whatever happens to be present to oneself at the time, I’m afraid he can never in this way understand [. . .] while praising or blaming. But if he were to act in this way he would be leaving the very same behaviour which as far as our own selves are concerned creates the preconception of our responsibility. And in that he would at one point be altering his theory, [at another . . .] such error. For this sort of account is self-refuting, and can never prove that everything is of the kind called ‘necessitated’; but he debates this very question on the assumption that his opponent is himself responsible for talking nonsense. And even if he goes on to infinity saying that this action of his is in turn necessitated, always appealing to arguments, he is not reasoning it empirically so long as he goes on imputing to himself the responsibility for having reasoned correctly and to his opponent that for having reasoned incorrectly.44

The critic who denies free will is appealing to the advocate of free will to change her mind. He is challenging the advocate to take control of her character by using reason to accept determinism. Yet in order for this to work, the critic must presuppose that the advocate is responsible for her character, and thus is capable of controlling her character, and this capability presupposes that she has free will. As such, in appealing to reason—which is what makes it an argument —the critic is presupposing that determinism is false in order to argue that determinism is true. This is self-defeating. To say that all of our actions occur by necessity—the “accidental necessity” of causality—the free will critic is denying Aristotle’s dictum that the cause of our actions must be internal to the agent. This entails that our reasoning, which is internal to the agent, is ineffectual. Yet the critic is offering an argument, that is, a reason, for his position. If the critic’s belief in determinism was not brought about by his reason but by external causes, then his belief in and argument for determinism is not the product of reason, in which case determinism, or at least the denial of free will, is not and never can be reasonable. 12 Introduction to the Skyhook In presenting any argument whatever, the free will critic is employing normativity , that is, “shouldness” or “oughtness.” 45 He is saying that the advocate of free will should behave responsibly, she should act reasonably, and this extends to her use of reason in forming her belief system or worldview. However, ex hypothesi, the advocate’s actions are not under her control: regardless of what she should or should not do, all she in fact can do are those actions dictated by the external forces acting upon her. And these external forces determine her denial of determinism. Now perhaps the critic can change the advocate’s mind by presenting an argument; perhaps, that is, the argument can be just such an external force that causes the advocate of free will to deny it. But then it will not be the argument as such that brings about this change—in order for this to be the case, the advocate would have to understand the argument’s cogency, and this is something internal to her. Given determinism, it would be the argument’s functioning as an external cause not as an internal reason that changes her mind. If the critic concedes that his belief in determinism is also so caused, but this recognition does not mean it is wrong, Epicurus responds that this simply employs normativity at the next level: he should believe that he is caused to believe determinism because he should believe those beliefs that impose themselves on him. “And even if he goes on to infinity saying that this action of his is in turn necessitated, always appealing to arguments, he is not reasoning it empirically so long as he goes on imputing to himself the responsibility for having reasoned correctly and to his opponent that for having reasoned incorrectly.”46 The point here is that, given determinism, the advocate’s mind can be changed only through external causes. According to determinism (at least the determinism Epicurus is addressing), both the advocate and the critic believe their respective positions because external forces cause them to. But then on what basis do we approve one over the other? The critic believes in determinism and argues for it not because he believes that it is true or reasonable, but because he simply cannot help it. The same goes for the advocate’s affirmation of free will. Any attempt to get at the heart of the matter can get underway only by presupposing that both the critic and the advocate are not determined by external factors but are free to accept beliefs that seem reasonable to them. Epicurus was arguing against determinism, but he was doing so from a deeply materialist position. Indeed, in their debate with the Neo-Platonists, the Epicureans later argued that senseless matter can think. Since the Sky- hook is presented against materialism as often as determinism, we are justified in wondering why Epicurus and his followers only applied it to the latter and not the former. 47 If they thought the argument applied to determinism but not to materialism, why not? More broadly, how exactly can a self-motive force occur in a world consisting of atoms in motion and nothing else? How can the uncaused swerve of the atoms play a role in self-causation? Unfortunately, answering these questions requires more information than is available in the surviving texts. Introduction to the Skyhook 13 3 Kant

3.1 Kant’s Pre-Critical Theistic Argument Immanuel Kant criticized Anselm’s ontological argument for God’s existence, but seems to have obtained it second- or third-hand. “It is clear, for example, from the lack of any serious discussion of Anselm that Kant was not directly acquainted with his work, and that his view of Anselm’s argument as an ontological argument (in the sense of that of Descartes or Leibniz) was based on the reports of others who were little or no better acquainted with Anselm than Kant himself.” 48 His objection, which is often treated as definitive, is that the argument assumes “being” to be a predicate, something which an object could potentially have or not have. But an object that lacks being is not an object at all. However, it is not evident that this really addresses Anselm’s argument or, if it does, whether it is really the crippling objection that it is usually taken to be.49 However, in his pre-critical period, Kant did not reject the ontological argument so much as reform it. In The One Possible Basis for a Demonstra- tion of the Existence of God, he presented his own version of the ontological argument, which (he thought) avoided the pitfalls of earlier versions, particularly Descartes’s. 50 For Kant, an argument must establish its conclusion apodictically, or with “mathematical certainty” 51 : probabilistic or cumula- tive case arguments need not apply. This allows him to dismiss cosmological and teleological arguments (the latter of which Kant calls physico-theological arguments), a dismissal he carried over to his critical period. Moreover, any such apodictic conclusion must have only one path to being proven, so if an ontological argument can do the job, other theistic arguments cannot, by definition.52 Kant argues that in order for something to be possible it has to be both logically possible and materially possible—that is, “there has to be matter or data for thought.” 53 Descartes’s error was in constructing an ontological argument that addressed only logical possibility. But in order for something to be materially possible, there must be something actual: in order to be a possible something, it must already be an actual something.54 “Thus, although there is no logical contradiction in the denial of all existence, there is a contradiction in asserting that absolutely nothing exists, but that something is possible.” 55 If nothing exists, then there is no material possibility, no matter or data, that would allow for the possibility of something existing. Insofar as anything is even possible, it is impossible for nothing to exist: thus, in order to maintain that nothing exists, it is necessary to say that it is logically impossible for anything to exist. But this is problematic and leads Kant to argue that there must be something that exists necessarily, that cannot not exist. To deny this is to say that it is possible that absolutely nothing exists, which contradicts the point that a possible something must be an actual something (and so would not be nothing). In other words, this 14 Introduction to the Skyhook necessary being is the ground of all possibility: to deny it exists is to affirm that it is possible that nothing is possible, and this is a contradiction. From this point, Kant deduces several traits this necessary being must possess, which, unsurprisingly, match up pretty close to classical theism. In order to think about absolute nothingness, absolute nothingness must be thinkable. But for Kant, “thinkable” and “possible” mean the same thing: to be possible means to be thinkable. So if absolute nothingness is thinkable, it is possible. But if nothingness is possible, it must be actual (a possible something must be an actual something). Therefore, in order to think about nothingness, one must presuppose that nothing is something, which is a contradiction. Again: in order for there to be absolutely nothing, it must be logically impossible for anything to exist. To be logically impossible is to be literally unthinkable, not capable of being thought. But to posit in any way absolute nothingness is to think of it. Therefore, such a supposi- tion involves nothingness being thinkable, thus being possible, and thus not being nothingness. So absolute nothingness is impossible, 56 which means that something must exist. What is logically necessary is not contingent. Therefore, there must be something that exists necessarily, which cannot not exist, and the existence of which makes everything else—which is contingent—possible (that is, thinkable). So what does this have to do with the Epistemological Skyhook? Just this: naturalism57 denies the existence of God, and God is what makes everything else possible (thinkable). Thus, if naturalism is true, nothing would be thinkable, including naturalism. In thinking about, arguing for, or asserting naturalism, one must ultimately presuppose that naturalism is false. Thus naturalism contradicts itself. When Kant awoke from his “dogmatic slumber,” 58 he left his ontological argument behind. However, when he rejected the ontological argument in the Critique of Pure Reason , he did not address his own argument, but focused instead on Descartes’s version. This is very curious, given that he had already rebutted Descartes’s ontological argument in One Possible Basis in order to formulate his own version, which allegedly was not subject to the same objections—the objections that he then repeats in the Critique without mentioning how his own ontological argument supposedly avoids them. However, he does address his own argument in a series of lectures presented in the mid-1780s, which were published posthumously in 1817. There he suggests that his ontological argument is irrefutable and unavoid- able, insofar as we must presuppose the existence of God in order to think at all. Nevertheless, it does not constitute a deductive proof.

But even this proof is not apodictically certain; for it cannot establish the objective necessity of an original being, but establishes only the subjective necessity of assuming such a being. But this proof can in no way be refuted, because it has its ground in the nature of human reason. For my Introduction to the Skyhook 15 reason makes it absolutely necessary for me to assume a being which is the ground of everything possible, because otherwise I would be unable to know what in general the possibility of something consists in.59

Thus, in a conclusion reminiscent of that regarding God’s relationship to practical reason,60 Kant argues that God’s existence must be presupposed, even if not strictly thereby proven, in order for pure reason to be possible. This is very similar to the Epistemological Skyhook. Kant’s ontological argument has been the subject of much recent discussion61 and is also cited by Christian presuppositionalist theologians as the source of their Transcen- dental Argument for God. 62

3.2 Kant on Determinism Just as Kant argued that the existence of God was a necessary presupposition of practical reason, so he argued that free will and immortality also had to be presupposed in order for any kind of practical reason to get off the ground. And just as he argued that presupposing God’s existence carried over from practical reason to pure reason, so he thought free will was also a necessary presupposition for pure reason. Of course, Kant’s position on anything is controversial, given that his writings are dense and lend themselves to alternate interpretations, and this is even more so for a subject as complex as freedom and determinism. Lewis White Beck identifies five distinct Kantian concepts of freedom, and Henry Allison suggests that these could be multiplied.63 Kant was deeply distressed by Newtonian mechanism, as it seems to leave no room for free will, and thus no room for ethics. Insofar as Newton’s physical theories are universal in scope, they do not allow for value—in particular, for valuing the human being, the other. Kant argues that people should be treated as ends in themselves rather than as means, but this seems to make them alien to all the other elements of the universe, which, qua Newtonian mechanisms, have no intrinsic value. Why should human beings be different from the rest of creation? Kant’s resolution rests in his distinction between the noumenon —the Ding an sich or thing in itself—and the phenomenon — the thing as it appears to us. The physical world, the world of Newtonian mechanism, of blind causality, of determinism, is the phenomenal world, and the world of autonomy, rationality, freedom , is the noumenal world. Our focus, however, will be on Kant’s concept of the spontaneity of discursive thought, that is, cognition or understanding, in order to construct a Kantian Skyhook against determinism. Discursive thought cannot be explained purely in passive or receptive terms; it must also contain a spon- taneous act of conceptualization or classification of what is received. In such an act, “the mind must not only combine the items (representations or judgments) in a single consciousness, it must also be conscious of what it is doing.”64 This not only applies to conceptualization, but to reasoning as 16 Introduction to the Skyhook well: the mind must be conscious of the logical, rational connection between a reason and a conclusion. It is not enough for the reason to be a good one—to actually entail the conclusion—it must be seen to be a good one.65 In light of this doctrine, Kant expresses an interesting argument in the Groundwor k for the Metaphysics of Morals that presents a formidable objection to determinism:

Now one cannot possibly think a reason that, in its own consciousness, would receive steering from elsewhere in regard to its judgments; for then the subject would ascribe the determination of its power of judgment not to its reason but to an impulse. It must regard itself as the author of its principles independently of alien influences; consequently it must, as practical reason or as the will of a rational being, be regarded by itself as free, i.e., the will of a rational being can be a will of its own only under the idea of freedom and must therefore with a practical aim be attributed to all rational beings.66

Whereas this passage is not self-referential, and so does not qualify as a Skyhook as we have defined it—it does not argue that if we are determined by forces external to our reasoning faculties, this would take away any reason for believing that we are so determined in the first place—some of Kant’s commentators have, nevertheless, understood him to be implying it, and many versions of the Skyhook explicitly link it to this passage as well.67 H. J. Paton, for example, exegetes this passage as follows:

If every judgement is determined solely by previous mental events and not by rational insight into a nexus between premises and conclusion independent of temporal succession, there can be no difference between valid and invalid inference, between reasoning and mere association, and ultimately there can be no truth. In that case determinism itself could not be accepted as true, nor could the arguments in its defence be accepted as valid.68

This does not merely hold negatively—the reasoner must be free from being influenced by desire or other sources external to ratiocination—but positively as well—the reasoner must be free to follow her own rational principles.

I take Kant to be saying that a rational agent can act, just as he can think, only on the presupposition of freedom: he must think and act as if he were free. The presupposition of freedom is as implicit in his acting as in his thinking; and unless we can act on this presupposition there is no such thing as action, and there is no such thing as will. . . . Human action cannot differ from animal behaviour merely in being accompa- nied by a conception of freedom: if it differs at all, it must differ by being Introduction to the Skyhook 17 itself rational. A rational agent must will his actions under the Idea of freedom, just as he must will his actions as instances of a particular principle or maxim.69

The only way out of this is to deny rationality, in which case we are faced immediately with the Skyhook: if rationality is a chimera, then that very claim cannot be rationally maintained. Two contestable points in Kant’s quote and Paton’s exposition are that the subject must be conscious of being determined by alien influences and that the influences are therefore impulsive upon him. But of course, not all forms of determinism maintain such an impulsion working against (or in the absence of) will. Most, in fact, do not; instead they tend to posit some form of compatibilism where the determining forces are somehow united with the will. 70 However, we put Kant’s Skyhook in the context of his doctrine of the spontaneity of cognition for a reason: it allows us to formulate the argument so as to avoid this objection. Roughly, we can argue that if my belief p can be fully explicated in causal terms, then whatever reasons I think I have for p are not necessary conditions: If I did not have these reasons I would still believe p because it would have been brought about by purely causal (deterministic) factors. Any philosophy of mind that privileges anything over the mental thereby removes the reasons for holding a belief from the actual holding of it. This is a Kantian argument because having reasons for a belief is an act of recognition, i.e., of understanding or conceptualization: this, again, is Kant’s doctrine of the spontaneity of cognition. The rational being must act “under the idea of freedom,” and in fact, must ascribe freedom “to all rational beings” as well.71 Without this presupposition, I cannot know that my belief p is properly connected to its grounds, and therefore cannot know anything , including determinism. Whereas this is a presupposition (in a sense), it need not be, for Kant, a belief . We must act under the idea of freedom, as if we were free, leaving aside the question of whether we really are. 72

3.3 Kant on Materialism Kant’s views on materialism and immaterialism may not be as obscure as his views on determinism and freedom, but this does not make it clear-cut. Just as Beck identifies five concepts of determinism in Kant, so Karl Ameriks identifies five distinct Kantian concepts of materialism. Fortunately, we can identify which of these is relevant to our discussion: scientific materialism. 73 “Put simply, scientific materialism affirms the possibility in principle of a materialistic account of thinking, while the corresponding ‘immaterialism’ denies such a possibility.”74 Kant gave several arguments against materialism. 75 Here, however, we will follow others, such as Allison, 76 in using the statement in the Groundwork —a statement that is manifestly about determinism —to construct a Kantian 18 Introduction to the Skyhook Skyhook against materialism . Materialism, after all, claims that reasoning is entirely explicable by the physical, material processes that work only from cause to effect, not from premise to conclusion. Thus, these processes qualify as “alien influences” by which reason “receive(s) steering from elsewhere in regard to its judgments,” a view Kant considered to be literally inconceiv- able. Insofar as material processes are the real reason for my drawing a conclusion, then the rational reason is disposable; it is not really why I believe the conclusion. If the material processes were present but the rational reason were absent, I would still believe the conclusion. This may seem to apply more to reductive or eliminative forms of materialism, but not necessarily to nonreductive forms. If we take mental properties as supervening on physical properties, it is not immediately evident that the argument still applies. However, these cases are still fully causal, materialistic conceptions of thought; and the argument is that this cannot account for the spontaneity of the understanding:

. . . it is this act of understanding, this grasping of reasons as reasons, that constitutes the required moment of recognition; and this cannot be analyzed as simply having another belief. If the understanding is to take its reasons as reasons and, therefore, as justifying its beliefs, it must connect them with these beliefs in a unitary consciousness in a judgment in accordance with some rule or principle of synthesis, which functions as an “inference ticket.” Furthermore, this “taking as” must be conceived as an inherently self-conscious activity, something that the subject does for itself (spontaneously) and is conscious of so doing, rather than as something which it is caused to do and of which it is only conscious as a result.77

The problem for any materialistic account of the mind is that it cannot capture the nature of understanding because any attempt to do so would merely refer to another higher-order belief about the belief that is to be understood. But since this higher-order belief would also leave out the understanding (because the reason for the belief would not be a necessary condition for my holding it), it would require another even higher-order belief to account for it to which the same objection applies, and so itself requires another belief, etc. At no point do you reach a level where a belief is held because of the reason(s) for it rather than because of the material, causal conditions that brought it about. It’s turtles all the way down. A final claim by the nonreductive materialist might be to point out that we can, in fact, review our acts of recognition from a third-person perspective, learn from this what was “really going on,” i.e., the neurophysiological processes of the brain, and conclude that the latter are necessary and sufficient conditions for our understanding. Yet this amounts to the claim that the first-person perspective can be eliminated from our epistemology, and the point of the Kantian argument is that it cannot: the “I think” underlies all Introduction to the Skyhook 19 thought, including the thought that there is no “I.” Kant’s argument—indeed, “Kant’s whole account of apperception”78 —is that such an elimination is impossible. Any attempt to explain the mind entirely from a third-person perspective can do so only by presupposing the first-person perspective that accompanies all thought. Any materialistic account of a belief, any token of that belief’s content, must be describable from a third-person perspective. But such a token can be such only if it is a token for an “I,” and any attempt to describe that from a third-person perspective would be a token for another “I,” and so on. The attempt to eliminate the first-person perspective ends up being an attempt to step off of one’s own shadow. The first-person perspective eludes being reduced to the third-person perspective—in other words, it eludes being fully explicable in materialistic terms. “In short, we return in the end to the ineliminability and systematic elusiveness of this ubiquitous ‘I think.’ The former precludes the possibility of simply eliminating it from an analysis of thinking that purports to do justice to its claims to objective validity; the latter precludes the possibility of reducing it to just one more item in the world.”79 These conclusions are strikingly similar to the recent arguments of Thomas Nagel, and so are not historical anachronisms that are of interest only for Kantian studies. 80 We cannot remove the first-person perspective of what experiences are like without cutting our own throats, epistemologically speaking. Thus, in Kant, Nagel, and others, it seems the Qualia Argument overlaps with the Epistemological Skyhook.

Notes 1. Plantinga 1993b, 13. 2. Marx and Engels 1848, 88. 3. Note that Marx does not actually make this last point, although he seems to be implying it. 4. Haldane 1929, 209; cf. 1932, 157–58. Ironically, Haldane later changed his mind and accepted materialism (1954). 5. Armstrong 1968, 200; Wiggins 1970, 133; Snyder 1972, 353. 6. Gellner 1957, 69. He goes on to describe it as “the centre-piece of Kantian ethics,” but this seems to be an exaggeration. 7. Among the extant names, my personal favorite is the Thinking Cap Argument (http://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/1263786-Is-there-Scientific- Proof-of-God, accessed 8 December 2015). 8. Dennett 1995, 73–80 and passim; Rorty 1991a, 2, 9, 14; 1991b, 38–39. See also Rorty 1995, a review of Dennett’s 1995, but which does not mention Rorty’s own use of the skyhook metaphor. 9. Dennett 1995, 74. 10. Dennett 1995, 75. 11. Dennett 1995, 76. 12. Dennett 2009, 10062. He also calls them “mind creationists.” 13. There are, in fact, suggestions to build literal skyhooks, orbiting tethers with one end terminating in the atmosphere and the other extending high enough into orbit to counterbalance it, or tethers that rotate, each end alternately dipping down into the atmosphere. Standard aircraft could attach payloads to the lower 20 Introduction to the Skyhook end, which would then climb the tether or rotate up out of the atmosphere and so move into orbit or beyond. A similar (albeit more elaborate) suggestion is a space elevator, a line connecting the surface of the earth to a satellite in orbit. This is a skyhook in that it would require that an asteroid be placed in geosyn- chronous orbit that lets down a line from above that is then secured to some location on the earth’s equator, and payloads can climb the line to reach orbit. Others have proposed a “crane” structure called a space fountain that would be built from the ground up, but the top of the fountain would not reach orbit since the structure would collapse under its own weight before reaching this high (at least, if built on Earth or a planet with similar gravity). Payloads would climb the tower, and when they reach the top their upward impetus would propel them into orbit. All of these structures require further advances in technology before they can be realized. 14. I find this name appealing for another reason: I have always believed that the best way to strip a slur of its intent to delegitimize and demoralize is to adopt it and use it to refer to oneself. 15. For this reason, and others, I accept the second option here. 16. The Simplicity Argument fell out of favor after Kant, but there are some signs that it is reviving. Of particular note is the corpus of Ben Lazare Mijuskovic, including his 1974, 1984, and 2012, as well as numerous articles. A full bibliography can be found online at (http://simplicityargument.wordpress.com/biblio/, accessed 8 December 2015). See also Lennon and Stainton, eds. 2008; Koons and Bealer, eds. 2010, part II ( chapters 7 – 9 ). 17. See, e.g., Nagel 1979b; and Adams 1987, 243–62. 18. Both potentials can be seen in Kant’s Skyhook, below. 19. Thanks to Steve Duncan for pointing this out. 20. Rea 2000; 2002. 21. Stroud 2000 has a few essays addressing this stricter definition of transcendental arguments. 22. Chesterton argues that it does. See chapter 11. 23. Several philosophers who address Skyhooks explicitly call them transcendental arguments, for example Hasker 1973, Colson 1982, Devitt 1990, and Lockie 2003. 24. On the Skyhook and eliminativism, see chapter 4 . On the Skyhook and naturalized epistemology, see chapters 6 and 12 . 25. Nagel 1997, 15. 26. Scruton 1996, 6. 27. Which is not to say that similarly structured arguments had not been given, just that they were given against different targets. Such “overturning arguments”— that a position was self-defeating (“pragmatic self-refutation”)—were present in the ancient world before Epicurus (Annas 1992, 127). 28. Honderich 1990, 1:360–73 (1988, 360–73); Hookway 1989. 29. None of the complete texts of the early atomists have survived, so we have to piece together their doctrines via the advocacy and criticism of others. 30. O’Keefe 2005, 129. 31. Copleston 1962, 126. 32. See, e.g., Physics IV, 8, 215a1–6; VIII, 1, 252a32-b2; On the Heavens III, 2, 300b8–17; Metaphysics Λ, 1071b31–34. 33. Nicomachean Ethics III, 1. This point is discussed in chapters 12 and 13. 34. There is no direct evidence that Epicurus was responding to (or even aware of) Aristotle, but the consensus view is that he formulated his theories with Aristotle in mind. See Englert 1987, 41–62, and O’Keefe 2005, 118–20, 137. 35. Englert 1987, 57–60. 36. O’Keefe 2005, 118. Introduction to the Skyhook 21 37. Cicero, De Fato, IX, 18–19; De Nature Deorum , I, XXV, 69–70; Lucretius, On the Nature of Things , 2:216–93. Curiously, it does not make an appearance in Diogenes Laërtius’s account of Epicurus in his Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (book X). 38. Copleston 1962, 405. 39. Lucretius, On the Nature of Things , 3:320–22. 40. Popper and Eccles 1977, 75 n. 3. For Popper’s Skyhook, see chapter 8 . 41. Epicurus, Extant Remains , fragment XL (pp. 112–13). 42. O’Keefe 2005, 124, 138–44. 43. See chapter 2 on the difference between self-refutation and self-defeat. 44. This is only a portion of the relevant text. For the fuller quote, see Sedley 1983, 19–23. For a slightly different reconstruction and translation, see O’Keefe 2005, 83, 165. 45. This point is developed in chapter 6 . 46. Sedley 1983, 22. 47. Some philosophers maintain that Epicurus is not arguing against determinism, but rather the reductive (that is, atomistic) materialism of Democritus (O’Keefe 2005, 15–16). Given his introduction of the swerve, I find it more plausible to think he was arguing against determinism rather than atomistic materialism. 48. Logan 2007, 348. 49. Plantinga 1966. 50. Kant 1763. This was foreshadowed in Kant 1755. 51. Kant 1763, 222–23. 52. Kant 1763, 222–23. 53. Logan 2007, 352. 54. Kant 1763, 69. 55. Logan 2007, 351. 56. Kant 1763, 71. Again, if absolute nothingness is logically necessary, it is not a contradiction. But it could not be thought, since this would mean it is possible, and thus must be an actual something—in which case it would be false to say that nothing exists. 57. Kant would address this towards atheism, but we can hijack his argument for our purposes. 58. Kant 1783, 260 (Introduction). 59. Kant 1817, 375. 60. Kant 1788, I, II, 5. 61. In addition to those already cited, see, e.g., Chignell 2009; 2012; 2014; Abaci 2014; Yong 2014. 62. Van Til 1955, 116–22, 282–88. 63. Beck 1987; Allison 1990, 1. 64. Allison 1989, 193. 65. In fact, it need not be a good reason: “even if the reasons are in fact not good (or the rule of inference is faulty), as long as one links them with the conclusion in this fashion, one is reasoning, albeit badly” (Allison 1989, 193). 66. Kant 1785, 65 (4:448). On alien causes, see Allison 2011, 284–85. 67. Jordan 1969; Hasker 1973; Allison 1989. 68. Paton 1967, 218. 69. Paton 1967, 219. 70. Adolf Grünbaum, for example, has argued that the Skyhook presupposes an impulsive view of determinism. See his 1953, 775–77; 1967, 337–38 (an abridgement of the first reference); 1971, 309–10. 71. Kant 1785, 65 (4:448). In fact, the idea of freedom is “the sole presupposition under which alone [the categorical imperative] is possible” (1785, 77 [4:461]). 72. Allison 2011, 304–305; cf. Plantinga 1993b, 211–14. 22 Introduction to the Skyhook 73. Ameriks 1982, 32–47. The other four being appearance, phenomenal, noumenal, and transcendental. 74. Allison 1989, 195. 75. For example: a) the spontaneity of cognition, which is identical to the spontaneity of free action, is incompatible with materialism (Allison 1989, 190); b) the “I think,” the concept or judgment that “is the vehicle of all concepts” (Kant 1787, A341, B399), is irreducible to and inconsistent with, materialism (ibid. B419–20); c) the Simplicity Argument, according to which “the unity of consciousness that must necessarily be found in all knowledge (consequently also in that of one’s self) makes it impossible that representations divided among several subjects should constitute unified thought. Therefore, materialism can never be used as a principle for explaining the nature of our souls” (Kant 1791, 150–51). 76. Allison 1989. 77. Allison 1989, 200–201. 78. Allison 1989, 203. 79. Allison 1989, 203. 80. For Nagel’s Skyhook, see chapter 9. 2 Defining Terms

Defi ne your terms, you will permit me again to say, or we shall never understand one another. Voltaire, Dictionnaire philosophique

In this chapter, we will define the terms determinism and free will; materialism, physicalism, and naturalism; and defeat and self-defeat. The treatments are not meant to be exhaustive; we will merely be defining them as they have relevance to the Epistemological Skyhook.

1 Determinism Free will and determinism is one of the perennial subjects of philosophy. More ink has been spilled on this topic than almost any other (apart from God, perhaps). Spilling a little more may not be a judicious move, but it is necessary in order to explicate the Skyhook and its targets.

1.1 Definitions An event is determined if the conditions which precede it are sufficient to bring the event about. “Precede” can be understood logically or temporally, and the latter can be made even more complex by asking whether backward causality is possible. But this goes beyond our requirements here. We will use “precede” in the temporal sense. Determinism, then, is the claim that all events are determined—that the conditions that precede any and all events are sufficient to bring the events about. As such, the conditions in question are also determined by conditions preceding them, ad infinitum . When applied to human beings it means that all human actions are entirely produced by preceding conditions, which can ultimately be traced back to conditions that precede the decision-making process, one’s own existence, and even the existence of the human race. There are obviously different forms of determinism, based on what the determining agent is: genes, sociopolitical forces, neurophysiology, evolutionary 24 Defining Terms history, psychological forces, God, etc. Thus the Skyhook can be, and often is, applied exclusively to one form of determinism. “Determining agent,” here, excludes the human being whose will is—according to the critic of determinism—what brings about an act. The issue is whether our actions are determined by other things, not whether we determine them ourselves. Applying the Skyhook to determinism often appears in writings on ethics, since moral duty seems to require free will, the ability to perform said duty—or, in philosophical vernacular, “ought” implies “can.” Free will, at least insofar as it denies determinism, claims that the individual’s actions cannot be fully explained in terms of the conditions that preceded them. Obviously this does not mean that such causes do not have some effect on what the individual does; it merely means that the individual’s choices cannot be entirely reduced to such causes. Nor does it entail that the individual has some sort of unfettered freedom. A man cannot choose to fly unaided by any apparatus, for example. Free will denies only the complete reduction of the individual’s actions to the preceding causes. Indeed, it can be made even less ambitious: free will is the claim that it is possible for someone to perform some one action not entirely produced by its preceding causes (excluding the agent). It does not assume that anyone has, does, or will perform some free act, only that the possibility remains open. This is an important qualification, because if we argue for the actuality of free will rather than its mere possibility, the determinist could simply deny the claim.

Anyone arguing that determinism is self-referentially inconsistent but overlooking the distinction between acting freely and being able to act freely is bound to argue fallaciously. He is bound to argue fallaciously since he tries to arrive at a conclusion he cannot legitimately draw from the material at his disposal—determinism itself. Since he cannot legitimately draw his conclusion from determinism he must import something. Whatever he imports, he imports illegitimately—since a determinist can consistently deny it—and thus the opponent of determination begs the question.1

In contrast with free will, determinism asserts a universal negative: no individual can ever perform any action that is not completely explicable in terms of its preceding causes. It claims that no one has ever, will ever, or can ever perform an act that is not fully circumscribed by what went on before it. Therefore, determinism is a much more extreme claim than its denial. “Such a proposition is not simply descriptive; it is not merely a generalization; and, since it is a claim about the world, it is not merely a logical truth. A claim such as this needs some sort of indirect justification.” 2 This is usually done by placing it in the larger context of an ontological theory that is itself reasonable and that entails determinism. Thus far I have been treating determinism and free will as if they are mutually exclusive. But most philosophers are compatibilists, that is, they Defining Terms 25 believe that both free will and determinism are true and that they do not conflict. The hard determinist holds a view of determinism that is incompatible with free will, but the soft determinist, the compatibilist, does not. We will be primarily focused on hard determinism in the present work, given that only the hard determinist denies free will. However, there are versions of the Skyhook that apply to any type of determinism, according to which the compatibilist’s definition is insufficient to rescue it from self-defeat.

1.2 The Problem with Determinism So what exactly is self-defeating about determinism when applied to the mind? Many of the arguments point out that we must be free to choose between the true and false, and if determinism were true, such a choice would be impossible. By itself, however, this is not convincing: for one thing, if we are determined to believe what is true, the difficulty simply does not arise. For another, we do not really choose the truth. I, by my choice, cannot make my belief true. Quite the opposite: I have to allow the truth to determine my belief in order for the belief to be true. The problem, of course, is that some claims with which we are presented are true and some are false, so I must be able to weigh the evidence for and against any given proposition—I cannot be determined to accept the false conclusion while still maintaining that my reasoning is veracious. But this just means that I cannot be determined to accept falsehoods, not that I cannot be determined to accept truths. So let’s be more specific. If we are determined to believe truths, we may bypass the problem at one level, but at the next level a deeper issue emerges. If we are determined to believe a particular truth, we would obviously have a true belief. But would we know it? My belief is true, but how do I know it is true? Well, because it was produced by the appropriate processes, processes that are allegedly deterministic in nature. But how do I know that ? My belief about those processes is another belief that was also produced by those processes. What if these processes determine me to hold false beliefs? Then they would determine me to falsely conclude that they determine me to hold true beliefs.3 If the processes that are in play are reliable, if they tend to produce true beliefs, then well and good. But we could not know that these processes were actually reliable without examining their reliability. Accord- ing to determinism, however, the only methods by which we could examine such processes are products of these processes themselves. To appeal to the reliability of these processes in arguing for their reliability is an invalid procedure. This may be able to show that the processes in question are not reliable (by showing that they lead to an incoherent system, for example), but to appeal to these processes in order to verify the reliability of these processes is simply, and blatantly, to beg the question. So it seems that we need something more. At first glance, the problem with determinism arises when the determining forces are 1) other than rational and 2) external to the individual (remember, this latter issue was why 26 Defining Terms both Aristotle and Kant objected to determinism). In other words, there must be a reason for a belief and it must be my reason. Determinism, it seems, denies both of these criteria. It denies that the determining forces are rational because it posits that these forces act automatically, mechanically, mindlessly . If this were not the case, it would not be determined: in order for an event to be determined, it must be brought about by the conditions that precede it. As long as these conditions are operative, then the event takes place. The presence of a mind willing the event does not add anything to the mix. Determinism also denies that the determining forces are internal because, given determinism, all preceding conditions are themselves determined by preceding conditions, and this chain can ultimately be traced to conditions external to the individual and even to those that precede her existence. Inso- far as determinism is universal all human actions are the inevitable product of external conditions. Whether something is internal or external to the individual may seem too vague of a criterion to be of much use, but, as we have seen, it is a vagueness shared by Aristotle and Kant, as well as many others. This, as I say, is how it looks at first glance. However, by making one of the conditions of determinism that the determining agent be other than rational, we are forgetting beliefs that are produced by nonrational processes yet are perfectly valid. 4 For example, my beliefs that I had corn flakes for breakfast and that there is a computer screen in front of me right now are not produced by rational processes. I simply remember having corn flakes for breakfast, and I see the computer screen in front of me. Certainly I could formulate some rational argument to justify my beliefs: most of my recent memory beliefs are accurate, I remember having corn flakes for breakfast this morning, therefore I probably had corn flakes for breakfast. But this argument would not be why I believe it. I just remember it: and “I just remember it” is not a reason for why I believe it, but is merely a statement of the fact that I do believe it. Such beliefs are simply given, and despite the fact that they are not produced by rational processes—that is, they are not conclusions produced by an act of reasoning—they are rational. In fact to reject such beliefs would be extremely irrational , barring some incredibly powerful counterevidence. In short, by making the problem with determinism one of rationality, we are neglecting the possibilities of externalist and naturalized epistemologies, where beliefs can be the product of nonrational, nonepistemic processes yet be completely justified. The problem above claimed that, if determinism is true, we could never know that the determining forces in question were reliable, because any attempt to examine them would be completely beholden to them. So we could never know that we know something. This kind of recursive requirement, however, is true only of internalism. External- ism rejects the claim that one must know she knows something in order to really know it. As long as the forces that produce a belief are reliable, then we can have justified true belief, i.e., knowledge. We do not have to know whether these processes are reliable in order to trust them, any more than I Defining Terms 27 have to produce a syllogism demonstrating that my memory is trustworthy before I can know that I had corn flakes for breakfast. So we need to reframe the problem. What we need to say, with A. E. Taylor, is that “the whole point of the theory called determinism is that it regards the determinant as invariably extrinsic to that which is determined by it.” 5 There are two ways the determinant could be extrinsic to our beliefs: by being external to the belief itself (or argument or object of knowledge or what-have-you), or by being external to the individual who has the belief. So, rather than saying that there must be a reason (which would be an internalist criterion) for a belief, we can say more broadly that there must be an explanation for a belief, where explanation encompasses reasons, causes, etc. So, in summary, there must be an explanation for a belief, it must be a good explanation (that is, intrinsic to what the belief is about), and it must be my explanation for why I believe it. What do we mean by saying that it must be a good explanation? Take someone who believes a proposition b not because she has directly encountered what b is about or because b is the conclusion from an act of ratiocination, but because the physical forces governing her brain, or psychological forces, or God, or whatever the determining agent is posited to be, brought about the belief. She has not encountered the truth of the proposition that she believes; she believes it because the determinant—extrinsic to what her belief is about—causes her to believe it. Certainly, the cause of her belief functions as a kind of explanation, but insofar as it is extrinsic to the belief’s contents, it does not explain why it is right for the individual to form the belief. An example, from Plantinga, is the serendipitous brain lesion, which causes its sufferer to form all manners of random beliefs, including the belief that she has a brain lesion. Even though the lesion causes its sufferer to form the belief that she has a brain lesion, we do not want to say that she actually knows it because the lesion does not explain why she would be right to believe it.6 Conversely, I believe I had corn flakes for breakfast because my memory that I did so puts me in contact with that fact. I believe that a computer screen is in front of me right now because my sensory faculties put me in contact with that fact. I believe the conclusion of a complicated argument because my rational faculties put me in contact with it. This may seem to make determinism acceptable via some form of externalism: if the determining factor of my belief that a computer screen is in front of me consists of the mindless physical processes involved in sensory perception and the physical world, then determinism can be rationally affirmed and known. This is why externalism seems to work so well for sensory-based beliefs. Nevertheless there are two responses to make: first, even properly basic sensory-based beliefs about what one is perceiving at the moment can be explained by sources that are external to the belief. For example, part of the reason why I believe a computer screen is in front of me is because certain neural processes are happening in my brain. But if a cognitive scientist or God (preferably the latter) were to reach into my brain 28 Defining Terms and “manually” force those same neural processes to take place when there is no computer screen in front of me, I would still form the belief that there is one. This may be internal to the believer, but it would be extrinsic to the belief, given that the belief is not being caused by what the belief is about , namely, a computer screen. Second, being internal (intrinsic) to the belief is not enough; it also has to be internal to the believer . If one were to argue that self-determination is a category of determinism, we could (and A. E. Taylor does ) argue to the contrary that if the self is the determining agent, it no longer meets the necessary definition of determinism. As noted above, the issue is whether we are determined by other forces, not whether we determine ourselves—indeed, the ability to determine oneself, one’s own destiny, is a fairly decent definition of free will. In chapter 12, we will address in more detail whether appealing to an externalist or naturalized epistemology would allow us to avoid the Skyhook. Another point: we say above that determinism denies that the source of the belief is internal to the individual because the causal chain can be traced back to forces external to her. But so what? Perhaps all that matters is that the immediate, proximate cause is internal. We will return to this point in the final chapter.

1.3 Two Unexplored Rabbit Trails and Two Postponements There are two important aspects of the debate between determinism and free will that are not directly relevant to the Skyhook. The first of these is the nature of predictability. Many determinist arguments specifically link it to, or even define it as, whether a given act could have been predicted beforehand. This leads to problems, because a prediction given before the act could very well influence whether the act is undertaken.7 Popper has used predictability to construct an argument showing that scientific determinism (not mere determinism) is not only self-defeating, but is actually self-refuting.8 But this goes further than the current project. We are addressing whether those forms of determinism where the determining factors are extrinsic to what they determine are self-defeating. The second issue one could raise is that, by some definitions, merely excluding what is external to rationality would not preclude determinism. What is necessary to deny determinism and affirm free will is a choice that is unconditioned by anything , be it rational or not. As such, a position according to which rational forces determine our beliefs is still a form of determinism. Part of the problem here is that it is difficult to see how a factor could be deterministic—i.e., automatic, mechanistic, mindless—and rational. Rationality seems to require mindfulness at some level. This may be the case, but this book will not concern itself with defining determinism and free will that rigidly. The Skyhook is simplest and most convincing when addressing a determinism according to which the determining factors that are addressed are nonrational in nature. Nevertheless, it should be noted Defining Terms 29 that some have applied the Skyhook to stricter definitions of determinism, and so have sought to prove that we are free in the sense above: free from all governing forces, rational and nonrational.9 There are also two issues that will be addressed later in the present work, and so we will defer discussion of them until then. The first of these is indeterminism, according to which events are not entirely brought about by previous conditions. On its face, however, this seems worse than determinism: if our beliefs just randomly came to us without any cause or reason, then they would have even less value than if they were determined. At least with determinism there remains the possibility that our beliefs are determined by the right thing. With indeterminism, no such prospect exists. Our beliefs would not be determined—not by truth, not by logic, not by anything that could potentially make them veracious.10 Order is preferable to chaos, structure to randomness. Determinism presents order and structure; indeterminism presents chaos and randomness. We will argue, with Popper, that this is a false dichotomy, but again, not yet. The second deferment is compatibilism, the widely held view, mentioned above, that determinism and free will are compatible. We will not address this yet, as it constitutes a strong rebuttal to some forms of the Skyhook that are aimed at determinism. Our ultimate purpose, then, will be to formulate a Skyhook that can be applied (given certain conditions) to compatibilism as well as hard determinism.

2 Naturalism Materialism, physicalism, and naturalism are all closely related terms and are often used interchangeably. Nevertheless, we can distinguish them to some extent, although here we will untie them in order to unite them again under an inclusive definition that captures all senses of these terms.

2.1 Materialism and Physicalism Materialism—roughly, the claim that matter is all that exists—has been an illustrious position throughout philosophical history. 11 Material processes are simply descriptions of how matter behaves, and so are reducible to matter itself. In Modern philosophy, materialism was based primarily on Newtonian physics, which was conceived “in terms of point-particles, and point-particles are ontologically highly satisfactory—much more so than waves or fields.” 12

Point-particles thus are the quintessence of thinginess, the fundamental stuff, what the ultimate constituents of matter must turn out to be. If there is to be anything in the world—as we are sure there must be—that is hard and brute and intractable and contingent and real, then the colour- less impenetrable point-particles of Locke and Newton, which can have position, mass and velocity but nothing else, are harder and bruter, and 30 Defining Terms are more particular and more contingent and more un-understandable and more real, than anything else could be. If in addition the positions and velocities that each particular point-particle can have are correlated by universal laws, which seem simple and rational, and to some people so simple and rational as to be almost self-evident, then materialist explanations seem to offer the ideal explanations, which explain things without explaining them away, which make things intelligible, while still retain- ing an element of crude unintelligibility and brute given-ness that we associate with reality. It answers all the questions we feel entitled to ask, and then tells us, as we half expected to be told, that no more questions may be raised. We have seen as far as is permissible into the nature of things, and for the rest must be content that that is the way things are. 13

As science progressed, however, it became increasingly difficult to explain the physical world entirely in terms of matter and particles. Much of the physical world seemed to be best explained by reference to waves, and physical forces such as gravity are not self-evidently reducible to matter. This led to physicalism, which allows for the physical properties and entities discovered by physics that are difficult to reconcile with materialism. Just as materialism claims that matter is all that exists, so physicalism claims that physical entities and processes are all that exist or occur. This is commonly called the causal closure of the physical: the only type of causality that takes place is physical in nature. Nonphysical causality is not allowed. Physicalism should not be assumed to be reductive in nature: nonreductive physicalism is a common position in philosophy. 14 Nevertheless, the causal closure of the physical dictates that the physical is the only level that can act causally in the world, and whereas anything built upon this substrate is not necessarily reducible to the physical, it is still utterly dependent on and determined by the physical. Two points of terminology intrude here. First, as noted above, whereas there is a distinction between physicalism and materialism, they are often used interchangeably by philosophers. So if someone refers to herself as a materialist, it does not necessarily mean she rejects the more robust ontology that the physicalist advocates. Second, the term “physicalism” was originally introduced by the Vienna School as a linguistic theory that any statement is reducible or equivalent to a statement about physical things. It has since become a metaphysical theory, like materialism, and it is in this sense that we are interested in it.

2.2 Naturalism Physicalism is broader than materialism. In a similar sense, naturalism is broader than physicalism. Naturalism takes the definition of physicalism and simply substitutes the word “natural” for “physical”: natural entities and processes are all that exist. In general, naturalism holds that “reality is Defining Terms 31 exhausted by nature, containing nothing ‘supernatural’, and that the scientific method should be used to investigate all areas of reality.” Other than that, however, it “has no very precise meaning in contemporary philosophy.”15 This can lead to complications, since the definition of naturalism varies with whomever one is arguing with; refuting one person’s naturalism does not necessarily refute another’s. The editors of one collection critical of ontological naturalism left it to each individual contributor to define their target.16 Plantinga initially defines it as the rejection of the existence of God or any spiritual reality: essentially, as anti-supernaturalism. This is problematic because it leads to a sort of house of mirrors, where we can never find the original concept being reflected. 17 Like physicalism, however, it can be understood as minimally requiring the causal closure of the natural world, with the definition of “natural world” being left to science. So, just as there are different types of determinism, so there are different types of naturalism, based on what the ground level of reality is posited as being. This raises the question of what the common thread is between these views. I offer the following criteria as aspects of any type of naturalism or physicalism or materialism. These criteria are raised because of their ultimate relevance to the Skyhook and are by no means exhaustive. First, as mentioned above, is a concession that the physical sciences are the touchstone to reality. Since the physical sciences can investigate only certain types of things, such an accession will limit the possibilities of what can and cannot be examined. If science is the touchstone, then science’s limitations are limitations on reality . In other words, naturalism adopts an ontology based on the physical sciences. If science cannot see it, it does not exist: “in the dimension of describing and explaining the world, science is the measure of all things, of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not.” 18 Natu- ralists take this to entail the causal closure of the physical. The second criterion is best stated by Wilbur Marshall Urban in the lead-up to his version of the Skyhook: “the derivative status of mind is the characteristic feature of all forms of naturalism.”19 This is not necessarily a problem in and of itself, but becomes one only when this derivative nature takes on a specific implication. Urban elucidates this in his discussion of the perceived unity between naturalism and realism.

The main issue then, from which this entire discussion started, and which is involved in the modern identification of realism with naturalism, is the contention that, since reality is prior to knowledge, mind must consequently (italics mine) have a status which is derivative and not pivotal. Why this, consequently, should ever have entered into modern thinking I am at a loss to see. It does not at all follow that, because the principle of being, or the postulate of antecedent reality, is dialectically necessary for an intelligible theory of knowledge, the mind that knows is causally derivative from this antecedent, being conceived as nature in the sense of modern science. This derivative status of mind and knowledge does 32 Defining Terms not follow from the epistemological postulate of realism but is rather an inference, whether rightly or wrongly made, from a specific scientific theory, namely, that of Darwinian evolution.20

Presumably it is this criterion that Dennett had in mind when he com- plained about explanations employing “a ‘mind-first’ force or power or process, an exception to the principle that all design, and apparent design, is ultimately the result of mindless, motiveless mechanicity.”21 For the third criterion I turn to William Hasker. After noting some unsat- isfactory definitions of naturalism and physicalism, he suggests that physical causality and explanation are inherently mechanistic. This, however, immediately raises the specter of quantum mechanics, which does not proceed according to predictable and quantifiable causes, so Hasker seeks to define “mechanistic” in such a way that would include quantum physics.

I believe it is possible to assign a meaning to “mechanistic” which is broad enough to accommodate all present (and likely future) physical science, yet narrow enough to impose serious constraints on what can count as “physical.” Furthermore, this meaning corresponds fairly closely to the way “mechanistic” has been used in some recent discussions. Here is the proposal: Mechanistic causation and mechanistic explanation are fundamentally nonteleological . That is to say: in any instance of mechanistic causation, the proximate cause of the effect does not involve a goal, objective, or telos ; rather, it consists of some disposition of masses, forces, and the like. Similarly, a mechanistic explanation does not say why an event occurred in terms of some goal that was being reached or some purpose or function that was being served; rather, it appeals to antecedent conditions involving only nonpurposive, nonintentional entities. To be sure, an event caused mechanistically can also have a true teleological explanation: a thermostat turns the furnace on and off in order to maintain a constant temperature, and the fact that it works that way has a cause in the human desire for a comfortable environment. But the proximate cause of the thermostat’s function has no reference to such purposes and desires: the thermostat turns on the furnace because a certain strip of metal, cooled by the ambient air, became bent in such a way as to close an electrical circuit. 22

This raises several difficulties. For one thing, Hasker limits the problem to proximate or immediate causes, pointing out that, on mechanism, these do not involve a telos or goal. Yet goals are the essence of final causality not proximate causality. Pointing out that the proximate cause is not the final cause is a bit underwhelming. For another thing, biological organs and organisms have proximate functions as well as mediate and final (or ultimate) functions. The heart, for example, maintains the health and life of the individual organism (ultimate function) by providing oxygen throughout Defining Terms 33 the body (mediate function) by means of circulating the blood (proximate function). Functions are teleological, yet the heart surely operates mechanistically. Therefore, it would seem that mechanistic causality does not exclude having a goal or purpose or telos . However, Hasker definitely has his finger on something important because modern science is generally conceived as having disposed of final causality. There is no purpose, no goal, no teleology that needs to be taken into account. In fact, the primary argument in this regard is biological evolution: evolution, we are told, does not proceed with an eye to a final goal. “Nat- ural selection is the blind watchmaker, blind because it does not see ahead, does not plan consequences, has no purpose in view.”23 Yet if this is the case, how could the purposes so evident in biological organs and organisms have arisen? How could an organ have a function , and how could it function properly? This is made even clearer when it comes to knowledge and the brain: thought is strongly teleological in nature. If a person does not form and sustain a belief at least partially with the goal of believing truth, then if the belief happened to be true it would only be an accidental aspect of why she holds that belief: if the belief were not true she would hold it anyway, since its truth would be irrelevant to why she holds it. Yet an accidentally true belief does not qualify as knowledge. If we remove teleology from nature and posit ourselves merely as products of nature, then it is difficult to see how the teleology present in rational thought, including scientific thought, could have come about. Indeed, it presents us with a strong motivation for denying that rational and scientific thought is teleological. But if scientific thought is not teleological—if it is not produced in order to believe truths or in order to learn about the natural world—then there is a gap between our reason for accepting a scientific claim and the truth value of the claim. This makes it very difficult to say that we know anything at all, scientific or not, and may even invalidate any reason we have for accepting any particular belief. The point here is complicated and will be addressed throughout this book and in detail in the final chapter. For now, we will just take Hasker’s broad point as our third criterion: naturalism involves, at some level, the denial of teleology, and teleology is necessary for the veracity or verisimilitudineity of thought. 24 As with materialism and physicalism, naturalism is often used interchangeably with the other two terms. In this book, I will primarily use the term naturalism to refer to this tradition, unless a particular source uses another term. The main point is that, regardless of whether the ground level of reality is labeled as material, physical, or natural, it is characterized by 1) an ontology defined by the physical sciences, 2) the derivative status of mind, and 3) the absence of teleology. A fourth criterion that some raise is monism , that is, that there is only one kind of thing. However, monism presents a problem only when that one kind of thing is of a particular kind, namely something that meets the first three criteria. If the one kind of thing is mind 34 Defining Terms (think of idealism), then a Skyhook may not be applicable. In this case, though, monism does not present us with an additional problem. Moreover, there are plenty of naturalists, such as Gilbert Ryle, who are not monists but pluralists. They are able to accommodate numerous types of things in reality, but those types are all circumscribed by the three criteria given. With this, I do not think monism is a necessary criterion of naturalism, and the Skyhook does not apply to it. If the Skyhook succeeds against naturalism, then we must affirm something in addition to the natural realm; some philosophers of religion use this form of the argument as a step towards a theistic proof. We will be addressing the argument from the standpoint of epistemology, but it also has repercussions in philosophy of mind, philosophy of action, metaphysics, and elsewhere.

3 Defeat As important as it is to know when one belief, argument, proposition, or experience defeats another, the topic of defeasibility was relatively unexplored in contemporary philosophy until fairly recently.25 Here, we will confine ourselves to John Pollock’s early analyses and then shift to Alvin Plantinga’s, with some commentary from Michael Bergmann.26

3.1 Pollock on Defeaters Pollock argues that, unless a reason entails a conclusion deductively, that reason is defeasible , i.e., it can be defeated by other reasons. A reason defeating another is a defeater , which he defines as follows: “If P is a reason for S to believe Q, R is a defeater for this reason if and only if R is logically consistent with P and (P&R) is not a reason for S to believe Q.” 27 If R were not logically consistent with P, then it could not be a defeater of P, because P could still be true and could still function as a reason for believing Q. The point of being a defeater is not that it refutes P but that it removes P’s ability to function as a reason to believe Q. From this, Pollock argues that there are two kinds of defeaters, the first of which provides “a reason for denying the conclusion.” This he calls a rebutting defeater: if P functions as a reason for someone (S) to believe something (Q), then R functions as a rebutting defeater for P if it meets the definition of defeater already given and “is a reason for S to believe ~Q.” 28 The other type is an undercutting defeater: in the same scenario as above, rather than being a reason to believe ~Q, R “is a reason for S to deny that P would not be true unless Q were true.” 29 That is, the relationship between P and Q no longer holds; P is no longer a reason for believing Q, and without this relationship we no longer have a reason for believing Q. Thus, an undercutting defeater does not entail that Q is false , but merely that we have no reason for thinking it to be true . Defining Terms 35 So, for example, if I am in a factory and see red widgets emerging from a machine on a conveyer belt, I would form the belief, “Those widgets are red.” But then someone comes along and tells me that the widgets are irradiated by a red light when they emerge from the machine to reveal any hairline cracks. Now my reason for believing that the widgets are red has been taken away from me. Therefore, the belief that the widgets are irradiated by a red light is an undercutting defeater. It is not that I have acquired a reason for thinking the widgets are not red; they may very well be. It is just that my reason for thinking them red (their appearance) has been defeated; it no longer functions as a reason for thinking that they really are red. Note that the new claim that the widgets are irradiated by a red light, R, is logically compatible with the old reason P for believing that they are red, namely, that they look red. It is just that P does not function any longer as a reason to believe Q, that the widgets really are red. Now say I pick up one of the widgets and walk outside to look at it in the sunlight. The widget appears white. I now have a rebutting defeater for the belief that the widget is red. It is not merely that I no longer have a reason for thinking it red; rather, I have acquired a new reason for thinking it is not red. Again, seeing that the widget is white in the sunlight (W) is logically compatible with the widget looking red earlier when it was irradiated by a red light (P). But seeing that it is white provides a reason for thinking the widget is not red (~Q). Pollock further points out that defeaters can themselves be defeated (as long as they do not deductively entail their conclusions), so there are defeater-defeaters. So, after being told that the widgets are irradiated by a red light, the factory manager comes along and tells me that they are not so irradiated, and that the person who told me that they are is a practical joker. Now my defeater for believing the widgets to be red has been defeated, and thus I believe that they are red again. If we call the claim that the person lied L, then it means P functions as a reason for believing Q; P&R does not function as a reason for believing Q; and P&R&L functions as a reason for believing Q again. Defeater-defeaters can also be defeated, and this chain can go on indefinitely. However, a defeater can be ultimately undefeated “if there is a level beyond which it stays undefeated” itself.30 We will see how this is cashed out below. Pollock continued his development of the concept and role of defeaters,31 but we will instead turn to Plantinga’s treatment of defeaters, as they played a major role in his formulation of a Skyhook.

3.2 Plantinga on Defeaters Plantinga thinks that there are several weaknesses in Pollock’s definitions. First, Pollock limits himself to propositions defeating reasons for a belief. Presumably, he does not mean to exclude the fact that arguments, beliefs, or experiences can also defeat reasons. Indeed, insofar as a reason for a 36 Defining Terms belief—where “reason” is understood as “explanation”—may itself be an argument, belief, or experience, these can be mixed: an argument can defeat a belief, an experience can defeat an argument, etc.—just so long as the defeatee, be it an argument, belief, or experience, is functioning as the reason (explanation) for a justified belief. The defeater, then, defeats this reason, and so renders the belief based on it unjustified. As Bergmann notes,

Pollock thinks of reasons as things on which a justified belief can be based (thereby obtaining its justification). And he thinks that some beliefs are based not on other beliefs but on experiences. Hence, he thinks of reasons more broadly than some do, so that they include both beliefs and experiences. Pollock thinks of defeatees as reasons understood in this way. A defeater (which, like a Pollockian reason, can be either a belief or an experience) defeats a reason when it takes away that reason’s power to confer justification on a belief.32

The defeater and defeatee, therefore, could both be sensory experiences; they do not need to be beliefs. “Even when they are not, however, there will be a belief relevantly associated with the defeater.” 33 That is, a sensory experience that functions as a defeater could be formulated into a belief itself, even if it is not consciously done. Moreover, “you never acquire a defeater for a belief, without also acquiring a new belief.” 34 In this mix-and-match scenario, one constant we did not change is that the second element, the defeatee, functions as a reason for a belief. How- ever, Plantinga argues that beliefs can be defeated, not just reasons for a belief. For example, properly basic beliefs, such as memories or simple a priori beliefs, are not held for a reason; they are simply given as long as our cognitive faculties are functioning properly. As mentioned above, one could construct a reason or argument for accepting one’s memory beliefs, but the reason why someone accepts a memory belief would be because she just remembers it, not because of this alleged reason or argument. Since there are beliefs that are not held for a reason, and since such beliefs are not infallible (at least according to Plantinga),35 beliefs themselves can be defeated. Second, beliefs and propositions come in degrees: I can believe one proposition more strongly than another. Thus, it would be possible for a defeater to make me believe something less firmly without making me give it up. In this case, the defeater would be a partial defeater; it would defeat only the firmness of the other belief but not the belief itself. So how weakly can we hold a belief? Given any two contrary propositions p and ~p , we have to ascribe probabilities to them so that they equal 1. If I gave odds on how likely I think p and ~p are and expressed them as decimal fractions, then if I thought p had a .65 probability of being true, I would also have to say that I think that ~p has a .35 probability of being true.36 The latter is simply another way of saying the former. Therefore, if I thought a proposition p had a .49 chance of being true, it follows that I think its denial ~p has a .51 chance of being true—which means that I do not believe p but Defining Terms 37 rather I believe ~p , albeit very weakly. Thus, any ascription greater than .50 qualifies as belief and any ascription below .50 qualifies as disbelief.37 Yet what if someone finds the probability inscrutable , i.e., unformulable? In this case, a person simply has no idea what the probability is or should be. In this situation, she should either refrain from giving a probability (not having any basis for doing so) or she should treat the probability as .50, with the caveat that she remains open to altering it based on additional information. In this case, the person is agnostic; she neither believes nor disbelieves p . However, all that is necessary in order for the belief to be defeated is that she does not believe p , not that she specifically disbelieves p . What if she simply refrains from making a probability judgment? Then she is in the same situation: if she has no idea how probable p is, then she does not believe p . It is not as if she disbelieves it; she is agnostic about it. But being agnostic about something qualifies as not believing it. As mentioned above, a partial defeater is one that causes one to believe something less firmly, but without making one refrain from believing it. Since any belief to which one ascribes a probability of .50 or less means that one refrains from believing it, any experience, argument, or belief that causes one to ascribe to another belief a probability at or below .50 in light of it is a complete or total defeater of that belief. As long as the defeater brings the probability down to .50, then one no longer believes it. What about defeater-defeaters? These, it will be recalled, are defeaters that defeat other defeaters, such as the boss who tells me that the widgets are not irradiated with a red light and that the employee who told me they are is a practical joker. If I believe him, I have a defeater of the defeater of my belief that the widgets are red. If we put an argument or experience that functions as a defeater for a belief on level 0, then a defeater-defeater would be on level 1. A defeater of this would then be on level 2, etc., with the even-numbered levels rendering the original argument (the defeater) undefeated, and the odd-numbered levels rendering it defeated.

level 0: The defeater (D0 ) defeats the belief (B). This entails ~B. level 1: The defeater-defeater (D1 ) defeats the defeater (D0 ). This entails B. level 2: The next level defeater (D2 ) defeats the previous one (D1 ). This entails D0 which entails ~B. level 3: The next level defeater (D3 ) defeats the previous one (D2 ). This entails D1 which entails B.

. . .

level n: The next level defeater (Dn ) defeats the previous one (Dn−1 ). If n is even, this entails D0 which entails ~B. If n is odd this entails D1 which entails B.38

This allows us to clarify how a defeater could be ultimately undefeated. “A little reflection shows that an argument is ultimately undefeated if it is 38 Defining Terms undefeated at every even-numbered level and is also undefeated at some odd-numbered level. Some arguments not defeated at any even level are nonetheless not ultimately undefeated; such arguments are defeated at every odd level and undefeated at every even.” 39 Thus, there are undefeatable defeaters that not only defeat their target, but cannot ever be defeated themselves. A belief subject to an undefeatable defeater cannot be rationally accepted, because under any and all circumstances one has a compelling reason, a reason that has not been overruled, to withhold belief in it.

3.3 Relativity Another point that Plantinga makes is that defeat is relative to a person’s system of beliefs. 40 If someone believes B and there is a potential defeater D for B, D does not defeat B unless the person accepts D and recognizes its relevance for B. Thus, if the person is completely unaware of D, never having heard of it, her belief B is not defeated by it. If she is aware of D but does not accept it, does not believe it, then it does not defeat B either. If she is aware of it and accepts it, but does not realize that it defeats B (never having made the connection between D and B), then D does not defeat B for her. It is only if she accepts D and recognizes that it defeats B that D defeats B. The relativity of a defeater has some interesting consequences. Berg- mann points out that it requires us to include the category of a “believed defeater,” where a mental state is taken to be a defeater, leaving aside the question of whether it actually is. A believed defeater is believed in the same sense that an alleged crime is alleged: the question of whether it is an actual defeater (like an actual crime) is a further question that must be asked. 41 Plantinga points out further that this means that an irrational defeater can defeat a rational belief. An example is Descartes’s madman who thinks his head is made of glass and so wears a football helmet wher- ever he goes to protect it. 42 Wearing the helmet is rational in a sense; giv en his belief that his head is made of glass, he should do whatever he must to keep it from shattering. This is counterintuitive, since it is obvious that in another sense, the madman is irrational—he is a madman, after all. William Alston objects to Plant- inga’s line of reasoning on this basis. Case in point: Plantinga’s Skyhook argues that belief in naturalism (N) is incompatible with belief in one’s own rationality (R). 43 Therefore, the naturalist is obligated to deny her own rationality. Alston concurs with Plantinga’s argument that R and N are mutually exclusive, 44 but objects that no one can be rationall y obligated to give up belief in her own rationality. Instead, the naturalist should give up her belief in naturalism. However, Alston’s objection does not really conflict with Plantinga’s Sky- hook; it simply presents the modus tollens to Plantinga’s modus ponens . Plant- inga is arguing that the naturalist, qua naturalist, should give up her belief in her own rationality (N ~R; N; ∴ ~R). Alston is arguing that the naturalist, Defining Terms 39 qua rational agent, should give up her belief in naturalism (N  ~R; R; ∴ ~N). As Bergmann puts it, Plantinga’s point is that the naturalist has lost her “justificational status” for her belief in R, whereas Alston’s point addresses the subsequent issue of when one should change her beliefs in light of this loss of justificational status.45 The distinction here is that between internal and external rationality. The madman is being internally rational in wearing a football helmet because, given his belief that his head is made of glass, he should protect his head. However, he is not being externally rational, since his belief that his head is made of glass is not rationally obtained. His externally irrational belief that his head is made of glass internally defeats the externally rational belief that his head is more durable than an egg. Plantinga’s definition of defeaters is relevant with regard to internal rationality, not external rationality. This may appear problematic. We want to say that some propositions are defeated regardless of whether anyone believes them—that is, we want some defeaters to function in external rationality, not just relative to a given system of beliefs. Bergmann, in his topography of defeaters, 46 provides this by distinguishing between mental state defeaters and propositional defeaters. A mental state defeater, which is what Plantinga’s defeaters are, is a mental state of the subject, although it need not be a belief. By contrast, propositional defeaters are those envisaged by epistemologies that use undefeated- ness as a fourth condition for knowledge. They deal with Gettier scenarios “by adding to the ‘justified true belief’ account of knowledge the requirement that there be no true proposition that [defeats] the belief in question. The idea is that there must be no true (and misleading) proposition that is such that if it were added to the subject’s evidence base, the belief in question would cease to be justified.”47 One need not be aware of the propositional defeater; just the fact that it exists is enough to entail that a belief is not an item of knowledge. Much more could be said at this point, as the relation between defeaters, internal rationality, and external rationality is complex. In fact, as we will soon see, self -defeat provides another way to sidestep Plantinga’s claim that a defeater is relative to a particular belief system. At this point, we should bring in Plantinga’s distinction between rationality defeaters—which for him is the same as proper function defeaters, as he conceives rationality in terms of proper function—and warrant defeaters.48 For Plantinga, warrant (his replacement for justification) requires that one have properly functioning cognitive faculties that are reliably aimed at producing true beliefs in an appropriate environment. So, whereas a rationality defeater addresses whether one’s cognitive faculties are functioning properly, a warrant defeater addresses what that function is. If it is functioning properly but its function is not to produce true belief, then one has a warrant defeater but not a rationality defeater. Of course, if one does have a rationality defeater, then one automatically has a warrant defeater, given that warrant would be absent if one’s cognitive faculties were functioning improperly. In other words, a rationality defeater also functions as a warrant 40 Defining Terms defeater. Moreover, if one is aware of a warrant defeater, “then (typically) you also have a rationality defeater.” 49 If you realize that a belief was produced by processes that do not have the purpose or function of producing true beliefs—either they have a different function or no function at all— then, in most cases, it would be irrational to continue believing that belief. Another important result of defeaters being relative to a given belief system is that it is no longer necessary to maintain Pollock’s requirement that a defeater be logically compatible with what it defeats. According to Plantinga, a defeater D defeats a belief B by making B irrational to hold, “irrational” being defined according to one’s inclinations (“irrationality is multifarious and legion”50 ). In this case, the defeater could be ~B. As long as the particular cognizer actually believes ~B, then it would be irrational for her to also believe B; therefore ~B defeats B. Plantinga argues,

Roughly speaking, a belief, or a withholding of a belief (or a decision, inclination, act of will or other bit of cognitive functioning) is rational (in the relevant sense), in a set of circumstances, when it is one that in those circumstances could be displayed or undergone by a rational person. . . . And a rational human being is one whose rational faculties, (or ratio , or cognitive faculties) are functioning properly , subject to no dysfunction or malfunction. More specifically, it is the faculties or belief producing processes involved in the production of the belief in question that must be functioning properly; the rationality of my belief that China is a large country is not compromised by the fact that I harbor irrational beliefs about my neighbor’s dog. What is relevant, here, is not ideal function; we aren’t thinking of the way in which an ideally rational person would function. . . . What is relevant here is the sort of function displayed by a cognitively healthy human being. 51

Again, a person who was unaware of the defeater D for her belief B would not be functioning improperly (read: would not be irrational) if she continued to believe B, given that her ignorance of D is not a matter of her cognitive equipment’s proper function. The same is true if she is aware of D but does not accept it. If she believes D but does not realize that it defeats B, then the situation is more complex. It depends on how obvious the connection is between D and B. Plantinga appeals to Frege’s beliefs: a) “for every property or condition, there exists the set of just those things that have the property or display the condition”; and b) “there is such a property or condition as being nonselfmembered,” that is, as not belonging to oneself (the set of blue objects is not itself a blue object, for example). The problem, however, is that these two beliefs are incompatible; Russell’s Paradox shows that the set of sets that do not belong to themselves would belong to itself if it did not belong to itself, and would not belong to itself if it did. Yet Frege’s beliefs did not defeat each other before he recognized their incompatibility, because “the connection between the two is obscure and difficult and it requires a Defining Terms 41 great deal of logical acumen, more than most of us can muster, to discover it.”52 However, once someone is made aware of the third belief, “the first two beliefs are contradictory,” then it would be irrational for her to continue believing all three propositions. She would not be functioning properly if she did, since at least one of the propositions defeats another. 53 If someone obtains a complete defeater D for a belief B, something that causes her to assess its probability at .50 or less, then she has obtained a reason for withholding belief in B. As long as her cognitive faculties are functioning properly, she will modify her system of beliefs; specifically she will modify the part of her system involving her belief B. We could potentially point to other beliefs that she could jettison—such as her belief in D or her belief that D defeats B—but these would be rational only given a different system, namely, one where she does not believe D or does not believe that D defeats B. Insofar as she does believe D and it defeats B, she has a reason for withholding belief in B.

3.4 Self-Defeat If a belief can be defeated, is it possible for a belief to defeat itself? This may seem unusual, but there are clear examples. Say I come to believe with the naïve Freudian that everyone forms their beliefs based on early childhood traumas rather than any logical grounds, and all beliefs are thereby untrustworthy— call it ~T. I then realize that if ~T is correct, I form my own beliefs based on my early childhood traumas rather than logical grounds, so my own beliefs are also untrustworthy, including my belief in ~T. Therefore ~T defeats itself; if it is true, I no longer have any reason for thinking it to be true. The relevance of a belief being self-defeating is that, “clearly, if a belief defeats itself, then any notion of ‘defeat’ worth the term will imply that such a belief needs to be jettisoned from an agents’ [sic ] general noetic structure if rationality is to be maintained.”54 One problem here is that different philosophers employ different terms to describe varying types of beliefs defeating themselves. Some say such a belief is “self-refuting,” others say it is “self-stultifying,” still others that it is “self-referentially incoherent.” In order to clarify what is at stake here, we will have to distinguish two categories.55 First, a belief may be self- refuting . Such a belief amounts to a logical contradiction: there is no possible world where the belief could be true. So, for example, the belief that there is a set of sets that do not belong to themselves is a self-refuting belief, because if there were such a set, it would belong to itself if it did not, and it would not belong to itself if it did. A self-refuting belief, therefore, is a belief that is incompatible with itself. It functions as a rebutting defeater of itself; it gives one a reason, an absolute reason, for rejecting itself. Second, a belief may be self- defeating . In this case, there are possible worlds where the position could be true; it is not a logical contradiction. 42 Defining Terms However, there are no possible worlds where it could be rationally believed. For example, there are possible worlds of which the statement “There are no beliefs” is true—namely, worlds with no conscious agents to have any beliefs—but there is no possible world in which that statement is true, and someone believes it, given that such a belief would constitute a counterexample to itself. As such, the problem here is not that the belief is incompatible with its own content , strictly speaking, as is the case with self-refutation. Rather a self-defeating belief is incompatible with the nature of belief itself (or knowledge, assertion, argumentation, etc., depending on how the issue is framed). A self-defeating belief functions as an undercutting defeater of itself. In this case, the belief could be true and it does not give you a reason for thinking it is false; it merely takes away any reason for thinking it to be true. The two examples given earlier are those of naïve Freudianism and Marxism. 56 Say I meet some college sophomore who has become completely enamored of Marx and all things Marxist. She confidently tells me that people do not form their beliefs or worldviews in accordance with rational norms, but only in accordance with their class status. Since their beliefs are not formed in accordance with rational norms, their beliefs are not rational and can safely be ignored. However, if she is right, then her newly acquired Marxist beliefs were not formed in accordance with rational norms and so are not rational either. Her belief is therefore self-defeating. However, it provides us only with an undercutting defeater, not a rebutting defeater. Marxism could still be true; it is just that, given Marxism, belief in Marxism would not be rational. It leaves us in limbo (or, perhaps, purgatory) as to whether the belief in question is true because, by its own lights, it has taken away the possibility of having a valid reason for believing itself.57 To put this another way: a self-refuting belief, as a rebutting defeater, addresses the truth of that belief. A self-defeating belief, as an undercutting defeater, addresses the justification (or warrant, or what-have-you) of that belief. Many statements of the Skyhook present it as an argument that determinism and naturalism are self-refuting , but this is usually due to defining self-refutation broadly enough to encompass self-defeat as well. Neither determinism nor naturalism is a logical contradiction, and so neither is self-refuting as I have defined it. Rather, the Skyhook purports to demonstrate that determinism, naturalism, or both are self-defeating . As such, it should be presented as an undercutting defeater, because if either were true, we would no longer have any reason to believe that they are true—that is, they undercut their own justification, so we could never have a justified true belief in determinism or naturalism. The nature of self-defeat also addresses an issue mentioned above regarding defeaters in general. Plantinga argues that defeat is relative; it applies only with respect to a given noetic structure. Therefore, a potential defeater could defeat one person’s belief B but not another person’s belief B, if, for Defining Terms 43 example, the second person is unaware of the defeater or does not accept it. With self- defeat, however, this becomes more difficult to avoid: if a belief defeats itself, then there is no condition where one has the belief but does not have the defeater, given that they are the same thing. This requires further qualification, however: as mentioned, a self-defeating belief is not incompatible with itself but with the nature of belief (or argument, assertion, etc.). Moreover, a person may not be aware that a belief is self-defeating, and so may not recognize that her belief is subject to defeat. Regardless, it is not a matter of being given some other belief that defeats B, but B itself that defeats B. Perhaps we could call it a potential defeater in such a case where a cognizer does not have to be given further information to obtain a defeater but has the information already without having realized it. Nevertheless, self-defeat is a form of internal rationality, as opposed to external rationality, because the claim is that a self-defeating belief is incompatible with itself rather than with some external conditions. Thus, we do not have to frame the issue as a matter of Bergmann’s propositional defeaters with the attendant external rationality. We can keep it within the less restric- tive confines of internal rationality without making it completely relative to the individual’s belief system. There is one more issue that must be addressed before diving in. That is whether the self-reference used by the argument is even possible. This is the subject of the next chapter and in fact will lead us directly to one prominent form of the Skyhook known as the Lucas-Penrose argument.

Notes 1. Boyle, Grisez, and Tollefsen 1972, 31. 2. Boyle, Grisez, and Tollefsen 1976, 147. 3. Cf. Glassen’s Skyhook, chapter 8 . 4. This was the problem with the second premise in Haldane’s Skyhook ( chapter 1 ). 5. A. E. Taylor 1939, 267. For Taylor’s Skyhook, see chapter 11 . 6. Plantinga 1993a, 195. 7. This is the idea behind Philip K. Dick’s (1987, 323–54) short story “The Minority Report,” upon which the film was based. 8. Popper 1982a, 77–81; see chapter 8. For the distinction between self-refutation and self-defeat see pp. 41–42. 9. See, e.g., Boyle, Grisez, and Tollefsen 1976. 10. Grünbaum 1953, 775–77; Armstrong 1968, 200; Ayer 1968, 266–67. 11. Campbell 1967, 7–14. 12. Lucas 1970, 98. 13. Lucas 1970, 101–102. 14. But see Kim 1995d. 15. Papineau 2015. 16. Craig, and Moreland, eds. 2000, xi. 17. “Alvin Plantinga recently offered a critique of naturalism, but says only that it entails that God does not exist nor any other supernatural being. Obviously this cannot be taken as definition, on pain of the circularity involved in characteriz- ing ‘natural’ in terms of ‘supernatural’ ” (van Fraassen 1996, 172). 44 Defining Terms 18. Sellars 1963, 173. 19. Urban 1949, 230. For Urban’s Skyhook, see chapter 11. 20. Urban 1949, 235. 21. Dennett 1995, 76. 22. Hasker 1999, 62–63; italics his. For Hasker’s Skyhook(s), see chapter 5. 23. Dawkins 1987, 21. 24. Note how this parallels the issue in determinism of whether a cause is nonrational in nature. 25. Plantinga 1994, 2, 13–14, 18. 26. Some of the following is adapted from Slagle 2013a. 27. Pollock 1986, 38. 28. Pollock 1986, 38. 29. Pollock 1986, 39. 30. Pollock 1986, 48. 31. Pollock 1991; 1995. 32. Bergmann 2005, 160. 33. Plantinga 1994, 31. 34. Plantinga 1994, 39. 35. Plantinga 1994, 25–26; 2000, 343–44. 36. This is generally understood to mean that I believe p to degree .65, but Plantinga (1993b, 8) argues that it should instead be understood to mean that I fully believe that p is probable to degree .65. 37. Plantinga (2000, 271 n. 56) disagrees with this: “I take it that belief that p is more probable than not is nowhere nearly sufficient for belief that p . (I am about to throw an ordinary die: I believe it is more likely than not that it won’t come up showing face 2 or 3, but I certainly don’t believe that it won’t; what I actually believe on this head is only that it will come up showing one of faces 1 through 6 (and not, for example, wind up delicately balanced on one of its points or edges).)” This may be true, but to avoid unnecessary complications I will simply ascribe the same probability to a proposition being defeated and not being believed (namely, less than or equal to .5). This is in my opponent’s favor, because it holds the Skyhook to a higher standard—it must show not merely that, on naturalism or determinism, our beliefs fall below the standard of belief (which is significantly higher than .5) but that they are either improbable or inscrutable. 38. Adapted from Plantinga 1994, 57; 2002, 269–70. 39. Plantinga 1993a, 219. 40. Plantinga 1994, 23. 41. Bergmann 2005, 161. 42. Descartes 1641, First Meditation; Plantinga 2000, 133. Descartes does not actually mention the football helmet. 43. See chapter 10 . 44. Alston 2002, 202. 45. Bergmann 2005, 164–66. 46. Bergmann 2005, ch. 6. 47. Bergmann 2005, 154. 48. “Warrant defeaters” is his latest term. In earlier writings he called them “purely epistemic” or “alethic” defeaters. 49. Plantinga 2011, 166–67. 50. Plantinga 1994, 21. 51. Plantinga 1994, 21–22. 52. Plantinga 1994, 38. 53. Although, as Plantinga writes, even this requires further qualification (1993b, 43). Defining Terms 45 54. Nunley 2005, 42. 55. See Slagle 2013a. Cf. Mackie 1964; Boyle 1972 and Mavrodes 1985. Mackie’s distinction between absolute and operational self-refutation is the same as my distinction between self-refutation and self-defeat. Others have distinguished them as formal vs. pragmatic contradiction, logical vs. practical refutation, etc. 56. See chapter 1 . 57. Wiggins 1970, 134. See chapter 7 . 3 Paradox Lost

One of the Cretans, a prophet of their own, said, “Cretans are always liars.” Titus 1:12

1 Self-Reference and Paradox The Skyhook claims that when we apply the naturalist thesis to itself, or the determinist thesis to itself, they defeat themselves. As such, the Skyhook involves self-reference, where what a concept or thesis refers to includes itself. One potential objection to the Skyhook is that self-reference is incoherent: any attempt to allow it allegedly leads to paradoxes, and the only way to avoid the paradoxes is to disallow all self-reference. While this objection does not have much traction today, it has been raised, and so, in order to be complete, we must address it.

1.1 The Possibility of Self-Reference Russell’s Paradox is based on the concept of a set, which just refers to a collection of things. This notion of a set is intuitively obvious and simple. The paradox begins by pointing out that there are sets that belong to themselves: the set of blue things is not itself a blue thing, but the set of nonblue things is not blue—so in delineating the members of the set of nonblue things, we would have to include the set of nonblue things: it is a member of itself. Moreover, this shows further that sets can be members of sets. So, we can then formulate the set of sets that belong to themselves and the set of sets that do not belong to themselves. Next, we can ask the same question of these two sets: do they belong to themselves or not? Specifically, does the set of sets that do not belong to themselves belong to itself? If it does belong to itself then it would be a member of the set of sets that do not belong to themselves. But if it does not belong to itself then it would not be a member of the set of sets that do not belong to themselves—in which case, according to the definition of what is included in that set, it would belong to itself. So it belongs to itself if it does not, and it does not if it does. Paradox Lost 47 Sets that are members of themselves are a form of self-reference, and other forms of self-reference lead to similar paradoxes. For example: words that describe themselves, like “unhyphenated” (that is, “unhyphenated” is an unhyphenated word), are homological, whereas words that do not describe themselves, like “hyphenated” (which is not hyphenated), are heterological. So is “heterological” heterological? As with Russell’s Paradox, it is if it isn’t and it isn’t if it is. Another form of self-reference is the village barber who shaves all the men in his village who do not shave themselves and no one else. Does the barber shave himself? He does if he doesn’t and he doesn’t if he does. Or take the classic Liar Paradox or pseudomenon: “this is false.” That statement is true if false and false if true. Paradoxes are generally classified as semantic (or logical), epistemic, or set-theoretic, depending on whether they are relevant to truth, knowledge, or the foundations of mathematics, respectively. However, “Even though these paradoxes are different in the subject matter they relate to, they share the same underlying structure, and may often be tackled using the same mathematical means.”1 In Principia Mathematica , Russell and Alfred North Whitehead argued that the only way to avoid paradoxes such as these is to avoid self-reference altogether; and the only way to do so is to declare all self-reference incoherent and nonsensical.2 By including itself within its scope, a self-referential concept supposedly refers to “illegitimate totalities,” and the paradoxes arise because such a process commits “vicious circle fallacies.” Russell and Whitehead specifically mention the skeptic who claims that we cannot know anything. However, they also posit someone else who is skeptical of the skeptic’s skepticism, and who points out that if we cannot know anything, then the skeptic cannot know that we cannot know anything, in which case it would still be possible for us to know something. However, the skeptic’s skeptic is taking the skeptic’s claim and applying it to the skeptic herself: he is using self-reference. Because, ex hypothesi, this is not allowed, the skeptic is not refuted by this counterargument. We take some comfort, however, in the fact that this applies to the skeptic’s original claim as well, given that, by saying that we cannot know anything at all, she is referring to an illegitimate totality. 3 There is certainly a kernel of truth here. With regard to set theory, part of the idea is that a set is a collection of similar things. But “if sets were collections, the result of a collecting activity, the elements collected would have to be present before the collecting; hence no set is a member of itself.”4 So the members of a set or collection must exist prior (logically prior) to their assemblage into a set, and as such sets cannot be members of themselves. We can ask about sets of sets on a higher level of assemblage, but these second-order sets cannot belong to themselves for the same reason. Nevertheless, to ban all self-reference is to jump too far ahead. This would be a valid move only if all paradoxes were self-referential and if all self-reference led to paradox. But this is not the case. First, variations on the Liar Paradox can be made with circular reference or regressive reference.5 48 Paradox Lost Since not all paradoxes are self-referential, abolishing self-reference does not fix the problem. Second, not all cases of self-reference lead to paradox. The self-reference involved with the skeptic’s skeptic, for example, does not lead to a contradiction like the Liar Paradox or the set of sets that do not belong to themselves. It does not lead us to say that it is true if it is false, and false if true. Instead, the skeptic’s skeptic works only one way: the skeptic claims to know that we cannot know anything, and when that skepticism is applied to the skeptic’s claim of knowledge, it leads to contradiction: if it’s true, it’s false. But what if the skeptic’s claim is false? If it is false that we cannot know anything, this does not lead us to conclude that the skeptic’s claim is true when applied to itself. It just stays false. So the skeptic’s skeptic can say that, when applied to itself, the skeptic’s claim leads to contradiction if it is true , so therefore the claim is false. In other words, if it’s true then it’s false, and if it’s false it’s false. So whether it’s true or false, it’s false. Yet even this is insufficient, because the skeptic is probably just saying, “We cannot know anything,” rather than, “I know we cannot know anything.” The first statement is not self-referential in the same way as the second, because it’s only by her performance of the statement that we think the skeptic is claiming to know something, and that only indirectly. It would be incumbent upon the skeptic’s skeptic to show that, in making that affirmation, the skeptic is presupposing that she knows it to be true, and only then can she accuse the skeptic of self-defeat. What this demonstrates is that not all cases of self-reference are equal, and not all lead to irresolvable paradoxes.

1.2 Classifying Self-Referential Statements There are various ways to classify self-referential statements.6 One important issue is whether a statement is singular or general. A singular self-referential statement refers only to itself, for example, “This statement is printed on paper.” A general self-referential statement refers to a group or class to which the statement belongs, such as, “All statements in this chapter are printed on paper.” Since most singular self-referential statements refer to themselves explicitly,7 there is no question of whether they really are self-referential. This is not the case for most general self-referential statements. 8 The self-reference in these cases is not explicit or immediate: the further question must be asked whether the statement is an example of what it refers to. “All statements in this chapter are printed on paper” is self-referential only when it is acknowledged that that statement itself forms a part of the chapter. The “this” is not predicated of the statement itself, but of a class; and whether the statement forms a part of that class is a further question that must be asked, even if it may be obvious. For example, I could print up a copy of this chapter, show it to someone, and then tell them “All statements in this chapter are printed on paper.” In this case, the statement would not be self-referential because it would not form a part of the chapter in question. Paradox Lost 49 Another type of classification is whether the statement refers to itself inherently (essentially) or accidentally. For example, “All statements in this chapter are printed on paper” could be spoken or written somewhere else as “All statements in Jim’s third chapter are printed on paper.” Since it can be rephrased to avoid self-reference, it refers to itself only accidentally. A statement that inherently refers to itself, on the other hand, is one that refers to itself in any possible expression. Such a statement would either be singular, because a singular self-referential statement specifically refers to itself, or, if general, does not limit itself to a particular milieu (such as “this chapter”), i.e., it is universally applicable. An example would be, “All statements are either true or false.” Any attempt to express this statement would be a statement itself, and so would inevitably refer to itself. “No matter how these propositions are stated, they make reference to the sentence, performance, or proposition. In other words, the self-reference of these propositions is invari- ant in relation to any change of sentences used to express them, persons who affirm them, and modalities of uttering and affirming them.”9 A final type of classification is what aspect of a self-referential statement is being referenced. It could refer to the proposition expressed by the statement, that is, the conception independent of any particular expression. It could also refer to the sentence or statement itself, that is, the actual sequence of letters and words used to express it. Or it could refer to some aspect of the performance of the statement, such as being written or spoken. “All statements in this chapter are printed on paper” (general) or “This statement is being shouted” (singular) refer to the performance of the statements, that is, how they are being expressed. Neither example gives rise to paradox: the first is true and the second false. “All statements in this chapter are well-founded” also refers to the performance of the statement, but to its affirmation rather than its presentation. “All statements are in Koine Greek” (general) or “This statement is written in correct English” (singular) refer to the statement or sentence itself. In this case, the first is false and the second true. An example of a statement that refers to the proposition it expresses would be “All statements in this chapter are either true or false” (general).

1.3 Self-Reference and the Skyhook So what kind of self-reference is involved in the affirmation of determinism or naturalism? Clearly, these affirmations are general rather than singular: they claim that everything under the sun (and above it for that matter) is determined or naturalistic in nature. This raises the question of whether these affirmations include themselves, whether they are determined or naturalistic in nature. This is because, again, for general statements, the self-reference is usually implicit; the statement is referring to a class, and the further question must be asked whether the statement belongs to that class. And this is shown by the fact that the affirmations of determinism and naturalism are universal: if everything is explicable by determinism or naturalism, so is the 50 Paradox Lost affirmation of determinism or naturalism. This also shows that they involve inherent self-reference rather than accidental self-reference. If everything can be explained in determinist or naturalist terms, then there would be no way to express the determinist or naturalist program in a way that did not fall under their own gazes. Finally, we can ask to what aspect of the statement the affirmation of determinism or naturalism allegedly refers. This is a more subtle question, but most expressions of the Skyhook look at the problem as one of performance, although it could be phrased so as to refer to the statement. If it referred to the proposition expressed, it would mean that the proposition is self-refuting. But, as argued in chapter 2, the Skyhook is best expressed in terms of self-defeat rather than self-refutation. So the issue is whether general, inherently self-referential statements that refer either to the statement itself or to its performance should be disallowed because they inevitably lead to paradox. The answer to this seems to be no. “All statements are in Koine Greek” and “All statements are spoken in falsetto” are examples of general, inherently self-referential statements; general because they refer to more than themselves, and inherent because they refer to all statements, and thus any statement expressing them falls under their purview. The first refers to the statement itself, the second to the performance of the statement. But neither is paradoxical; they are merely false. Both can be rephrased so that they are not self-defeating—the first could be translated into Koine Greek and the second could be spoken in falsetto—but their falsehood would remain.

“I never write correct English” might be called “paradoxical,” but it is not true if false and false if true. As soon as one considers whether the self-referential instance of this statement is true, one discovers that it is not. The sentence used to make the statement is evidence that the self-referential instance of the proposition is not true, and noticing this falsity ends one’s perplexity. The air of paradox here is due only to the fact that the proposition is falsified by the very sentence used to express it.10

This is closer to the skeptic’s claim, “We cannot know anything.” If we cannot know anything, then the skeptic cannot know that we cannot know anything. So applying the determinist and naturalist theses to themselves may lead to self-defeat, but it does not lead to irresolvable paradoxes. Thus, the motive Whitehead and Russell have for disallowing self-reference applies only to some cases, and those cases are dissimilar from the self-reference involved in the Skyhook.

2 Gödel Sentences and Gödel’s Theorems However, a stronger case can be made for the possibility of self-reference. In a paper delivered in 1900, David Hilbert presented 23 unsolved problems that formed the basis of much of 20th-century philosophy of mathematics. 11 Paradox Lost 51 The second problem was whether there were any contradictions within mathematics or any other formal system. The issue here is whether a formal system, such as Peano arithmetic, can have every element within it defined with no contradictions and no input from outside the system, thus making the system complete. Instinctively, we see that it should be possible, given that all of the elements within arithmetic have simple definitions and the system should be containable, thus insuring it against contradiction. Yet no proof of this had yet been demonstrated. This is significant because of the principle of explosion, or ex falso quodlibet: from a contradiction, anything follows. Once a contradiction is admitted into a formal system, then that system can erect no barrier to inferring virtually any conclusion, including obvious falsehoods. It is all but impossible to imagine that basic arithmetic could have such consequences,12 and thus most mathematicians, logicians, and philosophers of mathematics agreed that arithmetic and other formal systems were complete, and further that this completeness could be proven: it just had not been proven yet . Paradoxes arise when we include a truth predicate within a system. Includ- ing such a predicate allows us to form a variation of the Liar Paradox: “this is not true.” Therefore, a formal system cannot include a term designating “true,” because this would allow one to introduce a contradiction into the system. So the concept of truth is not formalizable; it cannot be included in any formal system (this does not mean that truth is incoherent: many concepts are not formalizable). Moreover, we have an intuitive understanding of truth, regardless of whether it can be formalized or captured in some theory. Thus, in order to meet Hilbert’s second problem, mathematics has to exclude any truth predicate in order to avoid any internal contradictions. From this point, Kurt Gödel entered into the fray with a paper that “is difficult. Forty-six preliminary definitions, together with several important preliminary theorems, must be mastered before the main results are reached.” 13 Gödel suggested that instead of “true” we substitute “provable,” which J. R. Lucas calls “the next best thing.” 14 In the Liar Paradox, the proposition “this is not true” is contradictory: it is true if false and false if true. But if we say “this is not provable ,” we are not led to a contradiction: it does not lead to the conclusion that it is provable that it is not provable. Thus, a formal system can include a provability predicate. As such, within any formal system, including basic (Peano) arithmetic, we can formulate the proposition “this is not provable,” and this proposition will not be provable—if it could be, then it would be a contradiction. So either the formal system has a contradiction, and so via the principle of explosion allows any and every conclusion to be inferred, or it has an unprovable proposition within it. Thus, any formal system will have one proposition, its Gödel sentence, which cannot be proven within that system, and so no formal system can ever be complete. One cannot escape this by amending the system to include its Gödel sentence, because a system so amended is a different system, and that system will have its own Gödel sentence that is not 52 Paradox Lost provable within it. Moreover, a Gödel sentence conjoined with a logically valid sentence will be equally unprovable, so any formal system will have infinitely many statements that are not provable within it. Thus Hilbert’s second problem is answered in the negative. This is the basis for Gödel’s two Incompleteness Theorems, which together constitute “the best antireductionist argument of all time.”15 The first states that any consistent set of axioms will inevitably leave out facts about the natural numbers: claims that are true but not prov able . Or conversely, no consistent set of axioms will be able to prove everything about the natural numbers. Gödel’s Second Incompleteness Theorem states that, for any system that includes basic arithmetical truths and formal provability, if it also includes a statement of its own consistency, it is, for that very reason, inconsistent. In other words, the value of being true, or of being known to be true, cannot be reduced to being provable: “truth is more than provability.” 16 This, therefore, explains the dangers and drawbacks of self-reference without resorting to the drastic step of disallowing all cases of it à la White- head and Russell.

The details of Gödel’s argument are tedious, and the rigorous proof is extremely laborious: but its validity is beyond doubt. It establishes for all logistic calculi (or formal systems) which are both consistent and adequate for simple arithmetic—i.e. contain the natural numbers and the operations of addition and multiplication—a partial analogue of the Liar paradox. Every such logistic calculus contains formulae which, though perfectly meaningful, are unprovable-in-the-logistic calculus; and some of which, moreover, we, standing outside the logistic calculus can see to be true.17

This last statement, that “we [are] standing outside the logistic calculus,” and thus can see that these Gödel sentences are true, forms the basis for a Skyhook.

3 The Gödelian Skyhook18

3.1 Gödel and Turing “A formal system,” Gödel writes, “can simply be defined to be any mechanical procedure for producing formulas, called provable formulas.”19 Yet it wasn’t Gödel but Alan Turing who first demonstrated the possibility of constructing a physical system that exemplifies such a mechanical procedure, and which thus physically instantiates a formal system. 20 In other words, the steps in deductive logic, Peano arithmetic, or any formal system can be represented as mechanical processes in a physical mechanism. The cause-and- effect of the mechanism, called a Turing machine, can be made to correspond to the deductive processes of a formal system. As such, any mechanism so Paradox Lost 53 constructed represents, in physical form, a formal system. Turing machines are very rudimentary computers, or, to put it the other way round, computers are sophisticated Turing machines. Turing noticed, however, that whereas a Turing machine could be made to parallel human reasoning with regard to its results , it did not parallel the actual process by which human beings generated those results. 21 He thought, however, that this did not show that one way was preferable to the other: in some ways human reasoning may be superior to the processes of a Turing machine, but in some ways the opposite may be the case.22 In his 1951 Gibbs Lecture, “Some Basic Theorems on the Foundations of Mathematics and Their Implications,” Gödel argued that his Incomplete- ness Theorems demonstrate that there is a fundamental difference between machines and human minds. Specifically, given his theorems, there are problems with basic Peano arithmetic that are unsolvable by any finite system (which he calls diophantine problems).

Either . . . the human mind (even within the realm of pure mathematics) infinitely surpasses the powers of any finite machine, or else there exist absolutely unsolvable diophantine problems. . . . If the human mind were equivalent to a finite machine then objective mathematics not only would be incompletable in the sense of not being contained in any well-defined axiomatic system, but moreover there would exist absolutely unsolvable problems . . ., where the epithet “absolutely” means that they would be undecidable, not just within some particular axiomatic system, but by any mathematical proof the mind can conceive.23

The only way to avoid this is to affirm that “the human mind (even within the realm of pure mathematics) infinitely surpasses the powers of any finite machine.” 24 Since Gödel thought the presence of “absolutely unsolvable diophantine problems” to be unacceptable, it is obvious which alternative he thought we should prefer. Thus, Gödel presents a dilemma: we must affirm either that 1) the human mind is reducible to a Turing machine and that, consequently, there are absolutely unsolvable mathematical propositions; or we must affirm that 2) the human mind infinitely surpasses the powers of any finite machine and that, consequently, the human mind is not reducible to a Turing machine. The problem with the first option is that it contradicts the Second Incomplete- ness Theorem because it means that subjective mathematics coincides with objective mathematics. 25 Therefore, it follows from the Second Incomplete- ness Theorem that the limitations of a Turing machine cannot apply to the human mind. And if we ignore this and claim that the human mind is reducible to a Turing machine, it is no better for the mechanist or materialist, because it would entail that there are absolutely unsolvable (diophantine) problems. If there were problems like this, Gödel argues, mathematics could not be our creation, but would have to have an existence beyond 54 Paradox Lost the minds of human beings. This is because, again, subjective mathematics cannot coincide with objective mathematics. Whatever “source” objective mathematics would have, it would know all mathematical propositions, and so they would not be “unsolvable” for this source. Therefore, if there were unsolvable mathematical problems for us we cannot be the source of mathematics. We can affirm that the human mind is mechanistic only by affirming a nonhuman mind that is not mechanistic. In his personal correspondence, Gödel further expressed his conviction that this applied to any form of physical determinism.26 Gödel, in fact, was not only a Platonist, he was a theist, and thought his Incompleteness Theorems functioned as arguments for these positions. The few commentaries on Gödel’s Gibbs Lecture suggest that this conclusion, that the human mind cannot be reduced to a Turing machine and that there can be no absolutely unsolvable diophantine problems, is one of the implications. But this is not how Gödel presents it. This conclusion is itself one of the basic theorems; the implications come later .27 Gödel posits no space between his Incompleteness Theorems and the irreducibility of the human mind to a Turing machine. If we accept his Incompleteness Theo- rems, as all do, then, so thinks Gödel, we should also accept his claim about the human mind. According to Gödel, it is a “mathematically established fact.”28

3.2 Lucas Gödel’s lecture remained unpublished until 1995, but the idea did not have to wait that long to be expressed. In 1961, J. R. Lucas published “Minds, Machines, and Gödel” in which he presented a Gödelian Skyhook of his own, which he further addressed and defended in numerous essays and his 1970 book Freedom of the Will .29 Lucas argues that any physical system is, by its nature, reducible to a logistic calculus, such as Peano arithmetic. Moreover, since human beings are capable of doing arithmetic, it follows that any physical description of human beings must be able to explain such behavior. “The physical determinist, therefore, must represent at least some persons by a physical description which will, in conjunction with some description of a possible environment, have as a consequence, in accordance with the laws of nature, a description of their uttering or writing a numeral, or of their calculating a sum or a product.” 30 And because this would be true for all reasoning processes human beings perform, it further follows that “the reasoning of any particular human being can be viewed as a logistic calculus,”31 with rules of inference, postulates, etc. Since any individual has only a finite number of inferences she may perform, “We can thus represent every single inference and every sequence of inferences that the human being might perform. . . . Thus each human being’s reasoning, if he can really, as the physical determinists allege, be completely described in physical terms, may be viewed as a proof-sequence in some logistic calculus.” 32 Paradox Lost 55 Since any given logistic calculus has its Gödel sentence that is true but not provable within that calculus (i.e., “this proposition is not provable within its logistic calculus”), each human being has such a Gödel sentence, unique to them. By definition, the human being cannot prove their Gödel sentence—but they can see that it is true. Lucas goes over the four possibilities involved here, based on whether the proposition could be either true or false, and either provable or not provable.33 To say that it is true and provable leads to contradiction, because it would mean that “this is not provable” is provable. To say that it is false and provable fares no better, because “provable,” in any reasonable system, means capable of being proven true. Thus, it would lead to the conclusion that it is false, but can be proven true; hence it is both false and true. Nor could we say that it is false and not provable, because if the proposition “this proposition is not provable” is not provable, then it is not false but true. Hence, if it is false and not provable it would, again, be both false and true. Therefore, the only option available is that it is true but not provable. Since we are using an unformalizable term in this assessment (“true”), this argument is not a formal proof. That’s as it should be—if it were a formal proof, then it would be provable that one’s Gödel sentence is unprovable . Yet, given that we all have an intuitive understanding of truth, we can all see that this demonstration is sound. It may not be formally sound—that is, it may not be provable—but so what? Since we know what “true” and “provable” mean, we can follow this demonstration and see that the only option available for the proposition “this is not provable” is that it is true but not (formally) provable. This leads to a strong disparity between human minds and physical mechanisms. “The essence of being a machine,” Lucas writes, is “that it should be a concrete instantiation of a formal system,”34 which would make it “an analogue of simple arithmetic.”35 In other words, “It is essential for the mechanist thesis that the mechanical model of the mind shall operate according to ‘mechanical principles’, that is, that we can understand the operation of the whole in terms of the operations of its parts, and the operation of each part either shall be determined by its initial state and the construction of the machine, or shall be a random choice between a determinate number of determinate operations.” 36 This means that physical determinism must limit itself to what is provable . If a proposition is not provable, then there is no mechanistic pathway by which it can be genuinely affirmed. There are only two options for a mechanistic entity. First, it can follow the rules to the conclusion. But this would constitute a formal proof, and so the conclusion would not be unprovable. This machine will have a Gödel sentence that is true but not provable in that system. We could certainly construct another machine that is able to prove the Gödel sentence for the previous one, but this machine will have a Gödel sentence of its own, which is not provable but true in its system, etc. Any proposed machine will have a Gödel sentence that the machine cannot prove and so cannot see is true, unlike human beings. 56 Paradox Lost Second, a mechanistic entity could make a random choice between two alternatives. But a random choice would not be a genuine affirmation. A randomness program would not select the alternative that is rational in a nondeductive way. The best we could do would be to program the machine with a rule that does not capture why the rational alternative is preferable— if it did capture this, then that rule would be deductive and the conclusion would be provable—and any such rule would be arbitrary. Nor could we add a stop program so that the machine, upon seeing that the application of a rule would lead to a contradiction, would simply fail to proceed. Human beings, certainly, often behave in a similar way, but

We do not lay it to a man’s credit that he avoids contradiction merely by refusing to accept those arguments which would lead him to it, for no other reason than that otherwise he would be led to it. Special pleading rather than sound argument is the name for that type of reasoning. No credit accrues to a man who, clever enough to see a few moves of argument ahead, avoids being brought to acknowledge his own inconsistency, by stonewalling as soon as he sees where the argument will end. Rather, we account him inconsistent too, not, in his case, because he affirmed and denied the same proposition, but because he used and refused to use the same rule of inference. 37

Insofar as this is the case, any machine one could propose will have a Gödel sentence that is true but not provable within the confines of the system the machine instantiates. The machine will, according to the definition of physical determinism, be unable to genuinely affirm its Gödel sentence. A human being, however, can genuinely affirm her Gödel sentence, given that she is neither formally proving it nor randomly accepting it over its denial, but recognizing it as true in a nondeductive way. The Gödelian Skyhook shows that a person can be “reasonable in an intuitive but unformalisable way.” It is not a monological deductive argument, but a dialogical one, taking place “between two parties, perhaps different people, perhaps just me and my alter ego .” 38 In response to the claim that a person is completely explainable in physical determinist terms, the argument presents the Gödel sentence for that individual, which she can recognize as true, thus transcending her physical elements. The counterresponse would be to formulate a new physical determinist theory about that person, including the Gödel sentence in question. But then that new theory would have a Gödel sentence of its own, one which cannot be proven but that the individual can see is true.

And so it will go on. However complicated we make our description of a particular man, the part of it that claims to describe his reasoning processes will correspond to a formal logistic calculus, which will be liable to the Gödelian procedure for finding a formula unprovable-in-that-logistic Paradox Lost 57 calculus. Nothing that is adequately and completely described by the physical description will be able to produce this formula as being true, although the human being, supposed to be adequately described by the physical description will be able to see that it is true. Therefore the description is not adequate. And any description offered by the physical determinist—however much he adds to it—will thus be found to be incomplete. He is trying to produce for a human being a description which is purely physical—which is essentially “dead”; but being in fact alive, the person described can always go one better than a formal, ossi- fied, dead description can allow for.39

The consequences of this are devastating. It means that no purely physical entity can duplicate the processes of the human mind. Even if one constructed an exact physical duplicate of a particular brain and were able to ascertain (somehow) that there were no extraphysical processes going on, that duplicate could not know that its Gödel sentence is true while the human mind it supposedly duplicates could know it. The mind transcends its hardware; there is something more to it that goes beyond its physical elements. So, the results go in both directions: a purely physical entity cannot duplicate the human mind, and the human mind cannot be reduced to its physical substrate.

3.3 Objections Lucas’s Gödelian Skyhook has produced its own literature, 40 being championed in a modified form more recently by mathematical physicist Roger Penrose,41 so that many philosophers refer to it as the Lucas-Penrose argument or vice versa. It is generally rejected by logicians, mathematicians, and computer theorists, but there is disagreement as to what precisely is wrong with it. For his part, Lucas believes that all of the objections have been deci- sively rebutted. Some object that Gödel’s theorems apply to purely deductive systems. Human beings are not limited to deduction—we also use induction and abduction—so the theorems do not apply. So why can’t we construct a machine that also follows nondeductive principles? The answer, unfortunately, has already been given: any machine will either mechanically follow rules to the conclusion, which will correspond to a deductive proof, or randomly adopt one of a pair of contradictions, which would not be analogous to rational insight, being neither rational nor an insight. A similar objection is that a human being cannot (deductively) prove that her Gödel sentence is true, so the conclusion must remain in doubt. 42 But this is to demand a contradiction: that the Gödel sentence be provable and not provable. The fact that human beings can be rational in a nondeductive way is precisely the point of the argument. Just as truth is more than provability, so knowledge is more than what can be proven. 58 Paradox Lost In response to Lucas’s framing of the Gödelian Skyhook as a dialogical process rather than a monological one, Paul Benacerraf argues that, whereas a human being is merely a physical system, we do not need to specify which specific logistic calculus corresponds to the individual, only that there is one. On this view, the human being is a black box: we can see that she is a physical determinist system without being able to formulate her Gödel sentence. “If the machine is not designated in such a way that there is an effective procedure for recovering the machine’s program from the designation, one may well know that one is presented with a machine but yet be unable to do anything about finding the Gödel sentence for it.”43 The problem with this is that, under this scenario, we no longer have any grounds for thinking that the “black box” is a merely physical deterministic system. If we do not have enough information to formulate its Gödel sentence, we do not have enough information to know that it is entirely explicable in physical deterministic terms. “Ignorance is of no avail when impaled on the horns of a dilemma, and the physical determinist is faced with a dilemma. . . . Either the logistic calculus is inconsistent, or it is consistent.” 44 If inconsistent, then it does not adequately capture human reason, and particularly the ability to recognize Gödel-type sentences as true; if consistent, then it is subject to the Gödelian Skyhook. Yet this is not all. To claim that a human being is a physical deterministic system, but not any particular system that is suggested, is to be ω -inconsistent. A theory is ω -inconsistent if it proves something of all the natural numbers, but also disproves it of an unspecified number. In other words, it is not true of some unknown number, but is true of every number that is or can be specified. This is not a formal contradiction, but it is not an acceptable result. In order to refute the Gödelian Skyhook, the claim here cannot merely be that the human being is too complex for us to actually determine what its logistic calculus is. It must be that for any potential calculus suggested, we can definitively reject it as being that person’s. A similar objection is made by Hilary Putnam. 45 Recognizing the dialogical nature of the argument, Putnam suggests that the argument could not be formed unless the physical determinist shares her belief in the consistency of the logistic calculus with her opponent. The determinist, therefore, can simply keep her belief in consistency to herself, and the debate ends in a stalemate. Yet this ploy does not work, because, as Lucas points out, the dialogue need not be between two different people who do not have access to each other’s thoughts; it can be a dialogue one holds with oneself. Once this is recognized, the physical determinist can hold the debate with herself, and this debate will lead her to the conclusion of the Gödelian Skyhook. 46 Another objection, made by Solomon Feferman and others, is that the Skyhook would apply only to a finite machine—that is, a Turing machine— “which enumerates only theorems that are among those provable by the human mind.” 47 Feferman argues specifically that connectionist machines could potentially escape Gödel’s argument. Paradox Lost 59 There are two points to make in response. First, the question of whether connectionist machines are compatible with computational (Turing) machines is not without controversy. Here, at least, we can suggest that if they are compatible, then the Gödelian Skyhook would travel along that compatibility and so apply equally to connectionist machines. We would have to argue that connectionist and computational machines are incompatible in order to escape the argument. Second, and more importantly, connectionist machines, being purely physical, material entities, can function only according to cause-and-effect processes or randomness. Insofar as connectionist machines are reducible to these processes, the Gödelian Skyhook applies to them, regardless of whether they are compatible with Turing machines. However the connectionist machine functions, it will proceed via causality or its absence. That is all that is necessary for the Gödelian argument to take hold. We cannot escape this by formulating a more complicated process of causality and randomness. A final objection I will mention is that Gödel’s theorems apply only to consistent systems. Perhaps if we posit an inconsistent computer system, it could duplicate the abilities of the human mind. There are numerous difficulties here. First, an inconsistent formal system raises the problem discussed above of ex falso quodlibet , the principle of explosion. An inconsistent formal system, one that contains contradictions, can derive any conclusion: true, false, contradictory, whatever. The only way I see to avoid this is to adopt some form of nonclassical logic that rejects the law of noncontradiction or another basic law of classical logic. Denying these laws is very difficult to do and very counterintuitive. Now nonclassical logic is an absolutely fascinating field of study. But I find it impossible, literally impossible, to consider nonclassical logic as a viable alternative. Any attempt I make to bracket the law of noncontradiction, to withhold judgment about it, to just consider the possibility that it does not hold, can get underway only if I presuppose its truth and universal applicability. This is the case for the nonclassical logician as well: in order to posit that “there are true contradictions,” the nonclassical logician must presuppose that the proposition “there are not true contradictions” is true. In other words, she must presuppose the law of noncontradiction in her denial of the law of noncontradiction. Thomas Nagel and Saul Kripke argue that classical logic is not subject to any qualifications, and any attempt to limit its applicability can be done only from within it, and would thus be self-defeating if not actually self-refuting. So in order to engage with a nonclassical logic, we have to presuppose classical logic. 48 Since the nonclassical logician assumes the truth and universal applicability of classical logic in her advocacy of nonclassical logic, I do not see why we cannot assume classical logic as well. A second problem with this objection—that an inconsistent system may be capable of duplicating a human mind—is that human reasoning is consistent. Of course no one is perfectly consistent in her reasoning processes; our 60 Paradox Lost noetic faculties are opaque and there will be plenty of inconsistencies that will never come to the surface, and so will never be resolved. However, we recognize that inconsistency is a failing —that is, it does not form a part of the system, but a departure from it, as demonstrated by the fact that once we recognize an inconsistency as such, we reformulate the system in some way to avoid it. The fact that we see a problem with affirming two contradictory propositions shows this. In order for thought to be possible at all, we must presuppose our own consistency. Again, this does not mean that we are perfectly consistent, just that we are consistent enough for Gödel’s theorems to apply. Any system is either consistent enough for Gödel’s theorems to apply or inconsistent enough for the principle of explosion to apply. Reason, rationality, is the antithesis of arbitrariness. Physical determinism can offer only rule-based systems that lead to the Gödelian Skyhook or indeterminist systems that do not parallel human reasoning in that conclusions would be reached arbitrarily. Since neither is acceptable, “physical determinism must be false.” 49 We can, and must, recognize our own consistency. This is a necessary presupposition. It is synthetic, certainly, but a priori . The question of our own consistency is an unusual one. Clearly, the individual human mind is a hodge-podge of beliefs, and to suggest that they are all consistent with each other is implausible in the extreme. Somewhere in the individual’s belief system there is at least an implicit contradiction that has not been recognized as such. Yet just as clearly, this inconsistency does not proceed according to the principle of explosion such that we infer any and every belief. The principle of explosion works from an inconsistency (a contradiction) within the system that remains as it is. However, once human beings become aware of a contradiction—perhaps by discovering that it would lead one to affirm every belief—they change their beliefs so that the principle of explosion cannot take hold. Lucas argues that the human mind is consistent yet fallible, but neither of these two terms has been defined in any great detail, either by Lucas or his detractors. It seems that, whereas our noetic systems are consistent enough for Gödel’s theorems to apply, they are still partially inconsistent insofar as they contain unnoticed contradictions. But this inconsistency does not proceed according to the principle of explosion or nonclassical logic. Therefore, we have to posit a consistent “program” by which the human mind operates, but that the operations themselves are not always consistent with the program. There must be an aspect of the human being over and above her actual physical processes, a dichotomy between the material processes and the “rulebook” prescribing the behavior of these processes. And this is just to reassert the conclusion of the Gödelian Skyhook.

Notes 1. Bolander 2015. 2. Whitehead and Russell 1927, 1:37–38, 60–65. 3. Whitehead and Russell 1927, 1:38. Paradox Lost 61 4. Plantinga 2011, 290. 5. Circular reference would read, “ ‘The following statement is true.’ ‘The preceding statement is false.’ ” Regressive reference would involve an infinite sequence of sentences that read, “Every following statement is false. ‘Every following statement is false. “Every following statement is false. . . .” ’ ” On the latter, see Yablo 1993. 6. The terminology and classifications of the following are from Boyle, Grisez, and Tollefsen 1976. 7. It is possible for a singular self-referential statement to refer to itself implicitly. Quine’s Paradox is an example: “ ‘Yields a falsehood when preceded by its quotation’ yields a falsehood when preceded by its quotation” (Quine 1966, 7–8). 8. Of course, one could include a singular statement within a general statement: “All statements in this chapter, including this one , are printed on paper.” 9. Boyle, Grisez, and Tollefsen 1976, 126. 10. Boyle, Grisez, and Tollefsen 1976, 130. These cases are also rebutting defeaters of themselves. As I have argued ( chapter 2), the Skyhook is best expressed as revealing that determinism and naturalism are undercutting defeaters of themselves. 11. Hilbert 1902. 12. For a fictional case of what this might look like, see Chiang 2002. 13. Nagel and Newman 1958, 68. 14. Lucas 1970, 126. 15. Nagel 1997, 74. 16. Lucas 1995, 455. 17. Lucas 1970, 128–29. 18. Some of the following is also addressed in Slagle 2014. 19. Gödel 1986, 369–70. 20. Turing 1936. 21. Turing 1950. 22. Turing 1950, 444–45. 23. Gödel 1995, 310, italics removed. 24. Gödel 1995, 310. 25. Feferman 2006, 134–37. Objective mathematics refers to “the system of all true mathematical propositions,” while subjective mathematics refers to “the system of all demonstrable mathematical propositions” (Gödel 1995, 309). Gödel takes his Second Incompleteness Theorem to mean that no well-defined system can contain objective mathematics, and so objective and subjective mathematics cannot coincide. 26. Feferman 2011, 111. 27. As indicated by the fact that after he gives his argument, he goes on to write, “I think I now have explained sufficiently the mathematical aspect of the situation and can turn to the philosophical implications” (Gödel 1995, 311). 28. Gödel 1995, 310. This is obviously overstated. For one thing, to be a mathematical fact, all of the constants would have to be given precise mathematical definitions. But neither “the human mind” nor “what is humanly demonstrable within mathematics” have been given such definitions. 29. Lucas 1961; 1970. Lucas was unaware of Gödel’s lecture until it was published in the third volume of the latter’s Collected Works (personal communication). Before Lucas there were several similar suggestions that Gödel’s theorems rebuts mechanism (e.g., Nagel and Newman 1958, 111–12). 30. Lucas 1970, 131. 31. Lucas 1970, 132. 32. Lucas 1970, 132. 33. Lucas 1970, 127. 62 Paradox Lost 34. Lucas 1961, 113. 35. Lucas 1970, 130. 36. Lucas 1961, 126. 37. Lucas 1961, 122–23. 38. Lucas 1970, 139. 39. Lucas 1970, 141. 40. Lucas’s contributions are available on his website (http://users.ox.ac.uk/~jrlucas/). Etica e Politica, an online journal, republished some of the more important essays in 2003 (http://www.univ.trieste.it/~etica/2003_1/index.html). Lucas has also assembled a bibliography on his Gödelian Skyhook on his website (http://users. ox.ac.uk/~jrlucas/Godel/referenc.html). All websites accessed 8 December 2015. 41. Penrose 1989, 105–16, 416–18; 1994, 48–49, 64–212. Penrose also has a list of references on his argument in his 1994, 63 n. 25. 42. Boolos 1995, 295. 43. Benacerraf 1967, 28. 44. Lucas 1970, 155. 45. Putnam 1975, originally published in 1960. Putnam was apparently moved to write this essay in response to discussing the issue with Lucas prior to the latter’s publication of his 1961. 46. Lucas 1970, 155–57; cf. ibid. 18. 47. Feferman 2006, 140. 48. Nagel 1997, vii. 49. Lucas 1970, 157. 4 Eliminationist Rhetoric (or, Truth Takes the Hindmost)

One cannot conceive anything so strange and so implausible that it has not already been said by one philosopher or another. René Descartes, Discourse on Method

There is nothing so absurd that some philosopher has not already said it. Cicero, De Divinatione

In many ways eliminative materialism is an admirable position. It prefers a simple drastic surgery to pinning one’s hopes on miracle cures, and damn the consequences. If the properties of mind are incommensurate with the properties of the physical world, the solution is to deny the existence of the former. It is essentially the converse of an extreme idealism, which subsumes the physical world under the rubric of mind. The difference is that the idealist chooses to identify all with mind because she cannot deny that she is thinking, whereas the eliminativist chooses to identify all with matter—and if she cannot fit the fact that she is thinking into the picture, then obviously her thinking is what has to go. The surgery, it turns out, is an epistemectomy.

1 The Anti-Eliminativism Skyhook

1.1 Eliminativism Eliminative materialists argue that all mental properties, such as beliefs, intents, reasons, rationality, etc., can be reduced to nonintentional content and explained in purely physical terms of the brain’s biochemistry. Such concepts (“belief,” “reasons,” and “concepts” itself) constitute the common-sense way of thinking about our minds. Eliminative materialists call it “folk psychology” and reject it as a failed theory of mind. Moreover, the brain’s function is derived from the evolutionary struggle for survival, so the pursuit of truth is irrelevant to it. “Looked at from an evolutionary point of view . . . a nervous system enables the organism to succeed in the four F’s: feeding, fleeing, fighting, and reproducing. The principal chore of 64 Eliminationist Rhetoric nervous systems is to get the body parts where they should be in order that the organism may survive. . . . Truth, whatever that is, definitely takes the hindmost.”1 There are, of course, many possible objections one could raise to this position. One of the most prominent is that it is highly contentious to claim that folk psychology constitutes a theory . Theories explain data. What the eliminativist calls folk psychology is the data itself: beliefs, concepts, chains of reasoning, etc. We directly experience these things; they are simply given. Any theory, therefore, must explain them. A theory that denied their existence, as eliminativism does, would be completely inadequate. Worse than that, it could not even get off the ground because the data it would purport to explain would be much less secure as data than what the eliminativist denies (in fact, the data it seeks to explain could very well be derived from what the eliminativist denies.) This is an important point, because the charge that folk psychology is a theory is the linchpin to the whole eliminativist project: it is only by this that she is able to eliminate the elements of folk psychology as being merely elements of a false theory. But if these elements constitute raw data that must be explained, they cannot be eliminated. The Skyhook, however, is another common argument against eliminativism. 2 Indeed, when Paul Churchland originally presented his paper “Elim- inative Materialism and the Propositional Attitudes” 3 in 1980, one of the first questions put to him was whether he applied his claims to his own beliefs regarding eliminativism. 4

1.2 First Argument The first point to make in constructing a Skyhook particular to eliminativism is that the eliminativist is simply unable to express her claims without extensive use of the elements of folk psychology. Trying to remove such references leads only to others cropping up in their places. So the eliminativist is forced to presuppose the validity of folk psychology in order to express her rejection of folk psychology. This point really halts the discussion before the eliminativist can say anything. The eliminativist cannot even begin to express her position without granting a great deal to the folk psychology she rejects. It would be parallel to someone who claimed that language was completely incapable of communicating anything. If someone believed this language-eliminativism to be the case, how could she tell anyone about it? Any attempt to express her views could be done only by presupposing the validity of language. Yet the situation for the eliminativist is even more dire than this. Whereas such a language-eliminativism could never be expressed or argued (any potential expression or argument being in language), it may still be possible that we could think about it, weighing various pieces of evidence in our mind. Whereas many philosophers believe that language completely Eliminationist Rhetoric 65 circumscribes our thoughts, there are others who disagree.5 If we grant the point to the latter, we could think about and may even be able to rationally believe language-eliminativism, so long as the thoughts by which we are led to it are not language-dependent. But this is not the case for the eliminative materialist. Any attempt to argue, express, or contemplate eliminativism in any way can begin only by presupposing folk psychology’s categories of argument, expressibility, and contemplation. The point here is not that eliminativism is false; it is that one could never move from folk psychology to eliminativism.6 Any reason, ground, or rational motivation for such a move could have any validity only within the confines of folk psychology, thus presupposing the validity of its categories. As such, the eliminativist cannot hope to convince anyone of her position. To illustrate: every statement in English presupposes further ceteris paribus statements such as, “English is a valid form of communication” and more broadly, “Language is a valid form of communication” and “Communica- tion is possible.” These statements are general, not only in that they apply more broadly than just to the original statement that presupposes them, but in the sense that they are not absolute; they are only generally the case. “All things being equal” (ceteris paribus) English is a valid form of communication, as is language. In the same way, any argument, any reason, any ground, presupposes ceteris paribus statements such as, “Rationality is veracious,” “Logic is veracious,” etc. Again, these are general statements, not absolute ones. Since these are all elements of folk psychology, we are led to the broader statement, “Folk psychology is veracious, ceteris paribus .” With- out such a presupposition, nothing could be said or even thought. Say we are presented with an argument to the effect that logic is a chimera and will be eliminated. Such an argument, if it is an argument and not just an assertion, will proceed via premises to its conclusion—that is, it will proceed according to the canons of logic. (If it does not so proceed, then it is merely an unsuccessful argument: it does not provide us with any motive for accepting its conclusion.) If the particular use of the canons of logic in presenting this argument is valid, then other arguments that use them in the same way are also valid. There are, in other words, rules that apply to more than just the current argument, but govern argumentation in general . If, on the other hand, these rules are invalid, then the particular use of them in this argument is invalid as well. So if the argument works, it takes away any ground for accepting its conclusion. Thus any particular argument presupposes that logic is veracious. As Lucas puts it, any proposed explanation must meet a logical requirement: to wit, the explanation must be generalizable or be capable of being universalized; it must not be a completely ad hoc explanation that relates only to the particular question it purports to answer. This does not necessarily mean that the explanation must instantiate a general law that can be formed a priori to any particular expression of it. It merely means that, if 66 Eliminationist Rhetoric presented with a seemingly parallel case that would rebut the explanation, one must show, a posteriori , how the two cases are different.

The covert generality implicit in the word ‘because’ can be satisfied, it is felt [by some], only if we can state a universal hypothesis, whose antecedent “covers” the putative cause, and whose consequent “covers” the event to be explained. But this, although a way of satisfying the requirement of generality, is not the only way. All that rationality, claimed by the use of the word ‘because’, requires is a weak principle of universalisability, not the strong. That is, if I offer an explanation to a questioner, and he produces a prima facie parallel case for which the explanation will not work, I must be able to show what the difference between the two cases is: but I do not have to be able to specify exactly in advance the features of the event to be explained and the proffered cause, and an exactly specified universal hypothetical statement connecting them.7

The point is that in order for something to qualify as an explanation, it must be capable of being (weakly) universalized. Otherwise, it would be a completely ad hoc account that relates only to the particular issue at hand: that is, one could say that an objection does not work against one’s own position despite the fact that the same objection does work against a relevantly similar position (and the claim that it really is relevantly similar goes unchallenged). And if the eliminativist says that this logical requirement is just one more aspect of folk psychology that she can ignore, we can point out that the reason this is unacceptable is because virtually anything can be explained this way, including contradictory accounts—such as, say, eliminative materialism and Cartesian dualism (or any other account that contrasts with eliminativism). Under these conditions, eliminativism can no longer be held up as uniquely preferable, because any reason for its being uniquely preferable is to apply the logical requirement in some form or another and to eschew ad hoc-ness. Again, the point is that one could never move from folk psychology to eliminativism—and this not only applies to those the eliminativist argues with, it applies to the eliminativist herself . How could evidence, reason, and argument have persuaded her to abandon folk psychology if evidence, reason, and argument are valid only within the confines of folk psychology? So we can formulate an anti-eliminativism Skyhook. The eliminativist claims that folk psychology is a radically false theory, but any attempt to define these concepts employs the elements of the very folk psychology that is allegedly being rejected. This is true both publicly (when the eliminativist engages with others) and privately (when she contemplates it herself). The point is not that eliminativism is self-refuting and therefore false, but that it is self-defeating . The difference being that any valid motive for abandoning folk psychology and embracing eliminativism can get underway only by presupposing the validity of folk psychology, and thus rejecting eliminativism. The eliminativist is borrowing folk psychology’s tools and mortar in order to construct an edifice that rejects its own foundation and matériel. Eliminationist Rhetoric 67 1.3 Second Argument Suppose, however, we ignore this for the sake of argument and assume that the eliminativist can express her views. Eliminativism will supply successor concepts to the elements of folk psychology. These will replace the elements of folk psychology with neurophysiological descriptions and processes— that is, they will describe what is really going on when we say “believe” or

“belief.” Call “belief” as it is conceived in folk psychology “belief fp ” and the successor concept provided by eliminative materialism “beliefem .” So the proponent of eliminativism, in response to the charge that she believes there are no beliefs, can say, “No I don’t believe fp there are no beliefsfp . I believeem there are no beliefsfp .” Since she is not using the same concept or term that she is denying in her statement of eliminativism, she is not presenting a self-defeating thesis. This allows her to bifurcate any concept into its folk psychology and eliminativist aspects, so that we have intentionalfp and inten- tionalem ; rationalfp and rationalem ; etc. With this, she claims, she is able to rephrase any objection and assert that the objections no longer hold once they are expressed in the eliminativist’s language.8 Unfortunately, the difficulty simply re-presents itself. How am I to understand the difference between rationalfp and rationalem ? The only way for an eliminativist to explain it is with the terms of rationalfp ; that is, she must employ rationalfp in order to explain what rationalfp is and how it differs from rationalem , and thus she must presuppose rational fp ’s viability in order to reject it. What this shows is that these proposed successor concepts are empty: we literally have no idea what they might entail. In fact, the eliminativist freely admits this—otherwise it would be incumbent upon her to explain what they really mean. But insofar as these concepts are empty, she cannot appeal to them in explaining her theory. Hasker, after analyzing the potential of successor concepts, rejects them as vacuous.

It is important to realize that this option is not available . We simply have no grasp of these successor concepts, and cannot use them to make any assertions, no matter how they are named. Indeed, we have no assur- ance (as Churchland’s scenario makes clear) that the roles played by the successor concepts will be even “remotely analogous” to those occupied by the concepts of our present scheme. No. The concepts involved . . . the only concepts available to him, are precisely the concepts of the commonsense conception renounced by eliminativism. The charge of falsehood and contradiction remains. And if a theory which admittedly contains self-contradiction and massive falsehood is not self-refuting, what more does it take?9

We have pointed out that eliminativism cannot even be expressed or con- templated without presupposing what it denies and rejecting what it affirms. When we ignore this for the sake of argument, the eliminativist simply faces 68 Eliminationist Rhetoric the problem all over again at another level; and if we ignore this , then it appears at the next level, and so on. In fact, no matter how much we are willing to grant the eliminativist, the problem just reasserts itself at another stage. The only way around this is to allow the eliminativist to replace all folk psychology concepts with their eliminativist placeholders. But since these placeholders are undefined, eliminativism is no longer comprehensible to anyone, and once again, this includes the eliminativist . In other words, she is using concepts and terms that she does not understand; worse, she has no motive for even thinking they are possible . She can get no grasp on them, because they are not continuous with the concepts and terms they are replacing—if they were continuous, then she would not be eliminating their folk psychology equivalents but merely qualifying them in some way. The eliminativist is chasing her own tail. She should not be too surprised if we choose not to join her in the pursuit.

2 Counterarguments

2.1 Reducing the Skyhook William Ramsey argues that the Skyhook, at least when applied to eliminativism, can usually be reduced to other, more standard objections, and so does not present us with an independent argument.10 For example, the “reductio objection” argues that eliminativism has consequences that are so radical, such as the rejection of rationality and responsibility, that it would always be more plausible to reject eliminativism instead. However, Ramsey constructs a modus ponens argument that, he thinks, does amount to an argument that eliminativism is self-defeating and that does not reduce to another type of objection.

(P1) If there are no propositional attitudes, then no thesis is asserted. (P2) There are no propositional attitudes (the eliminativist thesis). (P3) Therefore, no thesis is asserted. (P4) Therefore, eliminativism (P2) isn’t asserted. (P5) Therefore, eliminativism cannot be interpreted.11

However, Ramsey takes away with one hand what he has given with the other. Once this argument is formulated to be genuinely self-defeating, he argues, it no longer has any teeth. This is because the charge that no thesis is asserted would apply not merely to eliminativism, but to all theses, and so would not be a failing particular to the eliminativist thesis.

If the eliminativist isn’t bothered by the claim that no thesis is asserted (or interpreted), I see little reason why she should be bothered by the claim that her own thesis isn’t asserted either. If eliminativism entails that nothing is asserted (or interpreted), then on this score it is no worse Eliminationist Rhetoric 69 off than any other theory or statement—including the theories and statements of the defenders of folk psychology. If it turns out that being asserted is a virtue that no thesis possesses, then it is hard to see how being un asserted could be much of a vice. Thus, this last construal of self-refutationist objection doesn’t really buy the advocates of folk psychology anything that can be used against the eliminativist. Although it appears that eliminativism entails its own downfall, under more careful consideration it turns out that what eliminativism really entails is that such a failing wouldn’t be a failing, since the alleged shortcoming would be shared by all theories.12

This, however, is a highly unusual claim. It is only if eliminativism is assertible and interpretable that we can understand what the eliminativist position is. Insofar as it is not assertible and interpretable, then there is nothing with which we can agree, nothing to which we can acquiesce. This is the Skyhook: in order to present the eliminativist thesis at all, the eliminativist must be covertly presupposing those criteria she claims to be abandoning. We can consider accepting eliminativism only if we reject it from the outset. Thus, since it is unassertible and uninterpretable, we can have no reason or motive for accepting eliminativism ; Ramsey’s response is to agree, but he asks further, so what? The answer is to repeat the point: we can have no reason or motive for accepting eliminativism. It seems that he has forgotten that this is all under an “if, then” clause: if eliminativism is true, then no thesis is asserted or interpreted, including eliminativism. But if eliminativism is not true, then it remains possible for there to be theses that are assertible and interpretable. Saying that all of these other theses are in the same boat forgets the fact that this is only the case if eliminativism is true . Insofar as all theses being in the same boat is unacceptable—not least because it takes away any justification for believing that all theses are in the same boat— eliminativism should not be accepted. As Victor Reppert writes,

If this world is a world in which no one asserts anything, then the self-refutationist wants to claim that Paul Churchland is no more right about the way the world is than is Jerry Fodor. Popular opinion would have it that these two have asserted contradictory claims, but if eliminativism and the implication that nothing is asserted are true, then this is not so. Why should this be more disturbing to Churchland than to Fodor? Because if eliminativism is false , then Fodor can be right about it, since, in a Fodor world, there are assertions. Nothing in the argument shows that Fodor cannot justifiedly, truly, and fourth-conditionedly believe that there are beliefs. But Churchland can’t be right if eliminativism is true, and he can’t be right if eliminativism is false either. If it follows from eliminative materialism that all of us are cognitively out of luck, then this does constitute a reason for assuming the falsity of eliminative materialism.13 70 Eliminationist Rhetoric Part of the claim of the Skyhook is that, if determinism or naturalism is true, we are left with no way to distinguish truth from falsity, rationality from irrationality, reason from insanity. Thus, we have no way of knowing into which category we should put determinism or naturalism. As such, these claims are self-defeating. If this applies to less extreme forms of naturalism, it would apply to eliminativism as well.

2.2 Questions Begged The primary counterargument to the anti-eliminativism Skyhook is that it begs the question. It criticizes eliminativism from within the confines of folk psychology. Since the whole point of eliminativism is the rejection of folk psychology, such criticisms simply miss the mark. To illustrate this, eliminativists present a similar argument between a vitalist, who believes that having a vital spirit is a necessary condition of being alive, and an antivitalist, who denies this. The vitalist could then argue that the antivitalist’s claims are self-defeating too. After all, the antivitalist would not be alive to argue against vitalism if she did not have a vital spirit. 14 Obviously, in presenting this argument, the vitalist is begging the question. She is assuming that vitalism is the only way to explain life, and then applying that assumption to the rejection of vitalism, discovering, unsurprisingly, that it undercuts itself. Similarly, the proponent of folk psychology is allegedly begging the question in that she assumes that folk psychology is the only way to explain the functions of the brain, applies this to eliminativism, and then argues that it is self-defeating. In fact, all it has really shown is that eliminativism is incompatible with folk psychology, which is precisely the eliminativist’s point. This objection, however, has several faults. First, the anti-eliminativist argument and the vitalist argument do not seem parallel. The vitalist is not claiming to directly perceive vital spirits, she perceives that she is alive and posits a vital spirit as an explanation of this datum. The antivitalist does not deny the datum, only the interpretation. The eliminativist, however, is claiming that beliefs, concepts, ideas, thoughts, chains of reasoning, etc., are all invalid. Since we directly perceive beliefs, ideas, thoughts, etc., she is therefore not challenging an interpretation but denying the given data. The correct parallel, as Lynne Rudder Baker shows, would be an antivitalist who denies the given data that she is alive but does not think that this should stop her from philosophizing. 15 So the eliminativist’s claim that these arguments commit the same error is incorrect. This objection could be seen as the rejection of the claim that folk psychology constitutes a theory. As such, it is reducible to Ramsey’s reductio objection: eliminativism will always be less plausible than the claim that folk psychology is a theory, and so should be rejected on that point—not because it is self-defeating. This will be dealt with below, in Reppert’s response to the next objection. A second objection is that the eliminativist’s charge of question-begging would apply to virtually any claim that a position is self-defeating. The point Eliminationist Rhetoric 71 of such a claim, after all, is that a position or assertion is incompatible with its own presuppositions; it has certain consequences that undermine its own presentation or acceptance. But someone could always say that this undermining begs the question because it applies standards to the position (in the form of its presuppositions) that the position and its consequences deny. Thus, if the eliminativist’s counterargument were successful, it would completely eradicate any and all claims of self-defeat. Take, for example, the naïve Marxist who says that all beliefs and worldviews are a product of one’s social standing and thus are not produced by rational processes. As such, they can safely be ignored as genuine alternatives to Marxism. A critic then points out that this would apply to the Marx- ist as well: her belief in Marxism is a product of her social standing, and so is not rational and can also be ignored. The Marxist then responds that her critic begs the question, because said critic is claiming that Marxism is not rational. But the Marxist’s position is that Marxism is rational. The critic is judging Marxism’s claim to rationality from the standpoint of the claim that it is not rational. It is not surprising then that he finds it self-defeating and irrational, given that this strategy could be applied to any position. Obviously this response is inadequate. The critic is not assuming that Marxism is irrational; she is arguing that Marxism is irrational. The irrationality of Marxism is her conclusion , not her starting point. On the contrary, her starting point is the assumption that Marxism is rational . She then applies Marxism’s claims to itself and finds that, by its own lights, it is not rational. Hence, it is self-defeating. This is how one shows anything to be self-defeating: one takes the position as true, valid, rational, or whatever, and applies its own standards of truth, validity, rationality, etc., to itself. What this shows is that the anti-eliminativist’s argument that eliminativism is self-defeating is logically prior to the eliminativist’s counterargument that the anti-eliminativist is begging the question. In order to say that the eliminativist’s claim is self-defeating, the anti-eliminativist has to take what the eliminativist says, apply it to the eliminativist’s claim itself, and then show that, if we assume the eliminativist’s claims are veracious, then the eliminativist’s claims are not veracious. The counterresponse (that she is assuming that the eliminativist’s claim is false by applying standards to it that it denies) ignores the fact the eliminativist is presupposing the standards she claims to reject. That is the point: her position could be valid only if she has not really rejected the framework she says she has rejected. It is built upon the foundation of what she has dismissed as invalid. However, perhaps we have gone too quickly: wouldn’t this counter- counterargument apply to the vitalist’s claim as well? Couldn’t we say that the vitalist’s claim (that the antivitalist position is self-defeating) is logically prior to the antivitalist’s claim that the vitalist is begging the question? It would seem so. We seem to be faced with a quandary: either the eliminativist’s argument applies to all claims of self-defeat and thus refutes all of them, or the anti-eliminativist’s argument that her claim is logically prior applies 72 Eliminationist Rhetoric to all claims of question-begging and so refutes all of them . Neither option is acceptable. There are self-defeating claims and there are question-begging claims. What we need is some set of criteria for distinguishing genuine self-defeat from the pseudo-self-defeat of the antivitalist, so that we can determine to which camp the Skyhook belongs. To this end, Reppert argues that we must understand “question-begging” as relative to the arguer rather than the situation. Otherwise, we would be unable to make a distinction between question-begging and just bad argumentation. To make question-begging relative to the situation would be to make it relative to the audience, but that would open the door to charging nearly any argument with begging the question. After all, according to this standard, as long as one’s opponents do not accept some premise, then one is begging the question by employing it. But because one can find opponents to virtually any proposition, it would exclude many perfectly valid arguments. In order to avoid this, we have to make it more general. It is not enough to say that a particular audience member does not accept some premise; we have to say that “no reasonably well-informed person would accept the premise who does not already accept the conclusion.”16 Thus, Reppert concludes that an arguer-relative model of question-begging should be preferred to a situation-relative model. And because, given our noetic opacity, we are not always in a good position to know whether someone is begging the question or not, he further argues that we should use the principle of charity in assessing whether someone begs the question. Reppert takes the example of someone who argues that God exists because the Bible says so. This argument is circular because the only reason for accepting the Bible’s testimony on the matter is that it was inspired by God, and as such presupposes that God exists. Here,

If we do not suppose our arguer to be caught in a vicious epistemic circle, then we must accuse him of something a good deal worse; we must accuse him of being unaware of the basic facts of the dispute. As unkind as it is to say that someone begs the question, in the case of the Bibliological argument, this is the most charitable thing one can say. . . . Thus on the arguer-relative conception of question-begging that I am proposing, (and in the absence of the relevant information concerning the arguer’s noetic structure) we can regard any argument as fallaciously question-begging just in case a) the argument is circular or b) it is not explicitly circular, but it is incomplete, and the most charitable way to complete it is to say that the arguer is either overlooking or concealing an epistemic circle. This conception of question-begging permits us to respect the differences in noetic structures while at the same time allowing for the possibility of making warranted judgments that an argument is question-begging without inside information about the noetic structure of arguers.17 Eliminationist Rhetoric 73 So, returning to our examples, is it true that the vitalist begs the question when he argues that the antivitalist could assert her thesis only if she had a vital spirit? In order to answer this, we have to ask what facts on the issue are not controversial, i.e., would be accepted by virtually any reasonably well-informed person, whether vitalist or not. Reppert suggests these three:

(i) Vitalism is an explanatory theory for the purpose of explaining life. (ii) Vital spirits are supposed to exist solely in virtue of the fact that they are needed to explain the existence of life. (iii) Whether or not there is life cannot be disputed. Life is a publicly observable phenomenon, and any theory that takes life to be an illusion simply fails to save the appearances.18

Since these points are uncontroversial, the vitalist is begging the question by assuming the truth of vitalism in his critique of antivitalism. Presupposing a theory that exists solely in order to explain the given data in order to argue against the denial of that very theory is question-begging. With regard to eliminativism, the claims at issue that parallel those of the vitalism/antivitalism debate are as follows:

(iv) Folk psychology is an empirical theory, employed to explain various aspects of human behavior (such as assertion). (v) Beliefs and desires, the posits of folk psychology, are supposed to exist solely in virtue of the fact that they are needed to explain these aspects of human behavior. (vi) Whether or not there are assertions cannot be disputed. Assertion is a publicly observable phenomenon, and any theory that takes assertion to be an illusion simply fails to save the appearances.19

Yet none of these is uncontroversial; indeed, there is strong opposition to all of them. The only people who accept (iv) are eliminativists, so it is obviously unacceptable to their opponents. “As for (v), the advocate of the self-refutation argument is trying to show that belief plays a role that goes beyond the role it plays in psychological explanation; she is trying to argue that belief is a condition of intelligibility, and that this role is quite secure regardless of the fortunes of any psychological theory that posits belief.”20 And (vi) is rejected by the eliminativist but accepted by their opponents, which is the exact opposite of (iv). It may be obvious that there are assertions, but it is just as obvious that there are beliefs, and it is not obvious how there could be assertions without beliefs. Moreover, the claim of the eliminativist is that the distinction between theory and data is artificial—this is what allows her to claim that folk psychology is a theory rather than the raw data itself. In this case, there are no publicly observable phenomena, no facts that cannot be disputed. So the eliminativist herself would contest (vi). 74 Eliminationist Rhetoric Because the issues in the case can be reasonably denied (or at least denied by one side in the debate), then, given the principle of charity, we should not assume that the anti-eliminativist’s argument begs the question. The anti-eliminativist is not presupposing a theory that exists solely in order to explain the given data, as does the vitalist.21 Hasker rephrases the anti-eliminativism Skyhook, as developed by Lynne Rudder Baker, analyzed and critiqued by Ramsey, and defended via Rep- pert’s analysis of the concept of question-begging as follows:

A. Our present concepts of rational acceptance, assertion, and truth are incompatible with eliminative materialism. B. Unless it is possible for eliminative materialism to develop suitable successor concepts to rational acceptance, assertion, and truth, eliminative materialism is self-refuting. C. Probably, 22 eliminative materialism cannot develop such successor concepts. D. Probably, eliminative materialism is self-refuting.23

Hasker then asks whether this argument falls prey to the eliminativist’s objection.

Is this argument question-begging? (A) is strongly supported by evidence which is neutral territory among the parties to the dispute; namely by the logical facts about our present concepts, and the restrictions imposed by eliminative materialism. Furthermore, (A) would be accepted by a good many eliminativists. If (A) is accepted, (B) seems undeniable—and once again, most eliminativists would agree. We can expect the eliminativist to object to (C). But here it is important to note that (C) is not introduced as a premise; rather, it is supported by argument . The premises of this argument are essentially the same as the evidence for (A): logical facts about our present concepts, and the roles they play in our cognitive economy, and the restrictions on successor concepts imposed by eliminative materialism. And the argument from these premises to (C), which is persuasive though not deductively valid, does not rely on any special assumptions the eliminativist might reject. And finally, (D) follows straightforwardly from (B) and (C). In all of this, there is nothing the eliminativist would reject merely in virtue of being an eliminativist. The charge of begging the question cannot be sustained against Baker’s argument. 24

So eliminative materialism does presuppose the validity of folk psychology in order to argue against it. Any motive we could have for accepting eliminativism would come from folk psychology, so if the eliminativist is correct, her motives would no longer hold, and we would no longer have any reason for accepting her claims—in fact, she would no longer have any reason for accepting her claims. Therefore, eliminativism is subject to the Skyhook and, as such, is self-defeating. Eliminationist Rhetoric 75 3 A Final Point The eliminativist claims that the appearance of self-defeat in her position is merely appearance, and when a full neuroscience is developed, this façade will be unmasked. Yet she has no compunction against employing the categories of the old system to assert and defend her position. One is justified in asking, if eliminativism’s self-defeat will no longer apply in the epistemological eschaton, why would any of the other elements of folk psychology still hold? The eliminativist, after all, is charged with eliminating not translating . Translating from one system to another can be done only if both are coherent. If one of them is not, then translation would be impossible, there being either nothing to translate from or nothing to translate to . Since the eliminativist’s claim is that the old system (folk psychology) is entirely corrupt and in need of elimination, to talk about translating it into another superior system is simply incoherent. The Skyhook charges eliminativism with self-defeat. The eliminativist responds that a) it only appears this way because the issue is framed in corrupt folk psychology, and b) to charge eliminativism with self-defeat begs the question. Ignoring what has been argued above, why should question-begging not be subject to the same analysis as self-defeat? Why couldn’t we say that the Skyhook only appears to beg the question, but a future science will exonerate it? Why does the eliminativist put such stock in the claim that question-begging arguments are invalid? It seems to me that in order to evade this charge the eliminativist must claim that question-begging arguments constitute fallacies only when the target is folk psychology and fail to apply when the target is eliminativism. In other words, she would have to apply these criteria in a manner that is completely ad hoc: if an argument refutes eliminativism it doesn’t count; if it supports eliminativism it must be accepted. I am unaware of any eliminativist making such a claim; they generally stick pretty close to the folk psychology standards of logic and argumentation (“which does equal credit to their humanity and discredit to their views”25 ). Nevertheless it seems inconsistent on their part to use the elements of folk psychology in their expression and defense of eliminativism, and, for this inconsistency to be removed, they would have to apply folk psychology’s criteria in an ad hoc manner. What this demonstrates is that this scenario amounts to a deus ex machina (or perhaps a machinus in vicem deo ): anything can be explained by it. Of course, the eliminativist might counter that our displeasure with ad hoc or deus ex machina solutions (at least when applied to eliminativism) is just another aspect of folk psychology and will be eliminated along with everything else when the revolution comes—and that is precisely the point. Any conceivable objection could be dismissed on the grounds that it will no longer hold when some as-yet-undiscovered font of knowledge is realized. The eliminativist can maintain her position only by rejecting any argument against it, regardless of merit, while simultaneously presenting arguments that employ the same standards she rejects when they refute her claims. This 76 Eliminationist Rhetoric violates the logical requirement discussed above: any explanation suggested must be general or capable of being universalized, and not be a completely ad hoc explanation that relates only to the particular question it purports to answer.26 If the eliminativist says that she does not need to meet this logical requirement, it being just one more aspect of folk psychology, and that she is free to apply standards when they support her position and not apply those same standards when they do not, while denying the same strategy to her interlocutors (a tactic which, again, I have never seen an eliminativist use), we can, at this point, say that Ramsey is right: the Skyhook reduces down to a reductio ad absurdum . This is not too disconcerting, however, because any position could be defended this way, and thus any argument against it would be reducible to the incredulity of applying rules in an ad hoc manner.

Notes 1. Patricia Churchland 1987, 548–49. 2. Probably the most commonly cited Skyhook against eliminativism is Baker 1987, 134–48 (cf. 1988). Others include Everitt 1981; 1983; Gasper 1986, 448–49; Madell 1986, 167–68; 1989; Boghossian 1990a; 1990b; Reppert 1991; 1992; Hasker 1999, 1–26; Lockie 2003. 3. Paul Churchland 1989. 4. Paul Churchland 1995, 170. The Skyhook, however, was applied to eliminativism before this: see Swinburne 1980, 274. 5. See, for example, Willard 1973. 6. See the sequence of Everitt 1981; Smith 1982; Everitt 1983. 7. Lucas 1970, 38–39; cf. Plantinga 2002, 239–40. 8. This is similar to Wittgenstein’s ladder. “My propositions serve as elucidations in the following way: anyone who understands me eventually recognizes them as nonsensical, when he has used them—as steps—to climb up beyond them. (He must, so to speak, throw away the ladder after he has climbed up it.) He must transcend these propositions, and then he will see the world aright” (Wittgenstein 1921, 6.54). 9. Hasker 1999, 18–19, italics his. 10. Ramsey 1990. 11. Ramsey 1990, 461. The numbering here, and elsewhere in this chapter, is not my own, but comes from the authors being quoted. 12. Ramsey 1990, 461–62. 13. Reppert 1991, 503. 14. Patricia Churchland 1981; 1986, 397–99; Paul Churchland 1984, 47–48; 1989, 21–22; Cling 1989; Bertolet 1994. 15. Baker 1987, 139. 16. Reppert 1992, 389. 17. Reppert 1992, 387. 18. Reppert 1992, 389. 19. Reppert 1992, 390. 20. Reppert 1992, 390–91. 21. This issue is treated more broadly in chapter 12. 22. Hasker inserts this “probably” in order to acknowledge the fact that eliminativism is “not deductively valid,” i.e., it is not self-refuting, it does not contradict the laws of logic, and there are possible worlds where it is true. I would reiterate the point that while eliminativism may not be self-refuting, it is still self- defeating; Eliminationist Rhetoric 77 while there may be possible worlds where eliminativism is true, there are no possible worlds where it can be rationally believed. It is not merely improbable but impossible to move from folk psychology to eliminativism because any such move could start only by presupposing the veracity of folk psychology. 23. Hasker 1999, 12. 24. Hasker 1999, 12–13, italics his. 25. Lucas 1970, 115. 26. Lucas 1970, 35. 5 Mental Problems

There seems no explanation of mind that does not presuppose mind. William Desmond, “On the Betrayals of Reverence”

Eliminative materialism is the most extreme form of naturalism, but it is not widely accepted precisely because of this extremism. Most philosophers of mind are unwilling to jettison the most evident and accessible elements of human experience in favor of an implausible theory that denies these elements with little payoff. Yet they still tend to reject “mind first” explanations, as Dennett calls them, in favor of naturalistic ones. This allows us to formulate a Skyhook in the context of philosophy of mind. In this chapter, we will specifically look at a particular stream of tradition: an essay by Norman Malcolm, a rebuttal by Alvin Goldman, and assessments of the two by William Hasker and Jaegwon Kim.

1 Malcolm’s Essay

1.1 Malcolm on Mechanism Norman Malcolm presents an argument against mechanism, which he defines as the “application of physical determinism” to human beings, animals, and indeed any entity with a neurological system; that is, which treats such beings as a type of engine and nothing more.1 The neurological systems in question would be governed by the laws of the relevant sciences, in this case, physical and chemical laws; thus, such neurological systems represent a complete causal system. This means that the mechanical causes in question are sufficient to bring about the effect, but it does not mean that they are necessary . The effect could presumably be brought about by some external source as well—my neurological system is what causes me to lift my arm over my head, but someone could also grab my arm and force it up—a low fuel level in an engine may cause a valve to close, but a mechanic could reach in and close it as well. The fact that the neurological (or mechanical) causes are sufficient to bring about the effect does not mean that they are the only possible cause of the effect. Mental Problems 79 A deterministic neurophysiology would apply to the entire entity: it would “be rich enough to provide systematic causal explanations of all bodily movements not due to external physical causes.”2 Because the laws it employs are physical and chemical, it follows that nonphysical laws or norms (such as the laws of logic or the rules of inference) do not play any role in the output of the organism. The explanation in question is “nonpurposive” in nature.3 Thus one significant difference between mechanistic and purposive behavior is that the former excludes “desires, aims, goals, purposes, motives, or intentions” from playing a role in an organism’s actions.4 Another difference is that, whereas the neurological system exemplifies laws that are contingent , the purposive explanations do not. Malcolm characterizes purposive explanations as follows:

Whenever an organism O has goal G and believes that behavior B is required to bring about G , O will emit B . O had G and believed B was required of G . Therefore, O emitted B . 5

If we add a ceteris paribus clause to the first premise, where “ceteris paribus” is understood as “provided there are not countervailing factors,” then the premise becomes an a priori proposition— not a contingent one. For example, if a man’s hat blows onto the roof and he wants to get it back, and believes that climbing a ladder is required to do so, he will climb a ladder unless there is some countervailing factor (there is no ladder available; he is afraid of heights; etc.). On the other hand, if there are no countervailing factors and the man does not climb a ladder, it means that he did not really have the goal of retriev- ing his hat in the first place; he did not intend to do so. By definition, if he had such a goal or intention, then in the absence of countervailing factors, he would climb a ladder. That is what having a goal or intention means . The neurological (or mechanistic) explanation that would parallel the purposive explanation above would be:

Whenever an organism of structure S is in neurophysiological state q it will emit movement m . Organism O of structure S was in neurophysiological state q . Therefore, O emitted m .6

However, if we add a ceteris paribus clause to the first premise here, it does not result in an a priori proposition. A person in a particular neurological state will raise his arm unless there is some countervailing factor (his arm is broken or is restrained in some way). Yet since a particular neurological state does not entail by definition the movement of the arm, this does not amount to an a priori proposition—if it did, then we could deduce such a relation independent of all observations, which would effectively remove neurology from the sphere of physical sciences, which are by their very nature a posteriori. “There is no connection of meaning, explicit or 80 Mental Problems implicit, between the description of any neural state and the description of any movement of the hand. No matter how many countervailing factors are excluded, the proposition will not lose the character of a contingent law.” 7 Malcolm then argues that, because mechanistic (neurological) explanations are contingent whereas purposive explanations are a priori , we cannot reduce the latter to the former. If one type of law, L2 , is reducible to another type, L1 , it means that L 2 will produce its effects if and only if L 1 is operating as well, whereas L 1 will produce its effects regardless of whether L2 is also operating. In other words, L2 is “contingently dependent” on L 1 while L 1 is not contingently dependent on L 2 . But we cannot substitute purposive explanations for L 2 and mechanistic or neurological explanations for L1 . “The a priori connection between intention or purpose and behavior cannot fail to hold. It cannot be contingently dependent on any contingent regularity,”8 while remaining a priori . Given that he is a Wittgensteinian, one would think that Malcolm would be very conducive to accepting some form of compatibilism, viewing neurological explanations and purposive explanations as different language games.9 However, Malcolm instead believes that there would be an “interference” or “collision” if we try to accept these two types of explanation for the same event, due to the fact that the neurological/mechanistic system in question has to be complete : if we allow for an area or occasion where it does not apply, we would no longer be advocating mechanism . Indeed, we would be advocating its antithesis, since the opponent of mechanism does not deny that some things do, in fact, operate mechanically; she merely denies that all things do. If the neurological/mechanistic scenario is complete, then no purposive explanation will apply to anything. A person’s intentions or goals would form no part of the explanation for her movements. In other words, because purposive explanations cannot be reduced to mechanistic explanations, and because mechanistic explanations allegedly explain everything with no remainder, we cannot have a purposive and a mechanistic explanation of the same event.

If the neurophysiological theory were true, then in no cases would desires, intentions, purposes be necessary conditions of any human movements. It would never be true that a man would not have moved as he did if he had not had such and such an intention. Nor would it ever be true that a certain movement of his was due to, or brought about by, or caused by his having a certain intention or purpose. Purposive explanations of human bodily movements would never be true. Desires and intentions would not be even potential causes of human movements in the actual world. 10

So, mechanism requires that “the a priori principles of action do not apply to the world.”11 There are two ways this could be the case: it could be that there are always countervailing factors, something which “cannot be taken seriously,” 12 or it could be that people do not have purposes, intentions, Mental Problems 81 goals, etc. This is, essentially, eliminative materialism all over again, and, as we saw in chapter 4, it is not a defensible position. Since these are the only alternatives given mechanism, and since neither is acceptable, the only reasonable option available is to reject mechanism.

1.2 Malcolm’s Skyhook The point of Malcolm’s essay is to ask whether mechanism is conceivable. In the strict sense, it is, given that it does not contradict the laws of logic. We can easily imagine a world inhabited by organisms that operate on purely mechanistic principles (or, for that matter, not inhabited by organisms at all). Yet this means only that mechanism is not self-refuting ; the question is whether it is self-defeating , and on this point Malcolm answers in the affirmative. Because mechanism is incompatible with behavior being produced by intentions, goals, or purposes, it would follow that speech acts would not be produced by intentions, goals, or purposes. “In particular, stating, asserting, or saying that so-and-so is true requires the intentional uttering of some sentence. If mechanism is true, therefore, no one can state or assert anything. In a sense, no one can say anything.” 13 Sounds may be produced, but those sounds would not have the characteristic of being produced in order to affirm or communicate something. Therefore, in such a scenario, speech would be impossible. Specifically, the speech act of affirming that mechanism is true could not be produced by the intention of affirming that mechanism is true. “Thus anyone’s assertion that mechanism is true is necessarily false. The assertion implies its own falsity by virtue of providing a counterexample to what is asserted.”14 Malcolm draws a parallel to unconsciousness: no one can genuinely and truthfully affirm that she is unconscious, because consciousness is a necessary prerequisite to affirming anything. Either the speaker is really unconscious and is therefore not affirming anything, or she is not unconscious and is affirming something false. Some may object that while I cannot state I am unconscious without absurdity, it does not follow that someone else cannot state that I am unconscious, or that I cannot state that someone else is unconscious. But this fails to take into account mechanism’s universal nature. To make this situation parallel, we would have to say that everyone, everywhere, is always unconscious. Could someone then intentionally say of me that I am unconscious? No, because she is unconscious too. Could I intentionally say of someone else that she is unconscious? No, because I am unconscious too. There is no one available to make intentional statements. Thus far, Malcolm’s argument has been expounded within the context of the philosophy of mind, focusing on intentions and actions, as opposed to reasons and beliefs. Yet it is not hard to see that it applies to the latter as well, and Malcolm recognizes this.

Saying or doing something for a reason (in the sense of grounds as well as in the sense of purpose) implies that the saying or doing is intentional. 82 Mental Problems Since mechanism is incompatible with the intentionality of behavior, my acceptance of mechanism as true for myself would imply that I am incapable of saying or doing anything for a reason. There could be a reason (that is, a cause) but there could not be such a thing as my reason. There could not, for example, be such a thing as my reason for stating that mechanism is true. Thus my assertion of mechanism would involve a second paradox. Not only would the assertion be inconsistent, in the sense previously explained, but also it would imply that I am incapable of having rational grounds for asserting anything, including mechanism.15

Thus, Malcolm’s Skyhook goes beyond the sphere of the philosophy of mind and has repercussions in epistemology.

2 Goldman’s Conjecture Alvin Goldman responded to Malcolm’s essay by presenting a form of compatibilism, arguing that mental and neurological causes can both be considered causes of subsequent events and thus that both can be considered necessary.16 He first suggests the following formulation of the principle he imputes to Malcolm:

(I) If events C1 , . . ., Ch are jointly suffi cient for the occurrence of event E, then no events other than C 1 , . . ., C h are necessary for the occurrence of E.17

By “sufficient” Goldman means that the presence of the cause (C 1 , . . ., Ch , in his case) guarantees that the effect (E ) will take place. By “necessary” he means that in the absence of the cause, the effect would not take place.18

To illustrate: if we have four moments, t 1 , t 2 , t 3 , and t 4 , and stipulate that C 1 , . . ., C h take place at t2 and are jointly sufficient and necessary to bring about E at t 4 , C1 , . . ., C h are sufficient and necessary causes of E . They are sufficient since, given the occurrence of C1 , . . ., Ch at t2 , E will take place, there being a law-like connection between C 1 , . . ., C h and E . And they are necessary because if C 1 , . . ., C h did not occur, E would not occur either. Yet, with this, we can now demonstrate that (I) is false, despite its “initial plausibility.” Its weak point is that it fails to take into consideration that events may be one part of a chain of causes that ultimately bring about E .

To show this, we now stipulate that C1 , . . ., C h are themselves brought about by events at t 1 and that they then bring about events at t3 that thus bring about E at t 4 . But if principle I is valid, no events preceding or succeeding C 1 , . . ., C h are necessary for E ’s occurrence, in which case, the events at t 1 and t 3 did not bring about E at t 4 . But we are assuming ex hypothesi that the Mental Problems 83 events at t 1 and t 3 did bring about E at t 4 . Therefore, principle I fails. Each step can be considered a necessary and sufficient cause of E , yet they do not rule each other out. We may object, however, that this is misleading. We could consider the sequence of events at t1 , t2 , and t 3 as aspects of a single overarching cause. To account for this, Goldman suggests the following principle.

(II) If events C* occurring at t 1 are suffi cient for the occurrence ofE at t2 , 19 then no other events at t1 are necessary for the occurrence of E at t2 .

(II) appears even to have even more initial plausibility than (I), yet Gold- man argues that it is also demonstrably false. He does this by essentially jumpstarting the project of mind-body supervenience via the concept of “simultaneous nomic equivalents.” 20 This means that an object of a particular kind having a particular property at a particular time entails the object also having another particular property at that same time. That is, having property Φ at t 1 entails having property Ψ at t 1 as well; there is a contingent law connecting Φ with Ψ (thus making them nomic equivalents), although it is not a causal law because they are simultaneous, and (efficient) causes are usually temporally prior to their effects. Moreover, causes go only in one direction, and the relationship between Φ and Ψ goes both ways: having Φ at t1 entails having Ψ at t 1 , but having Ψ at t 1 entails having Φ at t 1 as well. Given this relationship, Φ and Ψ are necessary and sufficient for each other (although, again, not causally sufficient).

Now say that Φ at t 1 is a necessary and sufficient condition for E at t 2 (given Φ at t 1 , E will take place at t 2 , and if Φ does not take place at t 1 , E will not take place at t 2 ). Since Ψ is necessary and sufficient for Φ , it follows that Ψ is necessary and sufficient for E at t2 as well. Thus, both Φ and Ψ are independently necessary and sufficient for E , yet both take place simultaneously. Therefore, (II) is false: just because one event or collection of events

( Φ ) at t 1 is sufficient to bring about E at t 2 , it does not mean that other events ( Ψ ) at t 1 are not necessary to bring about E as well. The absence of either Φ or Ψ would have entailed the absence of the other, and so E would not have taken place. 21 It is important to note two things at this point: first, Φ and Ψ are not functioning here as partial causes of E , where it is only the combination of their causal powers (Φ + Ψ ) that is sufficient to bring about E . 22 Rather, in Goldman’s scenario, each of them is independently necessary and sufficient for E . Second, the situation being described is not the same as cases of causal overdetermination. In the latter, the two causes are not connected to each other by a law, they are unrelated. “Thus, a man is shot dead by two assassins whose bullets hit him at the same time; or a building catches fire because of a short circuit in the faulty wiring and a bolt of lightning that hits the building at the same instant.” 23 These are highly unusual and improbable 84 Mental Problems events, and, as Goldman recognizes, “it would be remarkable that all events of a certain generic kind should be over-determined in this way.”24 With this, Goldman claims that purposes and neural states could function as simultaneous nomic equivalents. A man’s intention to retrieve his hat from the roof may be a simultaneous nomic equivalent to the neural states involved in his climbing the ladder to get it. Thus, the neural states are a necessary and sufficient condition for his climbing the ladder, but his intentions or purposes are also a necessary and sufficient condition for it. He contrasts this with other views about the possible relationship. Epiphenomenalism “posits a one-way causal relationship between physical events and mental events,” 25 but since simultaneous nomic equivalents are not in a causal relationship with each other, there is no need to privilege one over the other. At the very least, we can say that it could just as easily go the other way: that there is a one-way causal relationship between mental events and physical events (with regard to a particular subject). Parallelism holds that mental and physical events parallel each other, but that there is no intrinsic reason for it. Simultaneous nomic equivalence posits a law connecting the two, so they do not parallel each other accidentally. Goldman’s position does seem to allow for interactionism, where mental events can cause physical events and physical events can cause mental events. This does not mean that a mental event causes its physical simultaneous nomic equivalent or vice versa, but that a mental event causes subsequent physical (and mental) events and a physical event causes subsequent mental (and physical) events. He illustrates it with the following diagram:

II’

NN’

t1 t2

I and I’ are consecutive (nonsimultaneous) mental events, and N and N’ are consecutive neural (physical) events. I and N take place at t 1 and I’ and N’ take place at t 2 . I and N are simultaneous nomic equivalents, and this relationship is represented by the dashed line; similarly with I’ and N’ . The arrows are causal relationships; thus I causes both I’ and N’ and N also causes both I’ and N’ . More specifically, I is a necessary and sufficient cause of both I’ and N’ , and N is a necessary and sufficient cause of I’ and N’ as well.26 Unfortunately for Goldman, he has forgotten that we are dealing with mechanism , that is, physical determinism. According to this view, there are only physical causes; mental events do not cause anything. So we would have to alter the diagram as follows: Mental Problems 85 II’

N N’

t1 t2

I and N are simultaneous nomic equivalents, but only N has any causal power. Indeed, this is very similar to epiphenomenalism, except that epiphenomenalism would represent the dashed lines as arrows pointing up (and perhaps would represent I and I’ as taking place slightly after N and N’ respectively). In fact, with this, we could further remove the line connecting N with I’ ; the only cause we have to posit for I’ is N’ . One might object that we could add to the diagram a line connecting I with I’ . Just because I cannot function as a cause of a physical event, it does not follow that it cannot function as a cause of another mental event. The problem with this is that, again, mechanism claims to be universal in scope. All events are determined and all events are physical. The idea of a nonphysical cause having a nonphysical effect cannot enter into the equation because there are no such causes. If we abandon this, we have abandoned mechanism. Moreover, there is a rather significant point that Goldman never addresses: the purposive explanation of a particular event is a priori , whereas the physical, neurological explanation is a posteriori —if this were not the case, then the conclusions of neuroscience could be drawn independent of any observations. And it is here that Goldman’s scenario falls apart. Since the physical state and the mental state are simultaneous nomic equivalents, they are connected by a law—that is, by a contingent law, since we do not know what the connection is a priori , but can only discover it through observation. The neural state causing the subsequent neural state is similarly a contingent law for the same reason. Yet the relationship between the mental state and the subsequent event is a necessary one; it holds a priori . If we put this in epistemological terms, the relationship between the reason and the conclusion drawn from it must be a priori—not in the sense of forming a deductive syllogism, but in the sense that if one believes the reason and sees that it provides sufficient grounds for drawing the conclusion, then ceteris paribus she will draw the conclusion. Conversely, if she does not draw the conclusion, then she either does not really believe the reason, or she does not really see that it provides sufficient grounds for drawing the conclusion.

3 The Responses of Hasker and Kim

3.1 Hasker’s First Skyhook William Hasker presented a version of the Skyhook to argue against determinism, tied it to Kant,27 and defended it against Goldman’s response to 86 Mental Problems Malcolm. Hasker’s argument is stated in terms of epistemology rather than philosophy of mind, but he thinks that Goldman’s comments “can easily and (I believe) without loss be transposed into” the former.28 Hasker gives two qualifications of his argument: first, it applies only to certain types of determinism, such as physical determinism; it does not necessarily apply to all.

For instance: Suppose someone were to hold that the laws of logic, and the principles of good reasoning generally, hold an irresistible attraction for the human mind—a sort of epistemic counterpart to the theolo- gian’s “irresistible grace”—such that we just cannot help but reason correctly whenever the opportunity presents itself. This is certainly a kind of determinism, but no one can say that the laws of logic would be inoperative in such a case.29

Second, Hasker’s argument applies only within a particular concept of rationality (namely, internalism), which he expounds in his presentation of the Skyhook. This qualification potentially gives the determinist a way out of the argument, but Hasker does not think it likely that “a reconstructed conception of rationality which is epistemically adequate and avoids this argument” can be formulated.30 Hasker summarizes physical determinism as maintaining that “Every event, including in particular every event in the life of each person, has a set of temporally antecedent physical conditions which are sufficient for its occurrence.”31 He bases his argument on James Jordan’s Skyhook, 32 according to which if the sufficient causal conditions involved in a person’s assessment of an argument do not make any reference to rationality, then, if her conclusions turn out to be true, this would be only by accident. Thus, if physical determinism is true, all of our conclusions are, at best, only accidentally true because they are produced by forces that leave rationality to the side. And obviously, this would apply to the conclusion that determinism is true. 33 This does not mean, Hasker explains, that there is no truth, but that we could never know it. This is because our conclusions would not be brought about by reasoned investigation; as such, it would be “merely fortuitous” or a “happy circumstance” if they turned out to be true. 34 The necessary and sufficient causes of someone drawing a conclusion have nothing to do with rationality or reasons, and therefore whatever reasons I think I have for a conclusion are unnecessary, given that I would have drawn the same conclusion without them. And if my reasons (or my awareness of reasons) are unnecessary, they do not explain the conclusion or belief. As such, the best we can hope for is true belief, not justified true belief. In this, Hasker is employing a clearly internalist concept of rationality and epistemology that is strongly reminiscent of Kant’s Skyhooks: 35 one must not only have reasons, but must be aware of them in order to have knowledge. Were this not the case, one would believe the conclusion regardless of Mental Problems 87 whether she was aware of any reasons or evidence for it. He summarizes this in the following principle, the denial of which, he argues, “is to cut the nerve of the very idea of sound reasoning”:

(A) For a person to be rationally justifi ed in accepting a conclusion, his awareness of reasons for the conclusion must be a necessary condition of his accepting it.

By “necessary and sufficient,” Hasker means “relative to given background conditions.” It would be impossible to give a general statement that took into account every possible factor that could interfere.

Thus, neither A ’s belief at t 1 that P nor the state of A ’s nervous system at t 1 is a sufficient condition of his belief at t 2 that Q under all possible circumstances; a statement of an “absolutely sufficient” prior condition for a belief would have to include an exhaustive enumeration of possible interfering factors—and in most cases, no such enumeration can be given. (Including ceteris paribus clauses such as “in a closed system” recognizes the need for such an enumeration, but does not supply it.) So also with necessary conditions. There may be some proposition P’

such that if A believed P’ at t1 he would believe Q at t2 —or, there may be some chemical such that if it were injected into A ’s blood-stream he would believe Q regardless of his other beliefs. But the question is whether under the given background conditions, in which A does not believe P’ and is not receiving such an injection, A ’s belief that P is a necessary condition of his belief that Q . 36

It may be objected that there simply must be physical conditions that precede a belief, and given that there must be, these conditions are necessary. The point, however, is not that such physical conditions may not be necessary—they may very well be—but that they would not be sufficient to bring about a belief that could potentially qualify as knowledge. Having presented the Skyhook, Hasker then turns to Goldman’s response to Malcolm. If we accept Goldman’s account of simultaneous nomic equivalents, then having a reason for a conclusion or belief and being in a particular neural state are both necessary and sufficient conditions for drawing that conclusion or belief. The reason and the neural state are simultaneous nomic equivalents of each other, and as such, the reason does serve to explain the belief, and so we can have justified true beliefs after all. There is a contingent law connecting the reason and the corresponding neural state, and so it is not “accidentally” true. Thus, principle A is met. Recall that Goldman does not address Malcolm’s main point regarding the a priori nature of the connection between a purpose and an act—or, in epistemological terms, between a reason and the conclusion drawn from it. What this means for Hasker is that Goldman’s scenario may allow for there 88 Mental Problems being a reason for drawing a conclusion, but it cannot ensure the reason is a good one, one that actually entails the conclusion. “And if the goodness of my reason for a belief is not a necessary condition of my holding the belief, then I might equally well hold the belief if the reason were not good. But for me to be justified in holding a belief surely means that I hold it because I have good reasons, and would not hold it otherwise.” 37 To account for this, he suggests the following emendation of (A):

(B) For a person to be rationally justifi ed in accepting a conclusion, both his awareness of reasons for the conclusion and the goodness of those reasons must be necessary conditions of his accepting it.38

Hasker concludes that “rejecting this principle would upset our epistemic notions so drastically that it is difficult even to guess at what would be left.” 39 As he writes elsewhere, rational thinking requires that “one accepts the conclusion because one recognizes that it is justified by the evidence. It is this recognition which brings about the acceptance.” 40 He then tries to reframe the argument. If there are “two distinct sets of laws, L 1 and L 2 ” that apply to a system; if the “subsequent states” of the system are always in accordance with L1 , but only with L2 some or most of the time; if these subsequent states in accordance with L1 always occur; and if the subsequent states in accordance with L 2 only occur if they are also in accordance with L1 , then it follows that “L 2 is (epistemologically) superfluous and (ontologically) inoperative with respect to” the system. L2 plays no role in guiding the subsequent states of the system, and so it is inoperative.

And in predicting subsequent states, if one had access to L1 and the initial conditions of the system, one would not need L 2 ; the predictions could be 41 based entirely on L1 . If the physical neurological laws are L1 , and the laws of rationality are L2 , it follows that the laws of rationality are superfluous and inoperative with respect to the conclusions we draw. I may draw conclusions that are in accord with the laws of rationality, but only when they “coincide with the conclusion dictated by the neurophysiological laws. The principles of inference have no power to guide my reasoning—which is to say: they are inoperative. An observer who wished to predict the course of my reasoning would find the laws of inference to be entirely superfluous.” This leads Hasker to propose a third principle:

(C) For a person to be justifi ed in accepting a conclusion the reasoning process must be guided by rational insight on the basis of principles of sound inference.42

Because physical determinism precludes the possibility of (C), it is incompatible with a reasoning process that is guided by rational insight and the principles of sound inference. Therefore, if physical determinism is true, Mental Problems 89 belief in physical determinism is not the product of rational insight and the principles of sound inference. This makes it self-defeating.

3.2 Kim’s Contribution Jaegwon Kim deals with the Malcolm-Goldman debate, although he does not address Hasker’s analysis. His interest is not only in the specifics of the case, but in whether “there [are] general conditions under which explanations exclude each other.”43 He ultimately argues that “No event can be given more than one complete and independent explanation.”44 Kim summarizes Mal- colm’s argument and Goldman’s response before offering his own critique. He first argues that “in the sort of situation Goldman asks us to consider, either one of the two nomically equivalent states is an epiphenomenon of the other so that we do not have two explanations of the same event, or else we have two explanations that are not nomologically independent.”45

The kind of situation Goldman describes, namely one in which two events C and C* are seen to be nomologically necessary and sufficient for each other, and in which each of them is thought to constitute an explanans for one and the same event E, is an inherently unstable situation . . . . The instability of the situation generates a strong pressure to find an acceptable account of the relationship between C and C*, and, by extension, that between the two systems to which they belong; the instability is dissipated and a cognitive equilibrium restored when we come to see a more specific relationship between the two explanations. As we shall see, in cases of interest, the specific relationship replacing equivalence will be either identity or some asymmetric dependency relation. Another way of putting my point would be this: a certain instability exists in a situation in which two distinct events are claimed to be nomologically equivalent causes or explanations of the same phenomenon; stability is restored when equivalence is replaced by identity or some asymmetric relation of dependence. That is, either two explanations (or causes) in effect collapse into one or, if there indeed are two distinct explanations (or causes) here, we must see one of them as dependent on, or derivative from, the other—or, what is the same, one of them as gaining explanatory or causal dominance over the other.46

Therefore, it is not enough, Kim argues, to say that two causes are connected by some law. The nature of the case requires us to examine exactly what it is that connects them. Kim suggests that there are only a few possibilities regarding the specific relationship between two types of causes (C and C*). First, they may be identical: C = C*. This resolves the tension by indicating that there are not two causes but one. This is problematic for purposive and mechanistic explanations, however, because of the dichotomy between a priori and a posteriori explanations (as well as other reasons). Second, one 90 Mental Problems may be reducible to or supervenient on the other, while remaining distinct from it. But “We do not have in cases of this kind two independent causal explanations of the same event. The two explanations can coexist because one of them is dependent, reductively or by supervenience, on the other.” 47 Third, both may be partial causes, indispensable parts of an overarching cause—or one may be a partial explanation and the other may be the overarching cause. Fourth, the two causes may not be simultaneous, but just “different links in the same causal chain.” 48 Thus, contra Goldman, Kim argues that these would not function as sufficient causes in and of themselves. Fifth, the two causes may both be sufficient causes of the effect: this is causal overdetermination. Such a scenario is possible: the examples given above are that of a man shot through the heart by two assassins’ bullets at the same time, and the building that catches fire because of faulty wiring and a simultaneous lightning strike. However, overdetermined events are rare and unique; in a word, they are coincidences , and incredible ones at that. As such, they cannot be used to explain a general relationship that regularly connects two entities, states, or processes. Malcolm, Goldman, Hasker, and Kim all reject this as a possible explanation of the general relationship between purposive explanations and mechanistic ones. Recall Goldman’s claim that “it would be remarkable that all events of a certain generic kind should be over-determined in this way.”49 Plus, coincidences are anathema to epistemology, as they entail a belief being only accidentally true. Since two causes or explanations applying to the same event could potentially be a case of causal overdetermination, as long as we have two such causes or explanations, there is a strong tension to resolve them. It is not enough to say that there is a connection between the two causes, since this is simply to say that it is not a case of causal overdetermination—essentially, it is an attempt to settle the debate by definition. We have to ask what the connection is, and whether it really qualifies the two causes in such a way that they function as a single cause. If there is no such connection, then the event is overdetermined, and this is highly unusual and inapplicable to a general case such as this. For an explanation of events that regularly occur, we have to exclude one of the causes by making it either incomplete or dependent on the other, in accordance with one of the first four possibilities listed above. This allows Kim to posit an exclusion principle regarding two causes or explanations of a single event, which has both epistemological and metaphysical repercussions. “The metaphysical principle of explanatory exclusion says this: they can both be correct explanations only if either at least one of the two is incomplete or one is dependent on the other. There is a corresponding epistemological exclusion principle: No one may accept both explanations unless one has an appropriate account of how they are related to each other.”50 This is a very awkward position for the advocate of mechanism or, more broadly, naturalism. It seems that the purposive explanation and the mechanistic one—or the rational explanation and the physical one—can have Mental Problems 91 only a limited number of possible relationships. If naturalism is true, then the purposive/rational explanation must be dependent on the mechanistic/ physical explanation. In this case, we render the purposive/rational explanation “superfluous and inoperative,” to use Hasker’s terms. By leaving them inoperative, without any power to guide our thought processes, we would have no reason to trust any of our conclusions; even if the cognitive processes happen to correspond to the canons of rational inference, this correspondence would be only accidental rather than essential. Therefore, we could have no knowledge, including knowledge of naturalism. Of course, we could resolve this problem by allowing the purposive/rational explanation to have causal powers, but that would be to violate a fundamental tenet of naturalism: the causal closure of the physical.51

3.3 Hasker’s Second Skyhook A quarter of a century after writing his earlier essay, Hasker returned to the subject in The Emergent Self, refining his earlier argument, changing his target from determinism to physicalism, and taking Kim’s comments into account. Hasker had argued previously that it is not enough that a reason could potentially explain a conclusion; the reason must be a good one—that is, the reason must in some sense guide the conclusion, either in its original formation, its perpetuation, or both, and it must justify the conclusion. Yet if this is the case—and if it is not, then a Skyhook can immediately be formulated against its denial—it would not only preclude the possibility of a cause or explanation being supervenient on or reducible to its simultaneous nomic equivalent, it would preclude even the identity theory, where one cause is ultimately identical to the other. This is a point that all of his predecessors have missed: even Malcolm found it necessary to argue against the identity theory on other grounds before presenting his Skyhook.52 Similarly, Kim writes, “whether or not a given event has a mental description (optional reading: whether it has a mental characteristic) seems entirely irrelevant to what causal relations it enters into. Its causal powers are wholly determined by the physical description or characteristic that holds for it; for it is under its physical description that it may be subsumed under a causal law.” 53 As such, Hasker writes, the problem arises in any position in which “mental events have the causal powers they do only in virtue of their physical characteristics .”

For consider: each mental event is either identical with or supervenient on a physical event. By hypothesis, the physical event in question has a complete causal explanation in terms of previous events with which it is connected according to the laws of physics. (That is implied by the causal closure of the physical domain.) Similarly, each such event has whatever causal powers it has solely in virtue of its physical characteristics, such powers being exercised, once again, according to the 92 Mental Problems physical laws. No causal role for the mental characteristics as such can be found.54

Thus, Hasker argues that any philosophy of mind that privileges the physical over the mental in any way, including the identification of one with the other, falls victim to the same charge. Even supervenience, the “irreducible minimum for physicalism,” is subject to this objection, since the only causal factor involved is the physical substratum on which the mental supervenes: “a theory which allows mental properties to vary independently of any physical basis could not be physicalist or materialist in any meaningful sense.” 55 If this is true of purposes and events, it is equally true of reasons and beliefs. Given the causal closure of the physical, no belief or conclusion is ever accepted because one recognizes good reasons for it, but only because of the physical laws operative in one’s neural states. In which case, belief in the causal closure of the physical—and naturalism—is not accepted because one recognizes good reasons for it. It is self-defeating. As above, Hasker does not intend by this that the recognition of good reasons for a belief is sufficient; there are many other conditions that have to be in play for someone to be able to reason correctly, and many of these involve the individual’s neural states. The question, rather, is whether the recognition of good reasons for a belief is necessary for it: one component of several, but without which the belief cannot be considered knowledge. I take Hasker to be arguing that good reasons function as a partial cause of one’s holding a belief in the right way (i.e., not accidentally, but because of the reasons that actually support it). Nevertheless, without good reasons, one either does not hold true beliefs or does not hold them in the right way. They are necessary but not sufficient . To state this another way, it might be possible, in a naturalistic world, for someone to state a valid reason for a true belief, but it would be akin to a philosophical zombie giving a reason. The reason played no role in the formation of the belief, and the zombie does not truly “believe” anything.

Kim suggests that we may avoid this conclusion by recognizing that rational (or purposive) explanations do not function as causal explanations but Mental Problems 93 rather as normative assessments. 57 It is not clear how Kim means this: if he means that rational explanations are not causal at all, then that is to say that they cannot guide our thought processes, and this just leads us to Hasker’s Skyhook once again. “The entire process [of reasoning] makes no sense at all, except on the assumption that a person’s awareness of reasons and her knowledge and application of principles of rationality make a difference to the conclusions that are accepted.” 58 However, perhaps Kim just means that rational explanations do not function as efficient causes. In this case, perhaps we can frame his “normative assessments” as final causes.59 This would allow them to play a causal role. Indeed, rational principles can be employed in normative assessment only under the assumption that these principles can guide our thought processes and thus have a causal function. That is what “normative assessment” means: to use norms in such a way that they direct our thoughts in an appropriate manner.60 To Hasker, it seems that the only possible answer is to abandon the internalist epistemology in which he has framed his version of the Skyhook and adopt an externalist epistemology, where one does not have to be aware of why she believes something in order for it to qualify as knowledge. There are certainly many cases like this, but, as Hasker points out, there seem to be many cases where the awareness of good reasons is necessary for something to qualify as knowledge. However, this does present an objection we will have to cope with in chapter 12 : whether the Skyhook can survive the transposition from internalism to externalism, and perhaps further to naturalized epistemology.

Notes 1. Malcolm 1968, 45. Malcolm does not mention artificial systems. 2. Malcolm 1968, 45. 3. We have encountered this already in Hasker’s claim that “Mechanistic causation and mechanistic explanation are fundamentally nonteleological” (Hasker 1999, 63). 4. Malcolm 1968, 46. 5. Malcolm 1968, 47. 6. Malcolm 1968, 47. 7. Malcolm 1968, 49. 8. Malcolm 1968, 50, italics added. 9. As does G.E.M. Anscombe (1981b). See chapter 7 . 10. Malcolm 1968, 56. 11. Malcolm 1968, 64. 12. Malcolm 1968, 64. 13. Malcolm 1968, 67. 14. Malcolm 1968, 68. 15. Malcolm 1968, 70. 16. Goldman 1969; cf. 1970, 157–69. 17. Goldman 1969, 470, italics removed. I have retained Goldman’s numbering, as well as Hasker’s, below. 18. Goldman 1969, 470–71. 19. Goldman 1969, 473. 94 Mental Problems 20. While supervenience theories predate Goldman’s essay, the specific program of explaining mind and body in materialistic terms by reference to supervenience is generally dated to Davidson 2001b, originally published in 1970. Goldman’s essay was published in 1969. 21. Goldman 1969, 473–74. 22. For example, I push the door and a gust of wind pushes it at the same time and the door closes; but if I had not pushed it or the wind had not blown it, the door would not have been pushed with enough force to close it. 23. Kim 1995c, 252. 24. Goldman 1969, 480. 25. Goldman 1969, 475. 26. Goldman 1969, 476. 27. See chapter 1 . 28. Hasker 1973, 178. 29. Hasker 1973, 181–82. 30. Hasker 1973, 175–76. 31. Hasker 1973, 176. 32. Jordan 1969. Jordan’s Skyhook is discussed in chapter 11. 33. Hasker 1973, 177. 34. Hasker 1973, 177. 35. See chapter 1. See chapter 12 on whether “reconstructed conception(s) of rationality” (i.e., externalist and naturalized epistemologies) can evade the Skyhook. 36. Hasker 1973, 177 n. 6, italics his. 37. Hasker 1973, 179. 38. Hasker 1973, 179–80 39. Hasker 1973, 179–80. 40. Hasker 1983, 47. 41. Hasker 1973, 180. 42. Hasker 1973, 181. 43. Kim 1995c, 239. 44. Kim 1995c, 239. 45. Kim 1995c, 245. 46. Kim 1995c, 246, italics his. 47. Kim 1995c, 251. 48. Kim 1995c, 252. 49. Goldman 1969, 480. 50. Kim 1995c, 257, italics removed. 51. Kim 1998, 37–38. See chapter 2 . 52. Specifically, Malcolm rejects the identity theory based on the location problem: neurological states or processes are located in space; goals or intentions are not. To identify the two is therefore impossible since they are dissimilar, and their dissimilarity is at the very heart of the issue of whether mechanistic (physical deterministic) entities and processes are all that exist and take place. 53. Kim 1995a, 106. 54. Hasker 1999, 67–68, italics his. 55. Hasker 1999, 41. 56. Hasker 1999, 71, italics his. 57. Kim 1984; 1995c, 240 n. 4. 58. Hasker 1999, 73, italics his. 59. Lucas (1970, 42) claims that rational explanations are often teleological in nature. 60. Normativity’s relevance to the Skyhook is addressed in the following chapter. 6 Knowledge and Normativity

We say that the brain which produces “7 times 9 are 63” is better than the brain which produces “7 times 9 are 65”; but it is not as a servant of natural law that it is better. Our approval of the fi rst brain has no connection with natural law; it is determined by the type of thought which it produces, and that involves recognising a domain of the other type of law—laws which ought to be kept, but may be broken. Dismiss the idea that natural law may swallow up religion; it cannot even tackle the multiplication table single-handed. Arthur Stanley Eddington, Science and the Unseen World

1 Truth and Normativity Many versions of the Skyhook appeal to the inability of determinism or naturalism to lead to true conclusions. This may seem odd: whether a proposition or belief is true has nothing to do with how it was brought about or its underlying substratum. The claim, however, is not that determinism and naturalism are inconsistent with ontological truth (whether a given proposition is true), but that they are inconsistent with epistemic truth (whether we can know that a given proposition is true). The claim being made here is that physical causality can produce false beliefs just as easily as true ones, if not more so. Plus, any attempt to assess whether a given belief is true or false would be similarly produced by deterministic or naturalistic processes, so the assessment would be under the same cloud of suspicion as the belief being assessed. Therefore, if all we have to work with are physical entities and deterministic processes, we can make no distinction between the true and false. Morris Ginsberg addresses this when he writes,

Knowing or judging in the light of evidence thus implies a measure of openness to alternatives. It is true that we speak of being constrained by the evidence. But this constraint or cogency of implication is something different from causal necessitation. A conclusion may follow from given premises, but this does not mean that the act apprehending the premises will in all cases be followed by another act of apprehending the conclusion. Validity and psychological constraint are different notions.1 96 Knowledge and Normativity Once we apply this to determinism or naturalism, a Skyhook immediately presents itself. J.M.E. McTaggart, for example, writes, “And again, if Mate- rialism is true, all our thoughts are produced by purely material antecedents. These are quite blind, and are just as likely to produce falsehood as truth. We have thus no reason for believing any of our conclusions—including the truth of Materialism, which is therefore a self-contradictory hypothesis.”2 Another excellent account is given by William Desmond:

Or you say: the source [of the desire to know] is to be found in neurophysiological causes; science will lay out these causes. But science itself is also caused by neurophysiology, which here it invokes as explanation of itself. But what status has it itself then? Another formation of neurophysiology? But what gives it a status as the true, or the better, formation of neurophysiology? How to distinguish between the better and worse, the truer and less true, formations of neurophysiological causes? But these are all qualitatively the same relative to neurophysiological causation. There seems no explanation of mind that does not presuppose mind. And indeed, if claims to truth are made, this presupposes that fidelity to reality or being is better or superior to infidelity; but these are irreducibly qualitative distinctions or differences which seem impossible to uphold on the homogeneous terms claimed within the theory. If this theory were true, its truth could not be upheld. If it were true, it would lose its claim to be the truth about mind. 3

Although such arguments rarely state it explicitly, these are ultimately appeals to normativity . The only obvious norm available in naturalism is causality, and this norm is met by false beliefs and fallacious reasoning— that is, false beliefs and fallacious reasoning are caused just as much as true beliefs and veridical reasoning. As such, causality is insufficient to function as an epistemic norm. Similarly, determinism, at least insofar as it erases free will, renders epistemic normativity void: what can it mean to say that people should believe what is true and should not believe what is false if they do not have any option available to them but the beliefs they actually have? The concept of normativity is, in one sense, extremely simple: it is merely “shouldness” or “oughtness.” If we should do something, or if we ought not do something, we are employing a norm, a standard to be met. Normativity’s most visible face is ethics, but it has reverberations throughout philosophy: in logic, aesthetics, philosophy of language, and, relevant to our purposes, epistemology. An epistemic norm is a standard to meet regarding knowledge or reasoning: we should think rationally, we should not believe falsehoods, etc. In another sense, however, normativity is a mare’s nest of philosophical concepts and applications. To give a coherent and thorough account of normativity would be a monstrous task. Fortunately, such a task is unnecessary for our purposes, so we will henceforth analyze normativity only as it relates to the Skyhook without going any further than the rim of the bottomless pit. Knowledge and Normativity 97 2 Boyle, Grisez, and Tollefsen The clearest and most comprehensive statement of the Skyhook in normative terms is given in an essay and book by Joseph Boyle, Germain Grisez, and Olaf Tollefsen, three Thomistic philosophers, who apply it to determinism. It is the “clearest” because they explicitly put the argument in normative terms; it is the most “comprehensive” because they go into detail about the issues involved, taking great care not to beg the question by employing standards that a determinist could deny.

2.1 Simplicity and Normativity Before publishing their book, Boyle and his colleagues published an essay in The Review of Metaphysics to stimulate criticism that they may have over- looked. They present the following argument:

1. “Determinism involves an appeal to a rule of simplicity.” 2. “A rule of simplicity is normative.” 3. “The normativity of a rule of simplicity is distinct from the necessity of a factual conditional statement.” 4. Their “explanation of the distinction between the force of a norm and that of a factual conditional is not question-begging.” 5. “The normativity involved in this rule of simplicity presupposes a kind of unconditional normativity.” 6. “This kind of normativity falsifi es [defeats] determinism.”4 Conclusion: Determinism is self-defeating.

In support of the first premise, they point out that determinism is a hypothesis that seeks to explain data. Part of the nature of a hypothesis is simplicity: by explaining data, it is attempting to unite diverse details under a single rubric. “Implicit in the proposal of any explanatory hypothesis is the demand that we avoid needlessly multiplying factors. . . . A rule of simplicity is not an extrinsic assumption which determinists need employ only on the occasion of disputes. Rather, a rule of simplicity is an essential ingredient in the assertion of any determinist hypothesis, as it is in the assertion of all explanatory hypotheses.”5 In defending the normative nature of any rule of simplicity, they point out that, however one understands simplicity, it “expresses a relationship between a purpose sought in attempting to explain and a means necessary for achieving that purpose. A rule of simplicity is thus a norm expressible in the form of a conditional: if one wishes to achieve any purpose by an attempt at explanation, then one may not arbitrarily introduce complications.” Again, one’s understanding of simplicity will set up conditions and boundaries in a proposed explanation that must be met. Without such a 98 Knowledge and Normativity principle, “one cannot reasonably rule out ad hoc complications introduced to accommodate facts that would otherwise falsify the hypothesis.”6 This is similar to Lucas’s point, addressed above in chapter 4 . Any explanation, any answer that begins with a “because,” must meet a logical requirement to the effect that the explanation must be general or capable of being universalized, so as to avoid making it a completely ad hoc explanation that relates only to the particular question it purports to answer.7 The reason for this, as brought out at the end of that chapter, is that it would prevent one from claiming that an argument against one’s position does not apply, even though it would apply to parallel positions. Boyle, Grisez, and Tollefsen are arguing that, in order to avoid a situation where one accepts an argument against other positions but not against one’s own—even though the reason it applies to the others would make it apply to one’s own—we must employ a principle of simplicity, a principle that prescribes simplicity: that is, it must be normative in nature. Their third premise is the distinction between the necessity involved in a factual conditional and the normativity involved in any rule of simplicity. They offer little argument for this, merely pointing to the obvious difference between a conditional factual claim (“If the goal is achieved, then a rule of simplicity has been followed”) and a normative claim (“If you want to achieve the goal, then you should follow a rule of simplicity”). “The latter is a rule for action, not a statement of fact”;8 or in other words, normative claims “say what is to be , not what is ”;9 they are prescriptive rather than descriptive . The normative statement involved in the pursuit of any end is that one should pursue an efficient means to accomplish it. The alternative to this is “that someone could want the end of the theoretical explanation and still reasonably refuse a rationally necessary means” to accomplish it.10 As we saw in Malcolm’s account of ceteris paribus clauses rendering purposive explanations a priori, if someone has a goal or intention, then by definition in the absence of countervailing factors, she will perform what she thinks is necessary to achieve that goal or intention. That is what it means to have a goal or intention. If she does not perform what she thinks is necessary to achieve the goal, then, absent any countervailing factors, it means that she did not really have that goal in the first place. This distinction between a factual conditional and normativity stands in contrast to Willard Van Orman Quine’s attempt to import normativity into his naturalized epistemology. When Quine first proposed his theory of knowledge, he seemed to advocate the complete removal of epistemic concepts, such as the normative prescriptive elements of knowledge: “The stimulation of his sensory receptors is all the evidence anybody has had to go on, ultimately, in arriving at his picture of the world. Why not just see how this construction really proceeds? Why not settle for psychology?” 11 It didn’t take long for philosophers to explain why not: if there is literally no normativity involved in knowledge then there is no standard by which we could judge some beliefs or belief-forming processes to be preferable to Knowledge and Normativity 99 others.12 In response to such critiques, Quine acquiesces that some type of normativity must be affirmed.

Naturalization of epistemology does not jettison the normative and settle for the indiscriminate description of ongoing procedures. For me normative epistemology is a branch of engineering. It is the technology of truth-seeking, or, in a more cautious epistemological term, prediction. . . . There is no question here of ultimate value, as there is in morals; it is a matter of efficacy for an ulterior end, truth or prediction. The normative here, as elsewhere in engineering, becomes descriptive when the terminal parameter is expressed.13

This is an expression of technical normativity that we will discuss below. For now, we can just say that it is not clear whether Quine’s strategy is successful. Expressing the terminal parameter of a normative proposition may convert it into a descriptive one, that is, a description of how a prescription works. But it seems it could work the other way only if we start with a description of a prescription, and thus already have normativity that we have imported into the descriptive proposition beforehand. It appears that Quine is adding something to the equation. Recall Hume’s claim that we cannot derive an “ought” from an “is”—that is, we cannot derive a prescription, a norm , from a description—since the former “expresses some new relation or affirmation.”14 Quine’s casual attempt to do precisely that is unconvincing.

2.2 Question-Begging Regardless, in all of this, one might suspect that Boyle et al. are stacking the deck. Much of what they have said thus far already seems to point to the denial of determinism and the affirmation of free will. If a norm is a “rule for action,” then it suggests that one’s actions are not determined by other forces and so one is free to follow the norm. However, their fourth premise specifically addresses this: they will not employ a concept of normativity that presupposes or implies free will. The individual may be determined to follow the norm because doing so had an evolutionary advantage, for example. However, such a concession on their part comes with corollaries that make the determinist position problematic, ultimately pointing to the Skyhook. By presenting the determinist hypothesis, the determinist is giving a norm; she is claiming that determinism is rationally preferable to its denial and that people should accept it because of this. The alternatives to this are either that determinism is not rationally preferable to its denial (but the determinist is affirming it anyway) or that people have no obligation to prefer rational positions to irrational ones, and so by presenting determinism, the determinist is not really holding it up for others to consider and possibly accept. Neither of these alternatives is acceptable. 100 Knowledge and Normativity Since the determinist gives a norm, we have to interpret this norm in determinist terms for consistency’s sake: there are preconditions that determine the determinist’s presentation of this norm; but in the same way, there are preconditions that determine the antideterminist’s normative claims. This will be the case regardless of the specific account of normativity used, as long as it is consistent with determinism. Thus, the determinist can say that we should accept her view, but by the same token the antideterminist can say that we should accept the contrary view. In other words, on the determinist hypothesis, we can make no distinction between “positions in fact maintained and positions justifiably maintained”15 because both successfully meet the only account of normativity to which the determinist has access. In order to successfully distinguish between positions held justifiably and those merely held in fact, we would have to employ an antideterminist account of normativity. “It follows that a determinist hypothesis cannot exclude its contradictory in the only sense of ‘exclude’ that is available to a determinist. Any determinist hypothesis implies the impossibility of excluding its counterpositions, but necessarily presents its own counterposition in its very articulation.”16 This is precisely the point that many forms of the Skyhook are making, a tradition going all the way back to Epicurus: “The man who says that all things come to pass by necessity cannot criticize one who denies that all things come to pass by necessity: for he admits that this too happens of necessity.” 17 Boyle, Grisez, and Tollefsen want to present a more rigorous argument, however, and so delve further into the issues involved. Their fifth premise is that, while a rule of simplicity that must be invoked in defense of determinism can be conditional (if you want to achieve a particular end then you should follow some rule of simplicity), any rule of simplicity presupposes a broader rule of efficiency that is inevitably unconditional and absolute in some sense. In particular, “the rule regulating how one ought to act in reference to any end whatsoever cannot depend upon conditions necessary for any particular end.” Such a rule could be expressed by saying that we should “accept the means necessary to achieve” whatever end we are pursuing. This is true “whether each and every ‘conditional’ norm is recognized to have a normativity reducible neither to the factual necessity of human wants and interests, nor to factual connections between that which is a means and that which is an end, nor to both of these together.” 18 Of course the rule of efficiency is also conditional in some senses: for example, efficiency alone is not the only condition to meet in pursuit of any particular end; the means are only necessary if one wants the end to which they are the means. Yet the unconditionality cannot be completely erased. Their final premise is that the normativity involved in all of this is incompatible with determinism. In other words, by presupposing this normativity, the determinist is building her case upon the foundation of the view she is rejecting. The conclusion is therefore that determinism is self-defeating. The necessity of the normativity here is different from that of factual or logical necessity. Rather, “There must be some factor operative when the Knowledge and Normativity 101 normativity of the rule of efficiency is fulfilled that makes it be fulfilled, and operative when it is not fulfilled that makes it not be fulfilled.” 19 As already noted in their fourth premise, trying to reduce this necessity to factual necessity strips the normativity of any force in holding up one position over its contrary. Therefore, the factor that either fulfills or fails to fulfill the normativity in question must go beyond that of mere causality, given that both a position and its contrary meet this requirement and do not give us any motive or ability to prefer one over the other. Because the normativity that determinism has access to does not provide the normativity necessary to affirm anything—including determinism—we have to reject determinism and consider the factor that either fulfills or fails to fulfill the normativity as something above and beyond deterministic principles. This is generally what is called free will. To put it in terms of the Skyhook, the determinist accepts, affirms, argues, or whatever, that determinism is true. In so doing, she is presupposing a norm that itself presupposes the falsity of determinism and the truth of free will. If determinism can be accepted, affirmed, or argued for only by presupposing its contrary, then determinism is self-defeating. This cannot be avoided by noting the diversity of normative terms like “can” or “could”: the antideterminist is using these terms in the same way as the determinist, the difference being that one negates and the other affirms these terms in their shared use and meaning. However the determinist defines these terms, the antideterminist can formulate the Skyhook according to those definitions. Boyle, Grisez, and Tollefsen conclude that determinism is inevitably self- defeating. The necessity of this inevitability, however, is not a logical inevitability; the charge is not one of formal incoherence. Determinism is not self-refuting ; it is self-defeating . This, in fact, avoids the charge that by being necessary, the Skyhook “lacks reference to the real world. On the contrary, inasmuch as determinism itself refers to the real world, the position contradictory to determinism has reference to the real world in precisely the same way.”20 Their essay, unfortunately, did not provoke much response. One critic took issue with their definition of determinism and argued that, when corrected, their argument no longer held.21 Specifically, Boyle and his colleagues made no distinction between the doctrine of determinism (which explains it positively) and the consequences of determinism (which explains it negatively, i.e., that free will is an illusion). Supposedly, this was the result of presupposing free will, and the falsity of determinism, in their definition of choice, and thus they begged the question. Boyle et al. counter that describing the experience of free choice does not presuppose its reality; it merely sets the stage. If we do not seem to experience free will, then there would be nothing to debate.22

2.3 Free Choice Boyle, Grisez, and Tollefsen produced a much more in-depth discussion of what I will call the Normativity Skyhook in their book Free Choice , 102 Knowledge and Normativity published four years after the essay. They argue that grounded affirmations can be grounded by direct perception, the canons of logic, or rationality. Nei- ther of the first two apply to the case under discussion: the determinist is not claiming that she directly perceives the truth of determinism, and if it could be established entirely on the basis of (a priori ) logical truths it would have no application to the ( a posteriori ) actual world. 23 Therefore, the grounded affirmation that determinism is true must be grounded by rationality. In other words, the proponent of determinism is rationally affirming it, even if she keeps it to herself. By accepting determinism, she is judging it to be true. “One affirms rationally if and only if the proposition he affirms is one more reasonable for him to hold true or likely than its contradictory.”24 As such, it requires some form of justification, license, or warrant for preferring it to its negation. If the determinist denies that she is rationally affirming determinism, then she is no longer judging it to be true, in which case, it is no longer being held up for anyone’s consideration, including her own. 25 There are various principles that are necessary for the rational affirmation of any position. One must follow the principles of rationality, of correct reasoning, for example, and must not ignore relevant facts. These principles, which must be in play in order for the rational affirmation of any position to take place, are “rationality norms,” conditions that must be met by any account of reasoning and rationality. Thus, any rational affirmation of determinism presupposes rationality norms that must be met. A particular norm that is presupposed is one that Boyle, Grisez, and Tollefsen dealt with in their earlier article: simplicity. The whole point of determinism is that deterministic causes are sufficient to account for everything, so we do not need to admit other forces beyond them; this would be to unnecessarily complicate whatever view one is defending, and we should not do so on pain of irrationality; we should keep our positions simple. Moreover, if we do not appeal to a criterion of simplicity, then there is no longer any reason to restrict our explanation of the mind to deterministic causality. By so restricting it, we are employing a principle of simplicity. As noted above, one aspect of norms that make them relevant is that they must be in play or in force. If what they prescribe “entails a state of affairs which itself does not obtain” then they are null. 26 As with their argument as presented in the earlier article, this is a foreshadowing of the self-referential inconsistency of determinism: determinism can make no such distinction between what should obtain and what in fact obtains. But norms are rules for action. If someone in fact fails to adhere to a principle of simplicity, as a rationality norm, then that norm is null, because its fulfillment does not obtain. But if it is null, the determinist cannot appeal to it in affirming determinism as rationally preferable to its denial. 27

2.4 Four Types of Norms Boyle, Grisez, and Tollefsen then describe the types of normativity available to the determinist, based on different definitions of “should” or “ought.” Knowledge and Normativity 103 The first type is paradigmatic norms. These describe what should happen because something is a member of a class that has certain characteristics. “The leaves should be turning color soon” is an example of paradigmatic normativity. Obviously such a statement does not suggest that the leaves have the free will to change color or not, so this type of norm is consistent with determinism. However, just as obviously, it could not establish determinism by showing it to be more rational than its negation. Paradigmatic norms state only what is normal or expected; they do not state what is rational or reasonable—this would require a further premise to the effect that the expected is more rational than the unexpected, and this imports rationality into the premise in order to obtain it in the conclusion.28 As such, any failure to meet such a norm could, at best, be considered abnormal, idiosyncratic, or unexpected in some way. It could not be considered irrational or unreasonable, and without this, it cannot show one position to be rationally preferable to its negation. The second type is creative norms, norms that play a role in aesthetic judgment. These apply to “the product of creative activity vis-à-vis its own components. . . . The peculiarity of this norm is the fact that it is given— often imperfectly—only as a consequence of the activity whose outcome it evaluates.” 29 An example would be “the woodwinds in this symphony should be more pronounced.” This may seem to apply to the artist (“she should have made the woodwinds more pronounced”) and thus as being problematic for determinism. But a creative norm is applied to the object created rather than the creator. Moreover, because it comes into play only after the fact, once the object has already been created, it does not pick out alternatives that can be chosen. Thus it is consistent with determinism. Yet it does not help the determinist, given that the criterion being invoked is not one of rationality, but is “conditioned by a given product.” 30 So, a creative norm would not allow the determinist to uphold determinism as rationally preferable to its denial. Logical norms are those necessary for coherence. Since an incoherent option is not really an option, it is not something one can actually choose, and so logical norms are consistent with determinism.

This normativity does not prescribe one of a set of alternatives which are open to choice. The normativity of a logical rule excludes one alternative as incoherent; what is incoherent cannot be an alternative for choice. The alternative excluded by a logical norm remains possible only so long as one is unaware of the incoherence involved in violating the norm. This is not to say that one cannot choose to overlook a contradiction. Overlooking is a possibility; even assuming [determinism], it is within one’s power. But it is not within one’s power to choose what one knows to be impossible. 31

Since logical norms establish a position as rationally preferable to its negation, it might seem at first glance to supply the determinist with the 104 Knowledge and Normativity framework she needs to make her case. However, because logical norms can only establish one position as logically necessary and its denial as incoherent and meaningless, it would suffice in the current case only if determinism was an a priori logical absolute and its denial, free will, was a logical impossibility. This is not a very common position to take today, and with good reason. The general idea behind such claims is that because two mutually exclusive actions cannot both be undertaken by definition, it follows that only one of them can be undertaken. Since only one of them can be undertaken, we did not really have the ability to choose the one that we did not in fact undertake. Propositions are either true or false; if a particular proposition, p , is true, then it picks out a particular state of affairs, s , such that, if s takes place p is true, and if s does not take place (if not-s takes place), p is false (or not- p is true).32 Therefore, by definition, if p is true, s takes place; this is a necessary truth. It is logically impossible that both s take place and not- s take place.33 Therefore, it is logically impossible that p is true and not- s take place. Thus, if p is true it is necessarily true, a logical absolute, and not-p is necessarily false. However, all that has been proven is that it is impossible for p to be true and for not-s to obtain; what the logical determinist must show is that it is impossible for p to be true and for not-s to be possible . “In other words, while it is impossible that any proposition be true and that a state of affairs which is a sufficient condition of its contradictory also obtain , it is by no means impossible that a proposition be true and that the state of affairs which is the sufficient condition of its contradictory also be possible. This assumption . . . is not a logical truth, and if a fatalist makes it, he begs the question.” 34 For these and other reasons, logical determinism (or philosophical fatalism) is not a common position today among professional philosophers. The doctrine of free will may be false, it may even be ridiculous, but it is not a logical contradiction; and as long as this is the case, logical norms cannot exclude it. The final type of norm that Boyle et al. argue is consistent with determinism is the technical norm, or hypothetical imperative. These norms are the means one should employ in the pursuit of one’s goals; and they are hypothetical because the goal in question is not itself a necessary one: for example, “if you want to drive across town, you should fill the tank with gas.” One could simply reject the end and not drive across town. At first, technical norms seem inconsistent with determinism: by having a norm at all, even if it is applied only to a hypothetical situation, alternatives are presented (to follow the norm or not), and if they are genuine alternatives, then the fulfillment of the norm is open and not determined. Perhaps a goal does not specify a particular means for accomplishing it, given our cognitive fallibility and the world’s complexity, and so leaves the possibility of following a particular means or not. Or perhaps we have conflicting goals, and so may not employ the necessary means to a particular goal because we give Knowledge and Normativity 105 preference to others. However, Boyle, Grisez, and Tollefsen argue that neither of these points is strictly incompatible with determinism. The first can be considered simply as an issue of probability assessment and the second can be accounted for by assessing one’s desire for one goal or set of goals over others. Both of these, they allege, are compatible with determinism— although that of course depends on whether any act of assessment is compatible with determinism As noted above, Quine appeals to technical norms in order to insert some form of normativity into his naturalized epistemology. So, do technical norms allow the determinist to affirm determinism as rationally superior to its negation? At first blush, a rationality norm may appear to be a technical norm: if one’s goal is to be rational, one should employ the necessary means for that end. So, if determinism is true, one should prefer it to its negation, as long as one wishes to be rational. However, a technical norm excludes positions only conditionally—i.e., as long as one shares the goal. An interlocutor could always reject the goal. Because the goal in this case is rationality, it would seem a hard pill to swallow, but that is because rationality is not a conditional goal. There is an unconditionality involved that a technical norm could never capture by its very nature. Recall again Mal- colm’s account of how ceteris paribus clauses render purposive explanations a priori —that is, they are true by definition. Rationality enters into the equation when we recognize that the means are, ceteris paribus , rationally necessary for achieving the end. And it is absurd to suggest “that someone could want the end of the theoretical explanation and still reasonably refuse a rationally necessary means” 35 to accomplish it. By definition , if one wants to achieve a certain goal or purpose and thinks that the means are rationally necessary, then, in the absence of any countervailing factors, one will engage the means. This is an a priori truth. Thus, the normative statement involved in the pursuit of any end is that one should pursue an efficient means to accomplish it. If someone were to say that rationality is conditional, a hypothetical imperative that one need not follow, we could respond that the whole point of a hypothetical imperative is that one could refrain from having the goal and retain rationality . If the goal is rationality itself, then it would mean that one could refrain from rationality and retain rationality; one could simultaneously refrain from and retain rationality. This is simply absurd. Therefore, the normative force of a technical norm is insufficient to exclude one position over another in any objective or absolute sense. The only thing that conditions it is rationality itself. Since we need a norm that allows us to retain rationality, if our beliefs are conditioned by rational factors, the problem does not arise. Rational norms are absolute and noncontingent; if they were contingent, then one could reject them and retain rationality, which, as we have seen, is absurd. At any rate, “rationality” is too broad a term to use here, given that it is unlikely that those who hold a particular position will share the exact same definition of rationality—and thus share the same 106 Knowledge and Normativity purposes of it and recognize precisely the same means necessary for pursuing it—with those who reject that position.

Technical normativity actually prescribes only if the one to whom a technical norm is proposed shares the goal on which its prescriptivity is conditioned and has no conflicting goal to which he gives priority. This fact limits the usefulness of technical norms in rationally excluding one of a pair of contradictory propositions. Whenever it is rational for a particular person not to share in desiring a certain purpose, then no technical norm derived from that purpose is in force for him. Thus, he is not unreasonable if he ignores the norm and any affirmation which is conditioned by it. Therefore, if the normativity involved in the affirmation of [determinism] is that of a technical rule, then the act of affirming [determinism] does not rationally exclude [free will] . . .36

However, if one takes the rule to be unconditional or absolute in some sense, then we can rationally exclude free will. If a technical norm prescribes a goal unconditionally, then it could hold up one position as rationally preferable to its negation. This is the sort of normativity necessary, therefore, to rationally affirm determinism. So Boyle et al., change their focus to what positive characteristics any account of normativity must have if it is to be able to uphold determinism (or any other position) as rationally preferable to its negation.

2.5 The Presupposed Norm A logical norm has an unconditional force to it, but does not provide two logically possible alternatives. A technical norm provides two logically possible alternatives, but has no unconditional force. The norm that must be employed to rationally affirm determinism must have the positive characteristics of providing two logically possible alternatives and of having an unconditionality to it. The unconditionality is not a matter of logical coherence, as it is with a logical norm, but is a matter of rationality (remembering that there are three sources of grounded affirmations: direct perception, logic, and rationality). Similarly, the provision of two logically possible alternatives is not a matter of conditional goals, as it is with a technical norm, but is a matter of an unconditional goal. The determinist can advocate determinism only by presupposing such a norm. Because this norm prescribes unconditionally, it cannot be ignored by claiming that one does not share the goal it prescribes. Therefore, it is not a mere technical norm. However, because it prescribes one of two coherent but mutually exclusive alternatives, it is not a logical norm. If someone were determined to enact one of these alternatives, then the norm could not prescribe unconditionally. Because it does so prescribe, and because there are two genuine alternatives, it follows that the fulfillment of the norm must not be determined. It must be freely chosen. Knowledge and Normativity 107 If one is determined by any factor whatsoever either to fulfill the norm or not to fulfill the norm, then there are not two open alternatives. The alternative to which one is determined will be the only one which can be realized, whether or not he is aware of this fact. But the sort of normativity relevant here is just the sort which implies that there are open alternatives. . . . Thus, nothing determines the fulfillment or the nonful- fillment of the norm. Although nothing can determine the fulfillment of the norm, still the norm does prescribe; it prescribes unconditionally. Thus, the norm must be able to be fulfilled, but it cannot be fulfilled by a necessitated or determined response. In other words, if the norm actually prescribes, then the person to whom it is addressed both must be able to bring it about that the norm be fulfilled and must be able to bring it about that the norm not be fulfilled—that is, he must be able to choose freely.37

What this means is that in any rational assertion of determinism, even if asserted only privately to oneself (that is, accepting it as true in one’s own mind), one presupposes a norm that itself presupposes that determinism is false. Any statement, argument, or reason for believing that determinism is true could be valid only if determinism is false. If we ignore this and just assume that determinism is true, then we cannot rationally affirm it—and if we cannot rationally affirm it, we cannot hold it up as superior or preferable to its denial. Either way, determinism is self-defeating, so we can have no reason for thinking it to be true, given that to do so would be to employ a norm that presupposes that determinism is false. As mentioned, there are three types of grounded affirmations, that is, affirmations that have epistemic legitimacy. One is direct perception. Obvi- ously, this is not open to the determinist because determinism is not something one can perceive or experience directly. It is a metaphysical theory that seeks to explain perceptions and experiences. Another is logic. Logic, however, allows us to affirm only that which is absolute and analytic—true by definition—and, as we have argued, determinism is not true by definition; nor is free will incoherent or meaningless. The only other type of grounded affirmation left is rational affirmation, and this presupposes a norm that itself presupposes the falsity of determinism. Thus, the determinist is unable to ground her claim that determinism is true. And if determinism is ungrounded, then there is no reason to think that it is true and there is no purpose in asserting or even entertaining it, given that this could begin only by presupposing that free will is true and determinism is false. Perhaps the determinist can say that she is not asserting determinism at all. Maybe she is just asking a question or posing a hypothetical. This is fine. My point is merely that in asking this question or posing this hypothetical, one is presupposing that determinism is false. We have to presuppose this even in order to entertain the possibility of determinism. Certainly, one can entertain it, although I do not see how one could rationally entertain it. 108 Knowledge and Normativity Regardless, I would just ask that, in entertaining the possibility of determinism, one be cognizant of her reliance on the falsity of determinism. Of course, one could always say that because determinism is only self-defeating and not self-refuting —that is, because determinism is not logically absurd—it remains possible that it is true. There are possible worlds that are deterministic. However, to say that something might be true but that we could never be rational in believing it puts the determinist in a very unusual position. Indeed, even in this argument, she is presupposing that determinism is false. Free will is like the atmosphere: it completely encompasses us and we can deny its existence only if we first take a deep breath of it. We simply do not have a choice: to paraphrase Jean-Paul Sartre, we are condemned, bound, determined to be free.

Notes 1. Ginsberg 1965, 168. 2. McTaggart 1934, 193. 3. Desmond 2005, 274–75, italics his. 4. Boyle, Grisez, and Tollefsen 1972, 21. 5. Boyle, Grisez, and Tollefsen 1972, 21–22. 6. Boyle, Grisez, and Tollefsen 1972, 22. 7. Lucas 1970, 35. 8. Boyle, Grisez, and Tollefsen 1972, 23–24. 9. Boyle, Grisez, and Tollefsen 1976, 145. 10. Boyle, Grisez, and Tollefsen 1972, 24. 11. Quine 1969a, 75. 12. See, e.g., Putnam 1983; Kim 1995b. 13. Quine 1998, 664–65; cf. 1992, 19. 14. Hume 1738, 3.1.1. 15. Boyle, Grisez, and Tollefsen 1972, 25. A.E. Taylor (1939, 261) expressed similar sentiments (see chapter 11). 16. Boyle, Grisez, and Tollefsen 1972, 25. 17. Epicurus, Extant Remains , 112–13, fragment XL. See chapter 1 . 18. Boyle, Grisez, and Tollefsen 1972, 28–29. 19. Boyle, Grisez, and Tollefsen 1972, 30. 20. Boyle, Grisez, and Tollefsen 1972, 30. 21. Robert Young 1973, 112–19. 22. Boyle, Grisez, and Tollefsen 1976, 187 n. 14. 23. While some have sought to defend determinism on purely logical grounds, such arguments are not widely accepted today. See pp. 103–104. 24. Boyle, Grisez, and Tollefsen 1976, 142. 25. As noted in chapter 4, eliminative materialists go further, eliminating rationality and affirmation as aspects of folk psychology that should be replaced with the terms of cognitive science. However, in so doing, they sacrifice comprehensibil- ity and are just as subject to the Skyhook as the more typical determinist. 26. Boyle, Grisez, and Tollefsen 1976, 151. For example, if you promise to visit someone in the hospital, but they die before the planned visit, the promise is null and no longer obtains. 27. This vindicates Epicurus’s argument against determinism. 28. Cf. Plantinga’s (1993b, 199–201) rebuttal of Pollock’s (1987, 150) attempt to derive “functional generalizations” from the more usual or probable ways that an organ, organism, or artifact behaves. Knowledge and Normativity 109 29. Boyle, Grisez, and Tollefsen 1976, 157. 30. Boyle, Grisez, and Tollefsen 1976, 161. 31. Boyle, Grisez, and Tollefsen 1976, 157. For that matter, one cannot choose what is actually impossible, even if one does not realize it as such. This is relevant to many of the so-called Frankfurt cases (Frankfurt 1969). In the above quote, I have substituted “determinism” for their abbreviation of the claim that no one has free will. 32. The classic example is Aristotle’s sea battle ( On Interpretation 9): either a sea battle will take place tomorrow or it will not. If it will, then it is true now that it will, in which case we can do nothing to prevent it. If it will not, then it is false now that it will, in which case we can do nothing to make it happen. 33. “Free choice does not mean that one can choose both alternatives, only that one can choose either. If one could choose both, choice would be unnecessary” (Boyle, Grisez, and Tollefsen 1976, 54). 34. Boyle, Grisez, and Tollefsen 1976, 54. 35. Boyle, Grisez, and Tollefsen 1972, 24. 36. Boyle, Grisez, and Tollefsen 1976, 160. I have again substituted “determinism” and “free will” for their abbreviations. 37. Boyle, Grisez, and Tollefsen 1976, 165. 7 Language Games

But if logic, as we fi nd it operative in our own minds, is really a result of mindless nature, then it is a result as improbable as . . . if, when I knocked out my pipe, the ashes arranged themselves into letters which read: ‘We are the ashes of a knocked-out pipe.’ C. S. Lewis, “De Futilitate ”

As noted in chapter 1, some philosophers have considered the Skyhook to be more of a popular-level argument, rather than something worthy of serious philosophical discussion. 1 In all likelihood, this is because it was defended by C. S. Lewis. Although Lewis had a philosophical education and even taught philosophy at Oxford, 2 his area of expertise was actually Medieval and Renaissance Literature. Moreover, Lewis was a Christian apologist who used the argument to open the door to the possibility of supernaturalism. On top of all of this, Lewis wrote primarily for the common man, the layper- son, and although he surrounded himself with professional philosophers his entire life, 3 this could be perceived as a slight on the scholarly community. Nevertheless, we will treat Lewis’s Skyhook here for three reasons: First, it influenced other versions of the argument, including those of Lucas and Plantinga.4 Second, whatever one thinks of his status as a philosopher, Lew- is’s version of the Skyhook is intelligent and erudite. Third, Lewis’s argument sparked a discussion among philosophers and has produced its own literature as to whether it can be rebutted on Wittgensteinian grounds.

1 Lewis’s Skyhook Lewis used the Skyhook as part of his defense of Christianity, as it allegedly demonstrates that the physical world does not exhaust reality.5 Although he did not intend to suggest that Christian theism is the only viable alternative (he specifically writes that, “There are all sorts of different ways in which you can develop this position, either into an idealist metaphysic or a theology, into a theistic or a pantheistic or dualist theology”6 ), the argument functions for him as a step on the way to establishing a supernaturalist worldview, and Language Games 111 ultimately Christian theism. Naturalism for Lewis is the view that the universe as a whole is going on of its own accord, where each individual event is dependent on other events within the system rather than anything outside it. As Augustine Shutte summarizes, “By naturalism, [Lewis] means the view that the universe is an ultimately homogeneous mechanical system in which everything that happens, human thought and action included, depends on something else happening within the system and ultimately on the whole system of completely interlocking events.” 7 This is roughly the causal closure of the physical. Given this definition, Lewis suggests that naturalism leaves no room for free will; as such, his Skyhook applies tangentially to determinism as well as to naturalism. “Free will would mean that human beings have the power of independent action, the power of doing something more or other than what was involved by the total series of events. And any such separate power of originating events is what the Naturalist denies. Spontaneity, originality, action ‘on its own,’ is a privilege reserved for ‘the whole show,’ which he calls Nature .” 8 Interestingly (given that he wrote this in the 1940s), Lewis also discusses quantum indeterminacy, but argues that it does not help either side of the debate, as such events allegedly have no cause but are completely random. It would not be a matter of adding something to the system, but of taking something from it: namely, causality. He proposes calling this the sub-natural. 9 Lewis bases his version of the Skyhook, commonly called the Argument from Reason,10 on inference, specifically theoretical reasoning, as in science, math, and logic. However, he also suggests that the argument can apply even to our knowledge of the physical world: such knowledge could be seen as inferential, that is, as inferred from our sensory experiences. Some of his critics have attacked him on this point, 11 but a charitable interpretation would be that Lewis is adopting the phenomenalist perspective employed by some skeptics in order to not take any shortcuts. Phenomenalism is motivated by the scientific discoveries of the processes involved in perception; it maintains that one cannot know that, e.g., a tree is in front of her, but only that she is having the visual experience that there is a tree in front of her. Lewis is taking this perspective and turning it into an argument against the naturalism that inspired it in the first place. At any rate, as long as any inference takes place, the argument still holds and can thus be reformulated without this phenomenalist perspective: “the notorious philosophical issue of the existence of sense-data is not directly relevant to the point which Lewis was making.” 12 Lewis then argues that if naturalism is true, our inferences are not the result of following a chain of argument from premises to conclusions. Rather, they are the result of natural processes, such as brain chemistry, our evolutionary heritage, etc. In other words, they are not produced by rational causes, i.e., reasons, but by nonrational causes, namely, the brute cause and effect of nature. So, according to naturalism, “The finest piece of scientific reasoning is caused in just the same irrational way as the thoughts a man 112 Language Games has because a bit of bone is pressing on his brain.”13 And again, if no beliefs are rational, this would mean that belief in naturalism is not rational; thus, it refutes itself. Another way of putting this is that, by giving a complete explanation in terms of nonrational causes, the naturalist has left no room for reasons to play a role in the formation and sustaining of beliefs, including her own belief in naturalism. Thus, insofar as the naturalist purports to give a complete explanation of our beliefs, and insofar as this explanation has no recourse to grounds or evidence, our beliefs would never be based on grounds or evidence—including the naturalist’s belief in naturalism.14 The obvious objection to this—indeed to all forms of the Skyhook—is that evolution has provided for our reasoning capacities to be mostly veracious. A hominid who made false inferences would not be as successful in passing on his genes as his colleagues who made correct inferences. 15 Lewis’s response is twofold: first, this objection suggests that truth and utility coincide, but such a correspondence is highly doubtful. It is fairly easy to think of some true beliefs that are not useful, or some false beliefs that are. The correspondence of truth with utility is especially doubtful in the realm of abstract thought, which is the only realm where the critic can employ this objection. How exactly would a capacity for abstract thought bestow any advantage in survival? After all, not all of our beliefs are relevant to our actions, and not all of our actions are relevant to our survival and propagation. Moreover, our actions are based not just on beliefs but on a system of beliefs plus other elements, such as desires. Such a system has to be adequate for survival, but this is compatible with our beliefs being false. As long as beliefs allow an individual to survive, whether they are true or false is irrelevant. Evolution does not sufficiently control our belief-forming capacities so as to ensure their general reliability. Second, unless we adopt a pragmatic theory of truth—and a very pecu- liar one at that, according to which “true” means “what was useful for our evolutionary ancestors to believe” (rather than what is useful for us to believe)—any correspondence between truth and utility would be inadequate because it would only ever allow our beliefs to be accidentally true. In epistemological terms, evolution may allow our beliefs to be true but it would not provide any truth-tracking element (such as justification or warrant) that connects the belief to what makes it true. Evolution, in other words, could never allow us to have any knowledge of anything because it would allow us to have true beliefs but only accidentally; and it is almost universally recognized that merely having accidentally true beliefs does not count as knowledge. 16 If I believe that my favorite football team will win a big game because my horoscope tells me to “expect great things” I cannot be said to really know that my team will win, even if it turns out to be true. So long as we need more than just true belief in order to have knowledge, evolution would not allow us to really know anything—including the theory that naturalism is true, or evolution itself. Of course, in all Language Games 113 of this, Lewis is not suggesting that the theory of evolution is incorrect; indeed, he assumes it is.17 Rather, he is arguing that evolution is insufficient to account for the validity of our reasoning processes, despite the claims made of it. Another possible objection one might raise to Lewis’s argument is the obvious fact that our ability to reason is affected by the physical state of the brain. Drunkenness and death are perhaps the two most obvious examples. Doesn’t this demonstrate that our beliefs are determined by such physical conditions? Lewis’s response is that this demonstrates that the brain’s physical circumstances condition our reasoning processes; it does not demonstrate that they originate them. This is exactly what we should expect: after all, Lewis is not arguing that our capacity to reason demonstrates that we are purely nonphysical entities. Insofar as we are physical, we should expect our physical state to play a role in our belief-forming capacities. The point of Lewis’s Skyhook is that these capacities cannot be reduced to purely physical (i.e., nonrational processes), just as the voice we hear and the image we see on the television cannot be reduced to the working of the set itself. “Of course it varies with the state of the receiving set, and deterio- rates as the set wears out and vanishes altogether if I throw a brick at it. It is conditioned by the apparatus but not originated by it. If it were—if we knew that there was no human being at the microphone—we should not attend to the news.” 18 Thus, Lewis does not merely argue that naturalism (and, by proxy, determinism) is incompatible with truth; it is incompatible with justification or warrant, as well with the process of reasoning itself, specifically inference. This makes his version of the Skyhook very broad.

2 Anscombe’s Criticisms G.E.M. Anscombe presented a paper at the Socratic Club at Oxford (of which Lewis was the President) in 1948 criticizing Lewis’s Skyhook, particularly as he presented it in the third chapter of Miracles . As a follower of Wittgenstein, Anscombe suggested that various types of explanations could be offered to account for our beliefs, which were not mutually exclusive, but simply different language games. Moreover, she argued, Lewis had used several terms in dubious ways, and when these were corrected, his argument no longer held.

2.1 Irrational vs. Nonrational Her first objection is that Lewis had conflated irrational causes with nonrational causes. Lewis’s statement that “no thought is valid if it can be fully explained as the result of irrational causes”19 uses the term “irrational” in too general of a sense. An irrational cause for a belief would be an invalid 114 Language Games argument or reason. On the other hand, beliefs caused by something like delirium tremens are not irrational in the same sense as beliefs caused by invalid arguments or reasons. Rather, “they are conditions which we know to go with irrational beliefs or attitudes with sufficient regularity for us to call them their causes.” 20 Such natural causes may be “nonrational” in the sense that they are just bare facts rather than propositions and, as such, have no truth value. This is not the same thing as being irrational, however. By conflating irrational causes and nonrational causes, Lewis has committed a category mistake, and this calls his argument into question. Antony Flew, an atheist philosopher who participated in the Socratic Club, follows Anscombe in this criticism and takes it to be a knockdown refutation of Lewis’s argument:

Lewis is too carefree in his talk of “rational” and “irrational.” Why must atoms, or systems of neurons, or whatever may be the terms of the scientific explanation of my mental processes, be either rational or irrational? Can they not be just non-rational—things to which the rational/ irrational distinction does not apply? Lewis would surely not say that atoms were immoral. But then, must they be moral? Of course not. Lewis would say the distinction did not apply. He would be quite right. In the same way, the rational/irrational distinction does not apply to the sort of things in terms of which “naturalists” would give their causal explanations of mental processes. But since atoms are neither rational nor irrational, the argument breaks down, for the causes by which the “naturalist” explains his own thinking are no longer irrational and the “naturalist” thesis no longer refutes itself. A chain of argument is as weak as its weakest link. 21

It is certainly true that Lewis conflates irrational and nonrational causes in some of his treatments of the Skyhook. If Lewis’s argument were that a belief is irrational if it has an irrational source, then this criticism would indeed refute it. But I do not think that this is Lewis’s argument. He is arguing, rather, that in order for a belief to qualify as rational, it must have a rational source. Therefore, any source that is not rational, whether it be irrational or nonrational, would fail to produce a rational belief. Even if the belief were true, it would not have been arrived at by a rational process. Thus, this objection is irrelevant; as long as nonrational causes are not rational, then beliefs caused by them would not be rational either. In other words, Lewis is inferring the nature of the cause from the nature of the effect. If the effect (the belief) is rational, the cause must be rational as well. Anscombe and Flew mistakenly think he is inferring the nature of the effect from the nature of the cause —that if the cause is irrational, the effect would be too, thus opening him up to their objection. But they have it precisely backwards. 22 Language Games 115 2.2 The Skeptical Threat and Paradigm Case Arguments Anscombe goes on to challenge Lewis’s claim that we have to believe in the validity of reason. “You can talk about the validity of a piece of reasoning, and sometimes about the validity of a kind of reasoning; but if you say you believe in the validity of reasoning itself, what do you mean?” 23 Here, Anscombe is challenging her understanding of Lewis’s claim that if we can call an isolated belief irrational if it springs from irrational causes, then we can equally call all of our beliefs irrational if they are all the result of irrational causes. Her point, influenced by Wittgenstein, is that in order to understand valid reasoning, we would have to have an example of it.24 As such, to question the validity of all reasoning appears nonsensical because it would imply the possibility of there being no valid example of reasoning, and so no concept of valid reasoning could ever be formed. Moreover, part of our understanding of valid reasoning comes from contrasting it with invalid reasoning. Yet we would need at least one example of each in order for such a contrast to take place. This makes it impossible to form any kind of global skepticism, because such a skepticism renders all beliefs nonveridical or irrational, thus making any potential contrast with a veridical or rational belief impossible. Reppert, one of Lewis’s philosophical defenders, writes that Anscombe’s objection amounts to a “Paradigm Case Argument,” which makes the threat of skepticism Lewis ascribes to naturalism vacuous.25 According to Anthony Coleman, a Paradigm Case Argument essentially combines Moorean proofs (e.g., Moore’s proof of an external world) with ordinary language philosophy.26 Both of these parts must be in effect or the argument will reduce to one or the other. However, because both of these parts have fallen out of favor in contemporary philosophy, Paradigm Case Arguments tend to be regarded as passé. 27 Paradigm Case Arguments were not so named until after Anscombe presented her objection to Lewis’s Sky- hook,28 but we can certainly apply the name ex post facto to her and others who expressed similar arguments. Regarding Anscombe’s objection, the Moorean proof is “Here is a rational belief” and the ordinary language aspect is her view that concepts derive their meaning from their contrasts. Flew illustrates this latter point by making a parallel objection regarding hallucination. There is nothing problematic in asking whether a particular perception is hallucinatory or real.

But it is preposterous to ask whether all perceptions taken together are hallucinatory. The term ‘real perception’ and the term ‘hallucinatory perception’ derive their usual significance from their mutual contrast, and from the tests used to decide which is applicable. . . . [I]t is a complete mistake to think that if it is sensible to ask a question about a particular case of something (perceptions, pieces of thinking, etc.) it follows that it is sensible to ask the same question of all those particular cases taken as 116 Language Games a class. It is wise and proper to ask of any given piece of reasoning, “Is this valid?” But it is not profound, but preposterous, to ask, with Lewis, “Is human reason valid?”: for some pieces of reasoning are, and some are not, sound.29

So, suggesting that all perceptions might be hallucinations is not just a ridiculous claim: it is incoherent. “Hallucination” does not mean anything without the contrast of real perception. Similarly, an irrational belief does not mean anything without the contrast of a rational one, and therefore we cannot call all reasoning into question. Lewis’s Skyhook, it is claimed, amounts to a Skeptical Threat Argument, a claim of global skepticism, according to which we can have no knowledge of anything, on the same level as the evil genie or brain-in-a-vat scenarios. Such radical skeptical suggestions are refuted by the fact “that we have over- whelmingly strong reasons for acknowledging the ‘validity of reasoning’— that is, for acknowledging that people do sometimes reach conclusions because of good reasons they accept, and that they are rational in doing so—and that, therefore, any argument to the contrary must be based on a mistake or trick of some kind.”30 As such, “no absolute security against such doubts is available from any quarter, and . . . even if it were available it is not needed.” 31 In his reply to Flew’s paper, Ernest Gellner argued that this objection does not apply to Lewis’s argument. 32 Gellner concedes that, just because a question can be asked of a member of a class, it does not follow that it can also be asked of the class itself. Yet the opposite is not true: that because a question can be asked of a member of a class, it cannot be asked of the class. Perhaps it can, perhaps it cannot. Flew’s example of hallucination is a case where it cannot. If all perceptions were hallucinations, the concept of hallucination would become meaningless, because its meaning is derived from its contrast with a real perception. This “contrast theory of meaning” is sometimes true, but we must beware of “the dangers of applying it indiscriminately.”33 The question is, does it apply to our beliefs? Gellner thinks not. It is perfectly coherent to claim that if we can ask whether one belief is determined by nonrational causes, we can therefore ask it of all of them. This is because the concept of our beliefs being determined is not based on the contrast between determined and undetermined beliefs. Rather, it is based on “the presence of a causal mechanism; hence not by contrast but by a correlation that might be absolute and universal,” and “the tests for confirming this would not become unworkable by being applied to the totality.” 34 Gellner thus makes two points: contrast is not the only way we can understand concepts in general; and contrast is not how we understand the concept of determinism in particular. However, he has changed the target from naturalism to determinism. This raises the question of whether his point—the irrelevance of the contrast theory of meaning—also applies to naturalism. Can we understand the nonrational without employing contrast? Language Games 117 Since determinism appears to evade the contrast theory of meaning due to “the presence of a causal mechanism,” and because this is precisely the issue with naturalism—that beliefs are produced mechanistically by nonrational causes—it seems we can apply Gellner’s assessment to naturalism and so uphold Lewis’s Skyhook against the criticisms of Anscombe and Flew. On the other hand, as we will see below in the discussion on Bulverism, it seems that we cannot assess the nonrational by taking it out of its context and into another without affirming the other, thus employing contrast. However, we do not need to defend this point further because we can grant for the sake of argument that we do need to employ the contrast theory of meaning here. Let’s assume that it is exactly parallel to Flew’s analogy of hallucination, that if naturalism were true, it would lead to the conclusion that none of our perceptions are real, all are hallucinations. Flew replies that this is incoherent; a hallucination does not mean anything without the contrast of a real perception. Could not Lewis say, “Precisely! If naturalism were true, it would lead to an absurd conclusion like this. Therefore, naturalism is not true”? Or put it in Anscombe’s terms: she argues that we need examples of valid and invalid reasoning in order to understand what we are talking about. Lewis’s argument, however, is that if naturalism were true, we would not have examples of valid reasoning. If we need an example of it in order to make sense of the concepts, and naturalism does not provide us with an example, it would follow that naturalism does not allow us to make a distinction between valid and invalid reasoning. Because we do have such examples and can make such a distinction (not least in the assertion of metaphysical theories such as naturalism), naturalism is false. At the very least, we can say that we must be able to make such a distinction in order to affirm naturalism, so any affirmation of naturalism is self-defeating. Let me put this another way: Skeptical Threat Arguments suggest that our reasoning faculties are completely unreliable, such as claims that we are brains in vats being made to think there is a physical world, or there is an evil genie who makes us form incorrect beliefs. Such claims are so outlandish that we do not consider them genuine possibilities, despite their value for epistemology. We do not feel threatened by them because we do not take them seriously. But Lewis is not asking us to take radical skeptical claims seriously. He is telling us that the reason why we cannot accept naturalism is precisely because it leads to a radical skeptical claim in which the very argumentation that leads us to the endpoint obviates itself. Of course we cannot seriously consider the possibility that all of our beliefs are invalid. That’s the point . If it is suggested that radical skeptical claims are not merely incredible but incoherent, and therefore an argument cannot refer to them, the response would be that it is a valid argument to say that a position leads to an incoherent situation and should be rejected as a result. This is the very definition of a reductio ad absurdum argument. Lewis’s claim is that naturalism leads 118 Language Games to an incoherent scenario in which none of our beliefs would be rational and, therefore, it should be rejected. What this shows, according to Reppert, is that Lewis’s Skyhook should not be understood as a Skeptical Threat Argument; it is better understood as a Best Explanation Argument. In contrast with the former, the latter asks, “not whether reason is valid, but whether, in a naturalistic world, one can account for the fact that it is valid.” 35 In other words, rather than starting with the presupposition of naturalism and then trying to see if we can move from it to reason (from cause to effect, as Anscombe and Flew took Lewis to be arguing), we start from the presupposition that we have reason already, and then try to see if naturalism allows for this fact (from effect to cause). Nevertheless, it is easy to understand Lewis’s original Skyhook as a Skep- tical Threat Argument, so, in response to Anscombe’s criticisms, he rewrote Miracles , particularly the third chapter, in 1960. Reppert argues that while “neither the first edition argument nor the second is, I believe, a pure case” of either type of argument, the second edition more successfully avoids framing itself as a Skeptical Threat Argument and is instead closer to a Best Expla- nation Argument. 36 The relevance is that “Anscombe’s Paradigm Case Argu- ment is ineffective against” the Skyhook when reformulated in this way. 37

3 Bulverism The heart of Anscombe’s critique was that one type of explanation (complete explanation) does not rule out another type. As a Wittgensteinian, Anscombe was content to view different types of explanations as different “language games.” This is problematic: as we have seen, Norman Mal- colm, another follower of Wittgenstein, developed his own Skyhook, 38 and Anscombe actually proofread Malcolm’s analysis. 39 Other Wittgensteinians have presented arguments like Lewis’s as well. 40 Much of the debate between Lewis and Anscombe focuses on the distinction between the causes of a belief versus its grounds, and whether these two types of explanation can conflict. Anscombe held that they do not: reasons play no role in the production of a belief; they “are what is elicited from someone whom we ask to explain himself.”41 Lewis counters that a reason is “a special kind of cause”42 and so is involved in a belief’s production. Later, Anscombe, when praising Lewis’s reformulation of his Skyhook in response to her objections, conceded that how the grounds of a belief are connected to its actual occurrence remains an unresolved problem.43 Anscombe’s criticism is thus an appeal to a form of compatibilism. How- ever, compatibilism is a large topic and we cannot hope to rebut all the possible forms it could take even if we wanted to. It does present an intriguing objection to the Epistemological Skyhook, however, and we will address it in chapters 12 and 13 . In the meantime, there is still a hanging thread to Lewis’s Skyhook that must be addressed. Anscombe argued that the grounds of a belief are what is relevant to its validity, and its causes simply have no Language Games 119 bearing on the issue. To argue against a position by pointing to the special circumstances or ulterior motives one’s interlocutor might have had for adopting it is not a valid form of argumentation. This is an intriguing point, because Lewis’s earliest treatment of the Sky- hook originated in his objection to Freudians and Marxists claiming that beliefs are determined by our psychological history or our social conditioning and can thereby be discounted. 44 He countered that this would apply to the beliefs of the Freudians and Marxists themselves, and if it obviated the beliefs of others then it obviated their beliefs in Freudianism and Marxism in the same way. Instead, we should put aside our speculations about how someone came to believe something and ask whether their beliefs are true. He proceeded to call refutations based on speculated ulterior motives “Bul- verism” after a fictional character he invented.45 Bulverism is essentially the circumstantial ad hominem fallacy and shares some commonalities with the genetic fallacy as well. Yet Lewis then goes on to accept the claim that if a belief has been demonstrated to have a nonrational source, it can therefore be discounted as not rational. Indeed, his whole argument is dependent on the claim that, in order for beliefs to be rational, they must have rational sources. Thus, Anscombe’s response that this is not how we judge whether an argument is valid is a striking criticism, amounting to the charge that in the very statement of his Bulverism fallacy, Lewis commits it. If the additional premise—that nonrationally caused beliefs are invalid— is accepted by Lewis’s opponents, then his argument still works. The Freud- ians and Marxists claim, according to Lewis, that one can refute a belief by showing it to have nonrational sources. As long as they still maintain that such beliefs are invalid, then their own beliefs fall along with them. Not all naturalists think that having a nonrational cause of a belief thereby invali- dates it, however, and, at any rate, the formation of a belief has nothing to do with its validity. It simply does not matter whether it has rational, irrational, or nonrational causes. To dismiss a belief because of its causes is precisely the Bulverism fallacy. What matters is whether the belief can be demonstrated true upon further examination. David Wiggins notes this as well. After citing Anscombe’s essay and noting the argument as it is presented against Marxism, he writes, “The habit- ual riposte to it has been to say that the marxist’s beliefs must be socially determined too. He can no more step outside than his opponent can, and so his beliefs are no less tainted by causality. But where does this leave us? The reply is no better than an ad hominem because it leaves perfectly open the possibility that beliefs, capitalist, Marxist, and all others, are uniformly tainted by the causality which determines them.”46 There are two responses to this: first, the Bulverism fallacy argues that we cannot dismiss a belief’s truth value based on its cause. However, it has nothing to do with whether a belief is epistemically justified. Justification, warrant, or any truth-tracking element, connects a true belief to what makes 120 Language Games it true—and the claim of Lewis’s Skyhook is that this connection is an inherently rational one. Therefore, a nonrational cause could never bring about an epistemically justified belief, regardless of whether it is true or not. Nonra- tional causes could, at best, bring about true belief. Yet nearly all epistemologists acknowledge that we need more than just true belief in order to have knowledge. Insofar as a belief that is just accidentally true does not qualify as knowledge, nonrational causes can never bring about knowledge.47 Wiggins even hints at this, as he continues from the above quote to write, “It cannot tell against this that if it were so then nobody would have the knowledge of this fact but at best an accidental true belief. Perhaps that is how things are.”48 The whole point, however, is that if we cannot have knowledge, then we could not know “that is how things are.” Of course this is a logically possible alternative: it is not self-refuting. The claim is that it is self-defeating , that if that is how things are, we can no longer have any grounds for believing that is how things are. Second, the reason that Bulverism is a fallacy is that we are able to take a belief out of its historical, causal context (where it may have nonrational causes) and into a rational, logical context. If this abstraction were impossible, the assessment of a belief independent of its causes could not be made. The only standards by which we could then judge the rationality of a belief would be the inherently nonrational standards of how the belief was caused. Thus, the Bulverism fallacy applies to individual beliefs because of the possibility of this move from historical causes to rational grounds. However, it does not apply to our beliefs taken as a whole , because, by definition, such a whole could not be taken out of its context into another one. Any given context would be a part of the whole already. In which case, we would never be able to examine a belief’s validity, because any test would also have nonrational grounds, and any test of the test would as well, ad infinitum. So if rational processes never enter into the equation, how can any belief ever be rational?49 This point, I take it, is Eric Mascall’s argument in his defense of Lewis against Anscombe. 50 He thinks Anscombe’s contention, that an argument’s validity is independent of its formation, is “a good one, but only so long as we exclude from the sphere of application of the naturalistic theory the examiner’s conviction of the validity of his examination.” 51 He illustrates this with a parable about a man who has a deep hatred for a particular bishop. The man justifies his hatred with a syllogism, that some churchmen are alcoholics; the bishop he hates is a churchman; therefore, the bishop he hates is an alcoholic. A psychoanalyst examines the man and determines that his hatred is based on an unpleasant event in his childhood. The man could then say that the cause of his belief is irrelevant; what matters is whether he can prove it upon further examination, and his syllogism does just that. However, the psychoanalyst is also a logician, and he proceeds to point out that the man’s syllogism has an undistributed middle, and such syllogisms are invalid. The man, however, responds that, “the widespread belief Language Games 121 in the invalidity of syllogisms with undistributed middles is simply caused by something in people’s genetic inheritance.”52 Thus this belief also has a nonrational cause. At no point can we step out of the circle of nonrational causes in order to test a belief’s validity, because any proposed test would be produced nonrationally as well. Mascall concludes that any plausibility naturalism or determinism may have “is due, I would maintain, to the fact that when it is asserted an escape- clause is either explicitly included or, more often, implicitly assumed. It is held to apply to volitions and attitudes, but not to ratiocination; or, if it does apply to ratiocination in general, it does not apply to the ratiocination which its propounder makes use of in arguing for its truth.”53 Shutte later comments on “the sequence of Lewis’s article followed by Ans- combe’s reply and then Mascall’s comments on both.” 54 He quotes Mascall’s parable in its entirety, and argues that, if our convictions about the validity of logic are the product of nonrational causes, we cannot use logic to verify the validity of a given argument. Anscombe might respond, however, that she is not speaking of convictions . This, however, “assumes that the rules determining validity can be defined in total abstraction from real events, psychological or otherwise, and yet must be regarded as normative for events and processes in the real world, namely those that constitute thinking and arguing.” 55 Thus, Lewis’s argument—and the defenses of it made by Gellner, Mascall, and Shutte—not only avoid the Paradigm Case Argument, but also avoid the charge of Bulverism. The reason the circumstantial ad hominem fallacy is a fallacy is that we can abstract a belief from its nonrational causes and judge its truth on purely rational grounds. The Epistemological Skyhook argues that naturalism (or determinism or both) makes this abstraction impossible and so applies the only standards available, given naturalism, to the assessment of naturalism itself, concluding that, if naturalism is true, it would not be rational to believe naturalism—in other words, it is self-defeating. This is relevant as to whether our beliefs are epistemically justified or warranted. Therefore, appealing to Bulverism cannot refute Lewis’s claim that, if our beliefs are derived from nonrational sources, they are nonrational and therefore not veracious. Shutte thus concludes from all of this that “Lewis’s argument against determinism has been vindicated”56 —ironic, given that, again, Lewis was not primarily arguing against determinism but against naturalism.57

Notes 1. Armstrong 1968, 200; Wiggins 1970, 133; Snyder 1972, 353. 2. Lewis 1959, 177–78. 3. Beversluis 1991–92, 191. 4. Plantinga 1993b, 237 n. 28; Lucas 1995, 453–55. Others have cited Lewis’s Skyhook as a predecessor to Plantinga’s as well: see Nathan 1997, 135; Beilby, ed. 2002, ix; Menuge 2003. 122 Language Games 5. Lewis’s most extensive treatments of the argument are the third and thirteenth chapters of Miracles (1947; 1960), and in his 1977a; 1996a, 135–38; 1996b; 1996c. Shorter statements can be found online at http://agentintellect.blogspot. com/2008/04/some-shorter-statements-of-afr.html, accessed 8 December 2015. 6. Lewis 1977a, 65. By dualism, he does not mean mind-body dualism but ditheism, according to which there are two Gods and thus two distinct ultimate sources (such as in Zoroastrianism). 7. Shutte 1984, 481. 8. Lewis 1947, 17; 1960, 11. 9. Lewis 1947, 24; 1960, 17. 10. Beversluis 1985, 58; 2007, 143; Reppert 1999. 11. Beversluis 1985, 61–65; 2007, 147–50. 12. Meynell 1991, 310. 13. Lewis 1947, 28. 14. On complete explanations and whether they leave room for other explanations, see Lucas 1970, 44–50. 15. Quine 1969b, 126; 1975, 70; Ruse 1986, 162–63. 16. I say “almost” because of the exception of Sartwell 1991; 1992. 17. Lewis 1940, 72–84; 1947, 25–26, 135, 146, 166, 179; 1960, 18, 115, 125, 142, 154; 1977b. 18. Lewis 1947, 50; 1960, 44. 19. Lewis 1947, 27. 20. Anscombe 1981b, 225. 21. Flew 1955, 64. 22. It should also be pointed out that Lewis had already noted the difference between an irrational and nonrational causes elsewhere. The nonrationality of a physical event is different from that of a paralogism; it “does not rise even to the dignity of error” (Lewis 1943, 30). That is, it is not about anything, and so the appellations of truth and falsehood simply cannot be applied to it (although propositions about it obviously could). So it seems that nonrational causes are in an even worse state than irrational causes. Far from refuting Lewis’s argument, appealing to the difference between irrational and nonrational causes increases the difficulty. 23. Anscombe 1981b, 226. 24. Anscombe actually leaves this point open: she writes, “Whether you would adopt this method or some other (though I do not know of any other) . . .” (1981b, 226). 25. Reppert 1989, 37. 26. Coleman 2015. 27. Coleman is currently researching whether they can be resuscitated. 28. The earliest apparent reference to Paradigm Case Arguments as such that Coleman has found is Urmson 1953. 29. Flew 1955, 64–65. 30. Hasker 1999, 68. 31. Reppert 1989, 37–38. 32. Gellner 1957. Although Gellner’s essay is essentially a critique of a critique of Lewis, he never mentions Lewis by name. Flew responded to Gellner (Flew 1958) and brought up the Lewis-Anscombe debate elsewhere in his writings as well (Flew 1978, 92–99; 1987, 84). 33. Gellner 1957, 72. 34. Gellner 1957, 70–71. 35. Reppert 1989, 37. 36. Reppert 2003, 37 n. 21. Language Games 123 37. Reppert 2003, 39. 38. See chapter 5 . 39. Malcolm 1968, 72 n. 14. 40. Stroll 1988, 270. 41. Anscombe 1981b, 229. 42. Lewis 1996c, 275. This was essentially his response to Anscombe in the debate. Note how similar this is to Donald Davidson’s later claim that reasons can (and in fact must) be causes (Davidson 2001a). (Lewis’s 1996c was originally published in 1941, while Davidson’s 2001a was originally published in 1963.) 43. Anscombe 1981a, ix-x. 44. Lewis 1996c. 45. “Ezekiel Bulver” realized as a young child that “refutation is no necessary part of argument. Assume that your opponent is wrong, and then explain his error, and the world will be at your feet” (Lewis 1996c, 273). It may also be the case that “Bulverism” is inspired from the French term bouleverser . This means to disrupt or cause distress, but it also means to turn upside down. This could indicate that the person who engages in Bulverism is turning the reasoning process on its head. However, this is pure speculation. Thanks to Jo Köhler for the suggestion. 46. Wiggins 1970, 134. 47. This is something Plantinga (2000, 194) acknowledges as well. “True, questions of origin are ordinarily not relevant to the question of the truth of a belief; but they can be crucially relevant to the question of the warrant a belief enjoys.” 48. Wiggins 1970, 134; cf. 1973. 49. This has some relevance to Anscombe’s Paradigm Case Argument, as mentioned above. 50. Mascall 1957, 212–19. 51. Mascall 1957, 215. 52. Mascall 1957, 216. 53. Mascall 1957, 216. 54. Shutte 1984, 481. Curiously, although he is writing nearly a quarter century after the second edition of Miracles was published, Shutte is working from the first edition. 55. Shutte 1984, 487. 56. Shutte 1984, 487. 57. Making no pretense to exhaustiveness, further defenses and critiques of Lewis’s Skyhook hitherto unmentioned can be found in Purtill 1974, 43–47; 1981, 22–27; Lippard 1999; Parsons 1999, 87–89, n. 7; 2000; Reppert 2000; Reppert, Drange, Hasker, and Parsons 2003; Taliaferro 2010, 105–109; and van Inwagen 2013. 8 Popper Function

Everyone would admit that the notion of a language which enables one to state matters of fact but does not permit argument, explanation, in short reason-giving , in accordance with the principles of formal logic, is a chimera. Wilfrid Sellars, Science, Perception and Reality

Despite evolution’s explanatory power and scope, there are plenty of scientists who do not think the properties of mind can be completely explained by natural selection. 1 In fact, this is not only the case with evolutionists, but with evolutionary epistemologists as well. Evolutionary epistemology applies evolution to the mind in two ways. First, it explores the evolutionary origin of our cognitive mechanisms; second, it explores how our belief-forming processes seem to parallel the evolutionary process, where our beliefs, including our scientific theories, “compete” with each other so that the “strongest” “survive”—i.e., the better theories are accepted and the inferior theories are discarded. Traditionally, these two parts of evolutionary epistemology have been treated as two aspects of a single theory. More recently, however, they have been distinguished,2 although they are still often considered to be continuous with one another. One of the most prominent evolutionary epistemologists is Karl Popper, yet from this standpoint he promulgated a version of the Skyhook sometimes directed towards materialism, but more often toward determinism.

1 Third World Philosophy

1.1 The Three Worlds Popper’s Skyhook begins with his distinction between three worlds.3 World 1 is the physical world with its objects and processes. World 2 is the mental world with its states and experiences. The naturalist, depending on her inclinations, accepts that either world 2 is reducible to world 1 (most forms of naturalism), that world 1 is reducible to world 2 (phenomenalism), or Popper Function 125 that worlds 1 and 2 both exist but 2 can have no effect on 1, world 1 being causally closed (parallelism, epiphenomenalism). Popper, however, adds world 3, the world of intelligibles. “By World 3 I mean the world of the products of the human mind, such as stories, explanatory myths, tools, scientific theories (whether true or false), scientific problems, social institu- tions, and works of art.” 4 Popper rejects the claim that the different worlds cannot interact, but does insist that world 3 and world 1 can affect each other only indirectly via world 2. Thus, Popper is not merely a dualist, but a pluralist. 5 While world 3 objects may have a world 1 substrate—a physical base on which they supervene—they cannot be reduced to it. This would be to strip them of their very meaning. We could, theoretically, analyze a poem as simply black marks on a white page, or (as Arthur Eddington points out)6 a moment of silence by its physical causes and effects. But if we want to understand what the poem is saying , what the moment of silence is about , what it is honoring , we have to do so in the terms of world 3. Moreover, Popper argues, there are world 3 objects that do not have a physical substrate. Once we have certain mathematical concepts, for example, we do not immediately draw all possible conclusions from them, or recognize all possible problems to which they lead. Nevertheless, those further conclusions and problems precede our discovery of them. This is made more evident from the fact that there will be, no doubt, many such problems that we will never discover. They are thus objective : they exist regardless of whether anyone ever discovers or believes them. As such, they do not require a physical substrate, and if they do have one, cannot be reduced to it. World 3 is autonomous— independent of world 1.

With the invention (or discovery?) of the natural numbers (cardinals) there came into existence odd and even numbers even before anybody noticed this fact, or drew attention to it. . . . It is important to realize that the objective and unembodied existence of these problems precedes their conscious discovery in the same way as the existence of Mount Everest preceded its discovery; and it is important that the consciousness of the existence of these problems leads to the suspicion that there may exist, objectively, a way to their solution and to the conscious search for this way: the search cannot be understood without understanding the objective existence (or perhaps non-existence) of as yet undiscovered and unembodied methods and solutions.7

Similarly, “the theorems, the problems, and, of course, the arguments which we call ‘proofs’ are all unintended consequences of our invention of geometry. These unintended consequences can be discovered, just as we may discover a mountain or a river—which shows that they were there before our discovery.” 8 Therefore, Popper is, in a qualified sense, a Platonist.9 126 Popper Function 1.2 The Four Functions of Language This sets the stage for Popper’s argument, which is based on the nature of language.10 Popper’s teacher, the psychologist Karl Bühler, had argued that there are three functions of language that can be arranged in a hierarchy: the first level is expressive (or symptomatic) language. This refers to the function of expressing the internal states (thoughts, feelings) of the speaker. The second, stimulative language refers to how the language is intended to evoke a response in the hearer. The third function of language is descriptive language. This is when the language describes some object or state of affairs, when language becomes about something (thus, the three functions of language do not correspond to Popper’s three worlds). These three functions do not exhaust language: prescriptive language, for example, is not included. This is noteworthy because, as we have seen in chapter 6 , many versions of the Skyhook are based on prescription or normativity. By basing his Skyhook on an analysis of language that does not address prescription, Popper’s Skyhook becomes independent of normativity-based Skyhooks. Regardless, Bühler’s point is not that his three functions of language are exhaustive but that they are related to each other in a hierarchi- cal way, where each one presupposes its predecessor. Stimulative language (level 2) presupposes expressive language (level 1), but expressive does not presuppose stimulative. Similarly, descriptive language (level 3) presupposes stimulative and, hence, expressive; but neither of the latter presuppose the descriptive function of language.11 Description is certainly a type of expression, but it is more than this and cannot be reduced to it. Similarly, to describe something is a type of response to one’s encounter of it and is thus a stimulative function; but again, it is not merely a response. “For the truth of a description is something different from, say, the adequacy of an expression , or of a reaction to a stimulus; and it is also different from the adequacy of a signal to a certain situation, or from its efficiency in evoking a response appropriate to the situation.”12 Popper accepts these three functions, but deems it necessary to add a fourth: the explanatory or argumentative function of language. He believes explanatory and argumentative to be equivalent because “they are derived from a logical analysis of explanation and its relation to deduction (or argument) . ”13 Moreover, the explanatory/argumentative function is distinct from the preceding three levels, including the descriptive function, because “A certain language may possess the first three functions without the fourth (for example that of a child at the stage when it just ‘names’ things).”14 The fourth level, therefore, builds upon the preceding three, but is not reducible to them. The first two levels apply to any type of communication, including “animal language,” whereas the third and fourth are “characteristically human.”15 Indeed, Popper argues that science and philosophy are valuable only insofar as they are descriptive (level 3) and argumentative (level 4). We Popper Function 127 are interested in scientific or philosophical claims only if they are based on cogent arguments. The relation between Popper’s three worlds and four functions of language are that the first two language functions, expressive and stimulative, belong to world 2. The latter two language functions, descriptive and argumentative, belong to world 3.16

2 Popper’s Skyhook

2.1 The Four Language Functions Argument From this, Popper presents two theses that are relevant to our study: first, “Any causal physicalistic theory of linguistic behavior can only be a theory of the two lower functions of language.” And second, “Any such theory is therefore bound either to ignore the difference between the higher and lower functions, or to assert that the two higher functions are ‘nothing but’ special cases of the two lower functions.” He further argues that this renders materialist and physicalist theories, such as behaviorism and epiphenomenalism, self-defeating, “in so far as their arguments establish—unintentionally, of course—the non-existence of arguments.”17 A common counterargument to all of this that Popper often deals with is that machines, even very simple ones, describe; a thermometer, for example, by giving the temperature, thereby describes something about the world around it. 18 Popper argues that this is misguided; “we do not attribute the responsibility for the description to it; we attribute it to its maker.”19 This applies to all accounts of physical machinery, including computers and artificial intelligences: we do not consider whatever descriptions they provide as their own, but as extensions of the intelligent, sentient agents behind it. 20 Therefore, once the causal mechanism of the physical machine is understood, its behavior exhibits only the expressive function of language, the bottom rung in Bühler’s hierarchy. This means, according to Popper, that the two higher levels, description and argumentation, are noncausal in nature. Causality is mechanistic, and mechanism means something that takes place without mind. Because the higher two levels of function are those that can be employed only by sentient minds, it follows that they cannot be reduced to causal, mechanical, physical processes. Popper elucidates this by arguing ( contra Kripke) that a causal theory of naming cannot be made. Any attempt to do so—such as an advanced computer that is able to utter the name of a person or object whenever it “sees” that person or object—obtains only the appearance of naming because of our interpretation of the sequence of events. Since naming is “by far the simplest case of a descriptive use of words . . . no causal physical theory of the descriptive and argumentative functions of language is possible.”21 128 Popper Function Popper thinks this solves the problem of other minds as well:

If we talk to other people, and especially if we argue with them, then we assume (sometimes mistakenly) that they also argue: that they speak intentionally about things, seriously wishing to solve a problem, and not merely behaving as if they were doing so. . . . In arguing with other people (a thing which we have learnt from other people), for example about other minds, we cannot but attribute to them intentions, and this means, mental states. We do not argue with a thermometer.22

Thus, Popper points out, the Skyhook is an extension of the mind-body problem. Any attempt to argue for physical determinism is no better than attempts to resolve the mind-body problem by denying the existence of the mind. As long as there is mind, it cannot be reduced to the body; as long as descriptive and argumentative language occurs, they cannot be reduced to expressive and stimulative language—in other words, they cannot be reduced to causal (deterministic) physical (materialistic) elements. The point is that because the third and fourth levels of the hierarchy can be exhibited only by a sentient mind, insofar as those two levels are expressed, there are sentient minds. Because all arguments, by definition, exhibit the fourth level of argumentation, an argument purporting to refute the fourth level or to reduce all language to the first and second levels is self-defeating. If it were a successful argument, then it would refute the occurrence of arguments —in which case, it can no longer be considered a successful argument, there being no such thing as arguments, successful or otherwise.

2.2 The Three Worlds Argument Popper sometimes puts his Skyhook in terms of his three worlds rather than in terms of the four functions of language. For example, he takes Quine’s naturalized epistemology to entail a denial of worlds 2 and 3. If we can explain everything in terms of world 1, we do not need to posit the others. In response, Popper argues that

I do not think that Quine is consistent when he asks ‘Why add the others?’ To whom does he address this question? To our bodies? Or to our physical states? Or to our behaviour? Quine argues . And arguments, I hold, belong to world 3. Arguments may be understood , or grasped. And understanding or grasping is a world 2 affair: our bodies can grasp a stone or a stick, but they cannot grasp or understand an argument. Also, I am sure that it is Quine’s intention (again a world 2 term) to convince us by his arguments, or at least to give us something to think about (two more world 2 terms).23

Similarly, he argues that computers are products of the human mind, and so already belong to world 3. The attempt to reduce computers, or brains, Popper Function 129 to worlds 1 and 2 precludes the possibility of error correction: any correction would have to be based on standards from world 3. If these standards were reducible to world 1, then we would have no means for distinguishing between good (sound, valid) standards and bad ones. 24 The difference between a good inference and a bad inference disappears, because both are fully explicable in terms of the functioning of the brain. If our predispositions are just how we are wired, we lose any epistemic right to say that they are genuine insights into the nature of things. Nor could we explain these standards in terms of their utility because a) there is a distinction between whether an inference is valid and whether it is useful, and b) utility is still a standard and so belongs to world 3. 25

2.3 Other Arguments The three worlds and four language functions give Popper the context to state the Skyhook in a fairly meticulous fashion. However, he does not always find it necessary to bring them in. He sometimes just states that determinism becomes absurd when applied to itself.

For according to determinism, any theories—such as, say, determinism— are held because of a certain physical structure of the holder (perhaps of his brain). Accordingly we are deceiving ourselves (and are physically so determined as to deceive ourselves) whenever we believe that there are such things as arguments or reasons which make us accept determinism. Or in other words, physical determinism is a theory which, if it is true, is not arguable, since it must explain all our reactions, including what appear to us as beliefs based on arguments, as due to purely physical conditions. . . . But this means that if we believe that we have accepted a theory like determinism because we were swayed by the logical force of certain arguments, then we are deceiving ourselves, according to physical determinism; or more precisely, we are in a physical condition which determines us to deceive ourselves.26

So, what is left? If determinism is false, then it would seem that indeterminism must be affirmed. Yet Popper does not accept this: “indeterminism is not enough. . . . If determinism is true, then the whole world is a perfectly running flawless clock, including all clouds, all organisms, all animals, and all men. If, on the other hand, Peirce’s or Heisenberg’s or some other form of indeterminism is true, then sheer chance plays a major role in our physical world. But is chance really more satisfactory than determinism? ”27 Having our beliefs and ratiocinations be completely uncaused does not do much to commend them. As noted in chapter 2, some determinists drive this point home: either our beliefs are determined or they are undetermined. In the former case, there is at least the possibility that they are determined by the correct processes that lead to valid beliefs. If they are 130 Popper Function undetermined, on the other hand, there is no such chance. Our beliefs would not be determined—specifically they would not be determined by the truth or any rational considerations.28 Popper’s response is that it is not a question of whether our beliefs are caused or not; it is a question of whether they are caused in the right way. In other words, the problem the Skyhook raises is that a belief must be rationally directed if it is to be valid; not merely directed (determinism) or undirected (quantum indeterminacy). This is why, as we have seen, William Hasker defines mechanistic causation and explanation as essentially nonteleological, a concept that would apply to both determinism and indeterminism. 29 Yet these are not the only two options. Another argument Popper presents addresses scientific determinism, which he defines as “the doctrine that the structure of the world is such that any event can be rationally predicted, with any desired degree of precision, if we are given a sufficiently precise description of past events, together with all the laws of nature.” 30 This predictability would be deductive in nature, once the initial conditions and universal laws are given. We are not concerned with predictability in the present work, but Popper’s treatment is noteworthy, as he claims that self -prediction is logically impossible. He proposes delegating the predictions to a “predictor,” a machine that is “a perfect incarnation, a perfect physical embodiment, of Laplace’s demon.” This allows him “to give a refutation of determinism without assuming the existence of minds .” 31 If the information the predictor works from is enough for it to make a prediction, and if its calculations take place in time, then any self-prediction could be calculated only simultaneously or subsequently to the event being predicted (and thus would not qualify as a prediction ). This would apply even to an “unchanging system.”32 And if we add two more assumptions—that longer predictions (“replies”) take more time to express than shorter ones and that the replies are not in a special ad hoc language, then self-prediction is logically impossible. This means that self-prediction cannot take place “ even in a deterministic world .” 33 Scien- tific determinism, then, is, according to Popper, self-refuting , not merely self-defeating. Now Popper did not call this variety of determinism “scientific” for no reason: the prediction scenario he envisages is precisely that used (or at least is commonly thought to be used)34 in science. This appeals to a strong principle of universalizability, but, as discussed in chapter 4, explanations only have to be weakly universalizable. One reason for this is that a strong principle of universalizability cannot itself be established via a strong principle of universalizability. This was the downfall of the logical positivists; Popper is thus translating this downfall into an argument against scientific determinism. But if science uses prediction in the manner envisaged by Pop- per, as is usually claimed, then his argument does not merely establish the logical impossibility of scientific determinism; it establishes the impossibility of founding any form of determinism on science: “Thus nothing can support Popper Function 131 ‘scientific ’ determinism; and no appeal to a prima facie deterministic science, however complete, can support any other form of determinism.”35 All that is left for the determinist is to define their doctrine in terms of weak universalizability, not strong—that is, a determinism in which we can define after the fact how the deterministic system in question entails the result. At this point, Popper presents the four functions of language and the Skyhook based upon them, showing that determinism thus defined may not be self-refuting but is still self-defeating.36

3 Critique and Response Popper’s pluralism was criticized by Wilfrid Sellars, on the basis that it follows only if we accept that the third and fourth functions of language, where “aboutness” comes into play, are defined as resulting in factual statements. “But the semantical ‘language game’ which contains such ‘positions’ as ‘E is about x’, ‘E means x’ and ‘E is the name of x’ is not describing talk. As I have pointed out elsewhere it is a device whereby we convey to the hearer how a mentioned expression is used, by using an equivalent expression. Semantical-talk is no more describing-talk than is obligation-talk.” Because of this, Popper’s “thesis that aboutness or reference cannot be defined in Behaviourese” does not establish pluralism.37 Popper counters that this doubly misunderstands him: first, he never mentioned anything about definability , something he considers to be “nearly always irrelevant.” Second, with this, he need not question Sellars’s claim that aboutness is not definitional in nature. Rather, his argument was that “no causal physical theory of the descriptive and argumentative functions of language is possible.”38 Similarly, Popper’s Skyhook was criticized briefly by Patricia Churchland with the same vitalism analogy she uses to defend eliminative materialism. 39 Popper argues that her vitalism scenario involves the vitalist begging the question by presupposing the truth of vitalism. “In contrast, my argument for indeterminism relies not on the truth of free will but rather on the alleged truth of determinism, from which follows, deductively, the consequence that, if the premise is true, any argument in its favour loses its effectiveness.”40 She also takes Popper’s argument as the claim that determinism is self-refuting rather than self-defeating, despite the fact that Popper explicitly writes to the contrary.41 A more productive debate on Popper’s Skyhook took place between Anthony O’Hear and Peter Glassen. O’Hear criticized Popper, arguing that determinism would not be a problem for knowledge if one were determined to accept beliefs that had been “reasonably argued.” 42 In response, Glassen proposed that we imagine two groups: the first group consists of people (A, B, and C) who are determined in the way O’Hear suggests, while the second group consists of people (D through N) who are determined, but not so that they accept beliefs that are reasonably argued. People from the second group 132 Popper Function would not be able to tell whether people from the first group are determined according to O’Hear’s criteria, given that the second group’s beliefs are not determined in such a way as to render their beliefs trustworthy. Therefore, even though the first group’s beliefs are trustworthy, their trustworthiness could not be a guide to the second group because the second group cannot reliably assess whether the first group’s beliefs are trustworthy, or who is in the first group—or even that there is a first group at all. So our only hope is if we are in the first group. Yet if someone in the first group, say C, wants to find out whether she is in the first group, she has to assess either her own belief-forming processes or those of A and B. But in this case, how could C know her assessment was reliable? She could know this only if she already knows that she is in the first group. After all, since someone in the second group, say H, does not accept reasonably argued beliefs, then H’s assessment of her own ability to accept reasonably argued beliefs would not be reasonably argued and would not lead her to hold true beliefs about it. Since the true belief would be that she does not accept reasonably argued beliefs, H would conclude falsely that she does accept reasonably argued beliefs.43 And this is exactly what C would conclude about herself as well . “Thus on O’Hear’s suggestion no one could ever tell whether any position anybody accepted was reasonably argued; and, in particular, no one could tell whether physical determinism was reasonably argued and, further, whether it was true.”44 Glassen goes on to ask, who exactly is the person who is able to assess whether a belief is reasonably argued?

If it itself is a being that is determined to accept only positions ‘which are reasonably argued’, then we get involved in an infinite regress. If it is actually capable of apprehending the reasonableness of arguments, and accepts certain positions for that reason, then evidently it is not determined in the same way as is envisaged by the physical determinist: it is not one of those people who are determined by physical causes to accept only those positions which are reasonably argued. 45

Thus, we have to propose some stopping point, some stage, that is not physically determined. As long as this point has to be proposed, then determinism fails because it is no longer universal. Determinism’s detractors do not (or at least need not) deny, after all, that some things are determined.46 O’Hear’s response to Glassen (and Popper) is that we can identify whether or not a particular brain state with the mental state of realizing a belief is in accord with the evidence, and so subsequently give up that belief. Determin- ism posits that the brain state is the determining factor, but as long as we can associate it with a mental state and its logical operations, no problem arises. With regard to Glassen’s two groups, O’Hear takes someone from the “irrational” group, D , and simply denies that determinism would close him off to rational factors. “Now while I accept that all D ’s mental states are Popper Function 133 ex-hypothesi determined there is no reason on deterministic grounds why D should be enclosed within an unbreakable circle of what he individually and idiosyncratically is determined to accept as true.”47 This is singularly unconvincing. Regarding the first point, the problem Popper and Glassen raise is that if a particular mental state—say, of realizing a belief is not in accord with the evidence—is identical to a brain state, the subsequent renunciation of that belief would not be the product of the mental state but of the brain state: it would not take place because of the logical connection between beliefs but because of the physical connections between succeeding brain states. But in this case, we can have no preference for the thought processes of a rational man over those of a lunatic: both are caused by physical connections. As for O’Hear’s statement that “there is no reason on deterministic grounds why D should be enclosed within an unbreakable circle of what he individually and idiosyncratically is determined to accept as true,” the counterresponse is that there is such a reason: that is precisely the determinist hypothesis that Popper and Glassen are criticizing. Deter- minism posits a closed circle with no outside to it. To deny this is simply to deny determinism. O’Hear’s resistance is interesting in part because it appears that the Sky- hook continued working on him, such that fifteen years later he argued that the properties of the human mind—e.g., intentions, norms, and practices— cannot be completely explained in scientific terms, and that the attempt to do so is ultimately self-defeating.

This is because science itself is a practice, and because in choosing to do it at all and in doing it in particular ways, we will be subjecting ourselves to normative considerations. We will be having at the back of our mind the idea that, for various reasons, it is for the best that we engage in science, and that engaging in it in such a way is the best way to do it. In this sense, the decisions to do science and to do it in a particular way are on a par with Socrates’ decision to stay in his prison cell, rather than let his bones and sinews (or genes) take him into exile. They are all decisions which cannot be given a scientific justification, and which demand a justification logically independent from anything we might discover in scientific accounts. It would then be, to say the least, self-defeating, if science—done in the best way and for the best motives, done in Socrates’ terms because of Mind—were to tell us that Mind in this sense plays no part in human affairs, or that it is an illusion foisted on us by genetic working on quite other principles.48

Thus, O’Hear seems to have changed his mind and developed a Skyhook of his own. He further argues that “the theory of evolution in the strict sense of an account of species survival and origin, cannot justify our basic epistemological standpoint against scepticism.”49 That is, skepticism remains a problem for those who seek to reduce rationality to evolutionary and 134 Popper Function scientific terms, and this is a problem since it seems to be a form of skepticism that defeats itself: if the skepticism entailed by naturalism is correct, it gives us a reason to not accept any of our conclusions, including skepticism and naturalism. Survival value is not enough to justify the possibility of knowledge. To do that, we must look elsewhere.

Notes 1. Dennett (2009, 10062) mentions mathematical physicist Roger Penrose and paleobiologist Simon Conway Morris in this regard. 2. Bradie 1986. 3. See Popper 1972, 73–74, 106–22, 153–61; 1994; Popper and Eccles 1977, 36–50. 4. Popper and Eccles 1977, 38. 5. More specifically, a “trialist,” a term coming from neurophysiologist John Eccles’s assessment of (and agreement with) Popper in the former’s 1977, 189. Eccles also addresses the Skyhook in his 1976, 101. 6. Eddington 1929, 63–67. See chapter 11 . 7. Popper and Eccles 1977, 41–42. Cf. Penrose 1989, 112–16; Popper 1994, 24–46. 8. Popper 1994, 27. 9. Popper disagrees with Plato on several key points, however: he denies that essences exist; maintains that world 3 is “man-made in its origin”; allows false conjectures to be a part of world 3; and denies infallibilism (Popper and Eccles 1977, 43–45). 10. See Popper 1968a, 134–35; 1968b; 1968c; 1972, 119–22, 136–37, 235–40; 1994, 81–92; Popper and Eccles 1977, 57–60. 11. Bühler 1965, 25–28. 12. Popper 1982a, 83, italics his. 13. Popper 1968a, 135 n. 6, italics his. 14. Popper 1968a, 135. 15. Popper 1968a, 134. 16. Popper 1994, 81. 17. Popper 1968b, 295, italics omitted. 18. Cf. Plantinga’s distinction between indicative and depictive representations in chapter 10 . 19. Popper 1968b, 295. 20. For a fuller treatment of this issue, see chapter 12. 21. Popper 1968b, 298. 22. Popper 1968b, 297. 23. Popper 1994, 8–9. 24. This would seem to go against the claim posited above that Popper’s Skyhook does not appeal to normativity: by using standards, he is appealing to prescriptions and norms. But the present argument is based on the three worlds framework, not the four languages framework, and it is only the latter that does not address normativity. 25. Popper and Eccles 1977, 75–81. 26. Popper 1972, 223–24. 27. Popper 1972, 226, italics his. “Indeterminism Is Not Enough” is also the title of his 1982b. 28. Grünbaum 1953, 775–77; Armstrong 1968, 200; Ayer 1968, 266–67. 29. Hasker 1999, 62–63. See chapter 2 . Popper Function 135 30. Popper 1982a, 1–2, italics omitted. 31. Popper 1982a, 68–70. Naturally, some (Dennett perhaps) would argue that any such machine just is a mind, and, conversely, a mind just is such a machine, so Popper’s perceived benefit in putting his argument in these terms would not be as accommodating. Regardless, this would not affect the validity of the argument itself. 32. Popper 1982a, 72. 33. Popper 1982a, 80, italics mine. 34. Lucas (1970, 97) demurs from this: “. . . many forms of scientific explanation are not of the Hempelian form, of covering laws and initial conditions. Hardly any biological explanation is of this form, nor any geological one. Nor are most chemical ones nor even many physical ones. Chemical explanations are very often time-independent. They show why some configuration is stable, rather than calculate how it changes with the passage of time. They are in terms of sym- metries and group operators, not initial conditions and laws of development. So far as the practice of scientists go, there is little reason to fix on regularity explanation as the paradigm form of scientific explanation.” 35. Popper 1982a, 79, italics his. 36. Although it should be noted that he does not himself change topics from scientific determinism, he just points out the similarities between the argument he has just presented with the argument that determinism is self-defeating. 37. Sellars 1954, 24. 38. Popper 1968c, 301. 39. Patricia Churchland 1981. See chapters 4 and 12 for a refutation of this argument. 40. Popper 1983, 103. 41. Popper and Eccles 1977, 75. 42. O’Hear 1980, 145. 43. Potentially, H could conclude that she does not accept reasonably argued beliefs, but if she did, that belief would not be reasonably argued either: even if she sometimes arrives at true beliefs, she would not believe them for the right reasons. And she could not argue from this that she simply must be in the second group, since there is no other way for her to conclude that she does not accept reasonably argued beliefs (no member of the first group could conclude this without contradiction). But such a conclusion would be one of those reasonably argued beliefs of which she is incapable. 44. Glassen 1984, 376; cf. Plantinga 2000, 338–39. 45. Glassen 1984, 376. 46. See, however, the brief discussion on theistic determinism in chapter 13. 47. O’Hear 1984, 378. 48. O’Hear 1997, 13. 49. O’Hear 1997, 99. 9 Being Thomas Nagel

. . . materialism is the philosophy of the subject who forgets to take account of himself. Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation

1 Nowhere Man

1.1 Summary In “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” and The View from Nowhere , Thomas Nagel argues that there is an element to the mind that is ignored by physical attempts at mind-body reduction.1 Moreover, it is not just one minor element, an insignificant accessory that could perhaps be disposed of with impunity. Rather it is a key player: it is the key player: it is the sine qua non of mind itself. It is the subjective perspective, the first-person standpoint, the conscious experience of the being in question. “. . . no matter how the form may vary, the fact that an organism has conscious experience at all means, basically, that there is something it is like to be that organism. . . . fundamentally an organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something that it is like to be that organism—something it is like for the organism.” 2 Nagel chooses bats as his point of departure because their morphological means and the methods by which they have experiences are far enough removed from our own so as to represent “a fundamentally alien form of life,” 3 but not so far removed that we could reasonably deny that they have experiences. Our sensory apparatus do not provide us with a sufficient parallel to really imagine what it is like to find items via echolocation, for example—and at any rate, any attempt to use our experiences to imagine what a bat’s experiences would be like would tell us only “what it would be like for me to behave as a bat behaves. But that is not the question. I want to know what it is like for a bat to be a bat. . . . Even if I could by grad- ual degrees be transformed into a bat, nothing in my present constitution enables me to imagine what the experiences of such a future stage of myself thus metamorphosed would be like. The best evidence would come from the experiences of bats, if we only knew what they were like.”4 Being Thomas Nagel 137 This, however, presents an enormous obstacle for any attempt at reduction of the mind to its physical, material components since “Any reductionist program has to be based on an analysis of what is to be reduced. If the analysis leaves something out, the problem will be falsely posed.”5 Insofar as we do not know what it is like to be a bat—that is, what it is like for a bat to be a bat—any attempted analysis is bound to be incomplete. Indeed, the whole purpose of such a reduction is to describe the mind from an objective, third-person standpoint, and what Nagel is confronting us with is the subjective, first-person standpoint. The objective of physicalism and mate- rialism6 is to explain everything from the third-person point of view with nothing left over. One may argue that the first-person standpoint is, or will someday be seen to be, reducible to the third-person, but that just faces us with Nagel’s claim that in order for such a reduction to take place, it must be an analysis that does not leave out anything, and this would include the subjective, first-person point of view that is (with apologies to Brentano) the hallmark of the mental.7 Nagel is not criticizing the objective, third-person perspective, merely its claims to completeness. In fact, the first- and third-person perspectives are mutually dependent. Our first-person encounters with the world naturally lead to third-person conceptualizations. 8 But the third-person requires the first just as much, given that any generalization requires the particulars it is a generalization of ; otherwise there would be nothing to generalize. Thus the abstracting of first-person experiences into a third-person conceptualization cannot leave the former behind. These first-person experiences are a part of the world and in fact add something to it, as demonstrated by our recognition that there must be something it is like to be a bat, some level of understanding that can be had only from that perspective. “Some things can only be understood from the inside.”9

1.2 Analysis Thus far, we have not encountered a Skyhook, although we can see what form one might take: materialism cannot account for the phenomenon of experience (that is, subjective, first-person experience), and without experience there can be no knowledge, no argumentation, and no affirmation. Specifically, there can be no knowledge, argumentation, or affirmation of materialism. There is an irreducible first-person perspective that we cannot remove without sabotaging any claim to knowledge or rationality. We can, at this juncture, make three points. First, in all of this Nagel is arguing against the drive in science and philosophy to describe all of reality from an objective position. This is impossible, he contends, because any attempt to remove the observer’s particular point of view can be done only from another point of view. Since science purports to explain the world exclusively from a third-person perspective, science cannot be the whole story. This conclusion may run contrary to the vision of some scientists and 138 Being Thomas Nagel philosophers of science who see any attempt to limit science’s universal scope as an attack on science itself, but this vision, Nagel argues, is misguided. Nagel is not challenging science’s claims; he is simply arguing that there are other claims to be made. Science is not false or misleading; it is merely incomplete. Second, Nagel’s philosophy of mind specifically excludes an element that many Skyhooks rely on, to wit, Aristotle’s dictum that the intellect must be able to become all things.10 If there is any element of reality, any fact that the mind cannot apprehend, then for all we know, that is where the truth lies and we will have missed it. In order to avoid a self-defeating skepticism, we must posit mind as limitless in outlook. As Ted Honderich put it before rebutting such concerns, “It needs to have been the case, as was remarked, that we have explored reality rather than been guided on one tour of it.” 11 Nagel, however, not only denies this—his position is that there are truths and facts that are unobtainable by any human intellect in principle 12 —he actually bases (or will base) his Skyhook on it. This is a very intriguing twist. Third, the concerns Nagel has raised thus far were not unprecedented. Nagel himself points to several essays prior to the publication of “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” in 1974 by himself and others that raised similar issues. 13 We can also note similarities between Nagel and Lewis on this point.14

1.3 Nagel’s Skyhook We can now ask whether Nagel’s concerns lead him to a Skyhook. He certainly hints at one when he writes, “Physicalism, though unacceptable, has behind it a broader impulse to which it gives distorted and ultimately self-defeating expression”15 —in particular, a “bleached-out physical conception of objectivity” that cannot account for “the mental activity of forming an objective conception of the physical world” in the first place. 16 However, it is when he turns to evolutionary epistemology that Nagel expresses his concerns in depth. “We are encouraged these days,” he writes, “to think of ourselves as contingent organisms arbitrarily thrown up by evolution.” Yet “There is no reason in advance to expect a finite creature like that to be able to do more than accumulate information at the percep- tual and conceptual level it occupies by nature. But apparently that is not how things are.” 17 Evolution seeks to explain our cognitive abilities by dint of the struggle for survival. But this is insufficient: evolution, Nagel argues, could only “explain why creatures with vision or reason will survive, but it does not explain how vision or reasoning are possible. . . . The possibility of minds capable of forming progressively more objective conceptions of reality is not something the theory of natural selection can attempt to explain, since it doesn’t explain possibilities at all, but only selection among them.” 18 Nagel’s problem here is that the attempt to reduce reasoning to the physical substrate on which it supervenes similarly leads to skepticism. When we think “naturalistically about how language and logic work,” we must take Being Thomas Nagel 139 the thoughts we are thinking at the moment as pointing beyond our individual experiences and having a much wider applicability.

(T)he external account it gives of what is really going on when we apply a formula or a concept to indefinitely many cases—what the apparently infinite reach of meaning really rests on—is not an account we can take on internally. For example we can’t think of the correct application of ‘plus 2’ as being determined by nothing more than the fact that a certain application is natural to those who share our language and form of life, or by anything else of the sort. In employing the concept we must think of it as determining a unique function over infinitely many cases, beyond all our applications and those of our community and independent of them, or else it would not be the concept it is.19

If this is the case, however, then it would mean that we cannot explain human knowledge, including scientific knowledge, in terms of natural selection. Our ability to formulate highly abstract theories about the natural world and its operations far exceed whatever survival pressures our evolutionary forebears may have faced. The ability of an early hominid to avoid danger and pursue procreation cannot evidently be extended to a reliable ability to form scientific theories (such as evolution) or metaphysical theories (such as materialism or physicalism). Our beliefs, reasonings, items of knowledge, etc., are not merely applicable to what we have collectively experienced. And as before, if we believe that some of our beliefs are merely the product of natural selection, that belief itself cannot be similarly treated. Nagel argues that this is a psychological necessity: we are simply incapable of believing something while fully taking that belief to be a mere evolutionary holdover, a spandrel, the truth of which is irrelevant or unspecified. Therefore, Nagel argues, if we accept that our cognitive faculties are entirely the product of natural selection, we should be skeptical about their reliability, and we can apply this skepticism in particular to evolution and naturalism. “In fact if, per impossibile, we came to believe that our capacity for objective theory were the product of natural selection, that would warrant serious skepticism about its results beyond a very limited and familiar range.”20 This would amount to a Skyhook if we add that natural selection is itself an objective theory that transcends the “very limited and familiar range” in question. However, Nagel does not do so here. For a true Skyhook, we have to look to his next work.

2 The Next to Last Word Nagel’s point in The View from Nowhere is that we cannot explain subjective experience from an objective perspective. In The Last Word he applies this same objection to reasoning. We cannot bracket the alleged truth-conduciveness of our reasoning processes and the truth of the beliefs thereby produced and 140 Being Thomas Nagel examine them from an external, objective, scientific standpoint. To do so is to obviate the processes and the resulting beliefs of their truth value. We cannot understand reasoning objectively by reducing it to the physical processes that instantiate it. Nagel argues that there are certain claims that are the bedrock level of reality and knowledge that we cannot get behind or around (they are the “last word”). In essence, reductionist philosophies seek to explain why we believe what we do in terms external to the beliefs. 21 But “we can’t understand thought from the outside”: any attempt to do so is ultimately self-defeating. In consonance with his earlier works he writes, “The issue, in a nutshell, is whether the first person, singular or plural, is hiding at the bottom of everything we say or think.”22 However, this is not to say that we have to understand reasoning subjectively, if by this we mean to rob it of its objective value. That would lead us to subjectivism, perspectivalism, or relativism. The claim of these positions is that our acts of reasoning can be fully explained in terms of the particular conditions of the individual or group. Nagel responds that any such attempt leads directly to a Skyhook as well. Thus, the well-known problem of applying relativism to itself immediately intrudes. Is the relativist’s belief in relativism a statement of how things really are? Then it is self-defeating, because it could be an objective description only if relativism is false. Is her relativism just a product of her particular condition and not a statement of how things are? Then it does not rule out the possibility that other people’s beliefs (and even the relativist’s other beliefs) are not relative but objective; indeed, it does not rule out the possibility that relativism is objectively false. “But then it does not call for a reply, since it is just a report of what the [relativist] finds it agreeable to say.”23 In contrast, “The essential characteristic of reasoning is its generality. If I have reasons to conclude or to believe or to want or to do something, they cannot be reasons just for me—they would have to justify anyone else doing the same in my place.”24

. . . since reasoning produces belief, and belief is always belief in the truth of what is believed, the distinction between the mere phenomenological acknowledgment of reason and the recognition of its objective validity is not intelligible. We can’t, for example, just observe from the sidelines that logic provides an unconditional frame for our thoughts. We may of course decide, for good reasons, to abandon as erroneous forms of argument that we once found persuasive. But if reflection and argument actually do persuade us of something, it is not going to be possible for us at the same time to regard that as just a deep fact about the phenomenology of thought. This is merely an instance of the impossibility of thinking “It is true that I believe that p; but that is just a psychological fact about me; about the truth of p itself, I remain uncommitted.”25 Being Thomas Nagel 141 We cannot take all of our thoughts relativistically or subjectively; we will inevitably employ some concept in an absolute sense, even in denying the possibility of any such absolutes. If one tries to explain one’s beliefs in (say) mathematics by examining one’s personal history or psychological make-up or neurophysiology, one will have to do so from a standpoint of some other beliefs that one does not explain in this way. So reasoning must be subjective and not objective insofar as those terms refer to whether or not reasoning can be understood from a perspective outside reasoning, the scientific standpoint. But it must be objective and not subjective insofar as those terms refer to whether or not truth and validity apply beyond the individual, group, or society. Reasoning must be subjective in the sense of being irreducible to processes external to reason itself and objective in the sense of having universal applicability to the real world and other people. Any denial of either side leads immediately to a Skyhook and so is self-defeating. Nagel takes Descartes’s cogito to be a statement that there is an element to reasoning that can neither be reduced to materialistic or physicalistic terms nor be removed; any attempt to remove it can get underway only by employing it in the first place. 26 Moreover, “It isn’t only ‘I exist’ that keeps bouncing back at us in response to every effort to doubt it.” Mathematics and logic similarly cannot be doubted without presupposing a good deal of mathematics and logic. Nagel thinks this holds true of ethics as well. “It’s the same everywhere. Challenges to the objectivity of science can be met only by further scientific reasoning, challenges to the objectivity of history by history, and so forth.” 27 Thus, after his initial chapters, Nagel goes on to apply this line of argument to logic, language, science, and ethics.

3 The Latest Last Word In Mind and Cosmos , Nagel further seeks to demonstrate that materialistic and evolutionary accounts of the mind fail. 28 Given this failure, we must reconceive the whole scientific process so that it can explain the presence of minds “since the problem cannot be quarantined in the mind.”29 In other words, given that minds are the end-product, we have to reverse-engineer the process so that the beginning stages make it likely that they would eventually lead to minds. This means that the universe must be more than just physical objects, properties, and processes; there must be some sort of mental aspect, one that is present from the very beginning. Nagel does not take this in a theistic direction, but argues that there must be teleological laws built into the universe in addition to the laws science has (hitherto) focused on. This does not necessarily mean, as some have suggested, that Nagel is embracing panpsychism—the view that consciousness, mind, or sentience is present in every natural object. Pan- psychism certainly entails teleology, but the converse is not true. More 142 Being Thomas Nagel particularly, natural teleology—“teleology without intent” 30 —does not necessarily entail panpsychism. There may be teleological laws in the world, but Nagel is specifically arguing that these laws are not necessarily indicative of a mind, whether cosmic or supercosmic. They are just brute givens. Nagel’s affirmation of teleological laws is not a denial of evolution itself, something he remains convinced of, 31 but of materialistic evolution. Any- thing less than teleology is bound to treat the mind as an accidental byproduct of the struggle for survival. Of course, many philosophers and scientists have no difficulty treating the mind as an accidental byproduct. Nagel gives two reasons for his disagreement. First, this is a failure to look for the right kind of explanation. He gives the example of several members of a family dying in close succession. “We may know the causes of the deaths . . . but that will not explain why several members of that family died, as such, unless there is some relation among the causes of the individual deaths that makes it antecedently likely that they would strike the group—such as a ven- detta or a genetic disease.” 32 The way science is currently conceived, Nagel is arguing, is to explain the individual causes of death and then end any further discussion. But this cuts off the potential discovery of a larger explanation. Of course, this analogy only goes so far—the deaths may actually be a coincidence without any overarching explanation to unite them. The presence of minds, however, is a conspicuous and significant aspect of the universe, and “systematic features of the natural world are not coincidences.” 33 To explain it away as an accident does not comport with the credit we ascribe to it; specifically the credit that the materialist ascribes to it when thinking about evolution or materialism itself.

Eventually the attempt to understand oneself in evolutionary, naturalistic terms must bottom out in something that is grasped as valid in itself—something without which the evolutionary understanding would not be possible. Thought moves us beyond appearance to something that we cannot regard merely as a biologically based disposition, whose reliability we can determine on other grounds. It is not enough to be able to think that if there are logical truths, natural selection might very well have given me the capacity to recognize them. That cannot be my ground for trusting my reason, because even that thought implicitly relies on reason in a prior way.34

This leads to Nagel’s second reason for rejecting the materialistic account: the Epistemological Skyhook. Materialism, Nagel argues, is “ radically self-undermining.” 35 “Evolutionary naturalism provides an account of our capacities that undermines their reliability, and in so doing undermines itself.”36 The undermining of their reliability is most evident within an area such as ethics. Many philosophers argue (and Nagel spends his final chapter of Mind and Cosmos agreeing with them) that when we explain our moral Being Thomas Nagel 143 beliefs in an evolutionary manner, it voids their content. According to these philosophers, we do not believe murder is wrong because murder actually is wrong, but because it was useful for our evolutionary forebears to believe it. But while his opponents argue that this renders our moral beliefs defunct, Nagel argues that our moral beliefs are valid; and if materialism is incompatible with this, it is materialism that must go. Yet this problem applies far beyond ethics. “Evolutionary naturalism implies that we shouldn’t take any of our convictions seriously, including the scientific world picture on which evolutionary naturalism itself depends.” 37 If all of our beliefs are subjected to evolutionary explanations, then they are just as empty as our moral beliefs. This may seem counterintuitive— wouldn’t the propensity to believe truths about our environment promote survival? 38 —but this would apply only to our senses, not to our rationality: “the judgment that our senses are reliable because their reliability contributes to fitness is legitimate, but the judgment that our reason is reliable because its reliability contributes to fitness is incoherent. That judgment cannot itself depend on this kind of empirical confirmation without generating a regress.” 39 Materialistic evolution gives us a reason to reject all of our beliefs as nonveridical, including our belief in materialistic evolution itself. Nagel’s solution, the insertion of teleology into the natural order, would expand our concept of naturalism as well as science. This is an awkward position, however. To have causes directed towards an end without a mind to do the directing is difficult to hold together. The very concept of teleology seems to entail a directing mind, and the introduction of teleology into the universe as a whole suggests a mind overarching the universe that is strikingly similar to the theism Nagel decries. Moreover, simply adding teleology to nature does not really solve the problem Nagel poses. If there are teleological laws simply built in to the universe, then these laws would be contingent, that is, not necessary in the logical sense. But as long as this remains the case, they could have been different (or entirely absent for that matter), and so we would need an explanation of why they are the case rather than not. If we are willing to grant, as many naturalists seem wont to do, that natural laws, while contingent, are not subject to change, then we could potentially say the same of Nagel’s teleological laws. But if we want to know why any contingent law—natural or teleological—can be counted on to remain the same from one moment to the next, then we will ask it of both classes. Nagel seeks to resolve the problem as it applies to natural laws by appealing to teleological laws. But this just forces us to ask the same question of them. It seems that this backwards chain of contingency must terminate in a source that is not contingent—that we must ultimately presuppose a noncontingent source for both natural laws and teleological laws in order to have either. 40 And noncontingency—that is, logical necessity—is one of the attributes traditionally ascribed to God. 144 Being Thomas Nagel 4 The Art of Controversy Perhaps it is this attempt to have teleology without theology that accounts for why Mind and Cosmos has received more than its fair share of criticism. Many thinkers who have sought to banish God from the world have naturally abandoned the teleology that seems to point to him. For Nagel to argue that teleology cannot be so abandoned but must play a role in our worldviews and our knowledge—including, most offensively, our scientific knowledge—is intolerable. That he does so from within the framework of academic atheism is heretical. He is attacking a central pillar in the atheistic edifice with no apparent regard as to whether (and on whom) the building will collapse. However, Nagel’s apostasy does not end here. What really sends his critics over the edge is his positive assessment of certain elements of the intelligent design movement. Nagel thinks some of the criticisms they offer against evolution harbor genuine insights 41 and recently listed an intelligent design book (on the origin of life, not evolution) as one of his “books of the year.”42 Again, he is doing this as an atheist . For one of the top atheist intellectuals to argue that the only viable alternative to theistic creation is woefully inadequate is to give aid and comfort to the enemy. One of the criticisms Nagel has received is that he does not understand how science works. Scientific method does not require us to abandon the most successful explanatory theory because it has yet to be exhaustive in its explanatory power and scope, particularly if there is no viable alternative being offered to replace it. In fact, this is one of the primary objections to theistic creationism of all stripes: supernatural creation does not amount to a theory at all because it is effectively unfalsifiable. Plus, what would be the mechanisms by which God created the first forms of life or the first represen- tative of a biological type? And even ignoring this, such a conception could hardly amount to a more successful explanation than the natural processes we observe all around us every day. Therefore, supernatural creation cannot supplant materialistic evolution. Nagel, however, sees no problem in rejecting materialistic evolution without offering any substitution.

What, I will be asked, is my alternative? Creationism? The answer is that I don’t have one, and I don’t need one in order to reject all existing proposals as improbable. One should not assume that the truth about this matter has already been conceived of—or hold onto a view just because no one can come up with a better alternative. Belief isn’t like action. One doesn’t have to believe anything, and to believe nothing is not to believe something.43

Yet this effectively takes away one of the greatest strengths of the atheism to which Nagel ascribes. Being Thomas Nagel 145 Thus, his detractors argue that Nagel’s skepticism about the explanatory power of materialistic evolution is a departure from the philosophical rigor and depth that characterizes his earlier career and isolates him from both the scientific and philosophical communities. Some have sought to answer this charge by pointing out that Nagel’s teleological naturalism has its share of advocates within the scientists’ guild, although it certainly remains a minority position.44 A similar case could be made for philosophy: Nagel points out that “The view that rational intelligibility is at the root of the natural order makes me, in a broad sense, an idealist . . . in the tradition of Plato and perhaps also of certain post-Kantians, such as Schelling and Hegel.”45 He also describes his proposal of “teleology without intention” as “Aristotelian.” 46 However, the reason why we have presented Nagel’s philosophy of mind in roughly chronological fashion is in order to point out that the teleological naturalism advocated in his latest work is completely continuous with his earlier work. As we have seen, he has been arguing since the 1970s that the first-person element of mind is irreducible and bound to be left out of any purely materialistic account. Insofar as science purports to describe the world from a third-person standpoint, science is inherently incomplete. He even gave panpsychism its due in 1979.47 In View from Nowhere, published in 1986, he was already condemning the contemporary attempt to make evolution the ground level of all explanation: “Evolutionary hand waving is an example of the tendency to take a theory which has been successful in one domain and apply it to anything else you can’t understand—not even to apply it, but vaguely to imagine such an application. It is also an example of the pervasive and reductive naturalism of our culture. . . . We have here one of those powerful reductionist dog- mas which seem to be part of the intellectual atmosphere we breathe” 48 —a statement that foreshadows his reference in Mind and Cosmos to what he calls a “Darwinism of the gaps.”49 He further argues that we must recon- figure what it means to be physical in order to account for the emergence of minds. In language strikingly similar to his later advocacy for teleology, he writes, “the universe must have fundamental properties that inevitably give rise through physical and biological evolution to complex organisms capable of generating theories about themselves and it.” 50 Materialism and physicalism, he argues, are too simplistic: an adequate explanation would have to be “fairly remarkable” and “would radically transform” our current conceptions.51 Above, I argued that Nagel’s teleological laws would be just as contingent as natural laws, and we need the backwards chain of dependence to terminate in a noncontingent source. Nagel similarly implies that we need a logically necessary source in order to get what he wants.

Descartes tried to provide one, together with grounds for certainty that it was true, by proving the existence of the right sort of God. While he was 146 Being Thomas Nagel not successful, the problem remains. To go on unambivalently holding our beliefs once this has been recognized requires that we believe that something—we know not what—is true that plays the role in our relation to the world that Descartes thought was played by God. (Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that Descartes’ God is a personification of the fit between ourselves and the world for which we have no explanation but which is necessary for thought to yield knowledge.)52

So, we need God or something like him in order for any kind of knowledge to be possible. Nagel, quite brilliantly, tries to walk the fine line of having the benefits without the benefactor. Why he goes to such lengths is expressed towards the end of Last Word:

I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is not a God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that. My guess is that this cosmic authority problem is not a rare condition and that it is responsible for much of the scientism and reductionism of our time.53

Nagel’s criticisms of materialistic evolution, his advocacy for something more than the natural laws science studies, his arguments that certain manifest aspects of reality cannot be explained from an objective, scientific “view from nowhere,” all find expression in his earlier work. Of course, pointing to these prefigurations does not mean that Mind and Cosmos is not an original work in its own right. It is a development, not a mere reiteration, of his earlier philosophy. Rather, the point is that Nagel’s critics seem to be suf- fering from selective outrage. If they really find his later works to be devoid of philosophical value, they should have been making this claim about his earlier (and much celebrated) work all along.

Notes 1. Nagel 1979b; 1986. 2. Nagel 1979b, 166, italics his. This is a point permeating most of Nagel’s work in philosophy of mind. 3. Nagel 1979b, 168. 4. Nagel 1979b, 169. 5. Nagel 1979b, 167. 6. Nagel argues against materialism and physicalism, but accepts naturalism with some significant qualifications. In fact, his 2012 is a naturalistic diatribe against materialism. 7. This does not refer to private individual experience, but rather to types. I can imagine what it is like to be another human being to some extent because I am a human being myself. Of course, there will still be limitations put on this, and Being Thomas Nagel 147 we can make them more intractable by imagining a color-blind human trying to imagine what it is like to see certain colors; or more dramatically, a human born blind trying to imagine what it is like to be a sighted human being (Nagel 1979b, 170, 171–72, 179). 8. Nagel 1986, 14. 9. Nagel 1986, 18. 10. Aristotle, On the Soul III.5, 430a15. This is the theory of the passive or material intellect. 11. Honderich 1990, 2:153–54 (1988, 521–22); cf. 1990, 2:47 (1988, 415). 12. Nagel 1979b, 171; 1986, 26, 90–109. 13. Nagel mentions his 1995a, 1979a, and 1995b (originally published in 1970, 1971, and 1972 respectively), as well as Farrell 1950, 183–85 and Sprigge 1971, 166–68. For a short account and bibliography (which includes Nagel, Farrell, and Sprigge) of predecessors to Frank Jackson’s similar, although not identical, knowledge argument, see Stoljar and Nagasawa 2004, 3–12, and Ludlow, Nagasawa, and Stoljar 2004, 443–44. 14. Specifically Lewis 1996b, originally published in 1945. 15. Nagel 1986, 16, italics mine. 16. Nagel 1986, 15. 17. Nagel 1986, 70. 18. Nagel 1986, 78–79. 19. Nagel 1986, 89. Cf. Kripke 1982, 62–66, which Nagel references. 20. Nagel 1986, 79. 21. Cf. Wick’s Skyhook, chapter 11. Recall also A. E. Taylor’s (1939, 267) claim that the problem with determinism is that it seeks to explain beliefs in terms that are extrinsic to what the beliefs are about (see chapter 2). 22. Nagel 1997, 3. 23. Nagel 1997, 15. 24. Nagel 1997, 5. 25. Nagel 1997, 31–32. 26. He also makes the trenchant comment that “the cogito is a philosophical Rorschach test, in which everyone sees his own obsessions” (Nagel 1997, 19 n. 3). 27. Nagel 1997, 20–21. 28. The following is adapted from Slagle 2013b. 29. Nagel 2012, 53. 30. Nagel 2012, 93. 31. Nagel 2012, 30. 32. Nagel 2012, 47–48. 33. Nagel 2012, 47. 34. Nagel 2012, 81. 35. Nagel 2012, 25, italics mine. 36. Nagel 2012, 27. 37. Nagel 2012, 28. 38. This is discussed further in chapter 12. 39. Nagel 2012, 125. 40. In fact, Nagel himself writes that the probability of creatures evolving with an ability for objective theorizing “is antecedently so improbable that the only possible explanation must be that it is in some way necessary. It is not the kind of thing that could be either a brute fact or an accident” (Nagel 1986, 81). His development of naturalistic teleological laws is an attempt to supply this necessity, although I am wary of them for the reasons mentioned. 41. Nagel 2010; 2012, 10–11. 42. Nagel 2009. 43. Nagel 1986, 81. 148 Being Thomas Nagel 44. Chorost 2013. 45. Nagel 2012, 17. This contrasts with his earlier renunciation of idealism in favor of realism (Nagel 1986, 26, 90–109), but I suspect these two positions could be made consistent. 46. Nagel 2012, 93. For more recent cases, see Baker 1987, 173–74; Madell 1989, 116; Cameron 2004, 85. 47. Nagel 1979c, cf. 1986, 49–51. 48. Nagel 1986, 78, 81. 49. Nagel 2012, 127. 50. Nagel 1986, 81. 51. Nagel 1986, 85, 8. 52. Nagel 1986, 84–85. 53. Nagel 1997, 130–31. He even points out that chapter 4 of Mind and Cosmos is a continuation of his final chapter of Last Word (2012, 79 n. 3). 10 Epistemology Supernaturalized

alvinize , v. To stimulate protracted discussion by making a bizarre claim. “His contention that natural evil is due to Satanic agency alvinized his listeners.” Daniel Dennett and Asbjørn Steglich-Petersen (eds.) Philosophical Lexicon

Naturalized epistemology was largely motivated by the alleged failure of deontological, or normative,1 epistemology associated with the Cartesian tradition. However, another motive was the presupposition of ontological naturalism. If the physical world is all that exists, then the value associated with judgments of normativity becomes as difficult to explain as any other form of value. Thus, naturalized epistemology sought to explain knowledge in the terms available to naturalism via science. Alvin Plantinga has proposed a theory of knowledge that he considers to belong to the most stringent class of naturalized epistemology. Central to it is the notion of proper function: a belief obtains warrant (Plantinga’s substitute for justification) if it is the product of one’s cognitive faculties functioning properly; or, to put it negatively, a belief lacks warrant if it is produced by cognitive malfunction. “I therefore suggest initially that a necessary condition of a belief’s having warrant for me is that my cognitive equipment, my belief-forming and belief-maintaining apparatus or powers, be free of such malfunction. A belief has warrant for you only if your cognitive apparatus is functioning properly, working the way it ought to work, in producing and sustaining it.” 2 “Proper function” is a scientific concept, used in biological and medical sciences. According to such eminent biologists as Ernst Mayr and George Williams, virtually every advance in physiology has been the product of asking what an organ or structure’s function is.3 However, many naturalistically minded philosophers are disturbed by Plantinga’s theory of knowledge because he is an outspoken Christian theist. But while it may seem unusual for him to embrace a position usually associated with ontological naturalism, he insists that this not only is appropriate, but is in fact the best way for any such epistemology to work. 150 Epistemology Supernaturalized “Naturalistic epistemology flourishes best in the garden of supernaturalistic metaphysics.”4 In fact, he argues that naturalism is incompatible with naturalized epistemology—and any other theory of knowledge for that matter. His argument for this conclusion is a Skyhook, one that has produced some literature.5

1 Defining the Constants Plantinga first presented his Skyhook, usually called the Evolutionary Argu- ment against Naturalism (or EAAN), in print in an essay that was reproduced with some changes as chapter 12 of Warrant and Proper Function . 6 The argument hinges on the equation P(R/N&E), where P means probability;7 R means that one’s cognitive faculties are reliable—that is, they form true beliefs most of the time; N means ontological naturalism; and E means evolution. N&E, then, refers to the conjunction of naturalism and evolution. Thus P(R/N&E) means “the probability that someone have reliable cognitive faculties, given naturalism and evolution.” “Someone” can refer, at this point, to any individual or group, including oneself or the group to which one belongs. To put it in the form of a question: “given that naturalism and evolution are true, what is the probability that someone would have reliable cognitive faculties?” Plantinga’s Skyhook claims that the probability is low and that this gives a person a defeater (specifically, an undercutting defeater) for any particular belief, including belief in naturalism and evolution. R, the proposition that our cognitive faculties are reliable, may be the hardest of these terms to pin down. What Plantinga means by cognitive faculties is “those faculties, or powers, or processes that produce beliefs or knowledge in us.” 8 Perhaps a cognitive scientist has a more technical definition of cognitive faculties than this; if so, she may substitute another in its stead: “belief-producing attributes” or something. Or perhaps she means something else by belief: then she may substitute another term for the mental items that have propositional content, which can be true or false, which fill a “that” clause. 9 The point is that what Plantinga means by beliefs are those mental items that have content, and what Plantinga means by cognitive faculties are those faculties or properties that produce this kind of belief. Cognitive faculties include perception, memory, a priori intuition, introspection, etc. So what would it mean to say the faculties that produce beliefs in us are reliable ? This cannot be given a precise figure, but in his most recent discussion Plantinga gives the conservative estimate that they are reliable if they produce true beliefs between two-thirds and three-fourths of the time.10 (This is conservative because producing false beliefs one-third or one-fourth of the time would not be considered “reliable” by most appraisals.) At any rate, saying that our faculties are two-thirds to three-fourths reliable is a general statement: there are certain circumstances or contexts where they are significantly more reliable as well as those where they are significantly Epistemology Supernaturalized 151 less reliable. A blind man could still have reliable cognitive faculties even though some of his sensory faculties do not produce any beliefs at all. Simi- larly, there are some areas where we suffer from cognitive malfunction. Not to mention that our faculties are reliable within a certain range; outside that range they are less reliable. Nevertheless, despite these qualifications, we take their reliability to be a general truth.

2 Darwin’s Doubt Now that we have given rough definitions of our constants (P, R, N, and E),11 we can see how we can form a rough Skyhook: if we think it improbable that our cognitive faculties should be reliable if we assume naturalism and evolution—that is, if P(R/N&E) is low—this may produce a defeater for (a reason to withhold belief in) R. But why think this? This does not mean that it is improbable that we in fact have reliable cognitive faculties. Of course we do. That would be to confuse P(R/N&E) with P(R). Nor does this mean that it is improbable that evolution could have produced creatures with reliable cognitive faculties. Of course it could have. That would be to confuse P(R/N&E) with P(R/E). In fact, it does not even mean that creatures with reliable cognitive faculties could not have been produced by naturalistic evolution. 12 All it claims is that the probability of this is low, .5 or lower. Improbable but not impossible. But, to repeat, why think this is improbable? More specifically, why does Plantinga think it improbable? The first thing to note is that he is not alone in this. He points to several nontheists who have alluded to something similar,13 but probably the most poignant example is Charles Darwin, prompting Plantinga to call such misgivings “Darwin’s Doubt.” In a letter written in 1881 to William Graham, Darwin writes, “with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?” 14 Thus, Darwin himself seemed to recognize that there is a disconnect between our brains being merely the product of evolution and our beliefs (“convictions”) being mostly true. Bear in mind that what evolution selects for is behavior , not belief. Even if we grant that belief content affects behavior, it is still only the behavior that is “seen” and selected by evolution. The raises a problem mentioned in chapter 7 : not all beliefs are relevant to action and not all action is relevant to survival and propagation. Moreover, actions are not just based on beliefs but on beliefs plus other factors, such as desires. This system has to be adequate for survival, but that can be achieved even if the beliefs are false. As long as the beliefs allow the individual to survive, it would have the same effects as a true belief. What this means is that beliefs that result in identical behavior would be equally likely to be selected by evolution. That is, a propensity for 152 Epistemology Supernaturalized survival-enhancing behavior is what would be selected, even if the behavior was caused by beliefs that were false or belief-forming mechanisms that were unreliable. If a hominid came across a sabre-tooth tiger during his morning constitutional, any belief that involved him running away or hiding would allow him to survive. So if he believes the tiger is dangerous and that he should run from it, these beliefs would result in the appropriate behavior. But so would the belief that tigers appear only when his cave is about to be destroyed to make way for a freeway bypass, so he had better run home to lie in front of the bulldozers; or the belief that the tiger is part of a circus act, but not wanting to exploit the poor animal by putting his head in its mouth, he should run away to show his refusal to participate.15 The point is straightforward: the number of true beliefs that bring about an action is much smaller than the number of false beliefs that bring about that same action. Given this, evolution would not tend to select true beliefs or reliable belief-forming processes. 16 All it would select is beliefs or belief-forming processes that lead to adaptive behavior, and this is completely consistent with half or more of the beliefs being false. So, Plantinga argues, given this scenario, the probability that any particular belief is true is less than .50, since the number of true beliefs that lead to adaptive behavior is dwarfed by the number of false beliefs that lead to identical behavior, and it is only behavior that is “seen” and “selected” by evolution. However, this is assuming that belief content can cause behavior, and according to Plantinga (and many others) this is extremely implausible given naturalism. In a naturalistic universe, behavior would be caused by the physical, neurological structures of an organism’s brain or nervous system. But these structures are perfectly compatible with any number of belief contents. A particular neural structure that embodies the belief “It’s raining outside” could just as easily embody the belief “It isn’t raining outside”; or “It’s raining inside ”; or, for that matter, “A healthy diet consists of large quantities of broken glass.” As long as that neural structure brings about the advantageous behavior, then the content of the belief associated with it is simply irrelevant. In philosophical parlance, a belief’s semantics would not issue in behavior, but its syntax would. So Plantinga argues that if belief content influences behavior, then the probability that any particular belief is true is less than .50, since the number of false beliefs that lead to identical behavior is greater than the number of true beliefs that lead to it. If, on the other hand, we deny that belief content influences behavior, any particular neural structure could be associated with a seemingly unlimited number of beliefs. Here, however, Plantinga extends an olive branch and suggests that, for any potential belief, either it or its negation would be true. So, if we deny the efficacy of belief content, the probability that any particular belief is true is .50. This does not get us very far, however: if we ascribe to a belief a .50 probability that it is true, we still have a reason to withhold belief in it, a reason to not believe it (although not necessarily to dis believe it). So on Plantinga’s scenario, we have a reason to Epistemology Supernaturalized 153 withhold belief in the case of any belief one proposes. And obviously naturalism (N) is a belief, evolution (E) is a belief, and the confluence of naturalism with evolution (N&E) is a belief. So if N is true, we have a reason not to believe N, E, and N&E. Obviously, denying E would not resolve the problem, so to avoid it we should deny N. Moreover, any attempt to shore up the difficulties, to provide a counterbalancing reason why we should accept N, could not get underway, for that reason would also have an undercutting defeater for precisely the same reasons. So, it is not just that N gives us a defeater for N; it gives us an undefeatable defeater for N. It is, in principle, impossible to void this defeater, so one could never rationally believe N. This may be enough for the argument to go forward, but Plantinga wants to deliver a coup de grâce. If N gives us a reason to withhold belief in any particular proposition one suggests, that means that our cognitive faculties are not reliable, which in turn means that we should not believe that they are reliable—that is, we should not believe R. Moreover, R is just another belief, and if any particular belief one selects has a defeater, R has a defeater as well. So we have two reasons, given N, not to believe R: a) having a reason to withhold belief in any particular belief just means that our cognitive faculties are not reliable; and b) R is one such belief itself. But if we have a reason to withhold belief in R, the proposition that our cognitive faculties tend to produce true beliefs, we have a reason to withhold belief in any belief that is produced by our cognitive faculties—which would be all of them. In this case, it is not enough to say that any particular belief has a defeater: we can also say that all of our beliefs, taken together, have a defeater. And again, this would obviously include N (as well as E and N&E). Therefore, if N is true, we have a defeater for N. It is self-defeating.

3 Three Objections

3.1 Indubitable Beliefs One common objection is that some beliefs seem so foundational that we simply cannot bracket them and seriously doubt them—and R is one such belief. Unfortunately, even if we grant this, this does not help the naturalist; for while R may be an indubitable belief, N is not. The truth of N is not directly perceived, nor does it impose itself upon us as powerfully as R does. Rather, it is an inferred belief, a metaphysical belief. We can easily accommodate this by qualifying the Skyhook’s target. In this case, we are not asking about the reliability of our cognitive faculties in general (R); we are asking about the reliability of the sub-faculties that produce metaphysical beliefs (MR) and the veracity of the metaphysical beliefs they produce. Therefore, if the claim that naturalism calls all of our beliefs into question is a sticking point, one can simply replace R with MR throughout the argument and proceed unhindered. 17 P(MR/N&E) is equal to or less than .50. As such, N produces a defeater for any metaphysical belief, including N itself, and so is self-defeating. 154 Epistemology Supernaturalized 3.2 Building a System Another frequent objection to Plantinga’s Skyhook is that his initial argument allows for a belief to be false only in a very particular set of circumstances. It does not demonstrate that most of our beliefs may be false. The unanswered question is: How could there be a system of false beliefs that leads to adaptive behavior? Certainly, one can come up with some bizarre belief that would allow a hominid to survive one particular circumstance, but it is difficult to see how such beliefs could be generalized into a system. Perhaps believing falsely that a sabre-tooth tiger is a harmless kitty that wants to be petted and the best way to pet it is to run away will produce survival-enhancing behavior in those particular circumstances, but it will not allow the hominid to survive living in a world with a multitude of dangers in innumerable permutations. 18 What a person believes about one thing affects what she believes about many other things. Plantinga has proposed a situation that is ad hoc , and the idea of systematizing ad hoc situations is almost a contradiction in terms. Unless he provides an alternative system that is a) as expansive as the one we have, b) as internally coherent as the one we have, and c) unreliable, in the sense of consisting of mostly false beliefs, we are justified in trusting the reliability of our cognitive equipment. To accommodate this, Plantinga makes another proposal. 19 He suggests that a hypothetical population could falsely believe that everything is a witch. If they used definite description to invoke reference, in Russell’s sense, 20 and these were expressible by singular sentences (such as “That witch-cloud is blocking out the witch-sun”), such descriptions would be false and so render all of their beliefs false. Plantinga’s strategy is thus to introduce something to all beliefs at the definitional or essential level. “If they ascribe the right properties to the right witches, their beliefs could be adaptive while nonetheless (assuming that in fact there aren’t any witches) false.”21

There are plenty of other ways in which systems of mainly false beliefs can be adaptive. . . . Michael Rea argues that naturalism implies an ontology of gunk, an ontology according to which there really aren’t any objects (although there is a sort of continuous gunk or goo which may, as they say, be ‘propertied’ differently in different places). 22 Sup- pose Rea is right: then since most of our beliefs imply that there are objects, most of our beliefs will be false. Still our natural way of cutting the world up into objects could be adaptive; if so, most of our beliefs would be false but adaptive.23

Plantinga’s examples may seem unconvincing because the believer in witch- clouds and the disbeliever in discrete objects still perceive the physical world accurately; it is merely their way of looking at it that is incorrect. Under these scenarios, the objects perceived are really there but their underlying nature or their relationship to other objects and the whole is obviated. Thus, while Epistemology Supernaturalized 155 their beliefs would be technically incorrect, a critic may think their beliefs would still be true in a sense . 24 However, we can address this by replacing Plantinga’s examples with others. Take, for example, two-dimensional beings who live in a two-dimensional universe, yet inaccurately conceive themselves to be three-dimensional beings in a three-dimensional universe. 25 This three-dimensionality attaches to virtually everything else they believe and does not affect their survivability because they respond appropriately to their two-dimensional universe. Are their beliefs mostly true? They see a two-dimensional counterpart to a cloud blocking out their two-dimensional source of light and form the belief, “That three-dimensional cloud is blocking out the three-dimensional sun” (which, to them, would just be “That cloud is blocking out the sun,” given that their conceptions of clouds and the sun and everything else are inherently three-dimensional). In this case, their beliefs would almost always be false, and not in the seemingly innocuous way that beliefs in witch-clouds would be.

3.3 Indicators and Depictors Another objection to Plantinga’s earlier Skyhook is that naturalism is able to provide a type of representation, and beliefs are just a type of representation. So true beliefs or reliable belief-forming processes could be selected by natural selection. In response, Plantinga makes a distinction between indicative representations, which he also calls indicators, and depictive representations, which by analogy we can call depictors. Depictors depict the world as being a certain way. If the way they depict the world is the way the world actually is, then they are true, and if the way they depict the world is not the way the world actually is, they are false. Indicators, on the other hand, indicate something about the world without rising to the level of depiction. If what they indicate about the world is not the way the world actually is, we do not say that they are false but merely idiosyncratic or, in a qualified sense, inaccurate. This is because, unlike depictors, indicators do not represent something “ as being this or that.”26 A thermometer indicates the temperature, and we may even say that it is accurate “in a Pickwickian sense: a representation r , of this sort, is accurate if the state that r is in is the one with which r is correlated—in this case, the ambient temperature. Repre- sentations of this sort will therefore be trivially accurate.”27 A thermometer that reads the temperature as 30 degrees when it is really 30 is not true but simply accurate, and one that reads 70 degrees in the same environment is inaccurate or idiosyncratic in some way. “Of course the representation isn’t true (or false); the mechanism is not speaking truly when it attains the state that matches the ambient temperature, and it isn’t speaking falsely either.” 28 The question at hand is whether material objects and events (like neurons and neurological processes) can be depictors and so be about something: whether they can have propositional content and, in light of which, can be true or false, which may allow them to be “visible” to natural selection. The 156 Epistemology Supernaturalized reason this is the question at hand is because that is what beliefs are—beliefs are about things, have propositional content, and can be true or false—and it is beliefs that are the subject under discussion.29 The argument is that, given naturalism, it is very improbable that most of our beliefs, understood as depictors, would be true. To make the point, he quotes a famous passage from Leibniz’s Monadol- ogy envisioning a machine “which was constructed in such a way as to give rise to thinking, sensing, and having perceptions.” 30 If we enlarged it so that we could go inside it (like a mill, Leibniz suggests) and observe all the various motions and parts, all we would observe is motions and parts—not thoughts, sensations, perceptions, or anything characteristic of mentality. In particular, we would not find beliefs . Observing all these various parts, we would still be stuck with the question, where is the content? How does that part moving as it does in relation to those parts have any content? If physical objects and processes are not “about” anything, then the physical objects and processes involved in Leibniz’s thinking machine are not about anything either. Just as Hume argues that we cannot get a prescription from a description, an “ought” from an “is,” because the former “expresses some new relation or affirmation,”31 so Leibniz and Plantinga argue that we cannot get content from physical objects and processes, since content (or “aboutness”) also expresses a new relation or affirmation. If we multiply the number of descriptions to the point where we have an enormously complex system, so much so that we cannot keep track of all of the individual elements that make it up, we are still no closer to a prescription (an “ought”) than we were with a single description (an “is”). Similarly, we can make Leibniz’s machine larger and more complicated, but this does not change anything. Having many physical connections between many physical parts may be difficult to keep track of; it may be complex. But a complex series of movements among complex parts has no more claim on having content than a simple series of movements among simple parts. Thinking that the complexity, the large number of interacting parts, may produce content is like thinking that if you walk far enough, if you take a large enough number of steps, you’ll eventually walk to the Moon. The problem, as Plantinga notes, is not merely that we do not see how a material object could have content; it is that we do see that it could not have content. It is a category mistake to think that material objects could have content.

It’s a little like trying to understand what it would be for the number seven, e.g., to weigh five pounds (or for an elephant to be a proposition). We can’t see how that could happen; more exactly, we can see that it couldn’t happen. A number just isn’t the sort of thing that can have weight; there is no way in which that number or any other number could weigh anything at all. (The same goes for elephants and propositions.) Epistemology Supernaturalized 157 Similarly, we can see, I think, that physical activity among neurons can’t generate content. These neurons are clicking away, sending electrical impulses hither and yon. But what has this to do with content? How is content or aboutness supposed to arise from this neuronal activity? How can such a thing be a belief? You might as well say that thought arises from the activity of the wind or the waves.32

One could reasonably object to this characterization because it is trivially easy to come up with material objects that have content: sentences are material objects, composed of vocal sounds or of physical marks on paper or computer screens, and have, as their contents, propositions. Computers are material objects operating on completely material principles yet their processes have content. Plantinga responds that these physical objects have content only because they are assigned content by a mind. If, on an alien planet, some extraterrestrial slug crawled in the dirt and its slime trail just happened to spell out a coherent sentence—say, “cogito ergo sum ”—it would not have any meaning without a mind to assign meaning to it. The slime trail would not really have content, it would appear to only because it was made into a configuration that we would ascribe content to if it had been arranged by an intelligent agent. Even a natural process that indicated something about its environment, like tracks indicating that an animal has walked past, would not have depictive content but just indicative accuracy or inaccuracy. The difference here is between original content versus secondary or derived content.33 A material object can have derived content because we can assign content to it. And you cannot produce original content by starting with secondary content and building up, since secondary content has content only in virtue of its relationship to original content. So, we have to start with original content in order for anything to have any content at all.34 The point, then, is that, while natural selection can “see” and select indicators, it cannot select depictors. Even if we posit some sort of connection between indicators and depictors, the beliefs would be selected for their indicative properties, not their depictive properties. Indeed, the depictive properties could be entirely absent, from the materialist point of view. As long as the indicative properties are accurate, the organism would engage in the same fitness-enhancing behavior regardless. In this case, there is no control over which depictor, if any, is associated with an accurate indicator. The indicator could indicate that there is a predator 200 meters to the left, but why should the depictor depict this same state of affairs? Perhaps it would depict that there is food 200 meters to the left; or that there is a predator two meters to the right ; or that the state of Oregon is larger than the United Kingdom; or that the swallows have returned to Capistrano. As long as the indicator reliably indicates the circumstances and causes the survival-enhancing behavior, then it simply does not matter what the content of the depictor is. 35 Once again, a belief’s semantics do not cause behavior; its syntax does. As Dennett put it when he debated Plantinga, “It is true that every belief state is 158 Epistemology Supernaturalized what it is, and locally causes whatever it causes, independently of whether it is true or false. As I have said, our brains are syntactic engines, not semantic engines , which, like perpetual motion machines, are impossible.”36 As long as this is the case, we can formulate a Skyhook.

4 Plantinga’s Third Skyhook We can reasonably treat Plantinga’s Skyhook as directed at individual beliefs and as directed at systems of beliefs as constituting two distinct arguments. In addition, Plantinga has continued to develop his Skyhook and recently published “the official and final version (I hope).”37

(1) P(R/N&E) is low. (2) Anyone who accepts (believes) N&E and sees that P(R/N&E) is low has a defeater for R. (3) Anyone who has a defeater for R has a defeater for any other belief she thinks she has, including N&E itself. (4) If one who accepts N&E thereby acquires a defeater for N&E, N&E is self-defeating and can’t rationally be accepted. Conclusion: N&E can’t rationally be accepted.38

4.1 P(R/N&E) is Low In order to establish his first premise, Plantinga retains his distinction between indicators and depictors. Given this distinction, natural selection would have no propensity to select true depictors or reliable (that is, truth- aimed) depictor-forming processes. Many critics, as well as many contemporary philosophies of mind, have attempted to circumvent this by building up from indicators to depictors, but their final accomplishments do not amount to depictors with propositional content. 39 As long as we accept the intuition of Plantinga and Leibniz that physical objects, processes, and properties cannot have propositional content in and of themselves, then all they can do is pile indicators on indicators without ever getting any closer to propositional content (a depictor). In the same way, as Hume argued, we can pile descriptions on descriptions ad infinitum without ever getting any closer to a prescription (an “ought”). Both prescriptions and content evince “some new relation or affirmation” that is more than a combination of other elements. And if we are willing to jettison propositional content from our concept of belief in favor of these almost-but-not-quite versions of content, then we are no longer advocating the reduction of depictive content but its elimination, and eliminativism is subject to a Skyhook of its own. Recall that Plantinga’s modest requirement for reliability would involve two-thirds to three-fourths of our beliefs to be true. For any given belief (depictor) either it or its negation is true, and given the absence of any Epistemology Supernaturalized 159 control on selecting true beliefs over false ones, the probability that any particular belief is true is .50. If we then ask what is the probability that three-fourths of 100 independent beliefs are true, given that each one has only a .50 chance of being true, the answer is not very encouraging. About one in a million, 0.000001, or 1% of 1% of 1%. Of course, we have significantly more than 100 beliefs; what if we take 1,000 independent beliefs? Then the probability that three-fourths of them are true is less than 10–58 , or one chance in ten billion trillion trillion trillion trillion, an unfathomable number.40 What Plantinga does not mention is that these probabilities also attach to having three-fourths of the beliefs be false . The odds will hover closely around half of the beliefs being true and half being false. Nevertheless, having a system where only half of the beliefs are true is no better than guessing. At first blush, this seems to be a throwback to the first version of the argument: in fact, it may look like it takes the worst of both worlds. Plant- inga once again focuses on individual beliefs, concludes that each one has only .50 chance of being true, and then adds them together to conclude that all of our beliefs taken together would not meet a very modest requirement of reliability. This would seem to make it subject to the same objection made to his earlier Skyhook, that he is not presenting a system of false beliefs. He is ignoring the fact that our beliefs are not independent of each other: what we believe about one thing influences what we believe about many other things. Beliefs just cannot be conceptually isolated like that. We cannot simply take the conclusion about any particular belief and generalize it so that the same conclusion applies to our beliefs as a whole. Although Plantinga does not address this objection in his “official and final version,” we certainly can by pointing to how he frames the argument in terms of neurology. By phrasing it this way, Plantinga is not talking about the conceptual connections between beliefs or about either the rational or the merely psychological connections or associations, rational or not, between beliefs. Rather, he is talking about the neural, physical connections between beliefs. This is as it should be, given that he is dealing with naturalism and materialism, where our beliefs are identical to (reductive materialism) or supervene on (nonreductive materialism) the neural processes involved in beliefs. So 1,000 “independent” beliefs does not refer to beliefs that are logically or rationally independent of each other—beliefs that are not inferen- tially or deductively related (or are just psychologically associated with each other, regardless of whether there is a rational connection between them)— but to beliefs produced by a particular neural structure that are not directly neurologically connected to others. In other words, it refers to beliefs that do not use some of the numerically identical neurons in their neuronal array as certain other beliefs. Plantinga is not conceptually isolating these beliefs; he is physically isolating them. So, how many neurons does the human brain have? “There are plenty of neurons to go around: a normal human brain contains some 100–200 160 Epistemology Supernaturalized billion neurons. These neurons, furthermore, are connected with other neurons via synapses; a single neuron, on the average, is connected with seven thousand of [ sic ] other neurons. The total number of possible brain states, then, is absolutely enormous, much greater than the number of electrons in the universe.” 41 Given the number of neurons in the brain and the possible number of brain states, coming up with 1,000 beliefs that are independent of each other in this sense would not be a problem. Therefore, given naturalism, we have a reason for thinking that P(R/N&E) is low.

4.2 The Remaining Premises Plantinga’s defense of the rest of his Skyhook borrows heavily from earlier versions. If the probability that our cognitive faculties tend to produce true beliefs is low, then it would seem we have a defeater. To be sure, probability by itself does not establish this, as low probabilities are legion and often do not produce defeaters. To demonstrate why it does here, Plantinga appeals to a rough and ready formula: “In general, if you have considered the question whether a given source of information or belief is reliable, and have an undefeated defeater for the belief that it is, then you have a defeater for any belief such that you think it originates (solely) from that source.”42 He is unwilling to develop this further into a general principle, preferring instead to provide numerous analogies that illustrate the formula. 43 This, it will be recalled, is essentially Lucas’s “weak universalizability.” 44 Any explanation must meet the logical requirement of being universalizable in order to avoid being an ad hoc explanation that does not apply to other cases where it should. But this universalizability need not come in the strong form of instantiating a general law; it can also come in the weak form according to which we show why a proffered “ prima facie parallel case” is not really relevant, and provide analogies (parallel cases that are not merely prima facie but that stand up to scrutiny) that are relevantly similar to the case at hand.45 So, it seems that Plantinga is well within his epistemic rights to argue via analogies. The analogies Plantinga uses to argue for the second and third premises of his Skyhook are many and varied.46 One we have already seen: the person who sees a red widget emerge from a machine in a factory and forms the belief that it is red based on its appearance. Then she is told the widgets are irradiated with a red light when they emerge from the machine, so now she no longer has a reason for thinking it to be red. Or take the theist who comes to believe that belief in God is always the product of wish-fulfillment, and wish-fulfillment does not tend to produce true beliefs. She should assess the probability that her belief in God is true as .50 at best. Or someone who believes that she has ingested a drug, which causes most people to form wildly false beliefs without any awareness that they are doing so. A small percentage of people who take it, however, suffer no ill effects. Given that she believes that she has taken this drug, should she trust any of her Epistemology Supernaturalized 161 beliefs (including her belief that she took the drug)? Or take the standard epistemological example of someone driving through a countryside whose inhabitants have erected a bunch of barn façades to make them look more affluent. The driver sees what looks like a barn and comments on how many nice barns they have passed. Her passenger, however, is more in the know and informs her about the façade situation. If the driver believes her passenger, she acquires a reason to not believe that she is seeing a real barn. In all of these cases, the people involved obtain defeaters for their beliefs, as well as defeaters for any other belief produced by the same forces (the appearance of the widgets, wish-fulfillment, the drug, etc.). Insofar as they are relevantly similar to the case of the naturalist who recognizes the improbability that she has reliable cognitive faculties, we can now conclude that the naturalist thereby obtains a defeater for her belief R, as well as a defeater for any belief produced by R (which would be all of them). From this, we can conclude that we have a defeater for N&E because it is a belief produced by R. So, if acceptance of N&E produces a defeater for N&E, “N&E is self-defeating and can’t rationally be accepted.”47

Notes 1. “It probably is only a historical accident that we standardly speak of ‘normative ethics’ but not of ‘normative epistemology’. Epistemology is a normative disci- pline as much as, and in the same sense as, normative ethics” (Kim 1995b, 219). 2. Plantinga 1993b, 4. The three other elements in his epistemology are a proper cognitive environment, a design plan (where “design” can be taken metaphor- ically to refer to a designing process like evolution), and reliabilism in order to ensure that the design plan be a good one. 3. Mayr 1983, 328; George Williams 1996, 22. 4. Plantinga 1993b, 237. 5. See Beilby 2002 for a collection of critical and supportive essays. 6. Plantinga 1991; 1993b, 216–37. 7. Plantinga 1993b, 161–64; 2011, 332. Specifically it refers to objective probability, not epistemic probability—although there are connections between the two, so it could be reformulated in epistemic probabilistic terms. 8. Plantinga 2011, 311. 9. Plantinga 1993b, 223. 10. Plantinga 2011, 313, 332–33. 11. In his original formulation, Plantinga adds another constant, C, “a complex proposition whose precise formulation is both difficult and unnecessary, but which states what cognitive faculties we have—memory, perception, reason, Reid’s sympathy—and what sorts of beliefs they produce” (Plantinga 1993b, 220). In his later treatments, he drops C from the equation. In fact, in his 2000 (229–30) he also drops E, subsuming it into N, but he later adds it again in order to clarify that E is not identical to N&E. 12. Plantinga 2011, 310. 13. Plantinga 1993b, 218–22; 2011, 314–16. 14. Darwin 1887, 316. 15. Plantinga 1993b, 225–26. 16. Evolution would probably select belief-forming process, not particular beliefs— just as it selects opposing thumbs but not the products of manual labor (Buskes 162 Epistemology Supernaturalized 1998, 52). Stephen Toulmin (1972, 320–21) calls the idea that evolution would directly select beliefs the Machian fallacy, after Ernst Mach. Feng Ye (2011, 35–38), however, suggests that evolution may directly select very simple beliefs about the environment, but not complex, composite beliefs. If beliefs are reducible to or supervenient on particular neural configurations, it is possible that evolution would select a particular neural configuration, along with the belief associated with it. What it comes down to is whether individual simple beliefs are more analogous to the products that opposable thumbs make possible (which evolution would not select) or opposable thumbs (which it would). 17. Plantinga 1993b, 231–232; 2011, 348–49. 18. Fales 2002, 50–52; Ramsey 2002, 20–25; Law 2011. 19. This is not to say that Plantinga concedes the point, as some have suggested (Law 2011, 255). He could respond that he does not need to provide such a system in order for his Skyhook to work. The fact that instead he does provide a system simply shows that a large and coherent system of beliefs is still subject to a Skyhook. 20. According to which, “ ‘The tallest man in Boston is wise’, for example, abbrevi- ates ‘There is exactly one tallest man in Boston, and it is wise’ ” (Plantinga 2002, 260). 21. Plantinga 2000, 235. 22. Rea 2000; 2002. Cf. Chesterton’s Skyhook, chapter 11 . 23. Plantinga 2002, 260–61. 24. I have received exactly this response at philosophy conferences when presenting Plantinga’s scenario. 25. Cf. Lorenz 1985, XIV, translated into English in Janich 1992, 102, by David Zook. 26. Plantinga 2002, 264. 27. Plantinga 2002, 259. 28. Plantinga 2002, 264. 29. Again, if one wants to define “belief” differently that’s fine; then simply substitute another term for these neural events or structures that have content. 30. Leibniz 1714, §17. 31. Hume 1738, 3.1.1. 32. Plantinga 2008, 54. 33. Plantinga 2008, 55; cf. Dennett 1989. 34. This has quite a bit of relevance to Dennett’s crane/skyhook imagery. 35. Some have objected that Plantinga “imagines that content can be assigned to a neural structure . . . arbitrarily” given naturalism (Ye 2011, 35). This seems to be an accurate description of Plantinga’s position, but his Skyhook gives us a reason for thinking it is the case. We can, I will argue in chapter 12 , place some conceptual limits on this arbitrariness, but as long as Plantinga’s distinction between depictors and indicators holds, and as long as depictive properties are invisible to natural selection, we can place no physical or biological limits on which depictor is associated with a given indicator—which is as much to say, “content can be assigned to a neural structure . . . arbitrarily.” 36. Dennett 2011, 35. 37. Plantinga 2011, 310 n. 4. 38. Plantinga 2011, 344–45. 39. See, e.g., Ye 2011 and Leahy 2013 who try to develop a form of teleosemantic content to obviate Plantinga’s Skyhook. 40. Plantinga 2011, 333. 41. Plantinga 2011, 320–21. 42. Plantinga 2002, 241. Epistemology Supernaturalized 163 43. He does, however, present a first pass at such a general principle (Plantinga 2002, 240). 44. See chapter 4 . 45. Lucas 1970, 38–40. 46. His primary analogy for the first premise is the hominid who encounters a tiger. Actually, he imagines a population of such hominids, who are the product of naturalistic evolution, and then asks whether their cognitive faculties are likely to be reliable. 47. Plantinga 2011, 345. 11 Leftovers

Of making many books there is no end. Ecclesiastes 12:12

There are, of course, many other authors who have presented versions of the Skyhook. In this chapter I will go over those that have had the most impact or at least those I consider the most interesting but who have not received sufficient attention in the present work thus far.

1 Balfour Two versions of the Skyhook are of interest primarily because of their influence on Lewis’s. The first was developed by Arthur James Balfour, known primarily as the British Prime Minister and the namesake of the Balfour Dec- laration. However, he also wrote philosophy and indeed was torn between becoming a statesman or a philosopher. He first pointed to the Skyhook in his 1877 essay “A Speculation on Evolution,” which he then rewrote and retitled “The Evolution of Belief” as chapter 13 of A Defence of Philosophic Doubt two years later. 1 This essay may have been the first application of the Epistemological Skyhook to naturalistic evolution, appearing within two decades of Darwin’s publication of On the Origin of the Species. Balfour specifically argues that if evolution is understood naturalistically, then our cognitive faculties are in place in order to promote our survival and propagation, not to form true beliefs. Certainly usefulness and truth would often coincide, but as long as survival has the final say, there will be a divorce between a belief’s truth and our ultimate reason for believing it—and this would apply to our beliefs in naturalism as well as evolution. So evolution is incompatible with naturalism and naturalism is incompatible with itself— that is, it is self-defeating. In 1896 Balfour published The Foundations of Belief, in which he argued that “familiar beliefs”—beliefs about the validity or veracity of ethics, aesthetics, and especially reason—cannot be justified on naturalistic terms. For Leftovers 165 ethics and aesthetics, this presents only a problem of affirming their veracity because most people would be unwilling to give them up, but with reason, the whole naturalist program self-destructs. 2 Balfour was later asked to present two series of Gifford Lectures, the first of which, Theism and Humanism , delivered in 1913–14, is an even more in-depth treatment of the problems of accounting for familiar beliefs, particularly reason, in a naturalistic universe. 3 Because of the intervention of World War I, Balfour was unable to deliver the second series of lectures until 1922–23. The latter, entitled Theism and Thought , focused exclusively on the problem of accounting for reason in naturalistic terms and emphasized that the problem renders naturalism self-defeating.4 Balfour received criticism from all quarters,5 but his two most prominent detractors were Bertrand Russell and G. E. Moore, both of whom critiqued Foundations of Belief. Russell does not address Balfour’s argument for the veracity of reason, instead focusing on the argument that naturalism is in conflict with the veracity of ethics, where the argument is no longer self-defeating (and thus does not constitute a Skyhook). 6 Moore also addresses the argument as it touches on ethics, but goes on to tie it to the Skyhook. Balfour’s claim that our beliefs are not veridical because they are merely the product of evolution would apply to all of our beliefs, moral or otherwise, including our belief in evolution itself.

For if it be true that beliefs were evolved, then the belief that they were so must also have been evolved. And this, according to Mr. Balfour, is a reason why we must doubt its truth. That is to say, the fact of evolution is a reason for doubting the fact of evolution. It is inconsistent to believe in the fact of evolution, if we at the same time believe in the fact of evolution. The inconsistency, we may well reply, is all the other way. It is, in fact, self-contradictory to hold that the validity of a belief depends in any way upon the manner in which it was acquired. 7

Thus Moore argues that to condemn a view because of its (alleged) prov- enance is fallacious; specifically it commits what Lewis called “Bulverism,” which is similar to the circumstantial ad hominem and genetic fallacies. This was addressed in chapter 7 : here we will reiterate that, first, according to the Bulverism fallacy, we cannot determine a belief’s truth value based on its cause. However, it has nothing to do with whether a belief is epistemically justified . Second, the reason this constitutes a fallacy is that we can take a belief out of its historical, causal context and into a logical context. If this abstraction were impossible, the assessment of a belief independent of its causes could not be made because the only standards by which we could then judge the rationality of a belief would be the inherently nonrational standards of how the belief was caused. The argument of Balfour (and Lewis) is that naturalism leads to this scenario. 166 Leftovers Moreover, it is not clear why Moore thinks that “to hold that the validity of a belief depends in any way upon the manner in which it was acquired” is “self-contradictory.” Perhaps Moore is thinking that if our beliefs are produced entirely by naturalistic processes, then the belief that beliefs produced entirely by naturalistic processes are invalid would have been produced entirely by naturalistic processes and so would defeat itself. But, of course, Balfour’s whole point is that our beliefs are not produced entirely by naturalistic processes, and his reason for this is that it would be self-defeating. Moore further tries to tie Balfour’s arguments to the truth of evolution, but Balfour was not challenging evolution; he was challenging naturalism . In other words, he was arguing that we cannot interpret evolution naturalistically, not that evolution did not happen. Lewis never cites Balfour in his statements of the Skyhook, but he does refer to Theism and Humanism as “a book too little read,” 8 and lists it as one of ten books that exerted the most influence on his thought.9 Bal- four’s impact on Lewis’s version of the argument has only recently been recognized,10 but it has been sufficient for Theism and Humanism to be republished with the subtitle The Book that Influenced C. S. Lewis. Since Plantinga cites Lewis’s Skyhook as a predecessor to his own, as do others, 11 Balfour can perhaps be seen as the grandparent. Moreover, Balfour can also be seen as foreshadowing Plantinga’s argument more directly: not only did both present their arguments as series of Gifford Lectures, but both specifically applied it to evolution by showing that if our minds are merely the product of naturalistic evolution and nothing else, it would take away any right we have to take the products of the mind seriously—including belief in evolution.12

2 Chesterton A second influence on Lewis was G. K. Chesterton. In Orthodoxy , Chester- ton argues that “If you are merely a sceptic, you must sooner or later ask yourself the question, ‘Why should anything go right; even observation and deduction? Why should not good logic be as misleading as bad logic? They are both movements in the brain of a bewildered ape.’ ” 13 He argues that evolution, by itself, poses no problem for religion, but evolution understood naturalistically does; not just for religion, but for thought in general. Like Michael Rea, he argues that naturalism leads to mereological nihilism or something like it, according to which discrete objects do not exist. But Ches- terton argues further that this is incompatible with thought, and so renders naturalism self-defeating.

Evolution is either an innocent scientific description of how certain earthly things came about; or, if it is anything more than this, it is an attack upon thought itself. If evolution simply means that a positive thing called an ape turned very slowly into a positive thing called a man, Leftovers 167 then it is stingless for the most orthodox; for a personal God might just as well do things slowly as quickly, especially if, like the Christian God, he were outside time. But if it means anything more, it means that there is no such thing as an ape to change, and no such thing as a man for him to change into. It means that there is no such thing as a thing. At best, there is only one thing, and that is a flux of everything and anything. This is an attack not upon the faith, but upon the mind; you cannot think if there are no things to think about. You cannot think if you are not separate from the subject of thought.14

Similarly, in an essay entitled “The Wind and the Trees,” Chesterton com- pares the view that the mind is able to move the body, and therefore transcends the body, to the idea that the wind moves the trees. Just as we see the trees move and posit an unseen force moving them (the wind), so we see the body move and posit an unseen force moving it (the mind). This is the “great human dogma.” In contrast, “The great human heresy is that the trees move the wind.” 15 This is the view that the body moves the mind, and that everything appearing in the mind is actually a product of the body. In this case, we try to explain the unseen in light of the seen rather than vice versa. This might be reasonable except for the fact that it leads to the very absurdity that the Skyhook postulates: “The man who represents all thought as an accident of environment is simply smashing and discrediting all his own thoughts—including that one.” All thinking must therefore “treat the human mind as having an ultimate authority,” 16 and this cannot be done if it is “an accident of environment.” Lewis revered Chesterton as having “more sense than all the other mod- erns put together” 17 and obliquely refers to “The Wind and the Trees” in the same essay where he praises Balfour: “If minds are wholly dependent on brains, and brains on biochemistry, and biochemistry (in the long run) on the meaningless flux of the atoms, I cannot understand how the thought of those minds should have any more significance than the sound of the wind in the trees.”18 While Chesterton’s general influence on Lewis is referred to by Lewis himself, as far as I know, his influence on Lewis’s Skyhook specifically has hitherto gone unnoticed.

3 Lovejoy and Chomsky In the early 20th century, Arthur Lovejoy presented a Skyhook against behaviorism,19 the view that mentality is exhausted by outward behavior and that inner aspects of thought simply do not exist. Like Berkeley’s dictum that “to be” means “to be perceived,” so behaviorists hold that “to be thought” means “to be expressed.” Thought is identical to the laryngeal motions involved in speech. The concept of unexpressed or nonverbalized thought is simply incoherent, just as Berkeley thought unobserved existence was incoherent. In similar fashion as the eliminativists discussed in chapter 4, behaviorists 168 Leftovers often defended their position by suggesting that it is just the result of taking science seriously, and so any denial of their views is motivated by the fear of science taking over some sacred aspect of life we do not wish to surrender. So, behaviorism is comparable to astronomy or chemistry, whereas its rejection is closer to astrology or alchemy.20 Or so the claim goes. According to behaviorism, then, there is no such thing as consciousness or any sort of introspection. “Perceiving a thing, in short, is identical with the motion of the muscles involved in uttering its name.”21 As such, “images and ideas, as well as ‘mind,’ consciousness,’ and other familiar categories of the older psychology, are eliminated from the descriptive analysis of perception and thought.” 22 Everything we call “thought,” therefore, is “strictly intra-corporeal” 23 and can be completely explained without reference to images, concepts, or content—in short, without reference to what the thoughts are allegedly about . However, in this case, Lovejoy argues, the behaviorist’s thoughts can be completely explained without reference to what they are allegedly about. Specifically, her thoughts about behaviorism can be so explained. Yet clearly the behaviorist wants us to consider her claims as referring to something beyond her laryngeal movements. She wants us to take her claims as true , as being an accurate account of reality. The behaviorist thesis, however, does not allow us to do so. If behaviorism is true, then rational thought plays no role in behavior, including one’s acceptance and exposition of behaviorism. “Never, surely, did a sillier or more self-stultifying idea enter the human mind, than the idea that thinking as such—that is to say, remembering, plan- ning, reasoning, forecasting—is a vast irrelevancy, having no part in the causation of man’s behavior or in the shaping of his fortunes—a mysteri- ous redundancy in a cosmos which would follow precisely the same course without it.” 24 We can thus construct an antibehaviorism Skyhook that parallels the anti-eliminativism Skyhook: we are unable to interpret the behaviorist’s claims without employing categories of the inner mental life that behaviorism denies. Either we accept these categories, and so render behaviorism self-defeating, or we do not, in which case the behaviorist’s claims have no meaning and so do not require a response. Lovejoy was targeting behaviorism in general, but much of his focus was on the behaviorist John Watson. Half a century later, Noam Chomsky presented a similar antibehaviorism Skyhook, as part of his larger project against B. F. Skinner.25 According to Chomsky, Skinner argues that persua- sion, something that treats the other as a free agent, “is a matter of rein- forcing stimuli.” But this is incompatible with Skinner’s technical definition of reinforcement: “the claim can be true only if we deprive the term ‘reinforcement’ of its technical meaning.” As such, it amounts to an undefined concept, akin to the successor concepts of eliminative materialism.26 “In any event, Skinner’s ‘science of behavior’ is irrelevant: the thesis of the book is either false (if we use terminology in its technical sense) or empty (if we do Leftovers 169 not).” Thus, behaviorism is “reduced to gibberish,” “collapses entirely,” and “is simply incoherent.”27

4 Pratt, Eddington, Joseph, Urban The 1920s and early 30s saw several Skyhooks being presented and defended against several targets. We have already seen the statement by J.M.E. McTag- gart in chapter 6, published posthumously in 1934. Short statements like this without much further exposition are legion, but there are some more in-depth treatments. In Matter and Spirit, James Bissett Pratt addresses the mind-body problem and materialism’s inability to resolve it. Materialism, he argues, requires the denial of mental causation: mental properties—such as belief content, purposes or goals, etc.—may be effects or epiphenomena or byproducts of physical processes (although that is less than clear), but they cannot be allowed to be causes. Much of Pratt’s case consists of his sheer incredulity of the denial of mental causation.

We are told we must deny the efficiency of consciousness because of the difficulty in believing in any exceptions to the action of mechanical law and the difficulty of imagining how mind can act on matter. I submit that to be so nice with little difficulties, and so omnivorous with mon- strosities that approach the mentally impossible is a case of straining at one poor gnat and swallowing a whole caravan of camels. Like others I find it difficult to imagine an idea affecting a brain molecule; but I think I am also like nearly everybody else when I find it impossible to believe that thought and purpose have had nothing to do with building up human civilization and creating human literature and philosophy. 28

However, Pratt presents the Skyhook in order to give a more methodical reason for rejecting materialism. If thoughts are effects but never causes, 29 then an individual does not believe the conclusion of a valid logical syllogism because he grasped the meaning of the premises and their logical relation. No, she believes the conclusion because of the physical state of her brain, which was produced by previous physical states of her brain. The logical relations are therefore irrelevant: the conclusion would be reached because of the physical processes involved, regardless of whether it follows from the premises. If the mental states did not drive the acceptance of the conclusion—that is, if mental causation did not occur—then the exact same physical events would have transpired even if the conclusion did not actually follow from the premises. As such, we have no reason to privilege one possible conclusion over another, regardless of their truth or their logical soundness. “We may happen to think logically; but if we do, this is not because logic had anything to do with our conclusion, but because the brain molecules shake down, so to speak, in a lucky fashion.”30 170 Leftovers The point, of course, is that this would equally apply to the materialist’s belief in materialism. “The hopeless self-contradiction of such a position is obvious. With one breath the materialist asserts that his doctrine is logically demonstrable and that there is no such thing as logical demonstration. As Bradley has put it, no theory can be true which is inconsistent with the possibility of our knowing it to be true.”31 In Science and the Unseen World , astrophysicist Arthur Stanley Eddington argued similarly to Pratt that mind cannot be explained by the body or any other physical aspect of reality. Eddington’s point of departure is (as we saw in the epigraph for chapter 6) normativity. There are, he argued, laws of physics or of nature which are descriptive and which have a necessity to them. That is, the objects that fall under the appliance of such laws cannot act contrary to them, cannot break them. Normativity, however, involves laws that can be broken, and so knowledge requires normativity. Therefore, one cannot explain the operations of the mind by appealing to natural laws. “The essential difference, which we meet in entering the realm of spirit and mind, seems to hang round the word ‘Ought.’ ”32 This normativity does not merely attach to ethics, but to rationality and knowledge as well, and so cannot be dismissed by simply rejecting the objectivity of morality. “Even if religion and morality are dismissed as illusion, the word ‘Ought’ still has sway. The laws of logic do not prescribe the way our minds think; they prescribe the way our minds ought to think.” 33 Attempting to explain the operations of the mind in terms of natural law does not allow us to make a distinction between false, illogical, or insane conclusions, on the one hand, and true, logical, and reasonable conclusions, on the other. In either case, the conclusion is caused, that is, brought about by natural law. Incorrect mathematical calculations are produced by natural law just as much as correct ones are. 34 Because we can make such a distinction, there is another type of law in operation that cannot be reduced to natural law. To demonstrate this latter point, Eddington imagines an alien scientist observing a moment of silence on Armistice Day. Theoretically, the scientist would be able to explain all the physical processes involved, may even be able to predict the moment of silence. But he would still not understand what it is about or what it honors. 35 Trying to reduce the meaning of the moment of silence to its physical expressions is simply a category mistake. It is like trying to “extract the square root of a sonnet” or suggesting “that a nation could be ruled by laws like the laws of grammar.”36 Eddington, it should be noted, does not apply his analysis to belief in materialism, and so it does not constitute a Skyhook as stated. Nevertheless, it is certainly acceptable for us to do so: Just as materialism cannot justify our preference for correct mathematical sums over incorrect ones, so it cannot justify the preference for materialism itself.37 In Some Problems in Ethics, H.W.B. Joseph presents a brief Skyhook in order to ground his ethical study on human freedom and autonomy. Mate- rialism, he argues, could account only for the physical connections between Leftovers 171 events, but it could not warrant ascribing a moral value to the events. As such, materialism is inconsistent with moral judgments. However, we can substitute “truth value” for “moral value” and so end up with the claim that materialism does not allow us to distinguish between truth and falsity. But then obviously it does not allow us to determine the truth or falsity of materialism. As with Eddington and others, Joseph argues that the categories of materialism do not apply to the categories of mentality. “Truth,” just as much as “good” or “bad,” are assessments, and go beyond the physical description of the elements involved. “It seems as nonsensical to call a movement true as a flavour purple or a sound avaricious.” 38 Physical objects and processes have no content, and so cannot have the categories of truth or falsity ascribed to them. And even if they could, no differentiation between truth and falsity could be justified because false and irrational beliefs are caused just as much as true and rational beliefs are. Therefore, we must reject any worldview as incoherent if it excludes truth values, and this opens the door to the possibility of moral values as well. “That the principles, then, on which rests the scientific theory of the world are absolutely true is not only inconsistent with ethical theory; it is inconsistent with there being knowledge, or even true opinion. And therefore with themselves; for they claim to be matter of knowledge, or at least of true opinion.”39 Despite its brevity, Joseph’s Skyhook is noteworthy in part because Joseph earlier presented a version of the Simplicity Argument, 40 which was then out of vogue. Thus, his Skyhook plays a role in his larger project against materialism and was not merely meant to establish a grounding for his ethical views. Perhaps the most interesting Skyhook from around this time is Wilbur Marshall Urban’s. Urban first briefly presented his Skyhook in Funda- mentals of Ethics as an antideterminist argument, using it, as did Joseph’s antimaterialist argument, to provide a meta-ethical grounding for his value theory. Materialistic determinism, he argues, entails that our moral beliefs are just mechanical movements in the brain: “we entertain certain motives, not because they are good, but because our brain passes through certain cerebral states.” But this would apply to truth as well as to morality, since “the notion of truth involves the assumption that an idea can be tested by something other than the relation to the brain—something that can convict it, for example, of being either true or erroneous.” Determinism, however, does not allow this testing. The movements involved in a cerebral state are all equally true—that is caused—and no further distinction about them can be made. And obviously this would apply to the cerebral movements involved in believing, arguing, or asserting that materialistic determinism is true. 41 Nearly twenty years later, Urban returned to the argument, changing his target from determinism to naturalism (as Hasker did a half century later). Here, as we have seen in chapter 2, Urban argues that “the derivative status of mind is the characteristic feature of all forms of naturalism,”42 and as 172 Leftovers long as this is the case, a Skyhook can be formulated against it. Urban is specifically addressing the perceived unity between naturalism and realism and the unusual attempt to form a “synthesis of idealism and naturalism.” 43 The argument, however, remains the same as when he aimed it at determinism. The naturalist argues that mind must be explicable in naturalistic terms and that the transcendentalist who denies this is simply not giving evolution its due. Evolution can explain why our brains evolved to be largely truth-directed. Urban argues, to the contrary, that the attempt to explain the properties of mind, at least those properties involved in knowledge , in terms of scientific naturalism ends up removing any justification for accepting one view over its denial, including scientific naturalism.

. . . by this supposed ‘scientific’ account of knowledge, the scientist himself cuts off the very limb upon which he sits. For in thus deriving mind and knowledge from nature, as science conceives it, he must assume that his own account of nature is true. But on his premises, the truth of this account, like that of any other bit of knowledge, is merely the function of the adjustment of the organism to its environment, and thus has no more significance than any other adjustment. Its sole value is its survival. This entire concept of knowledge refutes itself and is, therefore, widersinnig . . . . As to the transcendentalists, their belief in the transcendental character of mind is not the refuge of ignorance, but rather the result of their realization of the peculiarly vicious circle involved in all naturalistic accounts of knowledge. It is not their feelings that are outraged but their intellects.44

As with Balfour, Urban is not challenging Darwinian evolution; he is challenging a particular interpretation of it, a naturalistic interpretation. If we accept this interpretation, then we no longer have any grounds for accepting it. Urban’s Skyhook is interesting because he points to—but frustratingly does not provide many references for—earlier expressions of the Skyhook. He claims that “It has been described as the logical refutation of determinism,” but does not say by whom,45 and notes that it formed a part of a 19th-century tradition about “the limits of naturalism.”46

5 A. E. Taylor Besides Kant, the most commonly referenced texts on the Skyhook are some essays by philosopher A. E. Taylor. He first addressed the Skyhook in the 1920s, in a review of an essay by Balfour, where his target is, understand- ably, Balfour’s critique of naturalism. 47 The naturalist “commonly reasons as though he had exploded the truth, e.g. of the belief in God, by constructing a theory of the causes which have led men to believe. . . . [Yet] He always Leftovers 173 assumes that his own beliefs as a naturalist not merely have discoverable causes , but are true, have sufficient justifying reasons .” 48 Such a view, however, cannot be defended, since the naturalist’s critique of other beliefs would equally apply to her own belief in naturalism. In fact, this would apply not only to the naturalist’s belief in naturalism, but to her scientific beliefs as well, thus taking away what she thought was her strongest ally. When Taylor presented a more detailed analysis of the Skyhook, he changed his focus from naturalism to determinism, but focused specifically on materialistic or, as he calls it, scientific determinism. The scientific determinist, Taylor argues, either implicitly or explicitly exempts herself from the claims of her theory. She may apply her standards of determinism to explain the actions and beliefs of others , but when it comes to herself, she presupposes that her own intelligent goals play a role. Otherwise, she is unable to claim that determinism is actually true because her theory annuls the possibility of knowledge. “Each of us, if we are to push the ‘determinist’ theory to its logical conclusion, thinks what he does think, and that is all there is to be said on the matter; which of us thinks truly is a question which, even if it has an intelligible meaning, is, and eternally must remain, without an answer.”49 This entails that the truth of determinism is incompatible with one’s knowledge that determinism is true.50 Determinism, Taylor argues, holds that everything that occurs is completely explicable solely in terms of what has taken place before or perhaps simultaneously with it—a “one-valued function of earlier events.” 51 As such, goals, projected ends, play no role in the occurrence of anything, including beliefs. Therefore, the goal of believing truth plays no role in any given belief, including belief in determinism. “To be a function of antecedent events is one thing, to be a function of logically relevant evidence is quite another.”52 This is not a matter of being completely free from the bias of our personal experience, but of not being completely determined by them. Our personal histories will always play a role in our assessment of a new proposition; the question is whether our assessment can be entirely reduced , with no remainder, to our personal histories. If so, the determinist’s belief in determinism can be so reduced. As noted in chapter 2, Taylor locates the problem with determinism in “that it regards the determinant as invariably extrinsic to that which is determined by it.” 53 In this case, however, all of our beliefs and reasoning processes would be determined by forces extrinsic to what the beliefs are about and extrinsic to rationality; “the pursuit of truth as truth,” therefore, “demands freedom from absolute determination to acquiescence in this or that particular ‘truth.’ ” In other words, by our reasoning abilities “each of us transcends his own particularity.” 54 In order to avoid the self-defeating scenario, Taylor argues that the physical construction of our brains, combined with the physical world with which we come into contact, does not completely determine everything we do. There is still some area left, however small one wants to make it, where the 174 Leftovers physical elements involved are not sufficient to bring about the effect of someone making a choice. The physical may still be a necessary element, but it is not sufficient: the outcomes of our decisions are not completely determined; there is an element of indetermination that is resolved only when one makes a choice. Taylor suggests that there is resistance to this fact because it would mean that there is some level of reality that is not amenable to scientific examination. This may not be a problem for most people, but for those who embrace any position according to which all of reality is subject to scientific investigation—such as naturalism—it is a heresy that must be stopped at all costs. The point, again, is that the determinist who affirms that all of our beliefs and reasoning processes are determined by forces extrinsic to them, fully explicable according to the one-valued function of earlier events, does not think her belief in determinism is so confined. She must presuppose that she can “transcend her own particularity” and assess determinism according to its logical credentials, regardless of the deterministic forces that allegedly produce the belief.

There is one case in which “belief” is due not to a strong “propension” to view things in a certain light, but to the logically compelling force of evidence and to this alone, and the case is the case of the determinist’s belief in his principle of determinism. It is essential to the case for rigid determinism both that all beliefs shall be due to extra-logical causes and that the belief that they are due to extra-logical causes shall not itself be due to an extra-logical cause. For if it were, the determinist would lose all right to expect one to yield to his “proofs.”55

6 Wick Another influential text for the Skyhook is by Warner Wick, who begins by distinguishing between empirical and role-based concepts. Empirical concepts are those tied to physical objects and the perception of them. They are identified by reference to previous experiences of them. Role-based concepts, however, “are all identified in relation to what I should call a canon , rather than in relation to individuals previously observed.” 56 The latter can have members—a scientist, say—but their identification as such is not based on a direct empirical perception. We identify them based on the role they play, not on how they appear. It is not as if their appearance has no relevance, but that it is only relevant in reference to the canon or role. A man wearing a policeman’s uniform may be a policeman, but if he does not play the role of a policeman, he is merely an imposter or an actor. If we ignore this distinction, we are bound to think that role-based concepts are reducible to empirical ones. The football game can be reduced to the physical conditions that preceded it and the physical processes involved in it. Yet to do so is to miss the rules by which the game progresses and, Leftovers 175 indeed, to overlook the whole point of the game. Similarly, we can analyze a poem as black marks on a page, or a moment of silence as the cessation of sound at a particular place and time.57 In both cases, by focusing on the physical embodiment of the role or canon we are missing the point of these events. Moreover, because science itself is a role-based endeavor, to analyze the doing of science in terms of the physical antecedents and components of a series of observations ignores the whole point of why the scientist is engaged in his activities. There are, therefore, two different types of explanations: we can explain something in terms of its physical components, “which we can always do,” or we can look at it as “an intelligent activity with its own autonomous rules and aims.”58 The former looks for causes, the latter looks for reasons. Wick argues that “we ask and answer questions in terms of the causes of a process only to the degree that we do not regard what happened as an act, and that when we ask questions about intelligent achievements, answers framed in terms of phenomenal processes and their causes are at best only indirectly relevant.”59 When we ask why someone believes something, we are asking for a causal explanation of someone’s belief, with the concomitant insinuation that the belief was brought about by something other than an act of intellect. We are putting aside the issue of the belief’s truth value by inquiring into the physical antecedents of the belief. When we ask, instead, how one knows or understands something, we are asking for the reasons for the belief rather than its causes. This, it should be noted, is precisely the opposite when we ask about a state of affairs rather than the knowledge of it. When we ask why something is one way rather than another, we are looking for a rational explanation. On the other hand, when we ask how it is one way rather than another, we are looking for a causal explanation. But by asking about the state of affairs, “we ask about what is known, not about the knowledge.”60 The point of all this is that the causal explanation is irrelevant to the rational explanation. A cause does not give us any ground or reason for thinking a belief true or an event appropriate, while a rational explanation does. Thus, when someone believes something true, we do not ask them for the physical or psychological causes for their belief but for their reasons for it. We are not interested in the occasion of their belief but in their grounds for it. Wick gives several illustrations that, taken together, constitute a predecessor to John Searle’s Chinese room argument.61 A tape recorder that records a professor’s voice does not “know” the subject on which the professor is opining. A horse taught to stamp its foot four times after being asked, “What is two plus two?” does not know the answer is four—as can be ascertained by the fact that the horse could just as easily have been taught to stamp its foot five times, or three. A student who learns a trick to score well on tests without ever learning the subjects the tests are on does not know the subjects. In each case, information goes in and information comes out, but the 176 Leftovers relation between them is not a rational one (or is not the rational one) that would indicate that the information is known—just as someone in a room who is given Chinese characters through a slot and learns which Chinese characters to then push back through another slot does not know Chinese. There is a connection between the input and the output, a nomological relation, but this is insufficient for knowledge. What is needed is an epistemic or rational relationship, and such a relationship is not available with causal explanations. “The upshot of my argument, and of these examples of ‘cor- rectness’, is that all talk of truth (or even of art) would be utterly pointless if there were nothing to it but causal influences that induced me to say or think this , while causing you to opine that .”62 Wick concludes by arguing that, just as there are categorical imperatives in ethics, so there are categorical imperatives in epistemology. To reduce these to hypothetical imperatives (technical norms), as Quine tries to do, 63 simply does not work. “Why should I care about the truth? There is no relevant reason, if by ‘reason’ one means an ulterior motive different from the regard for truth itself. . . . Why indeed? If you have to ask, there is no answer that you would understand; yet since you do ask, I presume that you want a true answer, so your question must be disingenuous.”64

7 Jordan Yet another influential treatment of the Skyhook is James Jordan’s. 65 Jordan begins by defining determinism as the doctrine that the “spatio-temporal or temporal antecedent or concomitant conditions (‘causes’)” are not only necessary but sufficient to account for the occurrence of everything that happens. 66 This leaves out the possibility of logic or rationality having a role to play in the formation and sustaining of beliefs. Jordan takes it as irrelevant for his Skyhook what the determining agent is taken to be and whether one understands determinism methodologically, ontologically, or anthropologically. “If the argument is sound, it establishes that there can be no recognizably good reason to take the thesis in any light or for any purpose unless it is false.” 67 Like many others, Jordan focuses on Kant’s statement in the Ground- work and clarifies it with Paton’s exposition discussed in chapter 1 .68 From these two, Jordan divines two arguments, one invalid and one valid. The valid argument69 is that there is a dichotomy between being mechanistically caused and being produced by one’s recognition of the rational “nexus between premises and conclusion.” The latter is necessary for knowledge. As long as a dichotomy exists between the latter and the mechanism, the two do not need to harmonize with or parallel each other; and as such, any attempt to explain knowledge entirely in terms of mechanistic causality will fail. Even if the mechanisms involved are such that they produce mostly true beliefs, one’s holding of the beliefs can be entirely explained by the mechanism, in which case she would believe them regardless of the Leftovers 177 logic or rationality of them. Her beliefs, including her belief in determinism, would be only accidentally true, and being accidentally true is insufficient for a belief to qualify as knowledge. Similarly, her arguments may be logically valid, but she could never recognize them as such (nor could her interlocutors), because she would give them and believe that they establish her position regardless. Her arguments were produced by the determining mechanism, and if the mechanism had not produced them, she would not be presenting them. Therefore, no argument could be recognized as valid by her or anyone, including arguments for determinism. Jordan’s Skyhook, like most others, does not argue that determinism is false . It argues rather that one can only believe it or present an argument for it if one is tacitly presupposing that it is false. This is based on the distinction between self-refutation and self-defeat. Of course, if we can begin our assessment of determinism—or anything else— only by assuming that determinism is false, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that it is , in fact, false. “Since we can proceed in no other way but on the presumption of its falsity, we must presume that we are in so far forth possessed of ‘free will’ and of such rights, privileges, and responsibilities as may thereunto appertain.”70

8 Richard Taylor Some philosophers cite chapter 12 of Richard Taylor’s Action and Purpose as a Skyhook because he argues there that deliberation is incompatible with determinism. Unfortunately, in this text, Taylor never applies his arguments to determinism itself to show that it is self-defeating, although he walks right up to the edge: “Now if a man believes, concerning some of the actions he is going to perform, that there already exist conditions causally sufficient for his performing them, and conditions which therefore render them inevitable, then he cannot deliberate whether or not to perform them. If, accordingly, he believes this to be true of all the actions he ever performs, then he cannot, consistently with that belief, deliberate about any of them.”71 This becomes relevant when we realize that affirmation and deliberation are themselves actions. Thus, the determinist cannot deliberate about and affirm determinism if determinism is actually true. He has sawn off the tree limb he is sitting on: “here seems to me an excellent example of a philosophical view which, though consistent with itself, is not consistent with something that all men believe, including the defenders of that philosophical view.” 72 However, as noted, Taylor does not apply his analysis to the deliberation and affirmation of determinism itself, and so it does not constitute a Skyhook—although, again, we certainly can. An interesting point is that, of the two predecessors that Plantinga cites in relation to his Skyhook, one of them is a different book of Taylor’s, in which he presents the following thought experiment.73 Imagine we are riding a 178 Leftovers train, and when we look out the window we see a message (“The British Railways welcomes you to Wales”) written on the side of a hill in white rocks. From this we could either conclude that the rocks were put there intentionally in order to communicate a message—i.e., they have a teleological explanation—or that they came into that configuration by purely natural processes—the wind and the sun and the rain caused the hill to erode and the rocks to turn white, and after thousands of years, they happened to roll down the hill into that configuration. Taylor’s point is not about which of these scenarios is more likely. His point is that if, for the sake of argument, we accept the naturalistic explanation, we would have no reason for accepting the message the rocks convey. We would have no reason to think we actually were entering Wales, or even that such a place exists. The reason it is tempting to accept the message is that the rocks fell into a configuration to which we would ascribe meaning if it had been arranged by a rational agent. Insofar as the rocks were not so arranged, the apparent message in their configuration is just an illusion. 74 In order to accept the message, we have to reject the naturalistic explanation in favor of the teleological one. Similarly, our sensory and reasoning capacities cannot be accounted for on purely mechanistic principles because this would disallow us from accepting the messages they convey. The reason Plantinga cites Taylor’s argument as a forerunner to his own is that it leads to the same intuition that Plantinga is using: if a source of information is unreliable, then we can no longer accept the information it relays. 75 Because the source of information in question is our cognitive faculties, and because virtually all of our beliefs are dependent on the reliability of these faculties, this argument presents a defeater for any and all beliefs that we form. Unfortunately, as with his argument in Action and Purpose , Taylor does not apply this argument to itself, and so it does not amount to a Skyhook as we have defined it.

9 Davis In a defense of libertarian free will, William H. Davis argues that we can see reasoning well as a moral duty, citing “Peirce’s position that good reasoning is a species under the class of good behavior in general; that is, that reasoning is a branch of ethics,” and further, that ethics boils down to aesthetics. 76 Davis thus appeals to the normative element in reasoning. This allows him to draw a connection between the role free will plays in morality and the role it plays in reasoning: “freedom of the will is a concept intimately entangled with the human power to reason, so that if one of these powers goes, the other must also go.”77 Reasoning requires the capacity of self-transcendence, stepping back from the stream of experiences as they come to us and analyzing them from a standpoint independent of them. 78 Davis takes his analysis further by applying the claim of determinism to itself. If reasoning depends upon free will, then the denial of free will entails Leftovers 179 the denial of reasoning. And, of course, this applies to the reasoning the determinist uses in reaching his determinist conclusions.

. . . the determinist’s final position is such as to undermine the value of all arguments, even his own, even the most plausible ones. When one winds up by saying, “therefore, all our thinking is determined,” why then all of the thinking which led up to that decision has been determined too, and is no more to be trusted, no matter how appealing and persuasive, than the calculations of a broken adding machine—or at least a machine which we have no way of knowing not to be broken.79

Even if we do, in fact, reason well, this ability is only an accidental aspect of our belief-forming capacities. We do not ultimately reason correctly because we should; we reason correctly because other non-normative elements dic- tate what conclusions our brains reach. It would certainly be propitious if these non-normative elements parallel what good reasoning would accomplish, but we would not arrive at our conclusions because we reasoned well. We would arrive at them because of the non-normative elements. And how could we ever know whether these elements do in fact parallel what good reasoning would accomplish unless we can assess them from the transcendent viewpoint that determinism disallows? 80 If we cannot step back from our experiences in order to assess them rationally, then rationality is a chimera. And, once again, this would apply to the rationality of determinism: “the determinist’s ‘one-leveled’ view of the matter is viciously circular, and self-destructive. . . . We cannot argue to a conclusion which undermines the value of argument.” 81 Davis was apparently unaware that the Skyhook had been conceived and developed by others, as he refers to it as the only original element in his compendium of arguments against determinism. 82 This is further evidence that the present volume is necessary.

10 Denyer Nicholas Denyer presents a systematic argument, employing modal logic, to defend free will and refute determinism, and this involves his development of a Skyhook. Denyer makes the same distinction we have made between self-refutation and self-defeat (although not using those precise terms), and his Skyhook argues that determinism is subject only to the latter, not to the former: “It does not show determinism to be internally inconsistent; rather, it shows determinism to be inconsistent with other beliefs that the determinist has.” 83 More particularly, it shows determinism to be inconsistent with beliefs that are involved—and necessarily so—in the affirmation of determinism. Denyer’s focus, like Richard Taylor’s, is on deliberation, pointing out that this does not require us to think of it in merely moral or pragmatic terms. 180 Leftovers If one believes some proposition p , then one can deliberate as to whether to assert it. “Now since he is deliberating whether to assert determinism he assumes it to be a contingent matter whether he asserts determinism or not. But this assumption is incompatible with determinism.”84 In order to avoid this, the determinist would have to stop wondering whether to assert determinism, or any other proposition. Yet this is not possible; we cannot simply give up wondering whether or not to make certain assertions or not.

Suicide would be too drastic. Although it would stop him deliberating, it would also stop him believing in determinism. On the other hand, nothing less than suicide would be drastic enough. Drugs or drink might induce a temporary suspension of his practical reason, but as soon as their effects wear off the inconsistency will reappear. This inconsistency therefore requires him to abandon his belief in determinism. . . . One is then committed to the belief that there will be future events, one’s own future actions, whose origins will lead back to one’s own deliberations but no further, the belief that one’s deliberations are both autonomous and efficacious.85

Denyer also finds it necessary to address the claim that, because determinism is not strictly self-refuting, it is conceivable; and if it is conceivable, it picks out a metaphysically possible state of affairs. That is, even though we could never rationally believe determinism, it remains possible that determinism is true. Denyer responds that he does not understand the concepts of truth or proof that are being used in this objection.

When rationality alone requires not just this or that person on this or that occasion to believe something, but requires every person on every occasion to believe that thing, how could it be false? . . . What more could anyone want by way of a proof that he and others have free will than a demonstration of how that follows from premises that he accepts and will abandon only at the cost of death or incoherence? And once he has a proof of this, what more could he want by way of a refutation of its contradictory?86

11 Ripley, Simon, Colson One final stream of tradition I will address consists of essays by Charles Ripley, Robert Simon, and Darrel Colson. Ripley argues that determinism implicitly presupposes a “quasi-Kantian” assumption “which is inconsistent with determinism.”87 Causal explanations, he argues, are different from reason explanations because the former are “irrelevant to the truth” of a belief.88 If one were asked why she believed (or asserted or defended) some proposition, a causal explanation would not suffice. It would explain “why” Leftovers 181 she believed it, in a sense, but we would be left without any motive as to why she believes it, or why we should consider it. Under determinism, there could never be a reason explanation for an act, only a causal one. “Hence it seems that anyone who accepts determinism must regard human rationality as an illusion.”89 Some of our authors have sought to avoid this problem by making reasons into causes. 90 Ripley, however, thinks this is fatal. The belief that a particular number is the sum of two others is the cause of one’s assertion of such. But this leaves aside the question of whether the belief is true. If two people have contrary beliefs about a particular sum, we cannot say which is true or false, because both have a reason for their assertion. If we ask a third party to adjudicate, this third party’s assertion is likewise caused by his reason—and this just forces us to ask the question again: why believe these assertions are true ? Making reasons into causes, Ripley argues, “is to strip the concept of truth of all meaning.” 91 All that can take place is one’s subjective reaction, which cuts the issue off from any objective truth of the matter. And this difficulty is intrinsically tied up with the concept of determinism. “To claim determinism to be true is to be committed, at one and the same time, to affirming and denying the possibility of a human being knowing something to be objectively truth. Anyone who claims that determinism is true is claiming that something true can be known. But the determinist is also committed to the logical consequence of his position, that the concept of truth is an illusion.” 92 In a brief response, Simon characterizes Ripley’s argument as saying, “In effect, we are held to be in a situation like that of a computer which is unable to tell whether its own program is a good tool for arriving at truth, since it can never operate independently of its program in order to test it.” 93 But this is not a particular problem for the determinist: if we first need to know our criteria of what constitutes a good reason in order to apply these criteria to the question at hand, then both the determinist and the indeterminist are stuck. The determinist can appeal to “a higher order defense of his defense” because she will have beliefs about the nature of reasons, but then she must provide a third-level defense of this belief, a fourth-level defense, ad infinitum . But how is this any different for the indeterminist? She must go through the same motions. In neither case do we get to a bedrock level of “warranted assertibility,” and if this is a necessary prerequisite for knowledge, neither the advocate nor the detractor of determinism can know anything. Whether we decide to abandon this requirement (as Simon recommends) or acquiesce to the skepticism is irrelevant: the point is that it is not a problem particular to determinism.94 Colson presents his own Skyhook, which comments on earlier versions, including Kant’s, Jordan’s, Hasker’s, and, notably, Ripley’s, along with Simon’s objections. Colson argues that Simon makes a good point, but the Skyhook can be reformulated to address it: “what the transcendental 182 Leftovers argument is designed to show is not the superior objective application of the indeterminist’s reasoning, but rather the superior integrity of its internal structure.”95 He seeks to accomplish this by pointing to necessary a priori knowledge. If determinism is true, however, this necessity is obviated: it is only a contingent fact that the rules of mathematics hold because we are contingent beings in a contingent world. We believe the laws of mathematics not because we recognize that they simply must be true; we believe them because it was beneficial for our evolutionary forebears to form beliefs in accordance with them. He sees this as reflecting Malcolm’s concern that purposive explanations are a priori in a way that mechanistic/causal explanations are not.96 Thus, “What distinguishes Ripley’s indeterminist from the determinist is not that the former has a privileged insight into the objective nature of the external world, but rather that he recognizes the apriority and logical necessity inherent in the rules of mathematics.” The determinist can see our mathematical and logical beliefs only as contingent neurological processes, and this misses the point that these beliefs are not contingent but necessary. “The necessity of a logical inference such as modus ponens is such as not to be accountable in terms of the mere contingent necessity of natural events.” 97 Of course, we are just scratching the surface of the various forms the Sky- hook has taken, and this summary could be extended almost indefinitely. 98 At this point, however, we will turn from the positive case to the negative case and address some of the primary objections that have been raised against the Epistemological Skyhook.

Notes 1. Balfour 1877; 1879, 260–76. 2. Balfour 1896, 67–76, 89–136, 290–356. 3. Balfour 1915, 133–274. 4. Balfour 1923; cf. 1924–25. 5. See, e.g., Columbine 1908. 6. Russell 1914. Russell also seems to have misunderstood the argument, as his objection does not apply to Balfour’s claims. 7. Moore 1901, 117. 8. Lewis 1949, 121. 9. Lewis 1962. 10. Reppert 2003, 100 n. 17. 11. Plantinga 1993b, 237 n. 28; Nathan 1997, 135; Beilby, ed. 2002, ix; Menuge 2003. 12. Incredibly, Balfour’s and Plantinga’s are not the only series of Gifford Lectures that address the Skyhook. Stephen R.L. Clark also presented a version (before Plantinga), which similarly discussed the problem of explaining knowledge solely in evolutionary terms (Clark 1984, 29–30, 96–97), as well as consciousness (121–57). 13. Chesterton 1908, 58. 14. Chesterton 1908, 60–61. 15. Chesterton 1935, 183. Leftovers 183 16. Chesterton 1935, 183. 17. Lewis 1959, 171, 178. 18. Lewis 1949, 139. In addition to their influence on Lewis, there is an interesting connection between Balfour and Chesterton: they were both founding members of a metaphysical society that met between 1898 and 1908 (Kenneth Young 1963, 161). 19. Lovejoy 1914, 71–73 (207–209); 1920, 630–32; 1922. 20. Watson 1920, 94; cf. Paul Churchland 1984, 47–48; Patricia Churchland 1986, 398–99. 21. Lovejoy 1922, 136. 22. Lovejoy 1922, 137. 23. Lovejoy 1922, 142. 24. Lovejoy 1920, 632. 25. Chomsky 1971, which specifically addresses Skinner 1971. 26. See chapter 4 . 27. Chomsky 1971, 20–21. 28. Pratt 1922b, 162. 29. Pratt argues that this would mean that they do not even cause subsequent mental events. Cf. Goldman’s defense of mechanism, chapter 5. 30. Pratt 1922b, 20. 31. Pratt 1922b, 21. While Pratt discusses materialism and naturalism extensively elsewhere, and occasionally approaches the Skyhook (e.g., 1922a, 338; 1939, 98, 107–108, 113–14), the Skyhook does not have the pride of place it has in Matter and Spirit . 32. Eddington 1929, 54–55. 33. Eddington 1929, 55–56. 34. Eddington 1929, 56–58. 35. Eddington 1929, 63–67. 36. Eddington 1929, 53, 54. 37. Eddington may be another influence on Lewis’s Skyhook, as Lewis was familiar with his works, quoting him to establish different points (1947, 126, 181; 1960, 108, 155). One wonders whether Lewis had Eddington in mind (and perhaps even Science and the Unseen World in particular) when he wrote how science had compelled some “modern physicists” to “think about realities [they] can’t touch and see” (Lewis 1942, 14). 38. Joseph 1931, 14. 39. Joseph 1931, 15. 40. Joseph 1914; 1916, 410–13. 41. Urban 1930, 418–19. 42. Urban 1949, 230. 43. Urban 1949, 229. 44. Urban 1949, 236–37. 45. Urban 1930, 418. Although he does mention Eddington and Kant. 46. Urban 1949, 237. 47. A.E. Taylor 1927, commenting on Balfour 1924–25. 48. A.E. Taylor 1927, 395. 49. A.E. Taylor 1939, 261. 50. A.E. Taylor 1942, 29. Taylor ascribes the general principle that “before I assert a proposition as true, I ought to be satisfied that the truth of the proposition is compatible with my knowledge that it is true” to F.H. Bradley, just as Pratt (1922b, 21) did. See p. 170. 51. A.E. Taylor 1942, 26. 52. A.E. Taylor 1942, 29. 53. A.E. Taylor 1939, 267. 184 Leftovers 54. A.E. Taylor 1939, 274–75. 55. A.E. Taylor 1942, 32–33; cf. 1939, 261. See also Wodehouse and Taylor 1942. 56. Wick 1964, 528. 57. Eddington 1929, 63–67. See p. 170 . 58. Wick 1964, 530. 59. Wick 1964, 532. 60. Wick 1964, 533. 61. Searle 1980. 62. Wick 1964, 535, italics his. 63. Quine 1992, 19; 1998, 664–65. See chapter 6. 64. Wick 1964, 537. 65. Jordan 1969. Jordan’s essay was used extensively by William Hasker in his first Skyhook. See Hasker 1973 and above chapter 5. 66. Jordan 1969, 49. 67. Jordan 1969, 50. 68. Kant 1785, 65 (4:448); Paton 1967, 218–19. 69. We will bypass the invalid one for brevity’s sake. 70. Jordan 1969, 65–66. 71. R. Taylor 1966, 182. 72. R. Taylor 1966, 182; cf. ibid. 178. Again, this reflects our distinction between self-refutation and self-defeat. See chapter 2. 73. R. Taylor 1974, 114–19. 74. Recall the similar example from the previous chapter of an extraterrestrial slug that crawls in the dirt and its slime trail just happens to spell out a coherent sentence. As with the white rocks, the slime trail would not have any meaning; we are tempted to think so only because it is in a pattern that we would ascribe meaning to if it had been made by an intelligent agent. 75. See chapter 10 . 76. Davis 1971, 71–72, 80. 77. Davis 1971, vii. 78. Davis 1971, 46–59. 79. Davis 1971, 75. 80. Cf. Glassen 1984, and above, chapter 8. Note how this seems to presuppose an internalist epistemology. This will be dealt with in chapter 12. 81. Davis 1971, 76. 82. Davis 1971, vii. 83. Denyer 1981, 65 (§44). 84. Denyer 1981, 64 (§43). 85. Denyer 1981, 64, 66 (§43, 44). 86. Denyer 1981, 96 (§68). 87. Ripley 1972, 59. 88. Ripley 1972, 61. 89. Ripley 1972, 62. 90. E.g., Lewis 1996c, 275. 91. Ripley 1972, 63. 92. Ripley 1972, 66. 93. Simon 1973, 681. 94. Simon 1973, 682. 95. Colson 1982, 19. 96. See chapter 5 . 97. Colson 1982, 21. 98. Excluding Skyhooks that have developed their own literatures (primarily Lucas’s, Lewis’s, and Plantinga’s), additional statements or defenses of the Skyhook that are not mentioned thus far in the present work can be found in Leftovers 185 Laird 1947, 126–27; Wootton 1950, 92; Garvin 1953, 75; Madden 1960, 328; Ginsberg 1962, 82–83; Kenner 1964, 246–48; Weiss 1965, 23–26; Mabbott 1966, 115–16; Knox 1968, 73; Snyder 1972; Ewing 1973, 77–78, 177–78; Owen 1984, 118–19; Macnamara 1986, 184; Pollock 1986, 132 n. 7 and in a qualified sense, Tillich 1951, 223. Additional critiques of the Skyhook that are not mentioned elsewhere in the present work can be found in Knight 1952; Smart 1963, 126–28; 1968, 300–304; Campbell 1967, 16 and Stein 1997. Also of note is Ted Honderich’s original acceptance of the Skyhook (1969, 132–39), his later rejection of it (Honderich and Faris 1970, 210–14), and his continued wrestling with it (Honderich 1988, 360–73, 410–20, 469–72, 521–25; 1990, 1:360–73, 2:42–52, 2:101–104, 2:153–57). 12 Object Lessons

The fi rst to present his case seems right, Till another comes forward and questions him. Proverbs 18:17

We have already addressed several objections as they apply to particular forms of the Skyhook. Given that the various versions have not been brought together under a single rubric before now, it is natural that many of these objections have no application beyond their specific targets. Nev- ertheless, whether intentionally or not, at least some of them do apply to other versions of the Skyhook. In this chapter, I will look at those objections that a) seem most obvious and b) have the broadest application. Some are directed only towards determinism or naturalism, not both, but they will usually also apply to at least some forms of the other. Naturally, this chapter is incomplete, as there are many objections we will not treat, and many of the narrower objections may still need to be rebutted before advocating a specific variation of the Skyhook.

1 Evolution and Coherence

1.1 Natural Selection and Knowledge The first objection we will look at is that evolution guarantees, or at least makes probable, that our beliefs are mostly true. A hominid who regularly formed false beliefs would not survive long enough to pass on his genes. Michael Ruse argues that “elementary logical and mathematical skills” must be hardwired into our cognitive makeup because it would be impossible for our evolutionary forebears to survive without them. 1 He even applies this to less strict forms of reasoning, such as abduction.

One hominid arrives at the water-hole, finding tiger-like footprints at the edge, blood-stains on the ground, growls and snarls and shrieks in the nearby undergrowth, and no other animals in sight. She reasons: Object Lessons 187 ‘Tigers! Beware!’ And she flees. The second hominid arrives at the water, notices all of the signs, but concludes that since all of the evidence is circumstantial nothing can be proven. ‘Tigers are just a theory, not a fact.’ He settles down for a good long drink. Which of these two hominids was your ancestor?2

We have already encountered one problem with this in our treatment of Plantinga’s Skyhook: evolution would select only for behavior , not belief . It would select those behaviors (rather, those predispositions to behaviors) that increase the individual’s chances of survival and propagation. More- over, even if we grant that a propensity to form true beliefs would lead to fitness-enhancing behaviors, this is still not enough because false beliefs 3 that lead to the same fitness-enhancing behavior far outnumber the true beliefs that do so. Thus, granting that belief contents could influence behavior, natural selection does not provide enough control to ensure, or even make probable, that our cognitive faculties are reliable (i.e., that they tend to produce true beliefs), as there are innumerable false beliefs that would produce identical behavior. Because evolution selects behavior, not the beliefs that lead to such behavior, beliefs are simply invisible to evolution, and we cannot appeal to natural selection as some sort of winnowing process that tends to produce organisms with reliable belief-forming faculties. We are inclined to think that evolution would weed out false beliefs and promote true ones because we assume that the contents of our beliefs are at least partial causes of our actions. A hominid believing, correctly, that the approaching tiger is dangerous would engage in survival-enhancing behavior, wherease a hominid believing, incorrectly, that the tiger is part of a circus act and that he should put his head in its mouth would not. However, this assumption is difficult to reconcile with naturalism. As Dennett writes, naturalism entails that the content of our beliefs, their semantics, cannot influence behavior; “our brains are syntactic engines, not semantic engines, which, like perpetual motion machines, are impossible.” 4 By semantic engines, he means engines driven by the meaning the engine embodies rather than by the parts and pieces that govern the cause-and-effect processes. Naturalism entails that the only productive forces are the parts and pieces, and so the only type of engine possible in a naturalistic world is a syntactic one. A semantic engine would be one where the content plays a productive role, above and beyond the roles played by the parts and pieces; but this, Dennett argues, is naturalistically impossible, akin to a perpetual motion machine. So, given naturalism, our brains could only be syntactic engines, not semantic engines. Yet a naturalistic semantic engine is what is needed to save naturalism from the Skyhook. 5 This shows that the Skyhook is essentially an extension of the mind- body problem into epistemology. One cannot refute it without also solving the mind-body problem. However, this goes only one way: if one did solve 188 Object Lessons the mind-body problem in purely naturalistic terms, this would not necessarily resolve the Skyhook because it is possible to explain how mental events connect with physical events without showing that the mental events are rational , that the beliefs are true and justified. Another problem with this objection is that, by giving the forces that drive evolution the final say, it renders accidental any reliability our belief-forming faculties have. Our faculties would parallel what actual, reliable faculties (semantic engines) would produce, insofar as they (allegedly) tend to produce the same result: true beliefs. But they would not produce those beliefs because they are true but because it was or would have been useful for our evolutionary ancestors to believe them. This is problematic: for one thing, if a belief is not believed because it is true, it would be only accidentally true. But accidentally true belief is not knowledge: as such, trying to account for knowledge exclusively in evolutionary terms entails that we cannot know anything, including evolution itself. (Note that this does not deny or even challenge evolutionary theory; it merely presents a reductio ad absurdum to show that evolution is not sufficient to account for our cognitive faculties.) One may respond that we can adopt a pragmatic view of truth and knowledge, according to which the true simply is the useful. But there are many different types of pragmatism, 6 and the only one that would fit the bill here is an unusual one. We would have to claim that the true is what was useful for the survival and procreation of our ancestors—not for our survival, but for theirs. But why would someone else’s drive to survive and procreate be our definition of “true”? Why would what was useful for other people, even other species , to believe be what is true for me? Not to mention the facts that usefulness and truth often do not coincide and that the drive to procreate is not usually associated with the ability to see things as they really are. The underlying problem here is that, even if truth and usefulness coincide so that our cognitive faculties are reliable, this reliability would at best be an accidental reliability, one that would not hold across possible worlds: that is, we can imagine numerous worlds in which the same fitness-enhancing events transpire but are produced by false beliefs, or without any beliefs at all. Recall Hasker’s point from chapter 5 that we can imagine possible worlds physically identical to our own, “but in which mental properties are redistributed in as bizarre a fashion as one might wish.”7 This should make us skeptical that our cognitive faculties are reliable—but only given naturalism.

1.2 Individual Beliefs vs. Belief Systems At this point, a further objection is often raised, one we have already met in Plantinga’s second Skyhook. We have argued that individual beliefs could be false or unreliably formed, but how could there be a system of mostly false beliefs? Certainly we can propose some bizarre belief that allows a hominid to survive a particular set of circumstances in an ad hoc manner, but that Object Lessons 189 belief will not allow him to survive most other circumstances. So, the question is not whether our cognitive faculties may produce individual beliefs that are false, but whether there are systems of false beliefs.8 In response, we can follow Plantinga’s development of his Skyhooks. We do not have to develop a novel system of beliefs that is coherent, expansive, and unreliable. 9 Instead, we can just piggyback on the system of beliefs we have while inserting a false belief at the definitional level that touches all other beliefs. Plantinga suggests a population that falsely believes everything is a witch; I proposed a population of two-dimensional beings in a two-dimensional universe that falsely believes everything is three-dimensional. This would render all or nearly all of their beliefs false.

1.3 Conditionalization In a similar way, one could object to Hasker’s proposal of possible worlds in which mental properties are “redistributed in as bizarre a fashion as one might wish.” This does not parallel our situation because we do not experience our mental properties being random and unconnected like this. The point of the argument is to ultimately suggest that what is true of these possible worlds may be true of us: otherwise, the argument could not conclude that our cognitive faculties may be unreliable and that we thereby obtain a reason to be skeptical about them. Because there is this dissimilarity between the proposed possible worlds and our world, the argument fails. This is a valid objection, and it requires that we conditionalize the argument’s probability assessment with the addition that the denizens of the various possible worlds experience their mental properties as relatively coherent 10 or, more cautiously, that they are unaware of their mental properties being significantly incoherent. This therefore limits the number of possible worlds to those that are inhabited by cognizers with unreliable belief-forming faculties, but who experience or seem to experience them as being coherent. However, this does not allow us to conclude that they are , in fact, coherent. Indeed, if their beliefs were not coherent, how could they be aware of it? To be aware seems to posit a steady and reliable component of the mind by which one could assess the other components, which is simply to exclude by fiat this component from the argument’s conclusions. This objection does require us to take into account our mental properties’ apparent consistency, but this does not entail their actual consistency, much less their reliability. This is the strongest form of a family of similar objections that try to withhold some element or aspect of our cognitive faculties from the argument’s conclusions (e.g., mathematical or empirical beliefs) and then use the withheld element to establish the general reliability of our faculties. We are simply unable to seriously entertain the possibility that some beliefs may be false. We directly experience some things, and beliefs that are immediately formed by these experiences should be withheld from the argument’s 190 Object Lessons application. In this case, the withheld element is the general coherence of our mental processes. We cannot withhold this element, however, because we could recognize or assess our cognitive faculties as coherent only if recognition and assessment themselves were not cognitive functions. Since they are, they fall under the same cloud of suspicion as the rest. Given the unlimited number of possibilities as to how mental properties in physically identical worlds could be distributed, even with our inability to recognize any incoherence, we simply have no basis for thinking that the real world is one where our cognitive faculties reliably produce mostly true beliefs—but only if naturalism is true. And even ignoring this—even assuming that there is some class of beliefs that is immune to the argument—we can formulate the argument to accommodate it. Rather than calling all beliefs and all classes of beliefs into question, the argument could merely be directed towards inferred beliefs, such as metaphysical beliefs.11 This would include beliefs such as determinism and naturalism. Therefore, limiting it in this way does not forestall the argument from applying to these subjects. To this it might be objected that these higher-order beliefs are continuous with the more elementary beliefs. Our metaphysical and scientific theories presuppose the laws of logic and so we cannot accept the possibility that the former are wrong without requiring a similar skepticism towards the latter. However, while these higher-order beliefs do presuppose the elementary beliefs, they go beyond them. There may be some continuity between them, but this continuity is nowhere near enough to ensure that most of our inferred beliefs are true.

The question is whether not only the physical but the mental capacity needed to make a stone axe automatically brings with it the capacity to take each of the steps that have led from there to the construction of the hydrogen bomb, or whether an enormous excess mental capacity, not explainable by natural selection, was responsible for the generation and spread of the sequence of intellectual instruments that has emerged over the last thirty thousand years. . . . I see absolutely no reason to believe that the truth lies with the first alternative. 12

1.4 Coherentism While many of the evolution-based objections appeal to some sort of coherence, we can also address similar concerns from a strictly epistemological perspective. The very image of the Epistemological Skyhook suggests a foundationalist epistemology: determinism and naturalism posit a closed circle but can be defined or defended only from a position transcending that circle. But if we adopt a coherentist epistemology, where our beliefs are justified or warranted by their relation to other beliefs in the circle, we may be able to avoid this problem. In this case, we do not have to appeal to a transcendent Object Lessons 191 position to justify our epistemic systems. Moreover, given that what a person believes about one thing affects what she believes about other things, how could her beliefs be mostly false while still making up a coherent system of beliefs? As to the first of these, it is necessary only to point out that the beliefs that one’s beliefs are coherent or expansive are, in fact, beliefs. As such, they can be defeated by the argument just as much as any other belief, and so we cannot appeal to them in defending our belief-forming systems. We cannot get the footing necessary to affirm that we really have a coherent and expansive system of beliefs because the argument takes this footing away as soon as we posit it. It certainly seems that we have a relatively large number of beliefs that are at least somewhat coherent with each other, but the argument explains away this “seeming” as much as anything else: we cannot conclude from it that we actually do have a relatively large number of cohering beliefs. Obviously, this is immensely counterintuitive (to say the least), but to paraphrase Plantinga, that’s not a problem for the Skyhook; it’s a problem for naturalism and determinism.13 If it is further objected that we cannot really imagine a set of beliefs as expansive as those we have but in which most of the beliefs are false, our response is that, first, we have shown with Plantinga’s hypothetical population who falsely believes that everything is a witch, or inhabitants of a two-dimensional universe who falsely believe that everything is three-dimensional, including themselves, it is possible to insert a false belief at the essential or definitional level that attaches itself to nearly every other belief, thus rendering them all false. So, clearly, such a system is not only imaginable but easily imaginable. Second, as we have also already shown, we can recast the argument so that it addresses only inferred beliefs, including scientific beliefs (such as evolution) and metaphysical beliefs (such as determinism and naturalism). This may serve to validate our belief that our system of beliefs is coherent, but it does nothing to help determinism or naturalism to avoid the charge of self-defeat.

2 Knowledge and Skepticism

2.1 Fallibilism Another potential set of objections turns on the similarities between the Sky- hook and more traditional forms of skepticism. This would entail that our methods for dealing with the latter can be applied just as easily to the former. One such objection is that the Skyhook presupposes infallibilism, the view that knowledge has to be absolutely certain in order to qualify as such. This shows it to be similar to claims that my mental processes are being messed with by an evil genie, or that I am just a brain in a vat, being stimulated by aliens or scientists (or alien scientists) to think that I have a body and am interacting with the world and other people through it. According to such 192 Object Lessons claims, if we cannot be 100% certain that our cognitive faculties are reliable, then we cannot rule out the possibility that they are not, and so we cannot have knowledge of anything. It is possible that we are being deceived by an evil genie; it is possible that we are just brains in vats. Yet, oddly enough, we do not feel threatened by these bizarre claims. They are certainly interesting and play a large role in the history of epistemology, but very few people genuinely suspect that they are being deceived by an evil genie or whatever. If we do not take these other skeptical claims seriously (so the objection goes) we do not need to take the Skyhook seriously either. However, there are several differences between these more standard skeptical scenarios and the Skyhook, and those differences obviate this objection.14 First, in other global skeptical scenarios, we do not have any reason to think they are true; they are just mere possibilities. We do not have a reason to think that we are under the control of an evil genie or that we are just brains in vats. In contrast, the Skyhook, by appealing to the actual world– view of the naturalist or determinist, gives them a reason for accepting the skepticism . It is not some hypothetical skepticism dreamed up to explore the limits of knowledge; it is a genuine skepticism resulting from the naturalist or determinist worldview. Second, as a function of this, these other forms of skepticism entail only the bare possibility that our cognitive faculties are unreliable. It is logically possible that I am just a brain in a vat, but I am not too worried that this might actually be the case. If I am a brain in a vat, then the skepticism follows, but I have no reason for thinking that I am a brain in a vat. The Skyhook argues similarly: if determinism or naturalism is true, then the skepticism follows. However, the determinist and naturalist already believe determinism and naturalism, so the skepticism’s necessary precondition is already met. Therefore, rather than arguing for the mere possibility that our cognitive faculties are unreliable, the Skyhook argues for the probability that they are unreliable. However, this probability does not apply to everyone equally but only to those who accept determinism and naturalism. It would be comparable to an argument showing that theism inevitably leads to the evil genie scenario. If the argument were successful, the response to it should be to reject not merely the skepticism, but theism as well: and this skepticism would apply only to the theist, not to the atheist. Therefore, while some advocates of the Skyhook may be presupposing infallibilism, 15 the argument itself need not do so, as it does not require absolute certainty or anything like it in order to avoid a crippling skepticism. It merely requires that our cognitive faculties be minimally reliable, so that they do not provide a defeater for every member of our belief system, and holds that this requirement is precluded by determinism and naturalism.

2.2 Externalism Another epistemological objection points out that traditional forms of skepticism primarily present problems for internalist epistemologies. According Object Lessons 193 to internalism, justification, and thus knowledge, is dependent on that which is internally available to the cognizer. This does not mean internal states per se; “the ‘internal’ of internalism refers to what is internal to the person’s first-person cognitive perspective in the sense of being accessible from that perspective, not necessarily to what is internal in the sense of being metaphysically a state or feature of that person.” 16 So, some states that are “internal”—like physiological states—are not internal in the right sense. Similarly, a priori truths, which are not relevant to an individual’s internal states, are still internally accessible and so are allowed in internalist epistemologies. A rough definition of internalism is that knowledge is recursive: one must know that she knows something in order to know it. It is this requirement that opens internalism up to the possibility of many forms of skepticism. The strength of these skepticisms is that they propose a scenario where our beliefs would be exactly as they are, but in which they are all (or nearly all) false. So, the scientists who have your brain in a vat stimulate it in such a way so as to make you think you are reading a philosophy book, but ex hypothesi your experiences are completely illusory. There is nothing internally available that would allow you to differentiate between the real world and the brain-in-a-vat world because any experience or any test one could devise would be equally explicable under both scenarios. Externalist and naturalized epistemologies arose in part in order to provide theories of knowledge that are not subject to these forms of skepticism. According to externalism, knowledge is not merely a matter of internal relations among concepts. Knowledge is dependent on a belief’s relation to the world. A skeptical scenario, such as the evil genie, posits a scenario that is internally identical to our own but externally radically divergent from what we take the real world to be. If we define knowledge so that the external relations trump the internal ones, then the skeptical scenario does not apply. Certainly, if I am just a brain in a vat, then most of what I think I know is false. But if knowledge is defined by its relation to the actual world, not just what I think the world is, then I can take at least some of my beliefs as knowledge. According to externalism, the cognizer does not have to know that she knows something in order to know it. This entails that she does not have to have a reason to trust the process that produced a particular belief in her before it (potentially) qualifies as knowledge: it is sufficient for the processes to be appropriate in some way. So the cognizer does not necessarily have to hunt around to find some justification for a belief in order for it to be an item of knowledge. Certainly, if she is faced with a strong enough reason to reject the belief, then she does have to provide some reason why it is true and why the process that produced it was trustworthy. But she does not have to do this before she accepts the belief and before it can qualify as knowledge. This allows her to obtain knowledge in such a way that the internalist forms of skepticism do not apply. Unless she has a genuine reason for thinking she is just a brain in a vat, or that there is an evil genie, 194 Object Lessons her beliefs about the world and herself are (or at least can be) true, justified beliefs, i.e., knowledge.17 The question now is twofold: a) does the Epistemological Skyhook presuppose internalism, and b) must it do so? Certainly, some forms of the Epistemological Skyhook (such as Kant’s, Hasker’s, and Glassen’s) are internalist, but not all are. Moreover, those that are internalistic can be transformed fairly easily so as to avoid this objection. Recall how Lewis’s original Skyhook seemed to be presented as a Skeptical Threat Argument, allegedly making it susceptible to Wittgensteinian objections about the impossibility of (internalist) skepticism. However, Lewis then rephrased it as a Best Explanation Argument, and this completely deflated those objections. 18 Sim- ilarly, Plantinga begins by accepting R—the proposition that our cognitive faculties generally form true beliefs—as a properly basic belief. We do not have to search for some reason to believe it; it comes with its own warrant or justification, and so qualifies as knowledge as long as it is true. But the Skyhook provides a reason for withholding belief in it (that is, a defeater). The determinist and the naturalist are allowed to trust the reliability of their cognitive faculties up until the point where they realize they have a defeater for it, and that is exactly what the Skyhook provides. The doubting of R is the conclusion of the Skyhook, providing a defeater for R.19

2.3 Naturalized Epistemology Well, that is externalism; naturalized epistemology has a few more arrows in its quiver. Specifically, it holds that our cognitive faculties are in place in order to address local issues, not global ones. The function of these faculties is to produce intuitions, and these intuitions are a) passive rather than something we actively do, much less something we choose, and b) tend towards simplicity and conservativism. 20 That is, we intuitively prefer simpler explanations and we intuitively accommodate new information in the most conservative way. These two qualities would probably be selected for in the struggle for survival because “simplicity allows for neurological parsimony and conservativeness for reducing cognitive labor.”21 As such, our cognitive faculties and the intuitions they produce are merely those that helped our evolutionary forebears survive in a particular environment; to try to apply them globally is therefore inappropriate. This is precisely what allows naturalized epistemology to avoid global skeptical claims: we are not addressing any global issues and so skeptical charges do not apply. As long as the naturalized epistemologist recognizes the local nature of the qualities of our cognitive equipment, no global skeptical argument can be raised; in other words, one cannot question the overall reliability of our cognitive faculties or our intuitive use of simplicity and conservativism. It is “only if we are suspicious of ‘passivity’ rather than welcoming of it, that there is a problem. So long as we accept the ‘shallow- ness of epistemic reflection’ and insist that the only normative issues that Object Lessons 195 arise are local rather than global ones, there need be no normative issues arising naturally out of our practice which a naturalized epistemologist cannot address.”22 In a sense, this is a repudiation of the Aristotelian doctrine of the material intellect, that it must be able to become all things.23 The claim here, as noted in chapter 9, is that if the mind did not have unlimited scope, then allegedly it would be possible that those parts of reality that are beyond the mind’s purview would change our assessment of things so much that our beliefs would be false. In order to protect against this possibility, therefore, we must assume that the mind is unlimited in potential. This, I would argue, is the same intuition that fuels the drive for epistemic infallibilism; and just as some versions of the Skyhook seem to be appealing to infallibilism, so some Skyhooks seem to be appealing to some sort of universality. However, the Skyhook need not appeal to universality. All it claims is that, given naturalism or determinism, the probability that one’s beliefs, taken individually or collectively, are true is low, and this gives one a reason to withhold belief in them. The beliefs in question can be those passive intuitions that are in place only to address local issues rather than global ones. They can also include belief in the passivity and conservatism that natural selection would allegedly be based on. There is absolutely no requirement that the Skyhook appeal to some unlimited potential of the human mind, because it applies to the local beliefs within a local context just as much as to global ones. One could argue that the conclusion of the Skyhook has universal scope to it, in that it ultimately calls all of our beliefs into question, thus making it a global skeptical argument. But that is not really an objection. Naturalized epistemology tries to limit its scope to local issues, but if local issues cannot ultimately be sealed off from global ones, so that global issues inevitably arise from the local ones, then refusing to follow the local chain of reasoning to its global end is simply special pleading. In fact we have already met two Skyhooks that do not depend on any kind of universality: Nagel’s and Plantinga’s. Indeed, Plantinga is himself a naturalized epistemologist, and his theory of knowledge explicitly rejects any sort of universality. In order for a belief to constitute knowledge, the faculties involved in producing and sustaining that specific belief must be functioning properly, but this need not be true of any other belief one holds. In other words, it is a particular requirement rather than a general one. The presence of other beliefs that are not the product of properly functioning cognitive faculties does not take away from those beliefs that are: “the rationality of my belief that China is a large country is not compromised by the fact that I harbor irrational beliefs about my neighbor’s dog.” 24 Moreover, the faculties involved need not be working perfectly in order to make a belief knowledge, just sufficiently well. As such, part of the genius of Plantinga’s Skyhook is that it is a global skeptical argument that arises within naturalized epistemology and its purely local concerns. The standard way of avoiding skepticism does not 196 Object Lessons work here. The issues involved (naturalism and the reliability of our cognitive faculties) are not particular to any system of knowledge 25 and, most relevantly, do not presuppose any kind of unlimited abilities for our cognitive faculties. Moreover, these issues arise from a strictly scientific inquiry: whether these faculties, given naturalistic evolution, are likely to be reliable. This demonstrates that externalists and naturalized epistemologists do not escape the threat of global skepticism—but only so long as they are wedded to ontological naturalism. As for Nagel, his philosophy of mind claims that there are truths and facts that are in principle unobtainable by any human intellect.26 This must be checked by his further rejection of perspectivalism and subjectivism as self-defeating—in fact, his Skyhook is explicitly based on the recognition that “The essential characteristic of reasoning is its generality. If I have reasons to conclude or to believe or to want or to do something, they cannot be reasons just for me—they would have to justify anyone else doing the same in my place.”27 So while his philosophy of mind rejects universality, understood in Aristotle’s sense, Nagel also argues that any use of reason, any formation of beliefs, any attempt at rationality must ultimately presuppose universal truths and methods that apply across the board. Thus, any attempt to limit our cognitive faculties to merely local issues, as naturalized epistemology does, ends up being self-defeating.

3 Back to Question-Begging In chapter 4 , I addressed a counterargument that eliminative materialists give to the Skyhook: that it is question-begging. They illustrate this with the supposedly parallel case of a vitalist, who thinks that life requires the existence of vital spirits and so argues that any contrary position is self-defeating. The antivitalist would not be alive to deny vitalism if she did not have a vital spirit, after all. This is supposed to be similar to the folk psychologist who accuses eliminativism of being self-defeating. Both the vitalist and the folk psychologist are supposedly criticizing their opponents for failing to meet the very criteria these opponents are explicitly rejecting. To use these criteria to critique them, therefore, begs the question. However, as Reppert points out, these two scenarios are not parallel. He gives three conditions of the vitalist that make his argument question-begging.

1. Vitalism is an explanatory theory for the purpose of explaining life. 2. Vital spirits are supposed to exist solely in virtue of the fact that they are needed to explain the existence of life. 3. Whether or not there is life cannot be disputed. Life is a publicly observable phenomenon, and any theory that takes life to be an illusion simply fails to save the appearances. 28 Object Lessons 197 These conditions would be accepted by both the vitalist and the antivitalist. The parallel conditions for the folk psychologist would then be

1*. Folk psychology is an empirical theory, employed to explain various aspects of human behavior (such as assertion). 2*. Beliefs and desires, the posits of folk psychology, are supposed to exist solely in virtue of the fact that they are needed to explain these aspects of human behavior. 3*. Whether or not there are assertions cannot be disputed. Assertion is a publicly observable phenomenon, and any theory that takes assertion to be an illusion simply fails to save the appearances.29

None of these conditions, however, would be held by both sides of the debate. Folk psychologists—that is, everyone who does not accept eliminativism— reject 1*. Eliminativists reject 3*. And the whole claim of the Skyhook is that the posits of folk psychology are necessary for intelligibility and coherence, beyond any explanatory power they may have with respect to human behavior. Therefore 2* would not be accepted by the folk psychologist—in fact, any denial of the first condition entails a rejection of the second. If something is not an explanatory theory, then obviously it is not being posited solely to explain some phenomenon.30 As such, the eliminativist’s supposed parallel case is not really parallel, and so does not constitute a counterexample to Skyhook’s claims. When I introduced this objection and counterargument, I applied it only to eliminativism. Here I want to suggest that we can apply it to any form of skepticism. The skeptic says reason is illusory, the skeptic’s skeptic—that is, someone who is skeptical of the skeptic’s claims—says that this skepticism would apply to the skeptic’s reasoning regarding skepticism, making it self-defeating. According to this objection, the skeptic could reply that this is to judge skepticism by the very standard it is rejecting, namely reasoning, and as such begs the question. However, if we apply Reppert’s criteria, the situation here does not parallel 1–3 (which is question-begging), but does parallel 1*–3* (which is not question-begging).

1†. Reasoning is a theory of knowledge, employed to explain various aspects of human experience, such as knowledge. 2†. Reasoning is posited solely to explain these aspects of human experience. 3†. Whether or not there is knowledge is not in dispute.

Yet reasoning is also a matter of direct experience, not merely a theory to explain how we function, so 1† is false; it is not being posited solely in order to account for knowledge, so 2† is false; and the skeptic herself denies that knowledge is possible, so 3† is false. It is acceptable, therefore, to use reason to refute the skeptic. 198 Object Lessons . . . the appeal to reason is implicitly authorized by the challenge itself, so this is really a way of showing that the challenge is unintel- ligible. The charge of begging the question implies that there is an alternative—namely, to examine the reasons for and against the claim being challenged while suspending judgment about it. For the case of reasoning itself, however, no such alternative is available, since any considerations against the objective validity of a type of reasoning are inevitably attempts to offer reasons against it, and these must be rationally assessed. The use of reason in the response is not a gratuitous importation by the defender: It is demanded by the character of the objections offered by the challenger.31

The reason that 1*–2* and 1†–2† show that the Skyhook proponent is not begging the question is that she is not using those conditions that are only associated with her own position. She is using those conditions that the eliminativist and skeptic themselves use. This is what justifies the Skyhook proponent’s use of these conditions—this is what makes these positions self -defeating instead of just wrong. They depend upon those conditions that they say they reject. Insofar as the eliminativist and skeptic deny that they use these conditions, that point certainly has to be argued, but the Skyhook proponent is well within her rights to demonstrate how the eliminativist and skeptic must use these conditions in order to present their theses and then argue that, because their theses presuppose conditions that their theses themselves deny, their theses are self-defeating. 3* and 3†, however, are different. Here the eliminativist and skeptic have some traction in the accusation that their critics are begging the question, since the explananda , the phenomena that are supposed to be explained, are what they are explicitly rejecting. This may be sufficient to show that the case of the vitalist is not parallel to those of the anti-eliminativist and the antiskeptic (which, to be fair, is all Reppert was trying to show). But we must ask the further question of whether this is a problem for the Skyhook. It seems here that the eliminativist and the skeptic are justified in accusing the Skyhook proponent of question-begging: she is, after all, using conditions that these positions deny in order to judge their acceptability. I contend that the first two points overrule the third. The claim is that the eliminativist is asserting that there are no assertions ; the skeptic is arguing that arguments are invalid. Again, they can certainly counter that they are not asserting or arguing anything, but the claim of the Skyhook is that they are, regardless of how loudly they assert or argue to the contrary. If they say that they are not asserting or arguing anything, we have no reason to consider their claims as having any content, validity, or applicability. They are, as Scruton puts it, asking us not to believe them. 32 I see no reason why we should not grant their requests. What about when we turn from these positions to those that are the specific focus of our study, namely determinism and naturalism? The difficulty Object Lessons 199 here is that these positions supposedly entail skepticism, but its proponents do not accept that they do. Can we still apply the Skyhook to them, or would it be question-begging to do so? Let’s take determinism and its critique of free will in particular (applying it mutatis mutandis to naturalism) and rephrase Reppert’s conditions accordingly:

1‡. Free will is a theory, employed to explain various aspects of human experience, such as action. 2‡. Free will is posited solely to explain these aspects of human experience. 3‡. Whether or not there are actions is not in dispute.

It should be evident that the Skyhook is not question-begging here. While free will can be made into a theory, it is more a matter of common experience. Perhaps these experiences are illusory, but this is irrelevant: the point is that free will is not being posited exclusively as an explanatory theory; it is also posited because of our apparent experience of it. Thus 1‡ is false. 2‡ further illustrates this. Free will is not originally posited solely to explain actions, it is being posited because we directly experience it. More- over, according to the antideterminist form of the Skyhook, free will is necessary in order for any belief, determinism included, to be intelligible. This is being argued regardless of whatever role it may play as an explanatory theory of actions. So 2‡ is false as well. Recall also why these first two points are relevant: it means that the Skyhook proponent is not using conditions that are associated only with her own thesis in order to critique other theses that do not share those conditions. Rather, she is arguing that the determinist does share those conditions, specifically in believing and defending determinism. 3‡ is interesting because in this case it is true: both the Skyhook proponent and the determinist accept that there are actions. 33 However, this serves to make the Skyhook stronger here because it is not judging determinism by conditions that the determinist explicitly rejects while surreptitiously assuming them (as is the case with the eliminativist and skeptic). The determinist accepts these conditions both implicitly and explicitly. 34 So one who argues that determinism or naturalism is self-defeating is not begging the question against them by using conditions her opponent rejects.

4 Compatibility Issues Compatibilism is usually defined as the view that determinism and free will can both be true. This is also known as soft determinism, and I stated in chapter 2 that I would focus primarily on hard determinism, which denies this compatibility. However, there are still issues that arise within a soft determinist framework, and we can extend them so that they have relevance to naturalism as well: can there be two independent and complete explanations of the same phenomenon? 200 Object Lessons 4.1 Computers as Counterexample Computers are completely material, determined objects, operating on material, determined principles. Yet their material elements and processes can have content, and they can reliably draw correct conclusions, which is supposedly all that reasoning is. In many ways, they are more reliable than human beings. This is thus a counterexample to the claims of the Skyhook. This is a deep subject to which we cannot give a comprehensive answer. For now we will make three points, which vary in terms of how controversial they are among philosophers of mind. First, the fact that we can organize a material system and ascribe propositional content to certain configurations so that those configurations express true propositions does nothing to counter the claim that we could just as easily ascribe false propositions to the material system, or none at all. This opens us up to the Skyhook and its conclusions. Second, according to Popper and Hasker, while even very simple machines may describe, “we do not attribute the responsibility for the description to it; we attribute it to its maker.”35 This applies to all accounts of physical machinery, including computers and artificial intelligences: we do not consider whatever descriptions they provide as their own, but as extensions of the intelligent, sentient agents behind it.

Computers function as they do because they have been constructed by human beings endowed with rational insight. And the results of their computations are accepted because they are evaluated by rational human beings as conforming to rational norms. A computer, in other words, is merely an extension of the rationality of its designers and users; it is no more an independent source of rational thought than a television set is an independent source of news and entertainment.36

This is not to say that a computer can only duplicate what a human mind can accomplish. It is an extension of the designer’s mind, going beyond what that mind can do. Third, it is difficult to say that the material parts and pieces actually have content. We may ascribe content to its material parts, and we may design it with such an ascription in mind so that the computer’s processes further develop other contents. But this does not mean that these material parts have those contents in and of themselves. Recall Richard Taylor’s thought experiment of white rocks on a hillside that spell out “The British Rail- ways welcomes you to Wales.” 37 If the rocks just fell into those positions by natural processes and were not placed there by a mind who intended to communicate the content of that sentence, then we would have no reason for thinking the sentence is true. We would have no reason for thinking that there is such a place as Wales, much less that we were actually entering it. The rocks would not really have any content; it would appear so only Object Lessons 201 because they happened to fall into a configuration that we would ascribe content to if it had been arranged by an intelligent agent. The idea here is that material objects and processes have only derivative content, which is assigned by an already existing mind—a mind that, by analogy, would have original content that is not derivative. As such, we cannot start with derivative content and build up to original content because derivative content has content only by virtue of having been assigned content by something with original content.38 Looking at these three points, only the second one is controversial in the sense that it would not be accepted by many philosophers of mind. We can at this point register our agreement with Lucas when he writes that, if a computer or artificial intelligence is more than just an extension of the minds of its makers, then it would consist of more than its physical, material components, in which case it could no longer be called a “computer.” This would just mean there are two ways of making persons: the old biological way and the new technological way. 39 The first point, that we can program computers to calculate incorrect answers, is not, or at least should not be, a problem. If the objection is developed to mean that we could not program a computer to consistently give wrong answers, this just boils down to the objection addressed earlier that we cannot imagine an expansive system that is coherent and unreliable (short rebuttal: of course we can). While many philosophers may object to the third objection’s claim that material objects and processes cannot have content, when this is clarified by making a distinction between original and derivative content, it becomes, perhaps surprisingly, widely accepted among philosophers of mind. Dennett, at least, portrays himself as a lone holdout against it.40 The biggest problem I have with this objection, however, is that it proposes a materialistic, deterministic system that parallels what a rational system would do. A computer would be, to recall Dennett’s point, a syntactic engine that imitates a semantic engine. But imitation is not enough. We need an actual semantic engine to preserve the possibility of knowledge, indeed to avoid the self-defeat that the Skyhook reveals.

4.2 Compatibilism The larger issue is not whether there can be two explanations of the same phenomenon, but whether there can be two complete explanations of the same phenomenon. Intuitions vary on this. Some people seem to have no difficulty in ascribing multiple complete explanations to the same phenomenon. For others, once one type of explanation is complete, there is nothing left for any other explanation to explain. If we give a complete deterministic explanation of an effect, then in what sense would it be relevant to further appeal to someone’s decision to produce the effect? If she had not so decided, the event would still have taken place because the deterministic processes involved would have produced it. 202 Object Lessons The compatibilist may object, however, that we cannot make such a distinction: the processes that ultimately produce the effect would also produce her willingness to produce it. “No one has ever announced that, because determinism is true thermostats do not control the temperature”; 41 that is, the fact that the cause and effect chain can be traced back to processes that precede that thermostat’s changing the temperature—and even that precede the thermostat’s existence, or the invention of thermostats—it does not follow that the thermostat is not controlling the temperature. However, one could object that, in this case, the thermostat’s controlling of the temperature is not really a complete explanation. Rather, the preceding causes and the thermostat are all parts of a larger overarching explanation. Recall Kim’s assessment from chapter 5 that “No event can be given more than one complete and independent explanation.”42 When we appeal to two different types of complete explanation, we have “an inherently unstable situation” that “generates a strong pressure to find an acceptable account of the relationship between” the two explanations “and, by extension, that between the two systems to which they belong.” 43 In the absence of such a relationship, we are faced with causal overdetermination, where a single event has two complete and independent causes (such as a fire caused by faulty wiring and a simultaneous lightning strike). But, while such situations are possible, they are rare and they are coincidences— and coincidences cannot be used to explain a general relationship that regularly connects two types of entities, states, or processes. If it is general and regular, then by definition it is not a coincidence. In fact, coincidence plays havoc in a deeper sense: we are dealing with epistemology here, where one’s beliefs must be produced in a proper way in order for them to qualify as knowledge. But coincidence excludes this possibility. A belief cannot be coincidentally true if it is to be an item of knowledge. So, if we give a complete deterministic or naturalistic explanation of a phenomenon, then that phenomenon could have a rational explanation only by coincidence, and such a possibility would not apply to other cases that have a complete deterministic or naturalistic explanation. So, deterministic and naturalistic explanations exclude rational explanations, including any rational explanation of why one believes determinism or naturalism. However, these conclusions are controversial. Compatibilism is a common position among philosophers. Therefore, a Skyhook that does not depend upon rejecting compatibilism for the sake of argument would be superior to one that does.

Notes 1. Ruse 1986, 162. 2. Ruse 1986, 163. 3. Here and in what follows, I should refer to beliefs that are either “false or irrelevant ” or “true and relevant ” to indicate that it is not enough that a belief be Object Lessons 203 true. It also has to be about the circumstances. This is addressed in a little more detail in the following chapter. 4. Dennett 2011, 35, italics his. 5. Much contemporary philosophy of mind, not least Dennett’s, is the attempt to explain how truth-conduciveness could take place in a naturalistic world—or in Dennett’s terms, how semantics can arise in a syntactic world. 6. Lovejoy 1908. 7. Hasker 1999, 71. 8. Fales 2002, 50–52; Ramsey 2002, 20–25; Law 2011, 252. 9. Which is not to say that constructing such a system is impossible (although it may be), just that doing so in ad hoc fashion would be a gargantuan task beyond our present abilities. 10. Otte 2002, 142–47. 11. Plantinga 1993b, 231–32; 2011, 348–49. 12. Nagel 1986, 80–81. 13. Plantinga 2008, 59. 14. See Slagle 2015. 15. For example, Chesterton’s (1935, 183) claim that we must “treat the human mind as having an ultimate authority.” See chapter 11. 16. BonJour 2010, 205. 17. It should be pointed out that internalism and externalism represent a spectrum rather than just a simple two-valued alternative. They do not have to be mutually exclusive. 18. See chapter 7 . 19. See chapter 10 . 20. Hookway 1994. 21. Nunley 2005, 76. 22. Hookway 1994, 479. 23. Aristotle, On the Soul III.5, 430a15. 24. Plantinga 1994, 21. 25. Plantinga 2002, 205 n. 2. 26. Nagel 1979b, 171; 1986, 26, 90–109. 27. Nagel 1997, 5. 28. Reppert 1992, 389. 29. Reppert 1992, 390. 30. The opposite, however, is not the case. It is possible that something is an explanatory theory but is not being posited solely to explain a particular phenomenon. It may be a theory with broader applicability. So, it is possible for the first condition to be true and the second false, but not for the second to be true and the first false. 31. Nagel 1997, 24. 32. Scruton 1996, 6. 33. Although some hard determinists may deny it, or at least redefine what “action” means. 34. A critic might say that this parallels the vitalist’s case, which was question-begging, insofar as both the vitalist and the antivitalist agreed on their third condition too. However, the problem there was the third term being taken in conjunction with the first two, whereas in the present case, the first two conditions are not given but disputed. The overall point, again, is that the antideterminist is not begging the question because she is not arguing against determinism via methods that are acceptable only to the antideterminist, which is the opposite of the vitalist/antivitalist case. 35. Popper 1968b, 295. 204 Object Lessons 36. Hasker 1983, 49, italics removed. Cf. Lewis 1947, 50; 1960, 44. 37. R. Taylor 1974, 114–19. See chapter 11. 38. This is essentially Plantinga’s distinction between indicators and depictors. 39. Lucas 1970, 137–38. 40. Dennett 1989. 41. Nozick 1981, 315. 42. Kim 1995c, 239. 43. Kim 1995c, 246, italics his. 13 An a Priori Teleological Argument

Will your long-winded speeches never end? What ails you that you keep on arguing? Job 16:3

In this chapter I will present my own version of the Epistemological Skyhook that synthesizes what I take to be the best qualities of the other versions while minimizing the weaker aspects. But first it is necessary to ask whether determinism or naturalism presents the better target.

1 Selecting a Target

1.1 Determinism Let’s look first at determinism. In chapter 2 I argued that determinism poses a problem insofar as “it regards the determinant as invariably extrinsic to that which is determined by it.”1 That is, in order for a belief to be knowledge, there must be an explanation for it, it must be a good explanation—that is, one that actually justifies or warrants the belief—and that explanation must be why I believe it. If this were not the case, then it would seem to create a barrier between the holding of the belief and the belief’s truth. One would not believe it because it is true—that would be an intrinsic cause or explanation of why one believes it.2 Rather, one would believe it because of some other reason or cause. So it seems we can straightforwardly present an antideterminism Sky- hook. But this is only if we accept internalism . If we are externalists, then we do not have to know the explanation for a belief, as long as there is one (or at least, a good one). So, given internalism, an antideterminism Skyhook can go forward—but internalism is not given. We should not assume internalism is the case. It is still possible, though, for determinism to be self-defeating if externalism is true. However, in this case, the problem that determinism creates—the reason it appears self-defeating—would be due to the hypothesis that our 206 An a Priori Teleological Argument beliefs are determined by certain causes and processes , namely, those that are extrinsic to what the beliefs are about. It is these causes and processes that make determinism self-defeating, not determinism itself. We could, theoretically, develop a determinism in which the causes of our beliefs are not extrinsic to them. Some form of rational determinism where we are determined by rational processes (which may be external or extrinsic to ourselves but intrinsic to the explanation for the beliefs caused) so that our beliefs are true and justified would not pose a problem. Whether such a theory is coherent is another question. Another possible form of determinism that may be able to avoid the Sky- hook is theistic determinism, that God determines everything, including us. This, however, is not a pure determinism, given that no one is claiming that God would be determined under this scenario, merely that everything else is. We argued that determinism must be a universal claim in order to have any bite, since the antideterminist does not deny that some things are determined; she merely denies that all things are. Nevertheless, most of the debate over determinism is over whether we are fully determined, and, according to theistic determinism, the answer is yes. If God determines us so that our cognitive faculties are reliable, then God, being an external cause of our beliefs, would nevertheless not be extrinsic to those beliefs, given that we would believe them because they are true. An omniscient God would cause us to form the beliefs we do, and those beliefs that are true would be justified or warranted because they have their origin in the ground of truth and reality itself. However, the theistic determinist is not out of the woods, as the problem resurfaces at the level of belief. The claim, recall, is that there must be an explanation for a belief, it must be a good explanation, and it must be my explanation. But if the determining factors are extrinsic to the individual (not to the belief), then it is difficult to see how it could my explanation as opposed to just an explanation. In order for it to be my explanation, I have to accept it. If my acceptance is also determined by extrinsic forces (God in our current example), then in what sense is it my explanation? In fact, how could the resulting state be called a “belief” at all? Belief seems to involve both reception of information and some level of assent to or approval of it.3 After all, we often receive information that we do not subsequently believe, so clearly mere reception of information is an insufficient definition of belief. And assent or approval in turn seems to intrinsically involve the concept of self-origination . I may not have to originate the explanation of the belief, but I do have to make whatever explanation there is my explanation for believing it. This would suggest that determinism is incompatible with belief, and so belief in determinism, including theistic determinism, is self-defeating. In this case, theistic determinism is itself subject to a Skyhook. The claim here, however, is that determinism entails a passive concept of belief and that this is incoherent. But that is a manifestly debatable claim, and at any rate, it would apply well beyond determinism. It would apply to An a Priori Teleological Argument 207 any pure form of externalism as well, and I am very reticent to expand our targets from naturalism and determinism to include externalism. Regardless, any difficulty determinism may have in accounting for beliefs does not give us a reason to focus the Skyhook on determinism since, as we have seen, naturalism suffers from a similar difficulty, namely, the difficulty in accounting for belief content or aboutness. 4 As such, we can, for present purposes, ignore this point.

1.2 Naturalism So determinism is subject to the Skyhook due to what the determining factors are and how they determine our beliefs. Being determined does not create the problem; being determined in a particular way does. Admittedly, that particular way encapsulates most forms of determinism that have been proposed, but that is another issue. Naturalism, however, cannot make a similar claim. The processes and factors that give us a defeater for all of our beliefs are what constitute naturalism. These processes and factors cannot be distinguished from naturalism, as they can be with determinism, because they form the very content of naturalism. It is naturalism itself that leads to all of our beliefs being defeated, including belief in naturalism. What exactly is the problem with naturalism? It is that our beliefs, granting their possibility, would be brought about by natural processes, and natural processes could, at best, coincide with what rational processes would produce. On naturalism, my belief that 2 + 2 = 4 is not brought about by my recognition of the mathematical concepts involved, but by certain physical processes in my brain. 2 + 2 = 4 is a necessary truth, but the physical processes in my brain are radically contingent. There is a dichotomy between these natural processes and rationality that cannot be bridged in the same way that determinism can: by proposing some form of rational determinism. Natural processes are distinct from rationality: they may not conflict with rationality, but they are not the same. As long as this is the case, we can form a Skyhook against it. In chapter 2 we defined naturalism as involving three elements: 1) an ontology defined by the physical sciences, 2) the derivative status of mind, and 3) the absence of teleology. The first criterion poses a problem in that the physical sciences investigate phenomena that are distinct from rationality. Again, these phenomena may be compatible with rationality, but insofar as they are given priority over rationality, certain difficulties arise, as we will see below. The second criterion also poses significant problems that make naturalism subject to the Epistemological Skyhook. If mind is derivative, then it is a byproduct of some nonrational process. Rationality, and thus rational processes, are aspects of mind, and if mind is derivative, then the only processes available to produce mind are nonrational (not irrational , as Anscombe 208 An a Priori Teleological Argument points out) processes. So long as the mind’s products are nonrational themselves, then there is no inaptness between the processes and the products, the causes and the effects. But if the mind’s processes are rational , then there is inaptness. If the mind is a byproduct of nonrational processes, then the mind’s rational productions would also be byproducts. Yet this is as much to say that these products, if they are beliefs, would at best be accidentally true. There would be, again, a barrier between the belief’s truth and why one believes it. The third criterion, the absence of teleology, is equally problematic. If there is no end-goal, no purpose, no function in the formation of true beliefs, then their formation becomes accidental, and true beliefs formed accidentally are not knowledge. In fact, it would not merely prevent our beliefs from acquiring the status of knowledge, it would present a defeater , a reason for withholding belief in any particular belief one proposes, including naturalism. From this, I conclude that the antinaturalism form of the Skyhook is preferable to the antideterminism form. This does not mean that antideterminism Skyhooks are invalid, merely that there are possible escape routes the determinist could take that are not available to the naturalist. Again, ignoring the issue of whether determinism is compatible with belief—a problem that plagues naturalism just as much if not more so—it is not determinism per se that creates a problem; it is what the determining factors are. By contrast, it is the very essence of naturalism that leads to self-defeat. Of course, as previously mentioned, many forms of the Skyhook are addressed towards naturalism and determinism. However, they often see naturalism as self-defeating in a derivative way because it supposedly has deterministic implications. We are, in a sense, reversing this order of dependence.

2 The Argument In chapter 1, I gave an initial statement of the Epistemological Skyhook, based on J.B.S. Haldane’s version.5

1. If naturalism is true, then beliefs are not produced by logical processes. 2. Beliefs which are not produced by logical processes are not logically sound. 3. Naturalism is a belief. 4. Therefore, if naturalism is true, belief in naturalism is not produced by logical processes. (from 1 and 3) 5. Therefore, if naturalism is true, belief in naturalism is not logically sound. (from 2 and 4)

As it stands, however, this argument miscarries. Premise 1 could be denied by accepting some form of compatibilism, wherein beliefs are produced by nonlogical (natural, material, neurological) processes, but without excluding An a Priori Teleological Argument 209 logical processes. And if “logical processes” in premise 2 means deductive or inferential processes, then that premise is false: my belief in other minds, for example, is not a conclusion from other beliefs. My belief that I had eggs for breakfast is not a deduction or inference from other beliefs. I just remember it, and this does not impugn the rationality of my belief in any way.

2.1 Naturalized Epistemology as a Jump-Off Point By deriving his Skyhook from naturalized epistemology, Plantinga, whether intentionally or not, nullified many potential objections that one could raise against it. Specifically, he avoided the charge that he was privileging the mind by making it the final authority on reality. So rather than explain knowledge, rationality, and the mind in epistemic terms, he explained them in terms (such as proper function) that apply to any organ, organism, or artifact. One could certainly contest this: the mind is an epistemic tool, and whether we like it or not, it is the means by which we are self-conscious agents, and this sets us apart from the rest of nature,6 or at least the elements of nature that we experience. As such, using epistemic terms—terms that are irreducible to nonepistemic terms—seems perfectly inappropriate. Nevertheless, many epistemologists do think that explaining knowledge and rationality in nonepistemic terms is a worthy pursuit, so presenting a Sky- hook in nonepistemic terms, such as “proper function,” allows us to apply it even to these theories of knowledge. When we ask what the heart’s function is, what it is supposed to do, we can give answers that are proximate, mediate, and ultimate. Hypotheti- cally, its proximate purpose, function, or goal is to circulate blood. If we ask why it circulates blood, the answer is a mediate purpose: to provide oxygen throughout the body. Asking why it does this yields its ultimate purpose, namely, to enable the organism (or gene or population or whatever the agent of evolutionary success is discovered to be) to survive and propagate.7 When we ask the same question of the brain, there are two possibilities regarding its ultimate purpose or end-goal if naturalism is true. First, it could be to enable the organism to survive and propagate, the same as the heart. Second, it could lack any kind of purpose whatsoever, given that nature does not provide purposes or end-goals—this is, after all, what the third criterion we have ascribed to naturalism, the absence of teleology, would require. In this case, the heart would not have any purposes either: ascribing purposes to the heart or brain would just be an epistemological shortcut. Either way, the brain would not have the ultimate purpose of producing and sustaining true beliefs. As such, for any particular belief one selects, it was neither formed nor sustained in order to believe truth, but for some other purpose or no purpose at all. If this is the case, however, then whether a particular belief is true is unrelated to why one believes it: one would believe it whether it is true or not. There would be a disconnect between a belief’s truth and one’s believing it; the belief’s truth would be irrelevant, 210 An a Priori Teleological Argument disposable, accidental. In this case, I will argue, it would be epistemically inappropriate to believe that belief—the belief would have an undercutting defeater (not a rebutting defeater), a reason to withhold belief in it. Because this would be the case for any particular belief, it would be the case for belief in naturalism. Therefore, if naturalism is true, we have a reason to withhold belief in naturalism.

2.2 Possible Worlds and Ultimate End-Goals Perhaps we have gone too fast, however, and skipped over a purpose. Maybe the brain enables the organism to survive and propagate by means of forming true beliefs. The purpose of the heart, after all, is not to provide oxygen to the body parts (the mediate purpose) any old way, but by means of circulating the blood (the proximate purpose). Similarly, perhaps the brain’s proximate purpose is to form true beliefs, thus enabling its mediate purpose: the moving of the muscles, thus enabling its ultimate purpose: the survival and propagation of the organism. In this case, the production of true beliefs would be part of the brain’s purpose in forming that belief. The problem with this can be brought out by appealing to possible worlds. If the mediate purpose of the heart—providing oxygen throughout the body—could have been met via a proximate purpose other than the circula- tion of blood, then the proximate purpose could have been different while the mediate purpose would remain the same. This would not be a nearby possible world, however, because there would be significant morphological differences involved in having a heart that provided oxygen throughout the body in a different way than circulating blood. 8 Applying this strategy to the brain, however, leads to a different result. If the mediate and ultimate purposes involved in the formation of a particular belief—moving the muscles so as to promote the organism’s survival and propagation—could have been met with a proximate purpose other than the forming of true beliefs, then, as with the heart, the proximate purpose could have been different. However, as Hasker points out, this would be true of nearby possible worlds—indeed of physically identical possible worlds, because the only difference would be in the propositional content and concomitant truth value of the belief in question.

Consider a possible world that is physically exactly similar to the present world, but in which the natural laws establishing psychophysical connections do not obtain. In such a world all the physical facts, and with them the entire physical course of events, are exactly as in the actual world: the complete absence of mentality makes no difference whatever . Similarly, we may consider a possible world physically identical with the actual world, but in which mental properties are redistributed in as bizarre a fashion as one might wish: this world is still indistinguishable from our own in all physical respects. 9 An a Priori Teleological Argument 211 With this, we can now propose innumerable possible worlds, perhaps infinitely many, that are all physically identical, populated by beings that, ex hypothesi , have brains that never form beliefs according to the ultimate end- goal of believing truths—either the brains of these beings have the ultimate end-goal of survival and procreation or they have no end-goals at all. In such worlds, the goal of forming true beliefs would be ontologically inoperative: it would play no role in guiding the subsequent states of the mind and the world. 10 All the same causes would cause all the same effects in all these worlds. The only difference, again, would be in the content and attendant truth value of beliefs, which simply have no bearing on their universes’ development. These worlds would therefore qualify as nearby possible worlds to our world if naturalism is true . Either the worlds with no ultimate end-goal would be nearby, or the worlds with the ultimate end-goal of survival and procreation would be nearby. In either case, we can posit countless nearby possible worlds whose citizenry go through the exact same actions and motions as we do, but do not form beliefs most of which are true. In order to avoid this, we must allow the formation of true beliefs to be the ultimate purpose, the final cause, the telos , of the human brain. Of course this need not be the brain’s sole purpose, or even its general purpose. The brain has many purposes, all of which are appropriate in certain contexts. It is not a matter of whether the brain has the formation of true beliefs as its ultimate purpose .99 of the time, or .50 of the time; it only has to have it some of the time: the percentage can be as small as one wants to make it, but it must be greater than zero. Naturalism, however, entails that it would be zero: the brain could never have this as its ultimate purpose because naturalism would involve either an ultimate purpose based on survival and procreation or none at all. There must be at least one belief that is formed with the ultimate purpose of believing truth, but naturalism does not provide for one. As such, there is no possibility of any belief being formed in order to believe truth. Note that the issue here is not whether the beliefs are true a certain percentage of the time, but whether they are formed with the ultimate purpose of believing truth a certain percentage of the time. Given naturalism, no belief would be formed with this ultimate purpose, and this would include belief in naturalism. Hence, naturalism is self-defeating. The story is very different if we allow the ultimate purpose or end-goal of believing truth to guide subsequent states of the world. Without this end- goal, possible worlds would have identical causes of identical effects, causes in which the formation of true beliefs plays no role. With this end-goal, however, the effects would at least have different final causes and perhaps even different efficient causes. Different final causes because “final cause” and “ultimate end-goal” are, for our purposes, equivalent.11 And perhaps different efficient causes because it is possible that there is mental causation—that is, mental efficient causes—in our world. If this is the case, a world with the same effects but no mental causation would require some other efficient causes to take up the slack by producing the same effects that mental causes 212 An a Priori Teleological Argument produce in our world. So, such a world would have different efficient causes as well as different final causes, and so would be neither a physically identical nor a nearby possible world. Regardless, the point is that these possible worlds with different final causes—and perhaps different efficient causes in some cases—would not be nearby possible worlds, even if they were physically identical. A nearby world would be one in which the same (or similar) causes produce the same (or similar) effects. A world with different final causes would not qualify as nearby. If a world does not have the formation of true beliefs as the final cause of the forming of a particular belief, however, we can posit innumerable possible worlds physically identical to it in which belief contents and truth do not enter into the causal network. Since, ex hypothesi , the inhabitants of these worlds would have minds with all the same causes, they would qualify as nearby. Yet what is true of them is true of us: how do we know that we are not in one of these worlds? 12 Indeed, some philosophers seem to think we are . Recall Patricia Churchland’s claim that “The principal chore of nervous systems is to get the body parts where they should be in order that the organism may survive. . . . Truth, whatever that is, definitely takes the hindmost.” 13 Or Dennett’s claim that “It is true that every belief state is what it is, and locally causes whatever it causes, independently of whether it is true or false.”14 If these views are correct, then the truth of a belief is irrelevant to one’s holding it, opening us up to the scenario envisaged above. So the mediate and ultimate purposes can trump the proximate purpose because the proximate purpose can be disposed of while the mediate and ultimate purposes are still met by some alternative proximate purpose. Sim- ilarly, a higher mediate purpose can trump a lower mediate purpose, and the ultimate purpose can trump the mediate purpose(s). Therefore, if the formation of true beliefs is only ever the proximate or a mediate purpose of the brain in the forming of a particular belief, then that belief could aspire to be only accidentally true if it is true at all. The lesson from this is that truth must be the ultimate goal or purpose of the mental processes that produce and sustain a belief. Truth must be the final cause of the belief. As long as the brain forms a true belief only in order to serve some other purpose, then that belief could be only accidentally true, since the ultimate purpose could have been served by some other mediate or proximate purpose in a nearby possible world. On the other hand, if the brain forms a true belief with no ultimate purpose, then the belief would similarly be accidentally true, as there is no final cause in play. The only way to avoid this scenario, where we can posit innumerable physically identical possible worlds in which there are no beliefs, or where beliefs’ contents (and thus their truth) are irrelevant to the actual course of events, is to make the formation of true beliefs the ultimate end-goal, the final cause, the telos of a belief’s formation. So, if truth is not the ultimate purpose involved in a belief’s formation, then that belief could be only accidentally true at best, and thus could not be an item of knowledge. Yet this is not all: it also gives us a reason to withhold An a Priori Teleological Argument 213 belief in it.15 Again, there are innumerable possible worlds that are physically identical to our own, yet in which the neurons and cognitive processes involved in forming and sustaining the belief “My soup is cold” instead form “My soup is not cold” or “There is no soup” or “The moon is made of green cheese.” There is no transworld connection between the content of a belief and the particular neural configuration associated with it. The absence of such a connection leads to a virtually unlimited diversity regarding which belief contents can be associated with that neural configuration in physically identical worlds. Because of this unlimited diversity, the probability that any particular belief one forms is true is a crapshoot—either it or its negation is true, and the other false. In this case, any belief has only a .50 chance of being true, which is indistinguishable from guessing. If you knew someone who chose her positions on various issues by flipping a coin, she would have a .50 chance of being correct on any given belief. Would you trust her conclusions? To ask this question is to answer it: if the mechanism by which she arrives at her beliefs has only a .50 chance of producing true beliefs, it is not a reliable mechanism. 16 If a belief has only a fifty-fifty chance of being true, one has a defeater, a reason to refrain from believing it (although not to actively disbelieve it: this is what makes it an undercutting defeater rather than a rebutting defeater). And obviously, naturalism is a belief. Therefore, if naturalism is true, one has a reason to refrain from believing naturalism. Moreover, this reason can never be overruled because the same considerations will apply to whatever reasoning one uses in attempting to nullify the reason itself. This makes it either an undefeatable defeater or an unresolvable defeater—in either case, a defeater that can never itself be ultimately defeated.17 We can now update our argument:

1*. If naturalism is true, any given belief would be produced and sustained by processes that do not have the ultimate goal or purpose of believing truth. 2*. If a belief is produced and sustained by processes that do not have the ultimate goal or purpose of believing truth, we have an undefeatable or unresolvable defeater for it. 3*. Naturalism is a belief. 4*. Therefore, if naturalism is true, belief in naturalism is produced and sustained by processes that do not have the ultimate goal or purpose of believing truth (from 1* and 3*). 5*. Therefore, if naturalism is true, we have an undefeatable or unresolvable defeater for naturalism (from 2* and 4*).

Let’s go over each step in turn.

2.3 Assessing the Argument 1*. If naturalism is true, any given belief would be produced and sustained by processes that do not have the ultimate goal or purpose of believing truth. 214 An a Priori Teleological Argument This should be relatively uncontroversial. Given naturalism, it is difficult to see how there could be goals, purposes, standards, or functions. There could certainly be patterns, but the step from “this is the way these processes work” to “this is the way these processes should work” is not a justified inference. Many philosophers are willing to accept functions within a naturalistic framework, but the attempts to do so fall flat for Hume’s reason: you cannot get an “ought” from an “is.” If we ignore this and suggest that organs, organisms, and structures could have purposes or functions, it is difficult to see how they could have the purpose of believing truth. Here there is some intuition to the contrary, namely, that the ability to form true beliefs might make an organism more fit, more likely to survive, than if that organism formed false or irrelevant beliefs. But this intuition requires a naturalistic solution to the mind-body problem, in which belief contents can influence bodily behavior. This is Dennett’s semantic engine, which he argues is a naturalistic absurdity, along the same lines as a perpetual motion machine. Moreover, the ability to form true beliefs does not by itself make an organism’s survival and propagation more probable, given that evolution selects only for fitness-enhancing behavior , and any proposed behavior or predisposition to behavior could be caused by false beliefs just as easily as by true beliefs. If we ignore this and suggest that an organ, organism, or structure could have the purpose or function of believing truth, it is difficult to see how this could be its ultimate purpose or function. At best, we would say that the ultimate purpose would be to promote the survival and genetic propagation of the organism. Even if truth could play some functional role, that role would be eclipsed by the ultimate function of survival and propagation. If we want to throw all caution to the wind and suggest that, somehow, an organism or organ could have the ultimate function of believing truths in a naturalistic world, then that would still be an accidental aspect of that organ or organism because it would not hold across physically identical possible worlds. So premise 1* seems eminently reasonable and very difficult to deny, and naturalists should (and most naturalists do ) accept it.

2*. If a belief is produced and sustained by processes that do not have the ultimate goal or purpose of believing truth, we have an undefeatable or unresolvable defeater for it.

This is the controversial premise. We can perhaps see that if believing truth is not the ultimate purpose or function of the processes that produce the belief, then the belief does not constitute knowledge. In a fundamental way, we would not believe it because it is true. But how does this translate into having a defeater for (a reason to withhold belief in) the belief, and further, an undefeatable or unresolvable defeater? The answer comes from the diversity of belief contents in physically identical worlds. If a tiger is approaching, the neurons that we think would An a Priori Teleological Argument 215 subvene on the true belief “There’s a tiger approaching” also bring about the appropriate action that allows the organism to survive. However, it is not in virtue of this belief’s content that the appropriate actions take place. The belief could be virtually any proposition. In this case, the probability that any belief is true is .50 because either it or its negation is true. More- over, truth is not sufficient: the belief must also be relevant to the circumstances. If a hominid sees an approaching tiger, and the neurons that cause the survival-enhancing behavior embody the belief “Saturn has more than 12 moons,” then not only would the organism respond appropriately, but it would form a true belief, since Saturn does have more than 12 moons. 18 This true belief could trigger the hominid, unintelligibly, to turn around and run away. Either the belief’s content, despite its truth, is psychologically associated with the circumstances and subsequent actions (although not rationally connected to them), or the belief is physically associated with a certain neurological structure, and it is this structure that causes the actions, with no regard for the content of the belief or its truth value. We would not consider the hominid’s belief-forming processes to be reliable in this case, since that belief is completely irrelevant to the circumstances in which it finds itself. Thus, it is not enough that a belief be true; it also has to be rationally connected to the circumstances in which it arises. However, one objection immediately intrudes. This scenario could explain how an organism or species could form completely haphazard beliefs with no coherence to them whatsoever, but we do not experience our mental properties being random or chaotic like this. This, as previously noted, is a valid objection and requires us to qualify the argument. Instead of just physically identical possible worlds, we must posit physically identical possible worlds that have organisms that form beliefs that seem to be relatively expansive in number and seem to be relatively coherent with each other. However, this does not get us very far for the reasons discussed in chapters 10 and 12 . We can easily imagine a group of organisms that hold a false belief that attaches itself to virtually all other beliefs in a definitional or essential way. In these circumstances, virtually every belief the organisms form would be false, tainted as they are by the false belief, yet their belief system would be as expansive and coherent as we take ours to be. Moreover, this qualification does not require us to hold that these organisms’ belief systems actually are expansive and coherent, merely that they seem to be, or that the organisms are unaware of the fact that they are not. 19 Perhaps their mental properties flit to and fro constantly, but each change comes with an unshakable belief that it is coherent with the rest; or perhaps each moment comes with its own coherent but false backstory and previous moments are forgotten from one moment to the next. Regardless, the point is that including the qualification that these physically identical possible worlds are inhabited by organisms that seem (to them) to have a large number of relatively coherent beliefs does not obviate the argument that their beliefs could just as easily be false as true, which is 216 An a Priori Teleological Argument no different from randomly guessing. In this case, for any particular belief one selects, the organism has an undercutting defeater for that belief, a reason to withhold belief in it. Again, there is only a .50 probability that the belief is true, and while that does not provide a reason to dis believe it, it does provide a reason to withhold belief in it. Note also that this makes it a complete or total defeater, not a partial defeater that only involves believing the belief less firmly. 20 So, given naturalism, these organisms in physically identical possible worlds would have a total defeater for virtually any and every belief they have. Well, that’s them, not us. But the whole point in proposing these possible worlds and their denizens is that they would be indistinguishable from us, both internally and externally, given naturalism. Looking at this spectrum of possible worlds, physically identical to our own, inhabited by organisms that form beliefs according to the same alleged ultimate purpose as we do, how do we know which possible world is the real one? How do we know which one is the one to which we belong? Because ex hypothesi the vast majority of these worlds would have organisms that do not reliably form true beliefs, and because we have no reason to place ourselves in the charmed minority of contrary worlds, we have a reason to think that the real world is one in which our beliefs are, for the most part, unreliably formed. In this case, we have a reason to think that any particular belief has only a .50 probability of being true, given that, again, either it or its negation is true. Thus, we have a defeater, a total undercutting defeater, for any particular belief one selects. The last point in this premise is that this defeater is itself undefeatable or unresolvable. It can never be ultimately defeated or removed because any potential argument or evidence against it would be subject to it, and so would be defeated before it could do its work. We could object, as some have to Plantinga’s Skyhook, that this defeater would therefore defeat itself, since Plantinga originally presented his argument as a Humean loop. 21 If one accepts naturalism, then she has a defeater for all of her beliefs; thus, she has a defeater for her belief in naturalism; thus, she has a defeater for the defeater for her belief in naturalism because that defeater is itself a belief and has been defeated. Thus, she no longer has a defeater for her beliefs, including naturalism; thus she accepts naturalism—and then has a defeater for all of her beliefs again, including naturalism; and on it goes. The only way to stop the loop is to not start in the first place: by rejecting naturalism. “The point remains, therefore: one who accepts N&E (and is apprised of the present argument) has a defeater for N&E, a defeater that cannot be defeated by an ultimately undefeated defeater. And isn’t it irrational to accept a belief for which you know you have an ultimately undefeated defeater?”22 However, if we are wavering back and forth between naturalism being defeated and then not being defeated, the defeater would not be undefeatable. It would, however, be unresolvable because one can still see that it is a neverending cycle involving defeat. When we see an irresoluble scenario like An a Priori Teleological Argument 217 this, the rational response is to avoid it and to deny that which leads to it. So, if we want to take this route, we will have to take this premise as involving an unresolvable defeater rather than an undefeatable defeater. This is not really a problem, however, because an unresolvable defeater still requires the individual to withhold belief in whatever is being defeated. A Humean loop is diachronic. However, in his later versions of the Sky- hook, Plantinga reframes it synchronically as an infinite regress. 23 The person who comes to realize that she has a defeater for R (the proposition that her cognitive faculties are reliable) will then believe ~R. This is level 0. But then ~R would defeat all of her beliefs, including ~R itself; it is a defeater-defeater. Therefore, on level 1, she is left with ~~R, which is the same as R. However, that is not all: the defeater for all of her beliefs is ~R, and the claim here is that it defeats itself, namely her belief ~R. But ~R also defeats R. Because any belief B is defeated by its negation ~B, R is defeated by ~R. 24 Therefore, on level 1, ~R defeats both R and ~R, so the naturalist is left with the negations of both: ~R and ~~R respectively. On level 2 ~R is a defeater for ~~R and so she is left with its negation: ~~~R (= ~R). But again, ~R still defeats R, so she is also left with ~R via a less circuitous route. So on level 2 she believes ~R and ~~~R. And so on. 25 The point being that, unlike other cases of defeater defeaters, ~R is present at each stage .

This is extraordinary: in the more usual case, if one acquires a defeater- defeater for a belief B, that is, a defeater for a defeater of B, one no longer has that defeater for B—or else its defeating power is neutralized. But not so here. The difference is that here the original defeatee shows up at every subsequent level. When that happens—when, roughly speaking, every potential defeater in the series is really the potential defeatee plus a bit—the defeater-defeater doesn’t nullify the defeater. The defeater gets defeated, all right, but the defeatee remains defeated too, as will happen whenever a defeater is a universal defeater. Accordingly, any time at which the skeptic believes ~R, he has a defeater for ~R, even if he also has, at that time, a defeater for that defeater. Skepticism of this kind, then, really is self-defeating, even if it is also the case that the skeptic has a defeater for his defeater.26

This provides us with an undefeatable defeater. Unless we have some reason to think that this synchronic method is unacceptable, we are perfectly justified in taking the second premise to be that if a belief is produced and sustained by processes that do not have the ultimate goal or purpose of believing truth, we have an undefeatable defeater for it.

3*. Naturalism is a belief.

Potentially, one could avoid this by claiming that naturalism is a stance , a way of doing things, but does not have to be believed to be used. This is 218 An a Priori Teleological Argument essentially an appeal to methodological naturalism, according to which we presuppose naturalism in our examinations of the world in a hypothetical manner without actually believing it, leaving aside the issue of whether it is actually true. I will make no attempt here to apply the Skyhook to methodological naturalism. While I remain open to the suggestion that it might be so applied, 27 I have no compunctions against using a naturalist stance without actually believing ontological naturalism—other than the general concern that, “if in one way a fiction can help you understand a phenomenon, in another it can harm your understanding of it.” 28 The person who employs a naturalist stance to explore the world is not subject to the Skyhook. It is only if she believes it is true, indeed if she merely considers the possibility that it is true, that the Skyhook applies. The problem is that it is difficult to consistently behave as if a proposition is true without being tempted to believe that it is in fact true—it is sometimes said that most mathematicians are Platonists at heart because it is all but impossible to work with numbers and other mathematical concepts without thinking of them as having a real objective existence. But that is a psychological issue I am not addressing here. The individual is free to use the naturalist stance; it is only when she is tempted to consider ontological naturalism as true that she becomes subject to the Skyhook.

4*. Therefore, if naturalism is true, belief in naturalism is produced and sustained by processes that do not have the ultimate goal or purpose of believing truth (from 1* and 3*).

This, as it says, follows deductively from premises 1* and 3*. As long as they are granted, this conclusion follows.

5*. Therefore, if naturalism is true, we have an undefeatable or unresolvable defeater for naturalism (from 2* and 4*).

Again, granted premises 2* and 4*, this conclusion deductively follows. If we want to deny this, then we have to deny one of the first three premises (since premise 4* is dependent on 1* and 3*). As long as these premises are true, or even more probable then their denials, then 5* follows and naturalism is self-defeating. The defeater, again, is a total, undercutting, undefeatable defeater. If one prefers to use the Humean loop instead of Plantinga’s infinite regress, then we can instead call it a total, undercutting, unresolvable defeater. But a) absent a particular reason to reject the infinite regress model, we are well within our epistemic rights to use it instead of the Humean loop; and b) regardless, rephrasing it as a Humean loop does nothing to vindicate naturalism. One could not rationally affirm naturalism because such an affirmation presents a defeater for naturalism that cannot be ultimately defeated. Naturalism would still be self-defeating. An a Priori Teleological Argument 219 3 Objections I have already gone over many objections, but here I would like to show how my version of the Epistemological Skyhook specifically answers some of them. Many of the objections involved epistemological issues by pointing to how some Skyhooks seemingly rely on infallibilist, foundationalist, or internalist considerations, with the consequence that one could avoid them by rejecting such theories of knowledge. However, many Skyhooks do not rely on these theories, and the current version also successfully avoids them. It simply does not matter what epistemology one adopts—internalist, externalist, naturalized—as long as we can formulate physically identical possible worlds in which physically identical organisms engage in physically identical behavior but have a defeater for virtually any and every belief they form. A second objection might be that these physically identical worlds would not be nearby, regardless of the ontology one adopts. But if one thinks physicality is the hallmark of reality, then a possible world that is identical in physicality but not with regard to some other element—an element that has no causal powers, no ability to produce any change in the world, and that is simply irrelevant to this possible world and its fundamental characterization — then it should be considered nearby. Another objection was that the Skyhook presupposes that complete naturalistic explanations are incompatible with complete rational explanations. But if we accept that naturalistic and rational explanations can both hold of the same neural processes, while being independently complete, no problem arises: both explanations can be true, complete, and applicable. In the previous chapter (and chapter 5 ), we addressed whether it is really the case that two complete explanations can be true of the same thing without succumbing to causal overdetermination. Here, however, we can grant this compatibilist objection, as well as the parallel objection that determinism is compatible with free will. While these issues may gain some traction on other versions of the Epistemological Skyhook, they do no good against the version presented here. We can freely accept that it is possible for naturalistic processes to coincide with rational processes, but this is not enough. A belief’s truth cannot be a coincidence in order for it to be an item of knowledge. As long as we can formulate the possible worlds scenario where we can posit countless worlds that are physically identical but with wildly varying belief contents, then we have a defeater for any belief one proposes, including naturalism. Thus my Skyhook uniquely nullifies any sort of compatibilist objection: as long as the compatibilized elements are contingently connected, 29 then there are limitless possible worlds where they are not connected, but where the naturalistic processes still bring about the identical effects. And, again, the naturalist cannot deny that these physically identical possible worlds would be nearby, according to her ontology. This leads to a possible objection that has gone unmentioned thus far. The Skyhook assumes that it is possible for a particular neural configuration to 220 An a Priori Teleological Argument have different propositional contents. But it may be necessarily true that a neural structure can have only one content. In this case, we could not posit possible worlds in which beings with the same neural structures as our own would have different beliefs. It seems to me that the naturalist must argue something along these lines in order to avoid the Skyhook. The problem is that we have no reason to think that there is an analytic, logically necessary connection, holding across all possible worlds, that exists between a particular physical structure (neural or otherwise) and a particular propositional content, and plenty of reason to think there is not. If there are “natural laws establishing psychophysical connections,”30 these laws would be just as logically contingent as other natural laws. We can easily imagine an identical physical structure that either lacks any propositional content whatsoever or has different content than what it has in our experience. That is a first point: if the physical structure itself logically entailed a particular propositional content, then it would be inexplicable why we are able to imagine that physical structure having a different content or none at all. A second point is that it would be equally inexplicable why there is no similar logical connection between other physical structures and content. Why doesn’t the particular series of physical marks that make up the word “location,” for example, logically entail the content we ascribe to it in English (a certain place) as opposed to the content ascribed to it in French (“rental”)? Why doesn’t “location” require the English meaning, such that it is impossible, logically impossible, to ascribe a different meaning to that sequence of letters? Didn’t Cratylus lose this debate with Socrates? In fact, doesn’t this show that Hermogenes’s position in that exchange is correct, that any connection between physical structures and propositional content is not even on the level of natural laws, but is a matter of convention? How are we justified in moving from conventional connections to natural connections to logically necessary connections? A critic might object that, as long as the connection between content and structure is contingent, this should hold for any worldview, including theism. We can posit innumerable physically identical possible worlds with varying belief contents on theism as well, so how is this contingency a particular problem for naturalism? The difference is this: theism would allow for final causality, so that a physically identical possible world with different (or no) final causes would not qualify as nearby. A world in which beliefs were formed to serve an entirely different purpose would not be nearby, even if it was physically identical, because in a theistic world physicality is not the hallmark of existence. Moreover, if there is unreduced mental causation in our world, a possible world with the same effects but without mental causation would require different efficient causes in addition to different final causes in order to bring about the same effects. In this case, we could not posit naturalistic possible worlds that are physically identical to this one. An a Priori Teleological Argument 221 4 Classifying the Argument In Plantinga’s initial presentation of the argument, he classifies it as a teleological argument. 31 This point could be contested. On the one hand, it seems to be akin to the various arguments from mind that contend that certain aspects of the mind or consciousness (such as qualia or simplicity) are incompatible with naturalism. 32 On the other hand, many forms of this argument put it in terms of normativity: to have an end-goal is to have certain norms or criteria that must be met in order to achieve this goal. 33 This puts it in a similar category as moral arguments for the existence of God, which suggest that the normativity involved in moral judgments is inexplicable on naturalism. The difference would be that the present argument would be much more stringent: one could consistently deny ethical normativity, but this option would not be available for epistemic normativity, since (according to the argument) any attempt to deny it must ultimately presuppose some normativity. On the gripping hand, because the argument claims that there must be a noncontingent aspect to rationality, and because our own existence is “radically contingent,” 34 the argument would require our dependence on something else—and if that something else is similarly contingent, it would also be dependent on something else. The argument could thus be seen to entail a backward chain of contingencies terminating in a noncontingent source. This bears a striking resemblance, at least in a broad sense, to certain cosmological arguments. On the fourth hand (!), this argument seems similar, in an equally broad sense, to Kant’s version of the ontological argument from his pre-critical period.35 Nevertheless, the argument is easily expressed in terms of end-goals, purposes, functions, etc. In addition to Plantinga, its other most recent defender, Nagel, has explicitly done so as well. As such it makes sense to call it a teleological argument. It is a negative argument, demonstrating that metaphysical naturalism is self-defeating, leaving it somewhat open regarding what one must posit in addition to the natural world to avoid the self-defeat. Nagel, for example, argues against “materialist naturalism,” but he defends a naturalism-cum-teleology, or “teleology without intention,” 36 seeking to avoid any sort of theistic conclusion.37 However, this is a hard point: the concept of teleology seems to intrinsically involve a directing mind behind it. If we accept Plantinga’s assessment that this is, in fact, an argument for the existence of God (pace Nagel), there is a very important factor that he does not bring out: it is not merely a teleological argument, it is an a priori teleological argument. We must presuppose that any particular belief we focus on is produced and sustained by forces that have the ultimate purpose or end-goal of producing true beliefs. In other words, we must presuppose that the belief is rational . The argument demonstrates that naturalism is incompatible with this presupposition. To be clear, it is not an analytic truth that we are capable of rationality. There are possible worlds that have no agents, or that only have agents 222 An a Priori Teleological Argument that are not rational (as our possible worlds exercise makes clear), so obviously it is not true by definition. Rather, it is a synthetic a priori truth that we have rational beliefs. This does not mean that one must explicitly and consciously believe that one is capable of rational thought before one can rationally believe something: someone who has never thought about the nature of rationality can still be a rational agent. 38 Rather, the point is that the condition of being a rational agent must be met in order for one to rationally believe anything, and this condition is incompatible with ontological naturalism. Nor does this mean that our minds must have the ultimate purpose or end-goal of producing true beliefs in general or that our minds must have the production of true belief as their sole purpose. The focus here is on minimal conditions for rationality, not ideal rationality. 39 Whatever degree other purposes or imperfections play in the production and sustaining of a belief, they create a problem—they make one subject to the argument—only if they eclipse or override the ultimate purpose of forming true belief.40 The point is merely that there must be some beliefs or class of beliefs that are rational, i.e., that are produced and sustained by processes that have the production and sustaining of true belief as their ultimate purpose or end- goal. We cannot bracket all of our beliefs and establish them on some other foundation because any analysis of the connection between this alternate foundation and the belief presupposes the rationality of the analysis itself. One must even presuppose she is rational in order to deny it. Acceptance of our own rationality is our starting point; it is the assumption with which we must begin .41 Therefore, it is a priori . An objection at this point might be that our discovery that natural processes cannot aim at the proper end-goal is not an a priori discovery, but something we learn from observation of said natural processes, and is thus a posteriori . However, this misunderstands the issues involved. Teleological arguments have often pointed to certain elements of nature that bear the mark of complexity and then argued that this complexity is inexplicable on naturalism, implying final causality or teleology. The primary objection to such arguments is twofold. First, a posteriori explorations have shown that this complexity may be explicable by natural processes. Second, final causality is not directly observable: just because we observe acorns consistently becoming oak trees, it does not follow that we have to appeal to final causality, rather than just efficient causality, in order to explain the acorn’s development.42 In other words, the objection to teleological arguments has been that the observable efficient causes of nature provide all the explanation we need without the teleology . The present argument contends that there is a teleology that cannot be removed or reduced: any attempt to remove teleology from knowledge and rationality is ultimately self-defeating. This is not an a posteriori claim because a) it is not an inference from empirical observations but is a statement of minimal conditions for rationality, upon which all beliefs, including An a Priori Teleological Argument 223 empirical beliefs, must be based; and b) at any rate, the latter objection is correct: teleology is not observable via a posteriori examination. However, there is a second sense in which the claims being made here are a priori . That is the claim that the concept of teleology involves an agent behind it. This is a conceptual truth—it is about the concept of teleology, what it means or entails—and as such is a priori. Any challenge to it must come from conceptual analysis, not empirical observation. Our present focus is on the first point, that teleology is necessary for rationality and knowledge—and for good reason: it answers the primary objection to teleological arguments, that any proposed teleology is merely apparent, not actual. Rejecting the second point would not call the teleology into question, only the inference from the teleology to an agency responsible for it. It would put us in Nagel’s camp, by providing an alternate explanation of teleology from what the theist proposes. But that is a very different point from what most critiques of teleological arguments make. Indeed, such a position would apply to virtually all teleological arguments, as it provides an alternate explanation for teleology from what theology offers, rather than explaining away the teleology. For a teleological argument to be a priori is truly remarkable. The standard appraisal of such arguments is that they are obsolete since the advent of Darwin, and even those that are not affected by evolution (such as arguments based on the anthropic coincidences) are still subject to being overthrown by further scientific discoveries. A teleological argument that is a priori , therefore, would be immune to rebuttal from scientific evidence or any other a posteriori consideration. Scientific beliefs are just as subject to the Skyhook as any other category of belief. Any scientific evidence for the proposition that we are not rational agents could be perceived as such by us only if that proposition is false. So, the Epistemological Skyhook is well worth the attention we have been giving it. It presents us with a unique argument against the claim that the natural world is all that exists, an argument that is synthetic, but which is nevertheless a necessary assumption of knowing anything. Any attempt to even consider naturalism as potentially true in one’s own mind can get off the ground only if naturalism is false. We have to start from the presupposition that there is more than the natural world and that rational agents are more than natural entities in order to consider anything, naturalism included, as potentially true.

Notes 1. A. E. Taylor 1939, 267. 2. Intrinsic, that is, to the belief, that is, its content; not necessarily intrinsic to the believer herself. 3. Plantinga 1993a, 2; Lehrer 2000, 12–14. 4. See chapters 10 and 12 . 224 An a Priori Teleological Argument 5. Haldane 1929, 209. In chapter 1, the argument was addressed towards naturalism and determinism. 6. O’Hear 1997, 12. 7. This is obviously just a rough sketch; many more details could be added. 8. Whether we should still call such an organ a “heart” depends on whether we define it in terms of its proximate or mediate functions. 9. Hasker 1999, 71, italics his. 10. Hasker 1973, 180. 11. “Efficient cause,” on the other hand, is not equivalent to “proximate function.” 12. Plantinga 1993b, 226–28. 13. Patricia Churchland 1987, 548–49. 14. Dennett 2011, 35. 15. This move is similar to Plantinga’s 2008, where he moves from the claim that naturalism would prevent knowledge of itself (20–30) to the claim that it would provide a defeater of itself (30–51). 16. Cf. Plantinga 2000, 161–62, 194; Reppert 2003, 64–65. 17. See chapter 2 . 18. The count at the time of writing is 62. 19. Otte 2002, 142–47. 20. See chapter 2 . 21. Hume 1738, 187; Plantinga 1993b, 234. 22. Plantinga 1993b, 235. 23. For more details, see Slagle 2015. 24. See above, p. 40 . 25. Plantinga 1994, 56; 2002, 269–70. 26. Plantinga 2002, 270. 27. Jordan (1969, 50), for example, takes his Skyhook to apply to determinism “in any light or for any purpose unless it is false” (see chapter 11 ). 28. Plantinga 1993b, 213–14. 29. Recall Goldman’s claim (1969) that any two properties that independently and fully explain a single phenomenon must be connected via a contingent law. See chapter 5 . 30. Hasker 1999, 71. 31. Plantinga 1993b, 214–15. 32. See chapter 1 . 33. Boyle, Grisez, and Tollefsen 1972; 1976. 34. Nagel 1986, 211. 35. Kant 1763. See chapter 1 . 36. Nagel 2012, 13, 93. 37. Nagel 2012, 12 n. 10; cf. 1997, 127–44. 38. On this, the “implicit premise thesis,” see Sosa 2002, 99–100, and Van Cleve 2002, 122, along with Plantinga’s response, 2002, 240–44. 39. Plantinga 1994, 21–22. 40. Cf. Plantinga’s account of “optimistic overriders” (1993b, 42, 195; 2000, 362–63; 2002, 207–208; 2008, 11–12). 41. Nagel 2012, 81. 42. Of course one could also argue, with Hume, that efficient causality is not directly observable either. However, this goes beyond our present purposes. Conclusions

As we have seen, the Epistemological Skyhook is very diverse. For example, while many Skyhooks appeal to normativity, Popper formulates one based on the four functions of language that leaves aside prescriptive language.1 Indeed, it is interesting how the Skyhook keeps popping up in contexts that would seem to militate against it. It is clearly within the tradition of analytic philosophy—yet it finds expression in Continental philosophy as well. 2 We are inclined to exclude from its consequences certain basic beliefs, such as those of logic and mathematics—yet we have the Gödelian Skyhook that applies specifically to mathematical knowledge. 3 It is often expressed in internalist terms, implying that one could escape its conclusions by embracing externalism or naturalized epistemology—yet we have Plantinga’s Sky- hook that emerges from his naturalized epistemology. 4 We saw in chapter 1 that Daniel Dennett contrasts small-s skyhooks (mind-first explanations) with cranes (explanations based on mindless natural causes). The reason Dennett thinks that skyhooks can be eliminated is because he conceives evolution through the prism of naturalism; as such, it is a “universal acid: it eats through just about every traditional concept, and leaves in its wake a revolutionized world-view.” 5 Naturalism, however, does not eat through “ just about every traditional concept”: it eats through all of them, including, ultimately, itself. As far as naturalism is concerned, there’s no “just about” about it. It refutes refutations; it proves there are no proofs. Thus a Skyhook argument is inevitable: even in denying the existence of skyhooks, we must presuppose one, Dennett included. Let’s expand upon Dennett’s metaphor of cranes and skyhooks—far beyond, I’m sure, what he would approve. Dennett sought to establish a foundation for our knowledge on mindless nature. He equates this foundation with the Earth, and building up from the surface he calls cranes. Thus the planet Earth is the solid ground upon which we can construct the cranes that form the edifice of science. Unfortunately, he has forgotten one of the first lessons of modern science: the Earth is not the center of the universe. In making Earth the foundation, Dennett’s analogy presupposes geocentrism . He thinks that the only way for an explanation to be constructed is for it to be built from the ground up—but there are other planets with other 226 Conclusions grounds out there. What we need is a much more solid foundation than a mere contingent rocky planet can provide; we need an absolute foundation, an unconditioned base that will allow science to go forward. The Skyhook demonstrates the need for such a base. Indeed, it demonstrates that there must be a universal base, which neutralizes Dennett’s universal acid, and leaves in its wake a re-enchanted world.

1 Repercussions for Epistemology In my presentation of several versions of the Skyhook, I have been at pains to emphasize that it is best expressed as the claim that naturalism and determinism are self-defeating rather than self-refuting: if either is true, then it would be unjustified or unwarranted to believe them. Yet to say something is unjustified or unwarranted does not necessarily mean that it is false, just that it would be irrational to believe it. Yet how could any proposition that would be irrational to believe if it were true be true? As Denyer writes, how could something be true when it requires every single person on every possible occasion to not believe it?6 Moreover, we cannot even coherently entertain the possibility that it is true, since to do so is to rationally assess it, and such an assessment can only get underway by presupposing that it is false. Therefore, we are led to conclude that no one can contemplate, argue for, or believe naturalism or determinism without presupposing that they are false. I suspect that, for most, this would entail that they are probably false. What does the Skyhook demonstrate about competing theories of knowledge? Does it have any relevance to the internalism/externalism debate? Coherence vs. foundationalism? For the most part, the Skyhook does not require us to accept a particular epistemological system, a point demonstrated by its appearance among externalists and naturalized epistemologists along with internalists and deontological epistemologists. I suspect—and that is all it is at this point, a suspicion—that it does imply that a pure externalism or naturalized epistemology is problematic. Externalism denies that thought is recursive; it denies that we have to know that we know something in order for it to qualify as knowledge. The internal aspect of recognizing the belief is held for the right reasons is unnecessary; as long as one holds the belief for the right reasons, whether she knows that she does so is irrelevant. Naturalized epistemology attempts to sidestep the issue of whether our belief-forming capacities are veridical and just bases itself on the causal relationship between our cognitive input and output. The Episte- mological Skyhook suggests, however, that we can do this only by passing the internal or normative aspects of knowledge onto someone else. Plantinga argues that we can understand our epistemology in a completely naturalized sense, but only if there is a rational agent who is responsible for constructing us so that our cognitive faculties form mostly true beliefs. We can be understood naturalistically and deterministically, perhaps, but we have to presuppose an undetermined, non-naturalistic source in order to get the Conclusions 227 whole thing going in the first place. Similarly, our beliefs may be held for the right reasons—they may have the proper external relation to what they are about—regardless of whether we are aware of it or not. Yet we have to first assume that the forces responsible for our belief-forming capabilities arranged them so that the proper relationships hold. These forces would have to be aware of the right reasons for the beliefs; so, even though we may be understood externalistically, they cannot. Otherwise, it would be improbable or inscrutable that our beliefs would be mostly true. We can avoid these conclusions by not passing the necessary internal or normative aspects of knowledge off onto someone else, but then we could no longer understand ourselves in purely externalist or naturalistic terms. Skyhooks that argue for theism, such as Plantinga’s, can also play a role in the obtaining of empirical knowledge. In this case, our minds are aligned with nature because they are designed to be; they are successfully aimed at producing mostly true beliefs about our environment. 7 Indeed, one argument parallel to the Skyhook (or perhaps one more permutation of it) is that we do not have any reason on naturalism to think there is an alignment between mind and nature. Such a claim has been made by many theologians and philosophers, such as Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Bonaventure, Aquinas, Peirce, Berg- son, etc., 8 as well as many modern scientists, including Albert Einstein, Erwin Schrödinger, and Eugene Wigner.9 Others have presented similar arguments.10 Descartes erred in trying to establish the possibility of obtaining true knowledge of the world by doubting everything and then building up from the cogito to the existence of God and his design of our cognitive systems. But as A. C. Ewing writes, the Skyhook “may be regarded as in some sense Descartes’ well known argument in reverse.” 11 We should not follow Des- cartes by beginning in skepticism and looking for independent reasons for accepting R (a Skeptical Threat Argument) because belief in our own rationality is properly basic and so automatically comes with warrant. It is only if we recognize that we have a defeater for R that we are justified in calling it into question (a Best Explanation Argument). Thus, we must posit whatever presuppositions are necessary in order for us to affirm R: namely that naturalism and determinism are false, and so there must be some extraphysical, undetermined reality. Once we recognize this, we are approaching what Descartes sought to demonstrate: a designer of our cognitive faculties who created them so that they are reliably aimed at the production of true beliefs.

2 Repercussions for Philosophy of Mind and Metaphysics The repercussions the Skyhook has in the philosophy of mind depend on which form of the Skyhook we adopt. Two of the strictest forms were those of Boyle, Grisez, and Tollefsen, which argued against determinism, and Plantinga’s, which argued against naturalism. These claimed that we cannot prove that we are not reducible to deterministic or naturalistic terms but 228 Conclusions merely that there is some agent who is responsible for our cognitive faculties who is not reducible to deterministic or naturalistic terms. With these Sky- hooks, it may be possible to adopt an austere philosophy of mind that does not posit any internal aspects. However, Lucas’s Gödelian Skyhook is just as rigorous as these and applies to the individual. According to Lucas, the individual human being can see the truth of her Gödelian sentence even though she cannot prove it according to Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorems. In this case, we do have to posit something internal to the individual human being that transcends the naturalistic, deterministic world. Whether one calls this internal element the “mind,” “will,” “self,” “ego,” “I,” “spirit,” “soul,” or more disparagingly “the ghost in the machine,” it seems that it is a necessary presupposition of all thought—as Kant remarked of the “I think.”12 The Skyhook thus demonstrates that the human being cannot be completely described in deterministic or naturalistic terms. There is an element to the human mind that transcends nature and that is not determined. The terms “metaphysical” and “supernatural” are already taken, and both come with considerable baggage, so I tentatively propose calling this element “extraphysical.” It is this element that allows us to recognize unconditioned rational norms; that allows one to see that one’s Gödel sentence is true even though it is not provable; that allows us to step back and assess information independently from how it comes to us; etc. The Sky- hook can therefore be taken as pointing to either idealism, where the body is incorporated into the mind, or some form of dualism.13 This does not imply that the extraphysical mind or will is not affected by the body. Excessive alcohol consumption will affect the mind’s abilities to reason, for example. The claim is not that there are no physical conditions that influence the mind; it is merely that the mind cannot be entirely reduced to these conditions. We can minimize the role of rationality and make the connecting thread as thin as we want, but we cannot cut it without simultaneously cutting ourselves off from the possibility of knowledge and rationality. Thus, the neurological processes in the brain are not sufficient to bring about a justified true belief; even if such processes were sufficient to bring about the occurrence of the belief , the belief, for that very reason, would not be justified or warranted; it would not be held for the right reason; it could be, at best, only accidentally true and thus would not qualify as knowledge. Conversely, the extraphysical mind is a necessary cause (or explanation) of justified or warranted true belief, but this does not require it to be sufficient . Given that we are physical beings, there is every reason to assume that certain physical conditions and processes are required in order for us to reason. These physical conditions may even be necessary themselves. The mental and physical processes, in other words, could function as partial causes, with the mental processes (and perhaps the physical as well) being necessary in order for knowledge to be obtained. Of course, this raises the huge question of how something nonphysical can have a physical effect. If mind is irreducible to the body, then what is Conclusions 229 the point of contact between mind and body that would allow them to influence each other? Is the point of contact physical (the pineal gland perhaps)? If so, we are faced with the problem all over again: how could the nonphysical mind touch the physical point where body and mind meet? Is the point of contact nonphysical? Then we face the same problem from the other direction: how could the physical body touch the nonphysical point of contact? This is the mind-body problem, and it is beyond the scope of the present study to attempt an answer. Here I will just reiterate the point that the parallel between the mind-body problem and the Skyhook means that one cannot refute the Skyhook without also solving the mind-body problem. However, this goes only one way: if one does solve the mind-body problem without appealing to extraphysical causes, this does not necessarily resolve the Sky- hook. This is because it is possible to explain how mental events connect with physical events without necessarily showing that the mental events are rational , that the beliefs are true and justified (or warranted). The Skyhook has ramifications throughout metaphysics. Historical debates such as realism/nominalism will be influenced and contemporary debates such as essentialism/anti-essentialism will as well. I suspect the answers here will be similar to the issues regarding externalism and naturalized epistemology: we can perhaps understand the human being or the world in nominalist or anti-essentialist terms, but only if we posit some entity that cannot be so understood—an entity that evokes realist or essentialist conditions. We can potentially explain everything else without appealing to such concepts, but we cannot make our nominalism or anti-essentialism absolute without removing the possibility of knowledge or rationality. We can avoid having to posit such a being only by applying those standards to ourselves, meaning that we do not entirely explain the human being in nominalist or anti-essentialist terms. Again, this does not imply that nominalism or anti-essentialism are not correct for the most part, but just that they cannot be taken universally. However, as with externalism, this is just my suspicion and I am not making any definitive claims, merely pointing to further avenues of analysis. One interesting metaphysical problem is that if we posit an agent who is free in the libertarian sense, it would seem to conflict with the principle of sufficient reason. Thus, some defenders of the Skyhook explicitly use it to reject this principle. 14 On the other hand, there are many different versions of the principle of sufficient reason, and some of these are compatible with libertarian freedom. Another interesting point: just as we have seen a link between the Sky- hook and the mind-body problem, so there is a link between the Skyhook— at least the version defended in chapter 13—and the issue of philosophical zombies. Both cases posit physically identical possible worlds in which certain mental properties are absent. The differences are that a) zombies are usually addressed to broader issues of consciousness rather than mere belief 230 Conclusions content, and b) only ask if certain properties could be absent while we are asking if they could be absent or different. Thus, my Skyhook allows us to address the issue of zombies from a much simpler (hence stronger and more plausible) position than it has been traditionally. As such, those that take issue with the possibility of philosophical zombies will still have to address whether a neural structure could have a different content associated with it as opposed to just none. A further point is that the Skyhook demonstrates the necessity of mental causation. This is a corollary of the Skyhook’s relevance to the mind-body problem. Mental content must have the ability to bring about bodily effects, because any attempt to deny that it does so is self-defeating. But as with the mind-body problem, how this is possible is another question. I would just argue that we do not need to know how something takes place in order to know that it takes place. And in this case, we can know that it takes place because, if it did not, it would be irrational to think it did not.

3 Repercussions for Philosophy of Religion In calling certain explanations skyhooks, Dennett is linking them to the concept of God. He is suggesting that if we take the nonexistence of God seriously, certain possibilities are closed to us, and we have to honestly face this and make do with what is available. In this he is echoing Richard Rorty, who said much the same in his defense of pragmatism and coherence theories of truth and knowledge.

We cannot find a skyhook which lifts us out of mere coherence—mere agreement—to something like “correspondence with reality as it is in itself.” One reason why dropping this latter notion strikes many people as “relativistic” is that it denies the necessity that inquiry should someday converge to a single point—that Truth is “out there,” up in front of us, waiting for us to reach it. This latter image seems to us pragmatists an unfortunate attempt to carry a religious view of the world over into an increasingly secular culture.15

Plantinga appears to follow them in this: the only two worldviews for us to choose between that he originally presents are naturalism and Christian theism. In later writings, he adds a third possibility: antirealism. This is an important option to explore because the Skyhook applies to philosophies that privilege matter over mind (such as mind-body supervenience). Anti- realism and its big brother, idealism, however, go the other way. According to these views, “it is we ourselves—we human beings—who are somehow responsible for the basic structure of the world. We somehow bring it about that the world has the structure and nature it displays; it is we who are somehow responsible for the truth of those propositions that are true.” 16 Conclusions 231 Plantinga refers to creative and postmodern antirealism, while Rea differen- tiates between constructive antirealism (or constructivism) and idealism, 17 but all these views share the same basic idea: the material world, in some sense, requires a mind to impose order on it before it can be said to have certain properties. By making matter derivative of mind—the opposite of naturalism, which makes mind derivative of matter 18 —these views could potentially avoid one of the problems that make a position self-defeating. This is certainly the case for some versions of the Skyhook, such as Lew- is’s.19 We do not have to put it as Plantinga does, where the human being retroactively ascribes structure to the world; we can instead see it, as some idealists do, as a form of pantheism, where there is a cosmic rationality or logos that we partake in. However, even if Lewis’s Skyhook is compatible with idealism, there are other versions that seem incompatible with it, and Plantinga’s is one. This is because he does not ultimately point to us as the agents responsible for our proper function and design plan but to something else—and that something else must be a literal designer who consciously created our cognitive faculties so that they would be reliably aimed at the production of true beliefs. The cosmic logos , in other words, must be more than just a principle of rationality: it must be a rational agent. If we identify this rational agency with ourselves, then the naturalist and determinist could accuse us of begging the question; therefore, it must be a rational agent distinct from ourselves. As such, Plantinga’s Skyhook, insofar as it requires a rational agent distinct from ourselves, is incompatible with idealism as well as the weaker forms of antirealism. Moreover, Nagel’s Skyhook, from The Last Word in particular, specifically applies not only to positions that seek to reduce reasoning to its physical substrate but also to subjectivism, perspectivalism, and relativism. Certainly many antirealists deny that their positions lead to these views, not least Rorty, but if we ourselves are imposing order on the world, it is difficult to deny that the world is subject to whatever order we subjectively choose, individually or collectively. In this case, however, we can construct a Skyhook against antirealism, thus removing it from the possible “mind-first” positions that can avoid the Skyhook and this leaves theism as the only option. This leads to another important point. Above, I pointed out that, while some forms of the Skyhook require us to believe that there is an extraphysical, undetermined aspect of the human being, two of the strictest versions of the Skyhook do not leave it there. The Normativity Skyhook presented in chapter 6 by Boyle, Grisez, and Tollefsen claims that the determinist can always deny some aspect of the argument when it is applied to the determinist herself.20 So in order to be rigorous, they argue that we have to make the claim that someone (not necessarily oneself) is capable of making a free choice. The human individual, in other words, does not have to be the entity that has the capacity of free will. The other version of the Skyhook that does not stop the argument at the level of the human individual is Plantinga’s. Plantinga considers his 232 Conclusions epistemology to be the strongest form of naturalized epistemology, employing only norms used by the sciences. In chapter 6 , we saw that the norms necessary for knowledge are the unconditional norms that Boyle et al. argue for, but others may think that they can be described as hypothetical imperatives or technical norms. This raises the problem that such types of normativity cannot exclude some proposition’s denial as less rational than its affirmation. Ultimately, the implication of Plantinga’s epistemology is that we can avoid this by passing off the unconditioned normativity onto God. There is still an unconditioned normativity being met, but it does not have to be met by us . There is an entity that transcends the natural order, is able to act and think freely, is able to meet the absolute unconditioned normativity required by rationality, and is able to construct us so that we can meet this normativity through him. “And this all men call God.” I am not certain these moves are necessary. It may be possible to limit the Skyhook to being an argument about us rather than God. Plantinga and Boyle, Grisez, and Tollefsen are arguing that we cannot say that we are meeting an unconditioned norm when we reason, but only that an unconditioned norm is being met . Yet it does not follow from this that we are not the ones who are meeting the norm. Presumably, the response would be that the determinist or naturalist could accuse us of importing nondeterministic and non-naturalistic concepts when it goes this far, but it seems to me that, when informed of this situation, they may consider having free human beings the lesser evil to having a God who makes us free. At any rate, as noted above, Lucas’s Gödelian Skyhook is just as rigorous and applies to the individual human being, so it may provide a way to make the Skyhook into an argument about us rather than an argument about God. Yet in this case, we still have to explain philosophically how contingent natural processes could create beings like ourselves who are able to tap into noncontingent truths via rationality and are able to transcend the natural order and act freely. The dichotomy between the effect and its alleged cause immediately suggests that there must be another cause responsible for our existence, a noncontingent extraphysical source. Of course, more philosophical work must be done to establish this point, but it seems that the only way to avoid punting to God in one way is to punt to God in another way. If we argue that we do not have to be extraphysical and free in order to have justified true beliefs (knowledge), we have to presuppose someone else who is extraphysical and free, and who is responsible for the construction of our cognitive faculties so that we can attain knowledge. If we try to avoid this by saying that we are extraphysical and free, then we have to presuppose a cause capable of making us this way. So, it seems the Skyhook functions as a theistic argument whichever way one takes it. Nagel’s Skyhook is an attempt to avoid these conclusions by suggesting that there may be teleological laws that are not the product of a cosmic mind. This is a fascinating move, but I find it unconvincing. Nagel’s teleological laws would not be logical necessities, but contingencies. As such, we need an explanation for why they have their particular properties as opposed to Conclusions 233 others, and why they exist at all rather than not. It seems that any backward chain of contingencies must ultimately terminate in a non contingent source that is, by definition, logically necessary, thus explaining why it exists rather than not, and why it has the particular properties it has as opposed to others. And, once again, “this all men call God.” The three main theistic religions today are the Abrahamic religions of Juda- ism, Christianity, and Islam, although these three certainly do not exhaust the various forms of theism, and monotheistic strains can be found in other religions as well, such as Hinduism. Of these, only Islam is strongly deterministic; Judaism and Christianity affirm that human beings have free will. Of course, there are anomalies: strong Calvinist Christianity denies free will, and the Islamic Mu’tazilite school in the 8th through 10th centuries affirmed it. But both cases are exceptions to the rule. And, of course, individual believers in these traditions will go against the flow: I have known Muslims who emphatically affirm free will, and Plantinga himself is a Calvinist who is perhaps the foremost philosophical proponent of the free will defense against the argument from evil.21 Additionally, the philosophy of religion presents a possible way of resolv- ing the mind-body problem.22 According to traditional theism, God is a) all-powerful, b) pure spirit, and c) the creator of the physical universe. So theism maintains, and has always maintained, that a nonphysical entity has produced a physical effect. If human beings are created in God’s image, as Judaism and Christianity declare, 23 then this may explain (at least in a rudimentary way) how the extraphysical mind or will or self can cause the body to move. However, this would be an only partial explanation for several reasons, not least because the parallel is not exact: the physical universe is not God’s “body” in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Perhaps an atheist could argue the modus tollens to my modus ponens:

1. If God exists, the nonphysical can have a physical effect. 2. The nonphysical cannot have a physical effect. 3. Therefore, God does not exist.

However, the second premise would be difficult to defend. To suggest that an all-powerful nonphysical being would not be powerful enough to produce a physical effect requires some argument beyond asking “how?” over and over. And of course, the Skyhook gives us an independent reason for accepting mental causation—namely, that denying it is self-defeating—and so for rejecting the second premise.

4 Vindicating Science “Nothing I can say will prevent some people from describing this lecture as an attack on science.” So wrote C. S. Lewis in his short but profound book The Abolition of Man . Because some scientists and philosophers of science 234 Conclusions seem to equate naturalism with science, such a response to the current work is to be expected as well. And like Lewis, “I deny the charge, of course.” 24 Indeed, what I am trying to do is vindicate science. I am trying to show that the conditions that must be presupposed in order for science to be valid can be denied only on pain of irrationality. Once these presuppositions are granted, the door to the safe is opened, and out pours all the glory and beauty of science. The problem comes in only because some scientists and philosophers try to make science universal. They try to make a method of exploring what is into an ontology dictating what can be. It is this move from method to metaphysics that is challenged by the Skyhook, but science is left intact. Only by rejecting this move can we retain science. Of course, there is a methodological intuition behind the naturalist’s claim. If we allow for exceptions to the natural order, if we deny the causal closure of the physical, then scientific investigation would seem to be impossible. Otherwise such extraphysical causes could be appealed to for any and every reason: as Steven Weinberg puts it, “the only way that any sort of science can proceed is to assume that there is no divine intervention and to see how far one can get with this assumption.”25 The scientist has to assume that the events he is observing are natural events in order to generalize them into theories about nature. The error is to think that this attitude must be universal, rather than just usual. Science certainly presupposes that the events it observes are natural ones—in general . It does not require a complete rejection of all causes that transcend the natural order.26 In fact, what the Skyhook shows is that the scientist must start by rejecting naturalism and determinism. Science can be affirmed only from an extraphysical perspective. Science presupposes that naturalism is false. “But,” the naturalist may argue, “if this is the case then we could never know which events the scientist observes are the usual, standard natural events and which events have some extraphysical element.” My response to this is threefold: first, if the Skyhook is successful, all scientific observations and studies already have an extraphysical element, namely, the person doing the observing and studying. Second, part of the brilliance of science is that it verifies observations with further observations. Say, for some bizarre reason, God chooses to “interfere” with a scientist’s experiment, while keeping his interference secret—ignoring the fact that this is closer to Descartes’s evil genie than the God of theistic religions. The scientist observes effect E proceeding from cause C , when, in fact, C does not naturally bring about E . What then? Well, the scientist simply repeats the experiment, as do others. What if God decides to interfere with all of these experiments in the same way? In this case, the claim that C causes E has the status of a natural law because when it is observed, E is produced by C . Third, the claim that there are extraphysical forces in the world does not at all allow us to appeal to them in an ad hoc manner. Certainly, some claims of extraphysical causes are completely ad hoc , appealing to a “god of the gaps.” But this does not Conclusions 235 imply that all such claims are ad hoc;27 some are the best explanations of the facts at hand. If we have specific reasons for suggesting an extraphysical element, then it is not ad hoc . This objection that natural causes must be absolute seems to be functioning on the presupposition that there is either absolute order or absolute disorder, complete stability or complete chaos. If “order” means “explicable by natural processes,” then I am unable to see any reason for such black-and-white thinking. Indeed, the point of the Skyhook is that holding natural causes in such an absolute way is self-defeating. Naturalists, to quote Lewis again, “have mistaken a partial system within reality, namely Nature, for the whole.”28 The suggestion that there is a deeper order than that discovered by science, that this order can manifest itself in ways that may seem—at least initially and superficially—disconsonant with the order discovered by science, can be deeply unsettling. It would mean that the world is a much bigger place than we think, that our universe is just a tiny corner of reality, and that we are a mere drop in the bucket, insignificant and impotent before the prime reality. But science has never suggested otherwise. Nor has religion. “It is a profound mistake to imagine that Christianity ever intended to dissipate the bewilderment and even the terror, the sense of our own nothingness, which come upon us when we think about the nature of things. It comes to inten- sify them. Without such sensations there is no religion.” 29 Indeed, this seems to be a nexus where science, religion, and philosophy meet. There may be superficial conflicts, but there is a more profound and substantial concord between them if we are willing to scratch the surface. To paraphrase Francis Bacon, the pioneer of the scientific method, a little science sends people away from religion; a lot of science brings them back.30

Notes 1. See chapter 8 . 2. Jonas 1981, 42–43; Desmond 2005, 274–75. 3. See chapter 3. However, recall also Plantinga’s point that we can limit the Skyhook’s application to just metaphysical beliefs and still conclude that naturalism, a metaphysical belief, is self-defeating. 4. See chapter 10 . 5. Dennett 1995, 63. 6. Denyer 1981, 96 (§68); cf. Snyder 1972, 356. 7. Plantinga 2011, 265–303; cf. Lewis 1947, ch. 13; 1960, ch. 13; 1977a, 63–65. 8. Oden 2001, 147–50. 9. Rescher 1990, 55–58. Rescher (55–75) goes on to present an outstanding rebuttal of such arguments. 10. Meynell 1982. 11. Ewing 1973, 176–77. Others have seen a connection between Descartes and Plantinga’s Skyhook in particular (Sosa 2002, 99; Van Cleve 2002, 116). 12. See the end of chapter 1 . 13. On the varieties of dualism, see Fumerton 2013, 29–44. 14. Davis 1971, 9–11; Boyle, Grisez, and Tollefsen 1976, 85–88. 15. Rorty 1991b, 38–39; cf. 1991a, 2, 9, 13–14; 1995. 236 Conclusions 16. Plantinga 2008, 15. 17. Rea 2002, 10–15, 159–62. 18. Urban 1949, 230. See chapter 2 . 19. Lewis 1977a, 65. See chapter 7 . 20. Boyle, Grisez, and Tollefsen 1972, 31. See the beginning of chapter 2. 21. See, e.g., Plantinga 1967, 131–55; 1974, 164–95; 1977, 30–55; 2000, 461–62. 22. Plantinga 2007, 119–20. 23. This phrase is sometimes used in Islam too, but does not seem to have the same meaning it has in Judaism and Christianity. 24. Lewis 1943, 86. 25. Weinberg 1992, 247. 26. Plantinga 2000, 406. 27. “Whatever men may say , no one really thinks that the Christian doctrine of the Resurrection is exactly on the same level with some pious tittle-tattle about how Mother Egarée Louise miraculously found her second best thimble by the aid of St. Anthony. . . . Even those who think all stories of miracles absurd think some very much more absurd than others” (Lewis 1960, 111). 28. Lewis 1960, 64. 29. Lewis 1960, 55. 30. Bacon 1625, 111. Bibliography

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Anscombe, G.E.M. 113–21, 122n24 Davis, W. 178–9 antirealism 7, 230–1; see also idealism defeaters 34–43, 150–3, 160–1, 213–18; a priori/a posteriori 79–80, 85, 98, see also self-defeat 182, 221–3; see also contingency and deliberation 177, 179–80 necessity Dennett, D. 4–6, 32, 157–8, 187, 201, Aristotle 9–11, 20n34, 26, 109n32, 212, 225–6, 230 138, 195–6 Denyer, N. 179–80, 226 atheism see theism/atheism Descartes, R. 13–14, 38, 141, 145–6, atomism 9–12, 21n47 227 determinism: compatibilism 24–5, Balfour, A. 164–6, 183n18 29, 199–202, 219; definition 23–9; behaviorism 167–9 fatalism (logical determinism) 9, 10, Bergmann, M. 36, 38, 39 103–4; indeterminism 29, 32, 111, Best Explanation Arguments see 129–30; see also mechanism Skeptical Threat Arguments dualism 122n6, 125, 228–9 Boyle, J., Grisez, G., and Tollefsen, O. 97–109, 227–8, 231–2; see also Eddington, A. 125, 170, 183n37 normativity eliminative materialism 8, 63–77, Bradley, F.H. 170, 183n50 108n25, 196–9; see also naturalism Bulverism 117, 118–21, 123n45, 165 Epicurus 9–12, 20n34, 21n47, 100 evolutionary epistemology 124, 138–9, causal closure of the physical 30–1, 151–3, 157–8 91–3, 111, 234; see also naturalism evolution/Darwinism 5, 6, 9, 32, 33, Chesterton, G.K. 166–7, 183n18, 203n15 63–4, 112–13, 124, 133–4, 138–9, Chomsky, N. 168–9 141–6, 147n40, 150–3, 161n16, Churchland, Paul and Patricia 64, 67, 164–7, 172, 182, 186–90, 194, 209, 69, 131, 212 214, 223, 225 Clark, S. 182n12 externalism see internalism/externalism Colson, D. 181–2 compatibilism see determinism fatalism see determinism computers 52–60, 127–8, 128–9, 181, final causality see teleology 200–1; see also Turing machines Flew, A. 114–18, 122n32 contingency and necessity 10–12, formal systems 51–60 13–15, 21n56, 29–30, 78–80, 82–9, free will see determinism 100, 103–6, 143, 145–6, 147n40, Freudianism 1–3, 41, 119 180, 182, 207, 221, 232–3 function/proper function 32–3, 39–41, Cosmological Argument 13, 221 63–4, 108n28, 149–51, 194–5, 209, 214–16 Darwin, C. 151, 164, 223; see also evolution/Darwinism Gellner, E. 4, 19n6, 116–17, 122n32 Darwinism see evolution/Darwinism Glassen, P. 131–3 252 Index Gödel, K. 50–60, 61n25, 61n27–9, 228, 21n47, 22n75, 29–30, 142–3, 146n6, 232 169–71; physicalism 29–33, 91–2, Goldman, A. 82–6, 87, 89–90, 94n20 146n6; see also atomism; eliminative materialism; mechanism Haldane, J.B.S. 3, 19n4, 208 naturalized epistemology 8, 26, 98–9, Hasker, W. 32–3, 67, 74, 76n22, 85–93, 105, 128, 149–53, 194–6, 209, 225, 130, 189, 200, 210 226, 231–2 Hilbert, D. 50–2 necessity see contingency and necessity Hume, D. 156, 158, 214, 216–18, Newtonianism 15, 29–30 224n42 normativity 12, 92–3, 95–109, 126, 133, 134n24, 149, 161n1, 170, 178–9, idealism 145, 148n45, 230–1; see also 194–5, 221, 225, 226–7, 231–2; antirealism see also function/proper function incompleteness 52, 53–4, 61n25, 228; see also Gödel, K. O’Hear, A. 131–4 indeterminism 29, 32, 111, 129–30; Ontological Argument 13–15, 221 see also determinism indicators/depictors 155–8, 162n35 Paradigm Case Argument 115–18, internalism/externalism 8, 26–8, 86–7, 122n28 93, 192–4, 203n17, 205–7, 225, 226–7 paradox 46–52, 61n5; Liar Paradox 47–8, 51–2; Quine’s Paradox 61n7; Jordan, J. 86, 176–7, 224n27 Russell’s Paradox 40–1, 46–7 Penrose, R. 57, 62n41, 134n1 Kant, I. 7–8, 13–19, 22n75, 26, 85, 86, perspectivalism 8, 140, 196, 231; see also 176, 221 skepticism Kim, J. 89–91, 92–3, 202 physical determinism see mechanism physicalism see naturalism Leibniz, G. 156, 158 Plantinga, A. 27, 31, 34–42, 43n17, Lewis, C.S. 110–23, 138, 164–7, 183n37, 44n36, 44n36, 108n28, 110, 121n4, 194, 231, 233–4, 235 123n47, 149–63, 166, 177–8, 187, Lovejoy, A. 167–8 188–9, 194, 195–6, 209, 216–17, Lucas, J.R. 54–60, 61n29, 62n40, 65–6, 221, 224n15, 224n40, 225, 226–7, 94n59, 98, 110, 135n34, 160, 201, 230–2, 233, 235n3, 235n11 228, 232 Platonism 54, 125, 134n9, 145 Pollock, J. 34–6, 40, 108n28 Malcolm, N. 78–82, 87, 89, 91, 94n52, Popper, K. 10, 28, 29, 124–35, 200, 98, 105, 118, 182 225 Marxism 1–3, 19n3, 42, 71, 119–20 Pratt, J. 169–70, 183n29, 183n31 materialism see naturalism predictability 28, 130–1; see also mathematics 47, 50–5, 61n25, 61n28, determinism 125, 182, 225; see also formal systems principle of explosion 51, 59, 60 McTaggart, J.M.E. 96, 169 proper function see function/proper mechanism 15, 32, 54–60, 78–82, 84–5, function 86, 88–9, 127–9, 132 Putnam, H. 58, 62n45 mental causation 152, 157–8, 169, 187–8, 211–12, 220, 230, 233 Qualia Argument 7, 19, 221 mind-body problem 128, 169, 187–8, quantum physics see indeterminism 214, 228–30, 233 Quine, W.V. 61n7, 98–9, 128 Moore, G.E. 115, 165–6 Moral Argument 7, 221 Ramsey, W. 68–9, 70, 76 rationality 38–41, 43, 105–6, 107; Nagel, T. 19, 59, 136–48, 195–6, 221, see also deliberation 223, 231, 232–3 Rea, M. 7, 154, 166, 231 naturalism: definition 29–34; relativism 8, 140, 231; see also materialism 10, 12, 17–19, 19n4, skepticism Index 253 Reppert, V. 69, 72–4, 115, 118, 196–9 Teleological Argument 13, 221–3 Ripley, C. 180–2 teleology 32–3, 94n59, 141–2, 143, Rorty, R. 4, 19n8, 230–1 144, 145–6, 147n40, 178, 208, Russell, B. 47, 50, 52, 154, 165, 182n6 209–16, 220, 221–3, 232–3; see also function/proper function self-defeat: definition 41–3, 45n; theism/atheism 9, 13–15, 21n57, 54, see also defeaters; self-reference 110–11, 122n6, 141, 143, 144–6, self-reference 46–52, 61n7 149–50, 160, 192, 206, 220, 221, Simon, R. 180–2 223, 227, 230–5 Simplicity Argument 7, 20n16, 22n75, Transcendental Arguments 7–8, 15, 171, 221 20n21, 20n23, 181–2 Skeptical Threat Arguments 115–18, Turing, A. 52–3 194, 227 Turing machines 52–4, 58–9; see also skepticism 8, 47–8, 50, 111, 115–18, computers 133–4, 138–9, 191–6, 197–8, 217, 227 skyhooks and cranes 4–6, 19n13, 162n34, Urban, W.M. 31–2, 171–2 225–6, 230 subjectivism 8, 140–1, 181, 196, 231; see also skepticism Whitehead, A.N. 47, 50, 52 Wick, W. 174–6 Taylor, A.E. 27, 28, 172–4, 183n50 Wittgensteinianism 76n8, 80, 113, 115, Taylor, R. 177–8, 200 118, 194